Amelia Earhart’s bones were claimed to have been found. I have been struggling with that fact and here is why:
Amelia Earhart went missing on July 2, 1937, during her attempt to fly around the world. She and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were said to have gone missing after losing radio connection during the Pacific Southwest leg of their journey, according to Biography.com.
Like many others, I have been fascinated by Earhart and Noonan’s disappearance. I wrote my first research paper on Earhart, and I secretly hoped I would find the missing piece — I didn’t. Nevertheless, I became more attuned to stories released about Earhart’s disappearance.
Most stories did not prove anything; they only came up with more theories. To me, the most realistic theory describes Earhart and Noonan surviving the plane crash and becoming castaways on an island past their targeted destination.
However, in July 2017, NPR released a story about a researcher who believed he found a photo of Earhart and Noonan from Jaluit Island in the Pacific. I saw the story and expected not to believe it, but instead I saw Earhart and Noonan in the background of the photo. Over the following days, I thought more information would come out about her disappearance — it didn’t.
Now, here we are, more than six months later, and a forensic anthropologist claims to have found Earhart’s bones.
According to CNN, the bones were originally found on the Pacific island of Nikumaroro and examined in 1941 where they were determined to be male. Researcher Richard Jantz re-examined the bones and compared them with the lengths of Earhart’s clothes and photos of her. Jantz concluded that “the only documented person to whom they may belong is Amelia Earhart.”
I should be ecstatic to hear that Earhart’s bones have been found. But I simply cannot accept it.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt spent $4 million searching for Earhart, and when he gave up, her husband George Putnam spent more. At the time, people speculated about what happened and where she was, but few searched for her.
If they had gone to where they thought she was, I believe they would have found her. Instead, they waited until at least four years later when they initially found her bones and then said they were not hers.
Now 80 years later, researchers say the initial theories were right and Earhart has likely been found.
Finding her bones should be celebrated ,and I think this has not felt like a victory. Maybe it is because the theorists were right and we are 80 years too late.
And where is Noonan?
