Mysterious object discovered near remote Pacific island is not Amelia Earhart missing plane wreckageResearchers inspecting the site said it was another setback to efforts to unravel one of aviation’s biggest mysteries nearly 90 years after the pilot disappeared.
“Evidence collected on the Talaya Peninsula of Nikumaroro confirms that the visual anomaly first seen in satellite images in 2020 is likely a collection of large trees deposited along the peninsula’s spit,” the researchers said. “When the team arrived at the scene, most of the debris had broken up and washed away, leaving only a Y-shaped section,” which they said was the plane they had originally hoped for.
The researchers said the anomaly’s reflective surface led them to believe it may be metallic, a result of the carbonate finish, noting that other items found nearby were “also coated in a shiny coral sand concrete mixture.”
October 14th, Monday 17-person expedition team A team led by Steve Schultz of Purdue University and Richard Pettigrew of the Institute for Archaeological Heritage launched an expedition to investigate a mysterious object that appeared in aerial photos to resemble the possible remains of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10-E aircraft.
Bad weather kept the team on the ship for the allotted five days of search, while limited fuel and supplies prevented them from extending the expedition. The search area was so remote that it took the team five days at sea to reach it.
The expedition focused on a lagoon near Nikumaroro, where researchers examined the Talaya Object, an anomaly discovered by a Navy veteran through satellite imagery during the coronavirus pandemic. Although the object was visible in aerial photos from 1938, it was not noticed until 2020. Pettigrew said before arriving at the object, they thought it might be metal rather than a tree, but further investigation would be needed to confirm its identity.
“Amelia Earhart’s courage and curiosity drove every step of the search,” Pettigrew said Sunday. “We achieved our goal of identifying the Talaya object, and we are extremely grateful to the private donors who shared our vision and made this journey possible. Our team remains in high spirits and proud of what we accomplished.”
The team developed a plan to photograph and photograph the lagoon and Talaya before using magnetometers and sonar equipment to survey the area. Researchers then plan to retrieve the object for identification. The Archeology Channel documented the expedition through short video updates on its Heritage Broadcasting Service streaming platform.
The team previously said in a press release that there was “very strong” evidence that the object was the plane from which Earhart disappeared.
Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared on July 2, 1937, some 22,000 miles into the journey. Earhart attempted to become the first female pilot to orbit the Earth and the first to fly around the equator, the planet’s widest point.
Getty Images 
Recently, President Trump ordered Declassification of records related to Earhart.
Nikumaroro is part of the island nation of Kiribati, approximately halfway between Australia and Hawaii. The island, about 400 miles southeast of Howland Island, was where Earhart and Noonan were heading when they disappeared while attempting to fly around the world.
Pettigrew believed Earhart and Noonan landed at Nikumaroro and survived there for a time. He pointed to artifacts and human remains found on the island in the 1930s that were later lost as possible evidence. Over the decades, however, several competing theories have emerged about the missing pilot, many of which lack solid evidence.
Researchers have spent decades searching for Earhart’s plane, hoping its discovery would shed light on her disappearance. In 2024, an expedition captured a sonar image There appeared to be an airplane on the ocean floor, but the object was later identified as a rock formation.