Amelia Earhart meets Occam’s Razor

Is there a way to narrow down what happened to her?

16 min readJul 18, 2024

On this date in 1937, after scouring over 250,000 square miles of Pacific Ocean, the United States Navy finally gave up the search for missing aviator Amelia Earhart.

Two weeks earlier, on July 2nd, Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan had disappeared, while on the longest leg of their daring, nearly 29,000 mile, month-and-a-half-long flight around the world.

Recently, I became fascinated by Amelia’s story. And found myself devouring books and web pages, and binge-watching TV specials about her remarkable life, and its unceremonious ending.

It might have been the recent 60th anniversary of the flight of Jerrie Mock, who’d eventually accomplished what Earhart set out to do — though decades later.

And I also felt some affinity for Earhart myself, having once worked in the same small office building in Burbank as she had — back when she was living nearby (in Toluca Lake), and working up the street (at the Lockheed plant at the Burbank airport).

Amelia

One thing’s for sure: Amelia Earhart had charisma.

She’d need it, too.

She’d need that charisma … to convince a world dominated by men that a woman like herself could do anything that a man could do.

She’d need that charisma … to convince others to help finance today’s equivalent of millions of dollars in equipment, supplies, expertise, support, and more.

She’d need that charisma … to convince the U.S. Government, of all things, to lend essential ocean, ground and logistical support for her ultimate, outlandish venture. For a journey that was not only trailblazing, but that she wouldn’t be able to accomplish without their help.

Amelia Earhart had captured the world’s imagination, not only as a woman aviator, but a record-breaking one.

She seemed unassuming, yet glamorous. She was friends with first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. And in reputation, she shared the same rarefied air as Charles Lindbergh.

“During the years that America was in the grip of the Great Depression, she provided the nation with a sense of hope and optimism about its future.”
— Smithsonian

The Big Flight

So at age 39, having accomplished a series of daring feats that few other people — and no other woman — ever had, she set her sights on the ultimate achievement: of flying an airplane around the planet.

Wiley Post did it, in 1931. Earhart would still beat him, though, in one important respect.

While Post was officially the first person to fly solo around the world — he did cheat a bit, by flying far north of the equator, close to the Arctic Circle, shaving thousands of miles off the journey. His route was about 15,000 miles. Earhart’s route would track the equator much more closely: totaling nearly double that. It would be the furthest airplane journey anyone had ever flown.

To accomplish this, she had her Lockheed Electra 10E heavily customized. The inside was gutted, and filled with fuel tanks. In fact, it was later described as “virtually a flying gas station.” She’d need all that fuel — and a number of refueling stops along the way — to traverse the long distances involved.

The trip was a massive logistical undertaking, in a day when much of the coordination had to happen through an exquisite choreography of international letters and telegrams.

All told, the flight had 31 legs, in nearly two dozen countries: for refueling, resupply and rest.

Both Amelia and her aircraft were up to the journey. But once airborne, knowing precisely what heading to fly at any given time could be a challenge. There were uncertain and changing winds, extensive calculations, inevitable navigational drift, and more. And at long distances, the slightest directional error could throw her off-course by dozens or hundreds of miles.

By today’s standards, the technology was primitive: Global Positioning satellites wouldn’t be a thing for another half century. Instead, there were maps, compass & sextant. A lot like mariners had used for centuries past.

So Earhart recruited Fred Noonan, one of most experienced aerial navigators in the world. He’d had a distinguished career, including mapping clipper routes for Pan Am airlines across the Pacific Ocean.

Noonan would fly with Earhart for much of the journey. (So it’s a misnomer to say Earhart made the flight solo — the plan was that she’d be the only one to make the entire flight.)

And while the trip was a major challenge, the biggest challenge was crossing the Pacific Ocean. It was thousands of miles of nearly-endless water, dotted only occasionally with modest specks of land.

“Mine is a land plane, equipped with wheels.
Occasionally such a one has come down safely on water, though the landing is generally dangerous.”
— Amelia Earhart (1935)

She’d start in Oakland, California … fly across North America … skirt the coast of South America … cross the Atlantic to Africa … over to the Middle East … then the south of Asia … then Australia … then New Guinea.

And finally, the nearly 7,000-mile end-run back to the U.S mainland. That would also need to be in multiple hops: even with a plane mostly populated by gas tanks, one load of fuel wasn’t nearly enough to traverse the forbidding Pacific. (And even so, Earhart would be awake for many consecutive hours as-is.)

So from New Guinea, it’d be on to Howland Island … then Honolulu, Hawaii … and finally, back to Oakland.

Howland was a tiny speck of land in the middle of the ocean — about one square mile. A ground crew had constructed a runway just for the purpose; a cargo of aviation fuel was stocked and waiting on the ground; and the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca was specially dispatched to help guide them in.

Yet even then, there were complications.

Aside from the sheer challenge of finding that minuscule island, there were problems with direction-finding equipment, both onboard the plane and on the ground. And communication was disjointed: the Itasca could hear Amelia, but they never really established two-way radio communications.

“Howland is such a small spot in the Pacific that every aid to locating it must be available. …
This evening, I looked eastward over the Pacific. … I shall be glad when we have the hazards of its navigation behind us.”
— Earhart (letter to her husband, George Putnam, 7/1/1937)

After twenty straight hours of flying and more than 2,500 miles — there were increasingly desperate messages about not seeing the island, and running low on fuel …

.. and soon after, nothing.

So the U.S. Navy was called in to find them. And more than two weeks later, they reluctantly concluded the search, empty-handed.

Differing Opinions

There are several predominant theories as to Earhart and Noonan’s fate:

Running out of fuel, they landed in the ocean and sank.
Unable to find Howland Island, they flew south, landed at Gardner Island instead, and died as castaways before the search could find them.
They turned west, back toward New Guinea, landed in the Marshall Islands instead, were captured by the Japanese, and were possibly executed as spies.

And it turns out, there’s evidence for each of those possibilities — and at least some of that evidence is compelling:

Possible radio distress calls in the days following (suggesting they might have made it to land);
Unusual fragments of personal & aircraft artifacts found on another nearby island;
Multiple stories in island populations, passed down for generations;
And more …

But all of that evidence is circumstantial or anecdotal, and there’s nothing conclusive.

Or alternatively, if they did land in the ocean and sink, there might not be much evidence at all.

There is one thing everyone agrees on — Amelia and Fred missed their planned refueling stop on Howland Island. But that’s all we really know for sure.

“Please know I am quite aware of the hazards. …
I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.”
— Earhart (letter to her husband, undated)

Enduring Mystery

So, more than 85 years later, Earhart’s disappearance is still a mystery.

That mystery has perpetuated our collective fascination with Earhart, and propelled her legendary status.

And yet it also means — there’s never been any resolution or closure.

After all that reading and watching, that lack of closure bothered me.

I kept wondering:

Short of some definitive proof (like finding wreckage of her Lockheed aircraft), can we get any closer to solving the mystery?
Is there any way to apply logic, or common sense?
Is it possible to narrow down those possibilities?

Eventually, something dawned on me:
No matter how compelling each of those theories might be — they can’t all be right.

They’re mutually exclusive.

Earhart and Noonan couldn’t have (1) crashed and sank in the middle of the ocean … and (2) landed and died on Gardner Island … and (3) turned around and landed in the Marshall Islands.

And so, as compelling as some of that evidence seems — much of it must be either misleading or irrelevant. So we need to be willing to disregard entire categories of that evidence. But which ones?

Beginning with that thought, maybe we can whittle things down. I also realized: using Occam’s Razor † … the notion that simpler explanations tend to be more likely than more convoluted ones … could possibly help us do that.

So let’s take a closer look …

Theory #1: They landed in the ocean & SANK

This is the most widely-accepted theory. It’s also the simplest.

Though it hinges on how much fuel remained when the Electra finally got near Howland. And thus, having failed to find that tiny island, whether Earhart had the ability to head off for somewhere else instead.

But uncertainty about winds aloft, timing, location, and direction means that even decades of detailed expert analysis has drawn a variety of conclusions about fuel consumption during that nearly 2,600-mile leg of the flight.

Earhart herself radioed that fuel was running low.

But there’s even disagreement on what “running low” means, in the context of a flight across that vast stretch of ocean.

Perhaps first-hand testimony might help, from two people who were there, and who heard Earhart’s final transmissions themselves:

“Up to the last hour she seemed to be very cool and her voice was well modulated and apparently normal, but towards the end I could distinctly notice an inflection of tension coming into it and decided increase in the pitch as though she was talking under a great deal of stress or emotion.”
— Warner K. Thompson (commander, U.S. Coast Guard)
“When it was too late and she was going down she hollered for our aid but that was too late. … I heard her last broadcasts myself. She realized too late that she was in trouble, then she went to pieces. Her voice clearly indicated that fact, by the desperate note in her transmissions.”
— Frank T. Kenner (lieutenant commander, USCGC Itasca)

So there’s certainly evidence that this was indeed their fate.

Though if they did land in the ocean, any physical evidence would have been swallowed up by that same ocean. And this, perhaps, is the ambiguity we’ve felt ever since. A lack of tangible proof has given way to purported clues instead.

Being the simplest explanation of any, though … Occam’s Razor suggests this scenario is the benchmark of simplicity that other explanations need to beat.

So in that light, let’s weigh those other possibilities.

Theory #2: They flew SOUTH, and landed at Gardner

Failing to find Howland, and also “running low” on fuel … they might have continued south, and made it to another speck of land: Gardner Island (now called Nikumaroro).

But that was 300+ miles away, and would have required another hour or two of fuel. And no one can agree whether that was feasible.

One organization, TIGHAR (The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery), has done voluminous original research on the Earhart disappearance. Much of it centers on this Gardner Island hypothesis. They’ve also done a number of trips to this impossibly-remote place, to look for clues themselves.

And they’ve uncovered some fascinating possibilities:

Evidence of an improvised campsite;
Personal effects (like pieces of a woman’s shoe heel, clothing, and possible cosmetics);
A piece of aircraft aluminum (roughly the same vintage as the Electra);
And more …

Still, there’s nothing that definitively links to Earhart, or that couldn’t be explained in other ways.

So in spite of decades of TIGHAR’s painstaking work, there’s still nothing conclusive.

Though one more-recently discovered piece of evidence might be a blockbuster:

Just three months after Earhart’s disappearance, in October 1937, a British survey expedition sailed to Gardner to research possible colonization of that region’s islands. Crew member Eric Bevington, on the royal colony ship Nimanoa, kept a detailed personal travelogue, and took an album full of photos.

And nearly 75 years later, a detailed analysis of one bit of those photos revealed an unusual object in the water just off Gardner back in 1937.

And that object resembled what could be a piece of aircraft landing gear(!).

The photo got the attention of legendary ocean explorer Robert Ballard (discoverer of the wreckage of the RMS Titanic). In 2019, he thought it enough to merit an expedition for a detailed underwater survey of the area around Nikumaroro. And for good measure, a team of forensic anthropologists came along to re-survey the island itself.

One result of the trip: a National Geographic documentary, “Expedition Amelia” — the best and classiest of the TV specials I’d watched.

So now, spoiler alert:
Having scoured the coastline off Gardner/Nikumaroro, looking for any possible fragment of Earhart’s plane or related artifacts, Ballard and his crew never found any proof.

And here in 2024, watching the documentary, I realized possibly why.

While everyone seemed convinced the detail in that photo showed a possible piece of landing gear (with a tire sticking out of the water) … I got another impression.

The instant I saw it, I felt an immediate and visceral recognition of something very different:

👆 Is that possible? 👆

Zooming out (both literally and figuratively), the photo album tells a tale of early exploration of those islands.

And an incidental part of the story is how Bevington’s ship, the Nimanoa, lacking an actual port to dock at, moored itself to the earlier wreckage of the S.S. Norwich City (a ship which had run aground there in 1929), for Nimanoa’s two-day visit to Gardner.

And presumably, someone would have to have brought that mooring line over to the wreck and attach it … and then retrieve it again, when the expedition eventually cast off.

So: someone swimming in the water … or wrecked aircraft landing gear?

Both explanations are possible. Though Occam’s Razor suggests favoring the explanation that makes the fewest assumptions.

Even so, that wouldn’t mean Earhart’s plane didn’t land there — it just makes the possibility less compelling. ‡

The photo’s so-called “Bevington object” was first noticed in 2010. And unfortunately, Eric Bevington passed away in 2004. Which means no one was able to ask him what he thought it was.

To someone who was there at the time — and took that very photo — it might have been a simple identification.

Theory #3: They turned back, and flew WEST

This would have required Earhart and Noonan to have at least an additional four hours of fuel.

It’s possible — expert opinions differ — but is it likely?

For things to play out the way they did, I realized, one crucial thing must have happened:
➤ Earhart DIDN’T BOTHER TO TELL ANYONE she was turning around, and was abandoning her approach.

Wait, what? Is that possible?

That an internationally-renowned aviator of Earhart’s stature — whose epic flight was being followed by millions all over the world … and who’d gotten countless favors from the U.S. Coast Guard … the U.S. Navy … the U.S. Army … the Department of the Interior … the Bureau of Air Commerce … first lady Eleanor Roosevelt … and even President Roosevelt himself — didn’t bother to tell them she was making a radical course change, and not to keep looking for her, because she was off somewhere else instead entirely?

Would she have left them all completely hanging that way?

And abandon everyone waiting and searching for her, without so much as a word as to what she was doing, or what direction she was headed for instead? And perhaps, to have them radio ahead for assistance?

There would have been hours to let them know.

That gap in logic is overshadowed by stories and conspiracy theories. There are anecdotes from native islanders further west. And stories about capture, and even execution as spies.

And while that scenario isn’t impossible, once I realized the fundamental condition that everything else in this theory is predicated on … it strained credulity … to the point where it no longer seemed a notion worth entertaining.

And going back to the first-hand testimony of desperation in Earhart’s voice in that final hour:

“She realized too late that she was in trouble, then she went to pieces …”

Occam’s Razor suggests we ask:
Does this seem more like the voice of a desperate pilot running out of fuel …? Or one with at least four hours’ fuel remaining, and a perfectly viable alternative to get back to dry land?

If it was indeed a voice of desperation, then we might simply rule out the (inconclusive) stories of what could have happened 700+ miles to the west — on a completely different set of islands, in another country entirely.

Epilogue, 2024

“(Earhart) was kind of the rock star … the Taylor Swift of the era … Everybody’s pulling for her, they want her to make it around the world, and she disappears without a trace. It’s the mystery of the 20th century, and now into the 21st century.”
— Dorothy Cochrane (curator, National Air and Space Museum)

So, will we ever know for sure what happened to Amelia Earhart?

Just six months ago, an expedition searching the area near Howland Island, where Earhart’s plane might have sunk, chanced to pick up a sonar image of something at the bottom of the ocean floor.

It bears a distinct resemblance to an aircraft.

Of course, the sonar image could be something else. And even if it is a plane, keep in mind that numerous planes went down in the Pacific during World War II.

So that same expedition is planning a return trip, in the near future.

Yet another dead end? Or ultimate resolution?

We may find out soon.

“There will always be speculation about Amelia Earhart’s death. It is hard — heartbreaking — to lose a major icon so abruptly, so inconclusively, and it is so tempting to try to write another ending to the grand adventure.
“Perhaps because she was cut down in her prime — perhaps because she did not quite have time to fulfill her potential, we can’t let her go. She is thirty-nine forever.”
— Susan Butler

Selected Resources

Books

“Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved” by Elgen & Marie Long
[detailed account supporting the ocean-sinking theory]
(Amazon)
“East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart” by Susan Butler
[biography]
(Amazon)

Video

“Expedition Amelia” — National Geographic special

Websites

TIGHAR.org (The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery)
[extensive original research, particularly on the Gardner Island hypothesis]

Archives

Purdue University archives
(incl. the George Palmer Putnam collection of Amelia Earhart papers)
National Archives
(incl. the Coast Guard cutter Itasca’s radio logs)

Footnotes

† The initial notion by William of Ockham had a different connotation, in addition to being in the context of religious philosophy.

Here, we’re using the more modern conception of the maxim still commonly referred to as “Occam’s Razor.” Though different from the original, this contemporary interpretation is generally agreed to have value for deductive reasoning.

‡ The other considerations raised here apply to the Gardner Island / Nikumaroro scenario as well, including: additional fuel (and time) needed to travel there; tone of voice in Earhart’s final messages, and lack of indication of any change in plans; and less simplicity in this scenario overall.

In addition, the forensic team accompanying Ballard found nothing that could be tied to Earhart, either on the island itself, or in an archive that included other potential evidence from the region.

And according to the New York Times:

Each time a new [underwater] search tactic yielded nothing, Dr. Ballard said, he felt he was adding “nail after nail after nail” to the coffin of the Nikumaroro hypothesis.

Other images:
Either public domain, or © their respective owners.
Inclusion is intended as fair use under 17 U.S. Code § 107.