New clues revealed in the disappearance of Amelia Earhart Finding Amelia Earhart: New Clues Revealed

By Sari Zeidler, CNN

(CNN) — A mystery that has enthralled Americans for nearly a century may be on its way to being solved.

New evidence released Friday revealed clues that may solve the
mystery of what happened to aviator Amelia Earhart, Discovery News
reports.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery announced that
a new study suggests that dozens of radio signals once dismissed were
actually transmissions from Earhart’s plane after she vanished during
her attempted around-the-world flight in 1937.

The announcement was made at the start of a three-day conference in
Washington dedicated to Earhart and the group’s search for the famous
aviator’s remains and the wreckage of her plane.

On the conference website, the International Group for Historic
Aircraft Recovery called Earhart’s unanswered distress calls “The
smoking gun that was swept under the rug.”

Discovery News reported that the group has determined 57 “credible” radio transmissions from Earhart after her plane went down.

It has been researching the disappearance of Earhart, her navigator,
Fred Noonan, and her Lockheed Electra aircraft for 24 years. Its members
have developed a theory that Earhart’s remains lie on Nikumaroro Island
in the Western Pacific.

Nikumoro Island, then called Gardner’s Island, had been uninhabited
since 1892, the group said. In its version of Earhart’s final days, she
and Noonan landed there after failing to find another island. They
landed safely and radioed for help, the hypothesis goes. Eventually, the
Electra was swept away by the tide, and Earhart and Noonan could no
longer use its radio to call for help. U.S. Navy search planes flew over
the island, but not seeing the Electra, they passed on and continued
the search elsewhere.

The discovery of what is believed to be an old jar of anti-freckle
cream may also provide clues to this decades-old mystery. It is
suspected that the cosmetic bottle found on Nikumaroro Island once
belonged to Earhart.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery will launch an
expedition to Nikumaroro Island on July 2, the 75th anniversary of
Earhart’s disappearance. This is their ninth expedition.