Welcome back, everybody!  I’m Rick Pettigrew.  This time, instead of our regular report of four stories from the previous week, we have a special report on our own field project to examine the Taraia Object and possibly solve the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.  Send us feedback on The Archaeology Channel Facebook page or post a message on our social networking site, ArchaeoSeek!

The Taraia Object is a visual anomaly in the lagoon of uninhabited Nikumaroro Island in the South Pacific Ocean.  Our research suggests that this anomaly may be the aircraft flown by Amelia Earhart when she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, mysteriously disappeared on July Second, 1937, during their attempted flight around the world.  We plan to take an archaeological team there in November 2025 to inspect the Object and identify it.

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And now, here’s Laura Kennedy with the Audio News from Archaeologica!  We hope you find this to be a valuable part of your day!

Welcome to the Audio News from Archaeologica!  I’m Laura Kennedy, and this is a special report dated July 13th.

Archaeological Legacy Institute  or ALI, which produces this podcast, and Purdue Research Foundation (PRF) recently announced a partnership on the Taraia Object Expedition, a new effort to locate Amelia Earhart’s missing Lockheed Model 10E Electra aircraft.

In 1937, search and rescue missions in the days following the disappearance found no evidence of a crash or any other sign of Earhart, navigator Fred Noonan, or the Electra.  In the 88 years since, several hypotheses have been tested, with limited results. 

The Taraia Object Expedition aims to prove the Nikumaroro Hypothesis, which is based on data and evidence gathered by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, or TIGHAR, over the course of almost 40 years and 12 visits to the island of Nikumaroro.

Nikumaroro is one of 32 atolls comprising the expansive South Pacific island nation of Kiribati [KIR-ih-bahs] and lies about 350 nautical miles southeast of Howland Island, which was Earhart’s planned destination.  Remote, uninhabited and without a reliable source of drinking water, the island may now have revealed its biggest secret. 

In 2020, Michael Ashmore, a Navy Veteran fascinated by the mystery of Earhart’s disappearance, while viewing Apple Maps, noticed an object lying in shallow water in the lagoon of Nikumaroro alongside the Taraia Peninsula.  Ashmore brought the image of what is now known as the Taraia Object to the attention of TIGHAR.  A few months later, in early 2021, Dr. Rick Pettigrew, the executive director of ALI, took notice of it. 

Rick had traveled to the island with TIGHAR in 2017.  With the help of a group of donors, he acquired more satellite images for comparison and discovered that the Object had apparently been hidden under sediment until 2015, when the storm surge from Tropical Cyclone Pam slammed into the island.  This was one of the most powerful storms to visit the South Pacific in recorded history. 

The Object remained directly visible until 2022, but is even now detectable as a shape beneath a thin layer of sediment.  It lies in shallow water in the lagoon opposite the Tatiman [TAS -man]Passage, which connects the lagoon to the open ocean.  Water currents from the Passage regularly flow over the object, yet it remains stationary.

Over time, its presence has apparently obstructed and redirected the current, creating the Taraia sand spit alongside it, which was nearly absent in overhead photos of the island taken in 1938 and 1939.

So, how could the Electra have become the Taraia Object?  Earhart’s last communication from the air indicated that she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were flying on the Line of Position 157-337 which is a navigation line that passes nearly directly over Nikumaroro.

The Nikumaroro Hypothesis is based on the last known bearing, combined with radio evidence, historical documents, and physical artifacts.  If the plane was low on fuel and Nikumaroro was in sight, it makes sense that Earhart would attempt to land there.

She would likely have chosen to land on the reef flat on the northwest side of the island.  The surface there is nearly as flat as a tarmac and is exposed at low tide.  From the air, they would have been able to see the shipwreck of the SS Norwich City. The wreck was a well-known navigational sea mark in the area after it ran aground in a storm in 1929.  According to the hypothesis, Earhart landed her plane just north of it.

During the five days after their disappearance, people around the world reported hearing radio transmissions they believed to be Earhart. Three people, Betty Klenck, a teenager in St. Petersburg, Florida; Thelma Lovelace, in New Brunswick, Canada; and Dana Randolph, in Rock Springs, Wyoming, heard a woman’s voice say, “This is Amelia Earhart.” 

We have no way to verify that these people heard these transmissions, other than the similarity in what they independently reported.  Four of six radio direction bearings on Earhart’s messages recorded at that time converge on a position very near Nikumaroro.

How could people listening to their radios so far away hear these transmissions?  Earhart and Noonan were broadcasting on a shortwave frequency that used a high-frequency band. Transmissions on these frequencies and their harmonics can travel great distances due to a phenomenon called skywave propagation.  The signals bounce off the ionosphere and travel farthest at night, and when the transmitting antenna is grounded, meaning on land.

TIGHAR has determined that the timing of the transmissions corresponds with low tide on Nikumaroro, supporting the idea that the plane had landed on the reef.  Additionally, Betty Klenck, the teenager in St. Petersburg, Florida, heard both a man’s and a woman’s voice emphatically repeating, “New York City, New York City.”  If the voices were Earhart and Noonan, they more likely were saying “Norwich City, Norwich City,” believing that the name of the shipwreck would lead to their rescue.

In October 1937, just three months after the disappearance, in the final episode of the British Empire’s expansion, a survey team scouted the island.  As they were departing from the island, Eric Bevington snapped a picture of the island that included the Norwich City shipwreck.  TIGHAR researchers found an anomaly in that picture, on the reef flat to the left of the shipwreck.  Analysis and enhancement of that frame reveals what appears very much to be the landing gear of the Electra protruding from the reef.  This anomaly now is referred to as the Bevington Object, one of the best pieces of evidence so far for TIGHAR’s Nikumaroro Hypothesis.  

In 1938, the British returned to the island with a group of Pacific islanders to establish a colony there.  In 1940, Gerald Gallagher, the first officer in charge of the colony, sent a telegram to his superiors in Fiji to report that a team of workers on Nikumaroro had discovered evidence of a recent castaway on the island.  Among other things, they found a woman’s shoe and a man’s shoe, a sextant box, and partial skeletal remains, including a skull and long bones, which Gallagher believed could be the remains of Amelia Earhart. 

Only thirteen bones of the skeleton could be found.  These and the recovered artifacts were transported to Fiji, examined and then lost at the outbreak of World War II.  Documentation of this evidence is all that is left. 

Initial analysis of the bones, conducted by Dr. D.W. Hoodless, interpreted that they belonged to a male of European descent.  Forensic anthropologists in 1998 and 2018 re-examined the measurements made by Dr. Hoodless and concluded that the measurements of the bones were consistent with a woman of Earhart’s height and ethnicity.

The British colony on the island existed until 1963, when drought left the islanders seriously short of drinking water.  In later interviews with TIGHAR, islanders reported seeing metal debris on the reef near the wreck of the SS Norwich City.  Another reported airplane wreckage in the lagoon alongside the Taraia Peninsula, very close to the location of the Taraia Object. 

John Mims, a young American military pilot delivering supplies in a PBY amphibious plane to the Coast Guard station on Nikumaroro, visited the island in 1945.  He was surprised when one of the islanders showed him a freshly caught fish on a hook made from airplane aluminum attached to a fishing line made from an aircraft control cable.  The fisherman reported that the aluminum and the cable came from a wrecked aircraft that was on the island when he arrived some years before.  The cable was just the right length to be from the Electra.

In 1953, what appeared to be light colored debris, possibly pieces of aircraft wing, was visible in an aerial photo near the Tatiman Passage.  In 2002, a marine biologist reported seeing a metal wheel hub near the shoreline of the Passage.  Among many items found on the island by investigators so far have been women’s and men’s shoes, a compact case, a freckle cream jar, a medicine bottle, and a flashlight, all dated to the 1930s.

Although TIGHAR maintains that the aircraft probably drifted off the reef and sank into the depths of the sea, another option may be even more likely.  If Earhart landed the plane on the reef just north of the SS Norwich City, it’s possible that large pieces of the plane made their way through the passage and into the lagoon.  This is a key element of the Taraia Object hypothesis that Dr. Pettigrew has proposed.

Debris from the SS Norwich City wreck is still visible on the reef today, with pieces of all sizes scattered in the direction toward the Passage.  One tank from the wreck is known to have floated into the lagoon, where it can be seen on the beach today.

On that fateful day, Earhart was approaching Howland Island with the intent to refuel there. She would have had enough fuel to reach Nikumaroro, but not with much to spare. With empty fuel  tanks in each wing and five in the fuselage, the plane would have been buoyant. 

The Toraia Object Expedition is based on the idea that, possibly within a few days after landing, the tide floated the plane away, the surf crashed it on the reef rocks and broke it apart, and the tidal current pushed the fuselage with the tail still attached into the Tatiman Passage, where it entered the lagoon and crossed to the Taraia Peninsula.  Once the fuel tanks filled with water, the wreck settled to the bottom and was eventually covered with sediment.

This interpretation is supported by aerial photography taken by the New Zealand military in 1938, which shows what is likely to be the same object alongside the Taraia Peninsula, brilliantly lit by solar reflection, in two frames taken from opposite directions. A 2001 video shot by TIGHAR during a helicopter survey of the island contains what appears to be a distinct solar reflection for a brief moment, emanating from beneath the lagoon surface at the precise location of the Taraia Object as seen in the satellite images.  The linear angle of the reflection with respect to the shoreline is also precisely the same as the angle of the main body of the Taraia Object as seen in the satellite images.

The evidence taken together strongly suggests that the Taraia Object has been in the lagoon since at least 1938, and thus is likely to represent Earhart’s Electra aircraft, which disappeared in 1937.

ALI publicly announced plans for the Taraia Object Expedition in January 2025 to widen the scope of fundraising for it.  In considering the history of the Electra, Pettigrew knew that, if recovered, the aircraft wreckage would most likely go to one of two places: the Smithsonian Institution or Purdue University. When Pettigrew contacted them about it, Purdue University expressed great interest in the project.

Why is Purdue so interested in the recovery of the Electra?  Purdue retained Amelia Earhart in 1935 as a career counselor for women and as an advisor in aeronautics.  At that time as well, the Purdue Research Foundation established the Amelia Earhart Fund for Aeronautical Research, which financed the Lockheed Model 10E Electra  for her world flight. At the time of her disappearance, Earhart was still a faculty member at Purdue.  Her legacy lives on there and is a very important part of Purdue history, about which they are very visibly proud.  A bronze statue of Earhart stands outside Earhart Hall, and construction is underway of a new airport terminal in her name at the Purdue Airport. Notable reminders of her importance at Purdue are an Amelia Earhart scholarship, a faculty-in-residence program and an annual Amelia Earhart Summit.

Before her world flight, she and Purdue had an understanding that she would return the plane to Purdue.  Now, Purdue sees a way to finally bring the plane home. They plan to include two representatives with the field team on the Taraia Object Expedition to Nikumaroro Island in November 2025..

Under the direction of Dr. Pettigrew, ALI will lead the expedition, which includes a team of underwater archaeologists from Florida firm RECON Offshore.  The field team will embark from Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands and sail for six days to Nikumaroro, one of the most remote places on Earth. They will spend five days on the island to uncover, inspect and identify the Taraia Object, and then sail back to Majuro.  The fieldwork will include aerial and underwater photography, magnetometry, side-scan sonar, physical probing of the sediment, and removal of sediment from the Object with a water-induction dredge.

ALI will post project updates on our subscription video platform, Heritage Broadcasting Service, at heritagetac.org . If the Expedition successfully identifies the object as the Electra, ALI and the Purdue Research Foundation plan to return in 2026 for a larger excavation and ultimately the recovery of what remains of Earhart’s plane.

You can find complete details about the Taraia Object and the plans to inspect it, as well as ways you can support this work, at archaeologychannel.org/taraia .