Donald Trump has reignited one of the greatest enigmas of the 20th century by authorizing the release of long-concealed government documents related to aviation icon Amelia Earhart.

On Friday, the President announced via social media that he had instructed federal agencies to make public ‘all documents pertaining to her last journey and any other related information.’ 

Describing her as a ‘trailblazer’ whose daring adventures ‘fascinated millions,’ Trump praised Earhart as a national icon who disappeared mysteriously nearly 90 years ago.

‘Amelia made it almost three quarters around the world before she suddenly, and without notice, vanished, never to be seen again,’ Trump said.

The newly disclosed records, anticipated to include intelligence communications, Navy reconnaissance notes, and potential eyewitness testimonies, could offer new insights and have highlighted the ongoing efforts to unravel the mystery.

Experienced archaeologist Dr. Richard Pettigrew is gearing up to lead an advanced expedition to a Pacific reef where satellite imagery seems to indicate a plane wreck resembling Earhart’s aircraft.

Should Pettigrew’s hypothesis prove correct, and he discovers Earhart’s Lockheed Electra, it would solve a mystery that has puzzled investigators for the nine decades since her disappearance.

But he would also reveal a grim truth about the tousled-haired heroine’s fate.

He would show that Earhart had got lost on her round-the-world-flight, ran out of fuel, and landed on a small, lonely island, where she died, hungry and parched, and was devoured by giant crabs.

‘The very idea that she wasted away on the island and eventually died and got eaten by coconut crabs — that’s a horrible, horrible vision,’ Pettigrew told Daily Mail.

‘I don’t like thinking about it, but it’s inevitable.’

It would be a macabre end to the puzzle of Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, who disappeared in the Pacific on July 2, 1937, en route from Papua New Guinea to Howland Island.

Earhart’s bid to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the globe ran into strong headwinds, and she radioed that she was running low on fuel.

The loss of an aviation pioneer who’d inspired women to chase their dreams sent shockwaves around the world.

The US Navy scoured the area for 16 days but found no trace.

The longstanding official theory is that the plane ran out of gas, crashed and sank into deep ocean waters off Howland Island.

But the absence of a wreckage spawned a slew of alternate explanations about her fate.

Theories have veered into the absurd, including abduction by aliens, or Earhart living in New Jersey under an alias.

Some speculate Earhart and Noonan crash-landed on Mili Atoll, 800 miles northwest of Howland, and were taken prisoner by the Japanese and transported to Saipan, where they died in captivity.

Various teams have tried to pinpoint the crash location by scanning the ocean floor or using computer models based on Earhart’s radio transmissions.

No one has found a verified plane part or bone fragment.

Last year, it looked as if the mystery might be solved when explorers at South Carolina firm Deep Sea Vision discovered an ‘aircraft-shaped object’ in the area of the Pacific where the legendary aviator vanished.

However, a second expedition dashed hopes, revealing that the object was not an aircraft but simply a bunch of rocks. 

Since the late 1980s, many investigators have probed another theory: that Earhart made an emergency landing on a dry flat stretch of coral reef off what was then known as Gardner Island, southwest of Howland.

Researchers at the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (Tighar), point to Earhart’s last in-flight radio message heard by the Coast Guard cutter Itasca, which put her on course for Gardner. 

A series of distress calls in the days after the disappearance, apparently made by Earhart from a safely-landed Electra, also point to her having landed on Gardner, though these may have been hoaxes.

Various expeditions to that distant island, now called Nikumaroro, have uncovered bones, a campfire, clothing, and navigational gear, that may suggest Earhart ended her days there.

Her remains may have been devoured by the carnivorous coconut crabs, which inhabit the island and weigh up to 9lbs and have claws powerful enough to crack open coconuts.

A multi-million-dollar search of waters off Nikumaroro in August 2019, spearheaded by ocean explorer Robert Ballard, found no trace of Earhart’s twin-tailed monoplane there.

Pettigrew, 77, of the Oregon-based Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALI), says Ballard was looking in the wrong spot.

He’s collected dozens of aerial and satellite images of the island that appear to show a metallic object, about the size of the Electra, in the shallow waters in Nikumaroro’s lagoon interior.

The so-called Taraia Object is about the size of the Electra’s fuselage and tail.

It was first noticed in 2020, but can be seen in photos dating back to 1938. Now, and at other times, it’s been covered in sludge.

In November Pettigrew plans to lead a dozen researchers aboard two boats from the Marshall Islands on a $900,000, five-day expedition to Nikumaroro and show the ‘object’ is indeed the Electra.

‘The excitement is palpable,’ he says.

‘I’ve looked at this back and forth, up and down, in and out, for years now. And I think the evidence is quite overwhelming. I am very confident, and I think we’re going to come home with the goods.’

But he recalls the swagger of other explorers before they embarked on their own, doomed missions, and checks himself.

‘I’m also aware that I could be wrong,’ he adds.

After so many failed, costly bids to locate the Electra by other explorers, Pettigrew appears to be struggling to raise funds.

He’s pushed back the mission by four months and has yet to rent boats and secure permits from Kiribati’s government.

If he uncovers the Electra, Pettigrew says he’ll install a webcam to ward off relic hunters until salvage work begins next year.

Raising the plane and placing it in a museum would likely cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

It could also spawn rival claims from ALI, Kiribati, and Purdue University in Indiana, which donated some of the funds that paid for Earhart’s plane.

Curators at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum support the mainstream crashed-and-sank theory, but are understood to be keen to display a salvaged Electra.

Such is the lure of Earhart, 88 years after she went missing on her way back to California, says Pettigrew.

‘She was ahead of her time and highly admired by people,’ he says.

‘It was a horrible tragedy that she disappeared, but that that fact of her disappearance has also kept her memory alive, because the mystery is constantly haunting people.’