{"id":679,"date":"2026-10-19T20:00:30","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T20:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/?p=679"},"modified":"2026-10-19T20:00:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T20:00:30","slug":"amelia-earhart-taraia-object-nikumaroro-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/?p=679","title":{"rendered":"THE AMELIA EARHART \u201cPLANE\u201d WAS A PILE OF TREES! | Five days at sea, robber crabs at camp, and the shiny wreck turned out to be coral-crusted driftwood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ninety years of mystery, one long boat ride, and\u2026 a log. Researchers who sailed to remote Nikumaroro<\/strong> in Kiribati to check a suspected piece of Amelia Earhart\u2019s<\/strong> plane say the object is most likely a pile of washed-up trees, the BBC<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

The so-called \u201cTaraia Object\u201d<\/strong> was first spotted on satellite imagery in 2020 sitting in a lagoon off the Taraia Peninsula, and Purdue University says it\u2019s visible in photos going back to 1938. Some hoped it was a small aircraft resting in the shallows. Purdue\u2019s verdict: \u201clikely a collection of large trees deposited along the peninsula\u2019s sandspit.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what about that famous metallic glint? Purdue says the fragment\u2019s shiny surface came from a carbonate veneer<\/strong>, a coating of coral sand. Other items the team found were crusted the same way, the Guardian<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

The 17-person expedition earned its disappointment. The trip took five days by sea<\/strong>, then rough weather stranded them on the ship for days. Once ashore they did four days of work, including metal detecting, and slept offshore partly because of giant land-dwelling coconut \u201crobber crabs.\u201d By the time they reached the spot, most of the debris had broken up and washed away, leaving one Y-shaped piece.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, we weren\u2019t able to find that smoking gun,\u201d said Purdue\u2019s Steve Schultz. Project director Rick Pettigrew isn\u2019t quitting: \u201cThe island has been holding on to its secrets and it continues to do so.\u201d Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan vanished in 1937 trying to reach Howland Island, about 400 miles away.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong> BBC \u2014 Possible wreckage of Amelia Earhart\u2019s plane likely to be trees, say researchers (Oct. 19, 2026)<\/a> \u00b7 The Guardian \u2014 Amelia Earhart researchers leave remote atoll empty-handed after \u2018plane debris\u2019 found to be a clump of trees (Oct. 19, 2026)<\/a><\/p>\n

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five days at sea, robber crabs at camp, and the shiny wreck turned out to be coral-crusted driftwood<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/bb-earhart-trees-1019.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}