New Clue in Amelia Earhart Investigation?
The prevailing theory on Amelia Earhart's disappearance holds that she plunged into the vastness of the Pacific. Now new support has surfaced for a less popular hypothesis - that she landed on an uninhabited Pacific island and spent her final days as a castaway.
New Clue in Amelia Earhart Investigation?
The prevailing theory on Amelia Earhart’s 1937 disappearance holds that she plunged into the vastness of the Pacific. There’s a lot of ocean and not much land in the region where she made her last radio transmission.
A couple of weeks ago we ran a very short AP story about a piece of evidence that's surfaced backing a less popular hypothesis - that the famous aviator landed on an uninhabited Pacific island and spent her final days as a castaway.
I had written about the Earhart disappearance a few years ago and so I started making calls. It turns out intelligence experts from the State Department acknowledge that an old photograph just may show a piece of the plane that Amelia Earhart was flying when she disappeared attempting to circle the globe.
The most interesting part of the reporting, for me, was an interview with a forensic researcher who’d first noticed something unusual this old photograph. The result was this story, which appeared on today’s front page. Here’s a little clip from the interview with the forensic expert:
Jeff Glickman has a background in computer science and was running his own forensics company called Photek, based in Woodinville, Wash., when he saw something about the investigation on television and volunteered to help. Gillespie was planning a new expedition for 2010 and Glickman wanted to look over all the old photos for any clues.
Because they were so old, the pictures were full of defects, but one of them showed something interesting, Glickman said. The original photo album was stored in an archive at Oxford University, and Glickman asked the university to scan the one and send the highest-resolution version possible.
That clearer version showed something that looked like an object sticking up out of the water. He knew for sure it wasn't a photographic defect, because it was creating a wind shadow, he said, visible as a different wave pattern in the water. He applied techniques for assessing the size of objects based on other visible features in the image, and then concluded that there were tires, something tubular like a strut, and a part called a bull gear, which was used on planes like Earhart's to raise and lower the landing gear.
What Glickman saw was exciting enough that he set off for Pima, Ariz., where an aviation museum kept one of the last planes in existence using the same kind of landing gear as Earhart's. "The shape of the support bracket also matches with the actual landing gear," he said. "So we've got four key components that not only match in terms of appearance but also in terms of size."
An expedition to search for her plane will arrive in July. Maybe nothing will come of this, but it seems worth a shot.
I hope they find her in time; or is it too early for Amelia Earhart jokes?— jxxphilly- I apologize for my previous comment; it was not in POTA spirit and disrespectful of the dear woman's memory and bravery.— jxxphilly
- Mean spirited humor is not good, at least according to the two of us. Your joke was not mean at all. I thought it pointed out something of the absurdity in searches like this.
The legacy of Earheart is valuable. I do not look forward, however, to the circus this could turn into or the phony Katie Couric voice of concern as we hear of this tragedy ad naseum from people who couldn't care less.
Hillary Clinton, BTW, is a big fan of Earheart's, having been told she could not become an astranaut because she was a woman. She went to law school instead. My how misogyny backfires!— Daniel Hoffman
In pursuit of her stories, writer Faye Flam has weathered storms in Greenland, gotten frost nip at the South Pole, and floated weightless aboard NASA’s zero-g plane. She has a degree in geophysics from the California Institute of Technology and started her writing career with the Economist. She later took on the particle physics and cosmology beat at Science Magazine before coming to the Inquirer in 1995. Her previous science column, “Carnal Knowledge,” ran from 2005 to 2008. Her new column and blog, Planet of the Apes, explores the topic of evolution and runs here and in the Inquirer’s health section each Monday. Email Faye at fflam@phillynews.com.
Reach Planet of the at fflam@phillynews.com.
