A Man Was Browsing Apple Maps When He Noticed It. The Object Could Solve One of Aviation’s Greatest Mysteries

For 88 years, the question of what happened to Amelia Earhart has survived every attempt to answer it. Later this year, two teams will test two very different answers against the only evidence that can settle the matter: the wreckage itself.

One group will sail 1,200 nautical miles to a lagoon where an object visible in satellite imagery since at least 1938 may be a section of fuselage. Another will lower autonomous vehicles into deep water near Howland Island, guided by a new interpretation of the radio signals Earhart transmitted as her fuel ran out.

A Shape in the Lagoon

The Nikumaroro expedition will target a location known as the Taraia Object, named for a peninsula on the north side of the island’s lagoon. The shape first attracted notice in 2020 when Mike Ashmore, a former US Navy veteran, examined satellite images on Apple Maps from his home in California. Ashmore posted screenshots to a forum hosted by the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery. The extended discussion among members about the object’s identity is documented in the group’s online forum archives.

Ric Gillespie, who founded TIGHAR and has led 11 expeditions to Nikumaroro, responded to Ashmore’s post the same day. “I was recently contacted by Michael Ashmore who spotted something interesting on Google Maps,” Gillespie wrote on September 15, 2020. “About once a week, somebody finds the Earhart Electra on Google Earth or Google Maps. I always look at what they found. It’s usually the Norwich City wreck or some imagined airplane shape in the bush or water, but this is a real thing and it’s kind of interesting.”

Gillespie documented that the object appeared in satellite imagery from 2016, 2017, and 2018 but was absent in images from July 2020. He proposed the most logical explanation was “a log that washed up as a result of that storm, stayed there for five years and was washed away between May and July of this year.” But he also noted a complication. The 1939 US Navy mapping montage, he wrote, “shows a dark something in just about exactly the right location.”

Archaeologist Rick Pettigrew, executive director of the Archaeological Legacy Institute, examined the same imagery and reached a different conclusion. Pettigrew told CNN the object is visible in aerial photographs dating to 1938. “With the evidence that we have now, it would be a crime for nobody to go there and look,” he said.

Pettigrew will lead the expedition in collaboration with Purdue University, where Earhart worked in the department of aeronautics from 1935 to 1937. The university’s news office has detailed the expedition timeline, noting that three Purdue representatives will join the field team. The group will depart Majuro in the Marshall Islands on July 28, 2026, and spend approximately five days investigating the site with sonar, magnetometers, and a hydraulic dredge.

Gillespie, who visited the location during a previous expedition, said he saw nothing consistent with aircraft wreckage. “Looking at the later satellite imagery, something did show up there, but it’s very clearly a tree,” he told CNN. “Specifically, it’s a pandanus tree.”

What the Radio Logs Reveal

The Nauticos expedition will search waters near Howland Island, the refueling stop Earhart never reached. Company president Dave Jourdan said the search area is based on new analysis of radio communications between Earhart’s aircraft, call sign KHAQQ, and the Coast Guard cutter Itasca, which was stationed at Howland to provide navigation support.

The Itasca’s original radio log, held by the US National Archives, records a series of transmissions beginning at 7 p.m. on July 1, 1937. The final entry, timed at approximately 8:43 a.m. on July 2, states: “we are on the line 157 337 wl rept msg we wl rept.” The log shows that Earhart reported flying at 1,000 feet and estimated being 200 miles from Howland.

Jourdan’s team reconstructed the exact radio equipment used by Earhart and the Itasca, then conducted flight tests in 2020 using a similarly sized aircraft. Based on those tests, Jourdan said the analysis produced the most precise estimate yet of Earhart’s position during her final transmissions.

Three previous Nauticos expeditions, combined with a 2009 search led by the Waitt Institute for Discovery, have covered approximately 3,600 square miles of ocean floor without locating the aircraft. The 2026 operation will deploy four autonomous underwater vehicles equipped with side scan sonar.

“In past searches, we focused on the north, the northwest of the island for many, many reasons, but we searched it, and she’s not there,” Jourdan told CNN. “So that leaves a couple of other options, and we believe that with one more expedition, we should be able to fill out all of those areas.”

Jourdan does not regard the Nikumaroro expedition as competitive. “They’re barking up a different tree,” he said. “The primary data from the Coast Guard, and our radio signal analysis, just does not support that at all.”

Bones, Mirrors and Unanswered Questions

Proponents of the Nikumaroro hypothesis point to items recovered from the island during previous expeditions. Gillespie’s teams have found a compact mirror similar to one Earhart was known to carry, cosmetic jars, a jackknife, and a wooden box that appeared to contain a sextant. Bones discovered on Nikumaroro in 1940 were examined in Fiji and declared male before being lost. Modern forensic analysis of recorded measurements suggested the remains could be consistent with a female of Earhart’s stature.

Gillespie maintains that Nikumaroro is where Earhart spent her final days but does not believe the aircraft remains in the lagoon. “Everybody wants the airplane. The airplane is gone,” he told CNN. “We think the airplane was washed into the ocean, probably on July 7, best we can calculate, and almost immediately destroyed in the surf.”

The Nikumaroro expedition was originally scheduled for November 2025 but was delayed because of permit issues with Kiribati authorities. Nauticos continues to raise funds for its expedition, with Jourdan estimating costs between $8 million and $10 million. The company has not announced a specific departure date but confirmed the search would occur in 2026.

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