<p>Piper, one of four forensic dogs that recently searched for clues to Amelia Earhart's disappearance 80 years ago, sniffs for human bones while training in California. (<a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/amelia-earhart-search/">Read our exclusive story series about the dogs' search</a>.)</p>
Piper, one of four forensic dogs that recently searched for clues to Amelia Earhart's disappearance 80 years ago, sniffs for human bones while training in California. (Read our exclusive story series about the dogs' search.)
Photograph by Laura Morton, National Geographic
In Search of Amelia Earhart
Top 3 Theories for Amelia Earhart's Disappearance
Eighty years since she disappeared, Earhart's fate remains one of aviation's greatest unsolved mysteries.
ByMichael Greshko
Published July 5, 2017
• 11 min read
On July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan took off from Lae, New Guinea, in a Lockheed Electra 10E on one of the last legs of their around-the-world flight. They were aiming for tiny Howland Island just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean. They couldn’t find Howland, however—and despite many attempts, no one has been able to find them since.
The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy scoured the area by ship and plane for two weeks. George Putnam, Earhart’s husband, enlisted civilian mariners to continue the hunt. Over the years, enthusiasts have looked for signs of Earhart or her plane in the Marshall Islands, on Saipan, and deep underwater.
Eighty years on, the mystery
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