CPOY

CPOY 74 International Picture Story: The Search For Amelia Earhart

The fate of the famed aviator Amelia Earhart has fascinated millions for over 80 years. After setting world records in her plane–most notably her solo crossing of the Atlantic in 1932–Earhart set her sights on the circumnavigation of the globe at its widest point, the equator. On one of the final leg's of her round-the-world flight, Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific, somewhere in the Phoenix Islands. Thousands of hours of research and countless dead-end clues have pointed to Nikumaroro island, a small coral atoll, as her final resting place. In August, 2019, a National Geographic expedition led by Dr. Bob Ballard (who famously discovered the Titanic) set out for Nikumaroro. Two teams searched the island and its surrounding waters for two weeks, but found nothing. Expeditions like this one will likely continue until some definitive evidence is found that can lay the final chapter of Amelia's story to rest.

Caption
Slide 2 of 8
August 12, 2019
Dr. Tom King pauses at the start of a "Gallagher Highway," a nickname given to the path that TIGHAR cuts through the jungle to the lagoon at the beginning of each trip on August 12, 2019. King has visited the island dozens of times over the course of three decades and for him it is a spiritual experience. As is customary in part of the Pacific, King rubs wet sand on his cheeks each time he returns to Nikumaroro and says a prayer of peace and thankfulness to the goddess of the Island.
Gabriel Scarlett / Western Kentucky University
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