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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday June 24 2017, @04:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the got-a-bone-to-pick dept.

It's one of the most enduring mysteries of our time: what happened to pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart, who disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 as she attempted to fly around the world?

Four border collies named Berkeley, Piper, Marcy, and Kayle may have answers. On Wednesday, National Geographic reported that an expedition organized by the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) will set sail from Fiji on Saturday, June 24, with the specially trained forensic dogs from the Institute for Canine Forensics along for the ride.

The mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart may be as close as it’s ever been to being solved https://t.co/Kqa1bGdu1c

— National Geographic (@NatGeo) June 21, 2017

The group's Earhart Project has spent decades testing the hypothesis that Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan landed safely on Gardner Island, now called Nikumaroro, about 400 miles (640 kilometers) southeast of their intended landing spot, Howland Island. According to the project's website, the group believes Earhart and Noonan survived on the island for a time as castaways, catching and cooking small fish, seabirds, turtles and clams.


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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by takyon on Saturday June 24 2017, @04:26PM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday June 24 2017, @04:26PM (#530603) Journal

    Bone-Sniffing Dogs Consume Amelia Earhart's Remains

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    • (Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday June 25 2017, @02:17AM (1 child)

      by driverless (4770) on Sunday June 25 2017, @02:17AM (#530752)

      Given the ratio of land : sea in the area where she may have gone down, wouldn't they be better off going with bone-sniffing dolphins?

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday June 25 2017, @12:32PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 25 2017, @12:32PM (#530856)

        Speaking of ratios, given the ratio of bone to metal or bone to all the other junk they had in the plane, you'd think they'd have better luck finding most anything other than bone.

        Also island ecosystems "know" how to recycle bone so its possible there's nothing biological left, but something more elaborate like eyeglasses or navigation equipment is harder for crabs and seagulls to recycle. There should be rusting hulks of aircraft engines somewhere, etc.

        survived on the island for a time as castaways

        I find it unlikely people trying to be rescued would treated it like a modern "leave no trace" national park. Of course "for a time" might mean like three days until they died of dehydration or wounds.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 24 2017, @05:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 24 2017, @05:34PM (#530624)

    Everybody knows that Amelia Earhart is being kept in stasis [wikia.com] in the Delta Quadrant.

  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday June 24 2017, @05:48PM (2 children)

    by looorg (578) on Saturday June 24 2017, @05:48PM (#530629)

    Wasn't she abducted by aliens? That is why they can't find her. So good luck with the dogs.

    • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday June 24 2017, @07:37PM

      by mhajicek (51) on Saturday June 24 2017, @07:37PM (#530669)

      Time traveling aliens lead by Elvis.

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    • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Saturday June 24 2017, @08:26PM

      by isostatic (365) on Saturday June 24 2017, @08:26PM (#530676) Journal

      Yes, she'll emerge in the 2370s having been cryogenically frozen along with a Japanese soldier and American farmer

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Nuke on Saturday June 24 2017, @06:38PM (5 children)

    by Nuke (3162) on Saturday June 24 2017, @06:38PM (#530644)

    I thought that her remains were found there a few years ago. AFAIR searchers even found evidence of Earhart and Noonan's camp and some of their equipment.

    FTFA :

    ... intriguingly, when the island was temporarily colonized in 1940 ... 13 bones were discovered, shipped to Fiji, measured—and subsequently lost.

    So this is just a search for more of her bones?

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday June 24 2017, @07:20PM

      by frojack (1554) on Saturday June 24 2017, @07:20PM (#530663) Journal

      Wiki says those items found on this island were inconclusive
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikumaroro [wikipedia.org]

      However there has been at least one documented shipwreck on the island [tighar.org] (pictures) with 11 fatalities, so any bones found (then, or by these dogs) may have other logical sources.

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    • (Score: 2) by fishybell on Saturday June 24 2017, @07:23PM (1 child)

      by fishybell (3156) on Saturday June 24 2017, @07:23PM (#530664)

      And more importantly, how will the (potential) bones help them?

      Do they have Earhart or Noonan's DNA? Will they just make assumptions based on the bones being anglo-saxon?

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Saturday June 24 2017, @08:39PM

        by zocalo (302) on Saturday June 24 2017, @08:39PM (#530682)
        This came up in a previous find of possible remains on Nikumaroro in 2010 - apparently TIGHAR have a sample of a close relative of Earhart's DNA (she had a younger sister) but not for Noonan. IIRC, a sufficiently close relative's DNA can be sufficient to provide a reasonable degree of certainty or rule out a match almost entirely, but as details of Noonan's family tree are so sketchy and he appears to have been an only child with no offspring, so I'd guess it's Earhart's remains or bust if it comes down to a find that requires a DNA test to authenticate. Even without a viable DNA authentication though, just finding some bone samples would also serve to identify a search site for other artifacts that could be positively linked to Earhart, Noonan, or their aircraft.
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    • (Score: 2) by black6host on Saturday June 24 2017, @08:28PM

      by black6host (3827) on Saturday June 24 2017, @08:28PM (#530677) Journal

      So this is just a search for more of her bones?

      Really, it's too much. They already lost the first batch, they shouldn't be looking for more...

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by deadstick on Sunday June 25 2017, @01:34AM

      by deadstick (5110) on Sunday June 25 2017, @01:34AM (#530746)

      So this is just a search for more of her bones?

      This is a search for more of your money. He's been doing this for a living for going on thirty years.

  • (Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday June 24 2017, @09:21PM

    by tftp (806) on Saturday June 24 2017, @09:21PM (#530694) Homepage

    If I were the spirit of Amelia Earhart, I'd strongly insist on leaving my bones where they are.

  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday June 25 2017, @12:49PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 25 2017, @12:49PM (#530860)

    http://www.theelectraproject.com/electra-flies.html [theelectraproject.com]

    With an elaborate explanation of navigational technique of that era and communications discussion why:

    "the downed plane may be either west or east of Howland at some distance – 
perhaps between 30 and 60 miles" and then goes into a discussion of why based on weather reports it was probably west when it crashed into the sea.

    Something I can't find online is in the 90s there was a boxed retail flight sim addon for Earhart's planned route, including all the airports at that time and if I recall it contained minimal charts. Its been so well memory holed I can't find its existence via the usual google searches. I purchased it in the 90s (couldn't have been as recent as 00s for some living quarters reasons and pilot license training reasons) and I remember her aircraft wasn't the easiest to fly and had relatively poor visibility.

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