Amelia Earhart's disappearance
On 2 July 1937 Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan vanished while flying from Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island during an attempt to circle the globe.
1937 CE · 0.81, -176.62 · status: unexplained
The account
Radio messages suggested they were near Howland but could not find it. The largest sea search of its time found nothing. Theories range from a crash at sea to landing on Nikumaroro or capture by the Japanese.
The sceptical view
Most investigators favour running out of fuel and ditching near Howland; no wreckage has yet been confirmed.
The researched reading
The best-documented aviation disappearance. Running out of fuel near Howland is the most likely ending, with the Nikumaroro castaway theory a serious minority view.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A known natural phenomenon | 40% | Radio logs from the cutter Itasca show the plane near Howland, low on fuel and unable to find the island; the crash-and-sink hypothesis (Elgen and Marie Long, Nauticos) explains the strength of the last signals and the absence of debris. |
| Undetermined | 20% | The share a generic explanation had beyond what has been shown for this case: it fits many cases like this one, but has not been demonstrated for this one. |
| Something in the surroundings | 15% | The Nikumaroro hypothesis (TIGHAR) holds that she landed on a reef 350 miles south and died as a castaway; post-loss radio reports and bones found in 1940 support it, but no aircraft parts have been confirmed. |
| A cultural story | 14% | The Japanese-capture theory (Saipan) is widely believed but rests on late testimony; a 2017 photo offered as evidence had been published in 1935. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 5% | Claims that she survived and lived on as “Irene Bolam”, and doctored photographs presented as proof, have been debunked. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 4% | Fame and the open ending make each new claim attractive. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 2% | An aircraft lost at sea low on fuel is not anomalous. |
Official position: The US Navy and Coast Guard search found nothing; the official conclusion was that the plane ran out of fuel and went down at sea near Howland Island.
Connections in the atlas
- Moncrieff and Hood disappearance
- The Nikumaroro bones
- The Jaluit 'Earhart photo'
- Lost aircraft of the Dole Air Race
- Disappearance of the Hawaii Clipper