We're About to Find Amelia Earhart 

It’s been 78 years since Amelia Earhart’s mysterious disappearance, and searchers are still looking for the aviatrix and her beloved Model 10E Electra. On July 2, the 78th anniversary of her disappearance, researchers will be headed to one of the most remote islands in the world in the hope of finding either wreckage or signs of prolonged human habitation — proof that Amelia survived the crash.

What makes them think they will succeed when others failed?

The International Group For Historic Aircraft Recovery is sending a big team, some 14 researchers with roughly $500,000 of equipment, on a thousand-mile trek from Fiji to the Pacific atoll of Nikumaroro. If you haven’t heard of the place, that’s because very few people have and far fewer have ever set foot ashore. What’s unclear is whether Earheart was one of that latter group.

The team is operating on the hypothesis that Amelia and her companion Fred Noonan survived the crash and lived as castaways for a time while their distress signals went ignored. Nikumaroro was never cleared or developed, which means there is a very real chance that remnants from her plane could have survived undisturbed. 

If the team manages to solve this 78-year-old riddle, they’ll have to try their hand at locating Ambrose Bierce.