researchers think they might know where Amelia Earhart's airplane went

[Thorin]

I've been following the stories of Amelia Earhart's disappearance since I was a child, and found it both scary and fascinating.  Now researchers think they have a really good chance at having found the final resting place of Earhart's Lockheed Elektra, the plane she was trying to fly around the world: http://mashable.com/2013/05/29/earharts-plane-sonar-image/

They had previously found a bunch of artifacts that could have been the remains of makeshift tools Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan might have used to try and survive until rescue: http://news.discovery.com/history/us-history/amelia-earhart-jars-island-photos-120530.htm

Fascinating!

[Mr. Analog]

Well I guess they will have to mount a research mission to go down there and check it out.

Interesting find!

[Thorin]

They're busy trying to raise new funding (there have been several research expeditions already to Nikumaroro).  They need $3mil for the next one.  I wonder if they'll try to Kickstart it?

The saddest part is that this island was considered one of several possible landing sites, but they looked at the island from off-shore and decided they saw no signs of life so didn't land a boat to search.

Also sad is the thought that she survived six to eight weeks but slowly starved to death, and then her body was consumed bit by bit by hermit crabs.

[Mr. Analog]

So I hit the Wikipeds as I was curious about the search mission you mentioned, I didn't find that but I did find that the island was settled by the British Empire a year after she would have been there.

Apparently it was a small colony starting in 1938. The population grew to 100 by the 50s and the island was eventually deserted in the 60s.

So, there were people there not long after she would have been, interesting that they hadn't found any evidence in more than two decades of people living there after the crash date.

[Lazybones]

So I hit the Wikipeds as I was curious about the search mission you mentioned, I didn't find that but I did find that the island was settled by the British Empire a year after she would have been there.

Apparently it was a small colony starting in 1938. The population grew to 100 by the 50s and the island was eventually deserted in the 60s.

So, there were people there not long after she would have been, interesting that they hadn't found any evidence in more than two decades of people living there after the crash date.

Any shelter they build to survive in 8 weeks likely would be constructed completely of natural items unless they had some wreckage, thus it likely would have all eroded... in a year... If they had used something more permanent like rocks to leave a identifying note that might be different.

I grew up on a farm basically and built all sorts of neutral and not so natural forts and stuff, the natural ones all tended to flatten into a pile after a year due to wind and decay if not constantly maintained. Fabrics directly exposed to the elements for a long time blow away or get dragged off by animals.

[Mr. Analog]

I suppose, however the hypothesis that she was there was based mostly off of items found more recently (bottles, broken mirror, makeup, etc) that could have been deposited there by others as early as 1938.

[Lazybones]

I suppose, however the hypothesis that she was there was based mostly off of items found more recently (bottles, broken mirror, makeup, etc) that could have been deposited there by others as early as 1938.

Exactly, those are a hand full of non-natural very small things that lasted and are easy to go unnoticed... given the type of plane they where in and that it likely sunk off short in deep water.. Small items is probably all they had as far as wreckage on the surface.