Chesco Group Uncovers New Link Between Amelia Earhart And Skeleton

A international aviation group based in Chester County has uncovered an important new development in the investigation into Amelia Earhart's disappearance.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), which is headquartered in Oxford, says that they have discovered a new similarity between Earhart and a skeleton found on an island int he Pacific Ocean in 1940.

When the bones were first found on the island of Nikumaroro in 1940, the group says that the discoverer was convinced they were Earhart's. But British authorities dismissed the discovery shortly thereafter when a doctor said they were male, according to the Group.

The Group, however, recovered the documents in 1998, and said that skeletal measurements made by a pair of forensic anthropologists at that time suggested something different.

“The morphology of the recovered bones, insofar as we can tell by applying contemporary forensic methods to measurements taken at the time, appears consistent with a female of Earhart’s height and ethnic origin," anthropologists Karen Burns Richard Jantz said.

Fast forward to 2016: Jantz was recently preparing a new evaluation of bone measurements, and noted that the humerus to radius (upper arm bone to lower arm bone) ratio was 0.756, according to the Group. That length is much longer than average for women of European ethnicity in the late 19th century, experts said.

The Group said they turned to forensic imaging specialist Jeff Glickman to determine Earhart's humerus to radius ratio. It was found to be 0.76, essentially identical to that of the castaway.

According to the Group, this new evidence does not prove that the skeleton is Earhart's, but does "tip the scale further in that direction."

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.