Amelia Earhart was an American aviation pioneer and writer who set many records and was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. On June 1, 1937, Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, set out from Oakland, California, on their eastbound transcontinental flight on a twin-engine Lockheed Electra plane. They were attempting to fly around the world when they disappeared on July 2, 1937, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean on their way to Howland Island from Lae, New Guinea. Earhart was officially declared dead on January 5, 1939. The U.S. government concluded that Earhart and Noonan had run out of fuel and crashed into the vast ocean. However, given the mystery surrounding this event, several theories have emerged that are still being debated to this day. Some of these theories include:

• Earhart was a secret agent for the U.S. government and was taken prisoner by the Japanese for trying to spy on Japanese-occupied islands.
• Earhart and Noonan reached an uninhabited island, Nikumaroro, where artifacts such as tools and aircraft wreckage have been discovered.
• Earhart was eaten by coconut crabs after she and Noonan landed near Nikumaroro.
• Earhart was on a spy mission for President Roosevelt, interned in Japan during the war, and traded back to the U.S. in 1945, where she has lived under an alias ever since.

Despite extensive searches and investigations, no theory has ultimately been proven true, and Earhart’s disappearance remains one of the most popular mysteries of American history.