Nikumaroro Island, Kiribati, is about as South Pacific as it gets. Its notable mainly as being the place where a lot of people suspect that Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan crashed (out of gas), survived, and later died. Evidence? A skeletal body found in the forties, since lost (can you believe that filing error), various airplane parts, and other bits and pieces from the correct era (pocket knives, bottles, etc.).
Anyway – cool thing is, its on Google Maps, with semi-decent resolution, meaning you can play detective, and gaze longingly at the endless beaches from your ridiculously cold Canadian home…
Most recently, Nikumaroro is back in the news after divers found what may part of a human finger bone, unfortunately, next to the remains of a turtle, which also have finger bones in their flippers. Don’t despair, though: countless researchers are hard at work trying to solve this critical mystery:
“Whether or not the phalanx bone yields human DNA, there is a sufficient preponderance of circumstantial evidence to continue our research with hope and determination,” Gillespie said. [news.discovery.com]
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Ah,Amelia Earhart,the subject of many a discussion in the home where I was born and raised,among my Grandmother and her friends.
Theories were that “the Japs shot her down”, when she discovered secret activities by their military, or they simply ran out of gas and crashed. Most of the old girls tended toward the former as it was a lot more exciting and wasn’t negative against a woman aviation pioneer.
Saw a documentary on this back in the 80′s, but no conclusive evidence,one of those mysteries to which we’ll never know the answer .
Certainly an interesting one to speculate on. Occam’s razor suggests the more benign likelihood that a navigation error simply ran them out of gas. The part of me that likes conspiracies, though, hopes the plane is found hidden in a jungle one day, with a cryptic note pinned to the pilot’s seat…
She was kidnapped by an evil alien Elvis clone, taken to Area 51 where the guy who shot Kennedy taught her about explosives then she went and blew up the WorldTrade Center cuz Bush told her to.