Famed aviator Amelia Earhart disappeared in 1937 while attempting to circumnavigate the globe in her airplane. Now, Fox News reports, a researcher at the University of South Florida is planning to run DNA tests on newly discovered bone fragments from a museum on an island in the Pacific to determine if they belong to Earhart.
Three years after Earhart disappeared, bones were discovered on the Pacific Island of Nikumaroro, 1,200 miles from the Marshall Islands. She may have been forced into an emergency landing in that area, University of South Florida's Erin Kimmerle tells Fox 13 News. The bones were examined but they vanished after they were sent to Fiji.
"They had four or five large boxes of remains that were co-mingled," she tells Fox. "There was one set of female remains that matched that description."
Earhart has a living niece, whose DNA will be used to determine if the bone fragments could belong to the aviator.