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Amelia Earhart: Island bones 'likely' belonged to famed pilot
Bones discovered on a Pacific island in 1940 are "likely" to be those of famed pilot Amelia Earhart, according to a US peer reviewed science journal. Earhart, her plane, and her navigator vanished without a trace in 1937 over the Pacific Ocean. Many theories have sought to explain her disappearance.
But a new study published in Forensic Anthropology claims these bones prove she died as an island castaway. The report claims they are a 99% match, despite an earlier conclusion.
The study, titled Amelia Earhart and the Nikumaroro Bones, was first published by the University of Florida and conducted by Professor Richard Jantz from the University of Tennessee. It disputes that the remains found on the eastern Pacific island of Nikumaroro - about 1,800 miles (2,900km) southwest of Hawaii - belonged to a man, as a researcher had determined in 1941.
Amelia Earhart and the Nikumaroro Bones (open, DOI: 10.5744/fa.2018.0009) (DX)
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday March 11 2018, @09:37AM (5 children)
Not a nice way to go, stranded on an island for, likely, years.
Also, unlike many early explorers, it seems unlikely Amelia made stupid mistakes.
Luck does have something to do with it, sometimes.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @09:59AM (3 children)
There were probably some nice sunsets.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday March 11 2018, @10:07AM (1 child)
And lovely sun rises.
And, quite likely, anyone in that position would eventually start to dread seeing another one.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday March 11 2018, @12:05PM
Everybody thinks she was a lesbian. Because of the prenup. She lands on a desert island, her copilot is a guy, they're both very sad, right? Wrong! She was bisexual. So she could have a nice time with anybody. And she had fun with many people. If she was sad, I think it wasn't because she was with a guy instead of a woman. I think it was because she missed the VARIETY! And I don't mean the magazine.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:26PM
There was probably a lot to like about the island...but being alone for a long time is unpleasant, and nobody has mentioned finding two sets of bones. Also, though I don't know the ecology, it's quite likely that there were nutritional problems. Many groups of islanders had problems that way. Crab is delicious, but it probably gets boring after awhile, and the birds were probably difficult to catch. I didn't read what the native vegetation was, just that there was a lot of it. So scurvy is a possibility. Etc.
People in the early 1900's were generally a lot better adapted to living in the wild that today's urban or suburbanites, so she may well have had less problems than one of us would, but that doesn't mean it was easy, or generally pleasant. The island is reported to have a shortage of fresh water, but it did have coconut palms. It would take a lot of coconuts to provide enough to drink, however, and that's not a low calorie diet. Also, opening a coconut isn't an easy job. In Hawaii when I was there it was usual to stick the ax end of a pickax into the ground, and then pound the coconut husk against the point of the pick to pry it off the nut. But what she would use for such a tool is unclear.
Nobody seems to have said how long the bearer of the bones lived after reaching the island. It doesn't seem unlikely that the person died of thirst before much time at all had passed. But it's also possible that she lived there for years. (Decades seems unlikely. There were repeated attempts at colonization, and we probably don't know of all of the attempts.)
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:35PM
Doubt it was years. They probably ran out of anything to eat within weeks or months at most.
There have been extensive investigations of that island, and once you exhaust the bird eggs you are going to starve unless you can fish, and the first infection you get will probably kill you. Rain water is the only fresh water you will find there.
The initial investigation suggesting the bones were male wasn't done by researchers, but rather a local doctor with no forensic skills.
She was a big boned lady, in excellent shape, and the doctor was use to slightly built (or overweight) south sea islander women.
The bones were subsequently lost in transit.
There have been other stories [seeker.com] about underwater plain wreckage found in 2013. In later years, aluminum fragments were located that seem to match a patch [seeker.com] on her plane. Others say no way. [forbes.com]
Still no traces of Fred.
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