14 DAY TRIAL // Aviation pioneer Amelia Mary Earhart vanished without a trace in July 1937, while attempting a flight around the world. Her plane disappeared somewhere over the Pacific Ocean and its remains are yet to be discovered.
This week, never-before-seen footage showing the aviator posing for the camera in anticipation of her daring attempt to circumnavigate the globe hit the public eye and understandably grabbed headlines.
The video, available below, is said to have been shot at a small airport in California by a man named John Bresnik. It remained hidden for decades and was only made public by John Bresnik's son after the man's death.
The black-and-white footage shows Amelia Earhart having a great time showing fans around her plane, smiling and even climbing atop the craft to pose for photos. Rather than her flight jacket, she is wearing a pantsuit.
Expedition hopes to solve the mystery of Amelia's disappearance
As mentioned, Amelia Earhart went missing in July 1937 while flying over the Pacific Ocean. In May 2013, researchers with The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) announced that they might have found the remains of her plane close to the Nikumaroro atoll.
What the team actually found was an anomaly in the local seabed whose shape they say resembles that of a plane. This June, they intend to send an underwater robotic explorer to have a closer look at this anomaly and try to determine whether it is, in fact, Amelia Earhart's craft.
“There is a sonar image in the data collected during last summer’s Niku VII expedition that could be the wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra,” TIGHAR researchers said in a statement.
Interestingly, a high school teacher in the US by the name of Dick Spink is convinced that this expedition TIGHAR hopes to complete this summer is a complete waste of time and that Amelia Earhart did not crash in the Pacific Ocean, at least not in the area the robot will be sent to explore.
Rather, Dick Spink says the aviator crash landed on another atoll named Mili in the Marshall Islands near the equator. Further, the teacher says that the crash was witnessed by local islanders.
