Last night my friend Rachel sent me a link to a news article about the revived search for Amelia Earhart. The privately funded search will be begin in the Pacific in July, marking the 75th anniversary of Earhart’s disappearance. A picture from 1937 of Gardner Island suggests that may have been where Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, crashed and possibly lived for a short period. Still, finding wreckage or other evidence isn’t an easy task. From an NPR article about the expedition:
“Renowned oceanographer Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreckage of the Titanic and the Bismarck and is advising the Earhart expedition, said the new analysis of the photograph could be the equivalent of a “smoking gun” as it narrows the search area from tens of thousands of square miles to a manageable size.
Ballard confessed to having been previously intimidated by the challenge of finding clues to Earhart’s whereabouts.
“If you ever want a case of finding a needle in a haystack, this is at the top of the list,” he said.”
Even though my novel’s not historical fiction, Amelia plays a significant part in Queen of the Air and I’m glad to see that she’s still such a iconic figure in American history.
Roger Ebert seems to be a fan as well. Over the summer he shared this post on the anniversary of Earhart’s disappearance, complete with cool videos. (He retweeted it again today.)
Seeing this gets me pumped to revise, revise, revise!
(image: Chicago Sun-Times)
Every time I hear about Amelia I feel inspired. She was such an amazing woman, and it really is sad she ended up disappearing in the end. Although, perhaps that is how she’d want to go.