By Dan Satherley
A group looking for infamous lost pilot Amelia Earhart say they've found new evidence she crashed into the ocean near Nikumaroro, a Pacific atoll north of Tokelau and Tuvalu.
Earhart vanished in 1937 while attempting to circumnavigate the globe. Neither she nor her plane was ever found.
Earlier this year The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) spent US$2.2 million hunting for new clues, calling the search off in July when it seemed to be going nowhere.
But now, after reviewing high-definition video footage shot below the surface of the ocean, they think they're onto something.
"We have man-made objects in a debris field," TIGHAR's Ric Gillespie told the Los Angeles Times, "in a location where we had previously reasoned where airplane wreckage should be."
The location of the debris – if that is indeed what it is – matches the location of a photo taken in 1937 that appears to show a plane's landing gear sticking out of the ocean.
There are many theories concerning Earhart's fate. Many involve her plane running out of fuel and plummeting into the ocean. Another suggests that she landed (or crashed) on then-uninhabited Nikumaroro Island. A skeleton that forensic scientists in the 1980s determined belonged to a woman was found on the island but later misplaced, preventing further inspection.
Artifacts such as a woman's shoe, plexiglass and a zipper have also been found on the island.
Gillespie says other items found on the island were indicative of a "castaway trying to survive".
"We don't want to oversell this," Gillespie told the Times. "We have lots of clues… It looks like it might be the right stuff, but we need a lot more work done, and ultimately we're going to have to go back and recover it."
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