Saturday, December 18, 2010

Amelia Earhart Possibly Found?

Amelia Earhart's Jacket

So I don't normally do this, but it's a quite interesting news story that does fit into the museum context. That said I have created a new tag, Current, in which I will occasionally post up news stories or other scientific/historically noteworthy articles. Seeing as the Smithsonian has some nice displays on Amelia Earhart I thought I should share the news. A few bone fragments, whose owner may in fact be Earhart herself, have been found cast away on a Pacific Island.

Now I'm sure many of you have heard the story on how Amelia Earhart, world class aviator, went on what would become her last flight and never came back. The accepted answer was that her plane went down over the Pacific and she died in the crash; but there are of course lots of crackpot conspiracy theories abound with what 'really happened.'

You should, however, take this with a grain of salt at the moment. There is no proof as of yet that these are her bones. DNA testing will take place over the coming weeks where we will finally find what these really are. However fish and bird bones found in the area suggest that they were prepared by someone with a Western background rather than by a Pacific Islander, so there is some more evidence that these come from a long gone castaway.

Anyway, exciting news to say the least. And read the full USA Today article here. And again sorry about the photo. It's a picture of Earhart's jacket from the Smithsonian's American History Museum and I only had a few megapixel camera at the time.

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