Possible wreckage of Amelia Earhart's plane likely to be trees, say researchers

Researchers travelled to a remote Pacific Island to confirm whether an object first spotted on satellite imagery in 2020 solved the mystery of the pilot's disappearance. A satellite image of the so-called Taraia Object, which some had hypothesised could have been Amelia Earhart's plane, in a lagoon on Nikumaroro Researchers inspecting an object that some thought could have been the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's plane on a remote Pacific island say it is likely to be washed up trees. The team travelled to a lagoon in the Taraia Peninsula on Nikumaroro, Kiribati, to confirm whether a shiny object first spotted on satellite imagery in 2020 solved the decades-long mystery of the pioneering pilot's disappearance.

But Purdue University, which has a leading role in the study, said the so-called Taraia Object "was likely a collection of large trees deposited along the peninsula's sandspit". By the time the team arrived at the site a good portion of the debris had fragmented and washed away, leaving only a single Y-shaped segment, the university said. Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while piloting her Electra plane in 1937 Images of the Taraia Object – which Purdue University said was visible in photography dating back to 1938 – led researchers to wonder if it was the remnants of a small aircraft sitting in shallow