A new expedition set off from Hawaii Monday, one which hopes to finally solve the mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart when she disappeared on a journey around the world 75 years ago.
The theory posited by the team of researchers, led by Ric Gillespie, executive director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), is that Amelia and her navigator Fred Noonan landed on the uninhabited island of Nikumaroro in the Pacific Ocean, part of the modern day Republic of Kiribati.
TIGHAR triangulated Earhart's landing location as Nikumaroro based on dozens of signals that were sent out around that time, and on the last words that were uttered by Earhart herself; that they were on the line 157-337, which they believed would take them from their location at the time to their destination of Howland Island.
As it happens, Nikumaroro is about two hours flight beyond Howland Island, directly on that line, and it's believed that's where the pair ended up after passing over Howland Island in a storm and losing contact with the U.S Coast Guard Cutter Itasca. It's believed they survived for a short while on the island before succumbing to hunger or thirst.
This is in contrast to the commonly held belief that they simply wandered around looking for Howland Island, lost in the storm, until they ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean. Other, more outlandish theories propose they were captured by the Japanese, got swallowed up by a Bermuda Triangle-style rift, or were abducted by aliens; not the most compelling of scientific theories.
The Nikumaroro theory is no half-baked theory, and has been studied and developed for nearly 25 years by Gillespie. Likewise, Nikumaroro has been explored by TIGHAR before, and evidence has been found that certainly points to the possibility that someone landed on the island around that time.
"We have continued the investigation because we have been successful in finding evidence that supports the hypothesis we are testing," Gillespie told the BBC.
The team will use sonar and HD camera-equipped robots to snap pictures of the underwater regions surrounding the island, in the hopes of finding indisputable evidence that it was indeed Earhart's final resting place.
"What we're hoping for is to come back with good imagery, photographs, of wreckage that's conclusively, unquestionably pieces, at least, of Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra aircraft; that's the goal," Gillespie said.
Do you believe this is where Amelia ended up? After so long, do you even want to know, or is the story so tragic and timeless partly because of the mystery involved? Share your thoughts or theories on Amelia in the comments.
