‘99 per cent’ chance Amelia Earhart mystery finally solved – or not, depends on whom you ask
Another look at bones discovered in 1940 leads researchers to declare ‘Until definitive evidence is presented that the remains are not those of Amelia Earhart, the most convincing argument is that they are hers’
A forensic re-examination of bones discovered on the remote Pacific atoll of Nikumaroro in 1940 has offered the best clue yet in solving one of aviation’s great mysteries: where did Amelia Earhart die?
Researchers have determined the bones belonged to a Caucasian female of between 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 8 inches tall.
A new study published in the scientific journal Forensic Anthropology compares descriptions and measurement of the bones that were found on the uninhabited atoll – then known as Gardner Island and under British colonial control – and concludes that “Until definitive evidence is presented that the remains are not those of Amelia Earhart, the most convincing argument is that they are hers.”
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The research was conducted by Richard L Jantz, a professor emeritus and director emeritus of the University of Tennessee’s Forensic Anthropology Centre, which was set up in 1981 to study the factors that affect human decomposition and which famously became known as “the body farm”.
Dr Jantz, in collaboration with Stephen Ousley, created in 2005 Forsdic, a computer program that estimates gender, ancestry and stature from skeletal measurement. The latest version of the programme is used by virtually every certified forensic anthropologist in the US and many others around the world.
