Mr Gillespie said: “You can see the root ball. You can see the branches…It’s a tree. People see what they want to see.”
A 2019 expedition led by Robert Ballard, who discovered the Titanic, found nothing near the atoll. In 2024, a sonar image resembling an aircraft on the ocean floor near Howland Island turned out to be a rock formation.
The wreck of the SS Norwich City, a British merchant vessel that ran aground on Nikumaroro during a storm in 1929, killing 11 crew members, may offer an intriguing link to the case.
Shortly after Earhart vanished, a 15-year-old in Florida reported hearing her voice repeating “New York City” over a shortwave radio.
Supporters of the castaway theory suggest this could have been a garbled reference to the Norwich City.
Steve Schultz, Purdue’s general counsel and an expedition member, said no artefacts would be removed on this trip; extracting any wreckage would require Kiribati government approval.
Mr Pettigrew said the team recognised worldwide interest and would publish findings “as soon as we are able.”
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