New Evidence That Might Finally Explain What Happened To Amelia Earhart After She Disappeared 86 Years Ago

For nearly 90 years, people around the world have been very interested in the mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart. New pieces of information about her still pop up even today.

Back in the 1930s, Amelia Earhart became famous for doing something amazing. She was the first woman to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean. This big achievement made her well-known.

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She didn't stop there. She also worked hard for women's rights and helped create a group called the Ninety Nines. This group supported women who wanted to be pilots.

But in 1937, something sad happened. Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared while they were trying to fly all the way around the Earth. They were flying over the Pacific Ocean, and nobody ever found them or their airplane.

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After looking for them a lot, people had to say that Amelia Earhart had died in 1939. However, there have always been stories and ideas about what might have really happened to her. Some people think their plane crashed in the ocean, and others think they might have landed on an island in the Pacific and passed away there.

Some people have said that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan might have been taken by the Japanese and killed.

Some adherents to this conspiracy theory believe that they eventually returned to the US under assumed names.

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Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean and in 1931 set a world altitude record of 18,415 feet.

Last year, many believed they found a piece of Amelia Earhart's plane on Nikumaroro Island. But after checking, experts are pretty sure it was actually from a different plane that crashed in World War II six years later.

But now, there's a new development that gives us a bit of hope for getting answers. According to the Daily Mail, experts are currently looking at a new picture that seems to show part of an engine cover underwater near Nikumaroro.

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Of course, we can't be sure that this cover is from Amelia Earhart's plane, but there's hope that these recent discoveries might finally help us learn more about what happened.

Ric Gillespie, who leads The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), has been trying to find answers for a long time.

In an interview with the Mail, Gillespie explained that a specialist in forensic imaging is currently examining an underwater photo taken during an expedition to Nikumaroro in 2009.

He told the paper: "There is an object in the photo that appears to be a Lockheed Electra engine cowling."

"The similarity to an engine cowling and prop shaft was not noticed until years later and the exact location was not noted at the time, which meant attempts to re-locate the object were unsuccessful."

Confirming whether the engine cover is from Earhart's plane or not might not give us the whole story about what happened to her, but it could help us be sure about some of the ideas people have had.