Speculation on the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan

Speculation on the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan has continued since their disappearance in 1937. After the largest search and rescue attempt in history up to that time, the U.S. Navy concluded that Earhart and Noonan ditched at sea after their plane ran out of fuel; this "crash and sink theory" is the most widely accepted explanation. However, several alternative hypotheses have been considered.

Theories Gardner Island hypothesis

The Gardner Island hypothesis assumes that Earhart and Noonan, unable to find Howland Island, would not waste time searching for it, instead turning to the south to look for other islands. The 157/337 radio transmission suggests they flew a course of 157° that would take them past Baker Island; if they missed this, then sometime later they would fly over the Phoenix Islands, now part of the Republic of Kiribati, about south-southeast of Howland Island. One of the Phoenix Islands, known as Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro), has been the subject of inquiry as a possible crash-landing site. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) presented a hypothesis that Earhart and Noonan found Gardner Island, uninhabited at the time, landed the Electra on a flat reef near the November 1929 wreck of freighter , and sent sporadic radio messages from there.

Ric Gillespie, author of Finding Amelia, wrote that while listening to alleged radio signals on their home radios, Mabel Larremore heard a woman claiming to be Earhart say Noonan was "seriously injured" and that she had "some injuries but not as serious as Mr. Noonan's." Betty Klenck heard an apparently injured man acting agitated with a distressed woman claiming to be Earhart, and uttering repeatedly what sounded like, "Marie". Noonan's wife's first name was Mary Bea. The man said "Water's knee deep – let me out." Klenck heard the woman say, "George, get the suitcase in my closet... California." Four years earlier, in a letter to her mother, Earhart had asked that, should anything ever happen to her, the suitcase of private papers stored in her closet in California be destroyed; George P. Putnam was her husband. Klenck heard the woman repeatedly say something that sounded like "New York City", which has been speculated to have been actually Norwich City, the freighter wreck.

A week after Earhart and Noonan disappeared, Navy planes from USS Colorado (which had sailed from Pearl Harbor) searched Gardner Island. The planes saw signs of recent habitation and the wreck of the , but no aircraft, and repeated circling failed to bring out any signs of survivors seeking rescue. TIGHAR theorises that the Electra had by then been washed over the reef edge into the ocean where it broke up and sank. TIGHAR theorises that Earhart, and possibly Noonan, may have tried to survive on the island before perishing as castaways, just before a British exploratory expedition visited Gardner Island in October 1937, just three months after the disappearance. After the Navy ended its search, Earhart's husband undertook a search in the Phoenix Group and other islands,Rich 1989, pp. 272–273. but nothing was found. In October 1937, Eric Bevington and Henry E. Maude visited Gardner with some potential settlers. A group walked all the way around the island, but did not find a plane or other evidence. In December 1938, laborers landed on the island and started constructing a settlement. In late 1939, did a survey of the island.

Around April 1940, a skull was discovered and buried, but British colonial officer Gerald Gallagher did not learn of it until September. Gallagher did a more thorough search of the discovery area, including looking for artifacts such as rings. The search found more bones, a bottle, a shoe, and a sextant box under a tree on the island's southeast corner. On September 23, 1940, Gallagher radioed his superiors that he had found a "skeleton ... possibly that of a woman", along with an old-fashioned sextant box (later revealed to have been left during a recent hydrographic survey), The box had two apparent serial numbers on it: 3500 and 1542. In October 2018, documents discovered at the National Archives and Records Administration showed that USS Bushnell had a Brandis and Sons sextant with USNO serial number 1542 in 1938–1939, well after Earhart's disappearance. The USS Bushnell, a U.S. Navy submarine tender that was assigned to hydrographic surveys in December 1937, visited Gardner Island and surveyed the island and its lagoon using sextants around November 1939, before the box was discovered by Gallagher. A Brandis and Sons sextant with serial number 3500 would have been made around the time of World War I. shows pictures of a Brandis and Sons sextant in its box. The serial number stamped on the instrument is 5670; the USNO number scratched on the scale is 4705. The serial number on the box is 3946. Gallagher stated that the "Bones look more than four years old to me but there seems to be very slight chance that this may be remains of Amelia Earhart." He was ordered to send the remains to Fiji. On 4 April 1941, Dr. D. W. Hoodless of the Central Medical School (later named the Fiji School of Medicine) examined the bones,Hoodless states, "The bones included:– (1) a skull with the right zygoma and malar bones broken off: (2) mandible with only four teeth in position: (3) part of the right scapula: (4) the first thoracic vertebra: (5) portion of a rib (? 2nd right rib): (6) left humerus: (7) right radius: (8) right innominate bone: (9) right femur: (10) left femur: (11) right tibia: (12) right fibula: and (13) the right scaphoid bone of the foot." took measurements, and wrote a report. Using Karl Pearson's formulas for stature and the lengths of the femur, tibia, and humerus, Hoodless concluded that the person was about tall. Hoodless wrote that the skeleton "could be that of a short, stocky, muscular European, or even a half-caste, or person of mixed European descent." Earhart's 1930 pilot's license states she was and . Hoodless also wrote that "it may be definitely stated that the skeleton is that of a MALE. Owing to the weather-beaten condition of all the bones it is impossible to be dogmatic in regard to the age of the person at the time of death, but I am of the opinion that he was not less than 45 years of age and that probably he was older: say between 45 and 55 years." Earhart was just under 40 years old when she disappeared. Hoodless offered to make more detailed measurements if needed, but suggested that any further examination be done by the Anthropological Department at Sydney University. These bones were apparently misplaced in Fiji and presumed lost. Around the turn of the 21st century, researchers used Hoodless's measurements to argue against his conclusions that the bones were that of a male. In two 2015 episodes of Expedition Unknown, host Josh Gates searched under a house which had belonged to another doctor from the Fiji School of Medicine, where in 1968 the house's new owner had found a box containing bones including a skull; these were brought to a local museum and lost. Gates combed several bone fragments from the area where the box had been found; these were DNA tested and determined to belong to a male.

During World War II, US Coast Guard LORAN Unit 92, a radio navigation station built in the summer and fall of 1944, and operational from mid-November 1944 until mid-May 1945, was located on Gardner Island's southeast end. Dozens of Coast Guard personnel were involved in its construction and operation, but were mostly forbidden from leaving the small base or having contact with the Gilbertese colonists then on the island, and found no artifacts known to relate to Earhart."Loran-History, Loran Unit 92, Gardner Island". loran-history.info. Retrieved: August 30, 2011.

In 1988, The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) began an investigation and sent eleven research expeditions to Nikumaroro, producing inconclusive results.Pyle, Richard. "New search begins in Earhart mystery" . USA Today, July 12, 2007. Retrieved: June 29, 2013.Sample, Ian. "Pacific sonar 'streak' may be wreck of Amelia Earhart's plane" . The Guardian Retrieved: May 31, 2013. They have suggested that Earhart and Noonan may have flown without further radio transmissionsJacobson, Randall S., PhD "The Final Flight. 4: The Airplane Returns to Earth" . tighar.org, 2009. Retrieved: July 10, 2010. for two and a half hours along the line of position Earhart noted in her last transmission received at Howland, then found the then-uninhabited Gardner Island, landed the Electra on an extensive reef flat near the wreck of a large freighter (the SS Norwich City) on the northwest side of the atoll, and ultimately perished. video showing original photo in its album Artifacts discovered by TIGHAR on Nikumaroro have included improvised tools, an aluminum panel, an oddly cut piece of clear Plexiglas, and a size-9 woman's Cat's Paw shoe heel.Pyle, Richard. "Diary a clue to Amelia Earhart mystery" . Associated Press. The Huffington Post, March 31, 2007. Retrieved: June 29, 2013. Recently rediscovered photos of Earhart's Electra just before departure in Miami show an aluminum panel over a window on the right side. Ric Gillespie, head of TIGHAR, claimed that the aluminum panel artifact has the same dimensions and rivet pattern as the one shown in the photo "to a high degree of certainty"."Amelia Earhart plane fragment identified". U.S. History, October 28, 2014. Based on this new evidence, Gillespie returned to the atoll in June 2015, but operations using a remotely operated underwater vehicle to investigate a sonar detection of a possible wreckage were hampered by technical problems. Further, a review of sonar data concluded it was most likely a coral ridge. In July 2017, staff from the New England Air Museum notified TIGHAR that the unique rivet pattern of the aluminum panel precisely matched the top of the wing of a Douglas C-47 Skytrain in the museum inventory, particularly significant since a C-47B crashed on a nearby island during World War II and villagers acknowledged bringing aluminum from that wreck to Gardner Island."The Crash At Sydney Island" tighar.org, March 1996. Retrieved: April 20, 2018.

Some observers subscribe to the TIGHAR theory.The Times September 12, 2016, p. 3 – "Pioneer pilot may have died a castaway on Pacific island""The end of Amelia Earhart (2): several theories" . Avio News (WAPA), July 16, 2007. Retrieved: July 17, 2007. Critics accuse TIGHAR of putting too much importance on circumstantial evidence; for example, an article criticized the suggestion that a jar of freckle ointment found on Nikumaroro might have been Earhart's, when the Electra was "virtually a flying gas station" with little room for amenities as Earhart and Noonan carried extra gas tanks in every scrap of available space, and with the absence of any corroborating evidence connecting the artifact to her.Irving, Clive (July 9, 2017). "Amelia Earhart Captured and Killed? New Evidence Debunks History Channel's Crazy Theory" . The Daily Beast. Retrieved July 10, 2017.