President Trump recently promised to declassify all government records related to record-setting pilot Amelia Earhart. That after a delegate from the the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean told Trump that elderly residents had shared “credible, firsthand accounts” of seeing Earhart there. The official U.S. government position is that Earhart’s plane crashed into the Pacific after running out of fuel in 1937. Now after nearly nine decades is aviation’s greatest mystery about to be solved with an expedition soon to be launched from Purdue University? Mikenzie Frost reports.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

Steve Schultz: This is the famous Hanger One at Purdue University Airport.

Purdue University in Indiana has a special link with Amelia Earhart. In the 1930s, the aviator taught here; the college also supported her final expedition.

In February of this year, leaders got startling news from a team of international researchers who’ve spent years looking for Earhart’s missing Lockheed Electra twin engine plane.

Steve Schultz: The subject line of the email was The Electra. We may have found it.

Steve Schultz is Purdue’s Senior Vice President

Steve Schultz: So the evidence is overwhelming that the Castaway hypothesis is supportable.

When Amelia Earhart took off to circumnavigate the globe at the equator, she had already shattered glass ceilings and set records. the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. The first woman to fly nonstop across the United States.

But in 1937, when she and navigator Fred Noonan didn’t make it to Howland Island for a refueling stop while crossing The Pacific – it shocked the world.

An exhaustive search turned up nothing.

for decades – speculation swirled.

Then in 2020 – what’s known as the Taraia object was noticed on satellite images for the first time in a lagoon on the small south pacific island of Nikumaroro.

Steve Schultz: Since then, Archeological Legacy Institute has gone back and found other images dating to 2015 when this object in the lagoon of the island first became visible. That happens to coincide with tropical cyclone Pam, one of the worst tropical storms in the South Pacific in many decades. So the theory is that the sediment was washed off the plane.

It’s not the first time evidence has been found on this island, in fact, there’s been a lot found there.

Steve Schultz: A woman’s compact case, a freckle cream jar, parts of a shoe that were of the very type that Amelia Earhart wore.

And even human bones that are a near complete match for Earhart have been found. Just never the big piece of the puzzle — the aircraft itself.

So, this November, Schultz will be part of a team visiting Nikumaroro to determine if the taraia object is Amelia Earhart’s plane.

Mikenzie: There’s a lot of evidence that she survived the crash based on the intercepted radio messages that people claim that they have heard from her. If you find the wreckage on this expedition, do you believe that that would prove that theory that she did in fact survive?

Steve Schultz: I do. I think finding the Electra confirming that the Taraia object is the Electra is the smoking gun that has always alluded those working on the so-called castaway hypothesis. . Sometimes science requires you to confirm a truth, to prove it out and follow the hypothesis in that way. What we can’t do is not go, because then the world will always wonder what is it in that lagoon that we can see in the satellite imagery?

also captivated by the mystery, president trump, now promising to release everything the government knows about earhart’s disappearance.

Mikenzie: Do you have any idea what the world will see when that happens? What’s in the Amelia Erhart files?

Steve Schultz: I speak for the experts who have spoken publicly on this, // They’ve studied the Niro hypothesis for years, and they’re not aware of any records that remain classified. So on the other hand, those without a top secret clearance wouldn’t necessarily have knowledge of any such records.

ONE THEORY THAT’S LONG BEEN SPECULATED ABOUT, WAS SHE INVOLVED IN INTELLIGENCE GATHERING ON THE JAPANESE AHEAD OF WW2.

Mikenzie: Do you think that what the President said about declassifying these files kind of adds to the mystery and the intrigue surrounding this?

Steve Schultz: The world has always been fascinated by her and by the circumstances of her disappearance. And that’s absolutely right.

BEYOND HER MYSTERIOUS FATE, EARHART’S LARGER THAN LIFE PRESENCE FELT CLEARLY HERE AT PURDUE.

MADELINE ECKBERG IS A SENIOR STUDYING AVIATION MANAGEMENT.

Madeline Eckberg: she encouraged so many women to go out and do great things just like she had done

She’s also the local chapter chair of the “99s” — an association of women working in aviation. Amelia Earhart was the group’s first president.

Mikenzie: How do you feel about this expedition and this search that is potentially history making?

Madeline Eckberg: I’ve heard so many theories over the years. It’s fantastic that we might finally get some more information and evidence about what happened to her and maybe just encourage more women with all of the talk about this expedition.

The nearly Century long mystery of Earhart’s disappearance isn’t the only thing that has enduredSo has her legacy of inspiring women.

Madeline Eckberg: Amelia Earhart did all of these amazing and wonderful things, but she didn’t quite reach her goal. And maybe I can reach mine.

Watch video here.