Amelia Earhart's disappearance on a trans-Atlantic flight may have been solved by new forensic analysis of bones found on an island in 1940.
Researchers who studied the bones soon after they were found said they believed the bones belonged to a man, but a current analysis showed that they were female and matched measurements of Earhart taken from photos, the New York Post reported.
Earhart disappeared in 1937 while attempting to fly around the world with navigator Fred Noonan. A popular theory about her death was that she crashed on the island of Nikumaroro, and 13 human bones were found there in 1940, the Post reported.
Dr. David Hoodless of the Central Medical School in Fiji concluded that the bones were male, but University of Tennessee emeritus anthropology professor Richard Jantz now disputes these findings, the Post reported.
"When Hoodless conducted his analysis, forensic osteology was not yet a well-developed discipline," Jantz said in a paper in the journal Forensic Anthropology. "Evaluating his methods with reference to modern data and methods suggests that they were inadequate to his task; this is particularly the case with his sexing method. Therefore his sex assessment of the Nikumaroro bones cannot be assumed to be correct."
The bones disappeared sometimes after the analysis, so they are not available to be studied now, Time magazine reported. Other objects found with the bones included a box for a navigation device like the one Noonan used, a woman's shoe, and a Benedictine bottle, which Earhart was known to carry.
All of the evidence taken together has convinced Jantz that there is 99 percent certainty that the remains are Earhart's, Time reported.
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