Almost 90 years after the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan, a fall expedition is being planned to search for her lost aircraft. The project leader recently visited Pensacola to meet with two local members of his team and to make connections with the military community.
Dr. Richard Pettigrew, executive director of the Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALI) and founder of the Archaeology Channel, is leading the expedition, in partnership with Purdue University and the Purdue Research Foundation. Their mission is to investigate an unexpected feature spotted in an image taken off the coast of a remote island in the South Pacific, where Earhart’s plane is believed to have landed in 1937.
“The Taraia Object, which is the focus of our work, was seen first in 2020 by Michael Ashmore in California,” said Pettigrew, referencing an anomaly seen in an Apple Maps satellite image of the island of Nikumaroro. “He brought it to people’s attention at that time. Most particularly, he informed TIGHAR, The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, headed up by Rick Gillespie. I learned about it at the time, but I didn’t pay much attention at that time. “…