More news about Amelia Earhart:
The suspected finger is being tested for human DNA. It may turn out to be from a turtle – which have similar bones in their flippers.
But the other discoveries lend credence to the theory that Earhart died on the atoll after going missing en route to Howland Island in July 1937 at the age of 41 – she was declared legally dead 18 months later.
They include part of a mirror from a woman's compact, a zip from a Pennsylvania factory and travel-sized bottles made in New Jersey as well as a pocket knife listed on her aircraft's inventory, all manufactured in the 1930s.
I met the TIGHAR head, Ric Gillespie, one year when they were announcing the results of a previous expedition to Nikumaroru. I hope they're on to something, because I think Earhart is one of the really compelling historical forensic cases. We always used to use it as an exam question. But then, I'm from Kansas, so I have an attachment. At any rate, if they're right it's sort of depressing:
"A crash at sea, that's nice and clean and a quick ending. Ending up as a castaway on a waterless atoll, and struggling to survive for a time and failing and ultimately being eaten by crabs is not nearly as pretty.
Well they've found an assortment of stuff that's hard to explain without Amelia Earhart -- it's what a forensic historian would call tantalizing. That may be what there is to find. Still, there are many unknowns -- it may only take one person with trade goods on the island within the right decade.
