In 1940, the British received a strange telegram from an English settler on the previously uninhabited island of Nikumaroro. The telegram said that some human bones had been found on the island… bones that may have belonged to Amelia Earhart.
Researchers were puzzled by the bones. If Earhart had died, the islanders should have found her whole skeleton, not just a few bones. It was only later that they thought of a horrifying possibility. Earhart’s body could have been torn apart by the gigantic Nikumaroro coconut crabs.
- Millions of these coconut crabs live on the island. And they are huge — they measure nearly one metre across. The crabs have also been known to climb trees and even drag dead animal parts to their burrows. With no other people on the island, they would be more than capable of surrounding a single human… and finishing her off.
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- Potential evidence of the plane crash was also found, such as a 1930s woman’s shoe and a glass shard that could be from the plane’s windscreen. Other objects, such as makeshift tools, suggested that the owner of the skeleton tried to survive on the island before dying. Did Earhart crash on the island and survive, only to be eaten by the crabs?
Unfortunately, we do not know for sure. The bones, which would have provided more information, were later lost. But it remains a possible, and terrifying, theory.
Sources: Britannica, History.com, National Geographic