A newly released collection of aerial photographs of a remote South Pacific island may provide fresh leads in the decades-old mystery surrounding Amelia Earhart’s disappearance.
The pioneering aviator was 39 when she vanished in July 1937 while attempting to become the first woman to fly solo around the world.
Nearly 90 years later, investigators are still searching for answers. One leading theory is that Earhart crash-landed her Lockheed Electra on Nikumaroro, a remote island in the South Pacific roughly midway between Australia and Hawaii.
In December 1938, a year after her disappearance, an aerial survey of the atoll—then known as Gardner Island—produced almost 50 high-resolution black-and-white photographs.
The Air Force Museum of New Zealand has now published all 47 images taken on December 1, 1938, inviting online investigators to examine the photographs for clues that could help resolve the Earhart mystery.
Matthew O’Sullivan, the Christchurch museum’s keeper of photographs, found the original negatives more than 10 years ago.
Several images had previously been shared online, but the complete set has never before been made public.
Their release comes as a fresh expedition gets underway in an effort to locate Amelia Earhart’s missing aircraft.
A newly released set of aerial photographs of a remote South Pacific island could hold clues to Amelia Earhart’s disappearance
The Air Force Museum of New Zealand has published 47 photographs from December 1, 1938, hoping online researchers can help uncover what happened to Earhart
A research group from Purdue University in Indianapolis, which once supported Earhart, is investigating a “visual anomaly” in Nikumaroro’s lagoon identified in satellite imagery captured in 2020.
Researchers have named the feature the “Tararia Object.” If it is a wreck, they believe it could be the remains of an aircraft matching Earhart’s Lockheed Electra.
Archaeologist Dr Richard Pettigrew, executive director of the Archaeological Legacy Institute, is leading a 17-member team on Nikumaroro, which belongs to the Pacific island nation of Kiribati.
The team arrived on Tuesday and has begun scanning the area with a magnetometer for aircraft-related metal. Researchers are also using sonar to search for objects concealed beneath or near the lagoon’s surface.
Any compelling evidence linking Earhart to the island could finally resolve one of aviation’s most enduring mysteries, which has frustrated investigators for nearly a century.
At the same time, such a discovery could confirm a deeply disturbing account of how the celebrated pilot died.
Pettigrew has previously suggested that Earhart became lost during her around-the-world flight, exhausted her fuel and landed on the isolated island. In that theory, she eventually died from hunger and dehydration before her remains were consumed by giant coconut crabs.
“The idea that she slowly wasted away on the island, eventually died and was eaten by coconut crabs—that’s a horrible, horrible vision,” Pettigrew told Our News Outlet in 2025.
“I don’t like thinking about it, but it’s inevitable.”
One of the aerial photographs captured during the survey of the atoll, conducted a year after Earhart vanished
The negatives were discovered at the museum a decade ago, but have only just been released as a collection in high-resolution
The release of the images coincides with a renewed search to find Amelia Earhart’s missing aircraft, which is currently underway
Researchers have remained baffled for nearly 90 years, but many believe Earhart may have crash-landed her Lockheed Electra on Nikumaroro Island
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.
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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 had inspired women to chase their dreams sent shockwaves around the world.
The US Navy scoured the area for 16 days, but found no trace of her or her plane.
The longstanding official theory is that the plane ran out of fuel, crashed and sank into deep ocean waters off Howland Island.
But the absence of a wreckage has 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.
Veteran archaeologist Dr Richard Pettigrew, pictured on a previous expedition to Nikumaroro Island, is currently exploring a ‘visual anomaly’ in the atoll
Earhart was flying a Lockheed Model 10 Electra with navigator Fred Noonan (right) when their plane vanished near Howland Island
But no one has yet found a verified plane part or bone fragment.
In 2024, 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 the object was not an aircraft but simply 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.
However previous attempts to scour Nikumaroro Island have drawn a blank.
A multi-million-dollar search of waters off the island in August 2019, spearheaded by ocean explorer Robert Ballard, found no trace of Earhart’s twin-tailed monoplane there.
The current expedition has been hampered by severe weather, but the team is expected to release an update in the coming days.
Pettigrew said in an update on Thursday: ‘We understand the tremendous interest in what we’re doing at Nikumaroro, and we appreciate everyone’s patience.
‘This is a complex scientific process. You don’t simply arrive at a site and immediately identify what’s there.
‘We have to carefully collect the data, analyse it and reach sound conclusions.’
READ MORE: Never-before-seen photos show Amelia Earhart beside her plane just hours before she vanished during bid to fly around the world
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