Everyone knows the famous story of Amelia Earhart, one of the greatest aviators of her time, who disappeared in 1937 in an attempt to fly around the world. The thing is, though, that that’s not the whole story. Her plane didn’t simply vanish, as everybody thought for years; naval ships were receiving radio transmissions from her for days after her plane landed on a small, uninhabited island in the Pacific, too low on fuel to carry on.
Days after the transmissions stopped (after her plane was likely carried out to sea), the U.S. Navy sent planes to fly over the island. They didn’t see any planes or people, so they wrote off all the credible transmissions as a hoax. They never sent anyone down onto the island to check for sure.
It is now believed, due to a dig that turned up artifacts from the time, that she survived on the island for many months. A body was likely never found because the island is inhabited by coconut crabs, large creatures that have been known to eat whole animals and carry off their bones.
