Amelia Earhart: Found Bones Nearly A 100 Percent Match As Barbie Unveils Doll Inspired By Lost Aviator
The case of Amelia Earhart “has been cracked,” according to a new report. Meanwhile, Barbie also recently announced a doll in honor of the late American aviator. The Daily Mail reported on Wednesday that found bones from nearly 80 years ago are now said to be a 99 percent match for Amelia Earhart.
According to the report, an expert in skeletal biology from Tennessee, Richard Jantz, is 99 percent certain that the bones found on Gardner Island in 1940 belong to Amelia Earhart. Jantz’s discovery is contrary to previous reports that the bones were probably from a middle-aged man about 5.5 feet tall.
However, a report on ScienceDirect from 2015 shares that there’s still controversy surrounding the bones from Gardner Island, also known as Nikumaroro Island. According to ScienceDirect, an analysis of the Nikumaroro bones in 1940 is wrong, adding that “the bones are possibly consistent” with Amelia Earhart.
Jantz actually used measurements from the 1940 analysis to perform his own analysis and concluded that the bones that were found 400 miles south of where Amelia Earhart was supposed to make a planned landing on Howland Island, located in the central Pacific Ocean, are “likely to be her.”
“What I can say scientifically is that they are 99% likely to be her.”
Bones discovered on Pacific island are '99% certain to be aviator Amelia Earhart's' says scientist https://t.co/pbYRrQpALO
— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) March 7, 2018
According to Jantz, he used the lengths of the bones from the previous analysis, along with other information he was able to obtain about Amelia Earhart’s physical dimensions, to conclude that the bones are nearly a 100 percent match. Jantz goes on to say in the Daily Mail report that it’s “unlikely” the Nikumaroro bones belong to “just a random person” due to the similarity to Amelia Earhart.
After the Nikumaroro bones were compared to nearly 3,000 other people, Jantz apparently found that only 17 of those people had dimensions that were more similar than the dimensions of Amelia Earhart, but “just two of them” were women. Jantz reportedly believes that he has finally “cracked the case” of where Amelia Earhart disappeared to when she attempted to make a world flight in 1937 with only one other aviator.
Other artifacts that were reportedly found on Gardner Island are said to support the theory that Amelia Earhart landed there after being unable to locate the planned stopover island of Howland, including a glass bottle that was thought to have contained freckle ointment that Earhart possibly used on freckles that “she didn’t like.”
Amelia Earhart was famous for being the first female American aviator to “fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean” in 1932, for which Earhart later received the Distinguished Flying Cross U.S. military decoration. Barbie announced on Tuesday that they are celebrating International Women’s Day on Thursday, March 8 by releasing a new line of role model dolls.
Barbie unveils dolls based on real-life figures including Amelia Earhart, Frida Kahlo, Katherine Johnson and Chloe Kim ahead of #InternationalWomensDay https://t.co/L0TXBEL1lD pic.twitter.com/JB8VMMSyeh
— CNN (@CNN) March 7, 2018
Mattel’s Barbie website lists Amelia Earhart as being one of the new Barbies that belong to the “Inspiring Women” series. According to CNN, the new “Inspiring Women” Barbie dolls, which are being marketed for the “adult collector,” will come complete with educational background information, noting that Amelia Earhart was “the first female aviator to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.”
