$500K Earhart Search Will Answer: Is It a Tree or Plane?

A fresh bid to crack one of aviation's most stubborn mysteries is about to begin. Backed by Purdue University—the school that once funded Amelia Earhart's "flying laboratory"—a 17-person team will depart Tarawa, Kiribati, by boat on Tuesday, with plans to reach Nikumaroro Island on Oct. 13 to probe a murky shape that appeared in satellite images of the island's lagoon following a tropical cyclone in 2015, per National Geographic and Deutsche Welle. The Archaeological Legacy Institute-led crew will use sonar, magnetometers, and a water-powered probe to investigate what's been dubbed the "Taraia Object," which some suspect could be the remains of Earhart's Lockheed Electra.

Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared in July 1937 while trying to find Howland Island, covering just one square mile in the Pacific. The pilot last reported flying along the 157°/337° line, on which Nikumaroro is found to the southeast of Howland, per Nat Geo. The search leans on decades of prior work pointing to Nikumaroro: castaway clues; 1930s artifacts, including parts of a woman's shoe of the same brand Earhart wore; and lost bones that may have come from a European woman. While many experts and the original spotter have concluded the "Taraia Object," resembling a circle with extending lines, is probably just a tree, ALI is staking $500,000 on finding out.