Bones found in 1940 on Nikumaroro Island — a western Pacific island near Earhart’s projected flight path — were initially thought to belong to the pilot, as they were found alongside a number of possessions that could have belonged to her, including a shoe; a box designed to hold a navigation device similar to the one used by Earhart’s navigator Fred Noonan; and a Benedictine bottle, which she was known to carry with her.

A new forensic analysis suggests that bones found on the Pacific island of Nikumaroro in 1940—and subsequently lost—could very well have been those of Amelia Earhart.

A new scientific study claims that bones found in 1940 on the Pacific Island of Nikumaroro belong to Earhart, despite a forensic analysis of the remains conducted in 1941 that linked the bones to a male. The bones, revisited in the study “Amelia Earhart and the Nikumaroro Bones” by University of Tennessee professor Richard Jantz, were discarded.