Forgotten photo may solve Amelia Earhart mystery

A recently resurfaced photograph may have finally solved the 77-year-old mystery of Amelia Earhart's disappearance.

An image, taken by the Miami Herald just moments before Earhart took off for her ill-fated 1937 attempt to fly around the world, holds a clue that one investigator claims links to wreckage found on a tiny island in the pacific.

The image shows an aluminum patch that was not noticed in any other photograph. Earhart investigator, Ric Gillespie, believes the patch matches the metal plate he discovered back in 1991 on a remote island. If correct, this supports the theory that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, survived a crash and died as a castaways.

Gillespie's Gardner Island discovery was initially dismissed 23 years ago because rivet patterns didn't match those of Earhart's plane, but if the plate is a patch, it would explain why the patterns are different. He told the Miami Herald, "If we can match a rivet pattern from the repair in the photograph to a rivet pattern on the wreckage, I think it would be beyond dispute that Noonan and Earhart weren't lost at sea, but made it to the island."

If Gillespie is correct, it would answer a lot of questions regarding what many believe to be one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history. But it would also hint that Earhart and Noonen had long, slow, tragic deaths.

Have you met the other Amelia Earhart? Earhart left her television job at KUSA to recreate the 1937 flight of her namesake.

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