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Amelia Earhart is on one of the final legs of her historic flight around the world when

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something goes terribly wrong.

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She is never seen again.

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Today more than 75 years after her disappearance, new leads send me across the world in search

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of answers.

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If you want to get more information, head down to Roball.

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Get to Roball.

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Yeah.

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First plate.

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Holy s***.

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We heard that your tribe has found wreckage in the jungles.

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Look at this, Rob, come here.

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September 1940, this is a man named Gerald Gallagher found a partial skeleton.

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This might be Amelia Earhart.

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Did they go through the underside of this house with a fine tooth comb?

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No.

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No further investigation.

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We've heard reports of some aircraft wreckage.

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They think it may be Earhart's plane.

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And the only way to know is to go out and see what we can find.

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Oh, Rod, I got a plane.

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Rod, I got a plane for sure.

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Come here.

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Look at that.

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That's a f***ing plane.

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It all leads to a series of amazing discoveries.

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It's an airplane engine?

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Yeah.

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Oh, definitely an airplane engine.

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Unbelievable.

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Definitely an airplane.

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Look at that.

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This does not look like coral to me.

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I got a bone down here.

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My name is Josh Gates with a degree in archaeology and a passion for exploration.

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I have a tendency to end up in some very strange situations.

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There has got to be a better way to make a living.

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My travels have taken me to the ends of the earth as I investigate the greatest legends

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in history.

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We're going to try.

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Let's go.

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This is Expedition Unknown.

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Every year, thousands of people go missing, never to be seen again.

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But there is one cold case that looms above all the rest, Amelia Earhart.

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Just the name evokes a sense of wonder.

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Her disappearance during her attempt to circumnavigate the globe in 1937 is perhaps the most iconic,

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unsolved mystery in the world.

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Now, with breakthroughs in technology and the discovery of new evidence, we may be close

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to solving the puzzle once and for all.

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1937.

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Amelia Earhart is arguably the most famous woman in America, a pioneer in the field of

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aviation and a living legend.

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On July 2, Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan are set to make history as they begin

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one of the last legs of their daring transworld flight.

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They take off from an airfield in Le Papua New Guinea, bound for remote Howland Island

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in the Pacific.

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Along the way, Earhart, her navigator and the famed Lockheed Electra vanish.

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In the last 75 years, there have been countless dead ends, false leads and wild conspiracy

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theories.

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But no answers.

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Well, all that may be about to change, because recent developments in two different parts

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of the world may finally crack the case.

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Theory 1.

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A team of experts recently identified a piece of aluminum debris on the Pacific Atoll of

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Nicar Mararo just south of Howland, which they believe may be a part of Earhart's

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Electra.

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Bones were also discovered on this same deserted island in 1940, only to be shipped to Fiji

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and lost.

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Could these be the bones of Amelia Earhart?

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A new search is currently underway in Fiji to locate the remains and identify them.

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Theory 2.

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Earhart circled back toward Papua New Guinea and crashed on or around the island nation

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she took off from.

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It's a long-standing hypothesis that's never been fully explored.

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But now, one local tribe claims to have found wreckage deep in the jungle, and there are

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new reports that there's also an underwater wreck just offshore.

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Either could be Amelia's plane.

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I have been fascinated with Amelia Earhart for my entire life, and I am eager to know

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if these new leads may bring us closer to the truth or whether the world is looking in

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the wrong place.

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The only way to find out is to join the search.

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There is new evidence that Amelia Earhart's plane may have crashed in the nation she last

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took off from, so I'm here to investigate.

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Wheels down Papua New Guinea, or PNG as the locals call it.

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Inside the terminal, the local baggage claim is less of a belt and more of a deli counter.

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Order up!

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This is an interesting system, but it works.

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I got my umbrella made in.

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Oh, sorry.

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One of the odds.

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Two guys with the same umbrella.

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Mine must still be coming.

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While I wait, it's clear that some of my other equipment may not have made it here either.

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I'm missing 799 and 872.

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This is not warm in here.

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That would really make this frustrating.

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Perhaps the customer service reps know where my bag is.

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Looking good.

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Perhaps not.

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Eventually, I'm resigned to never seeing my extra underwear, sensible evening shoes,

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and whatever else was in K799.

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Well, time to hit the streets.

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There are international capitals in the world with worse reputations, but not many.

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This is Port Moresby, capital of Papua New Guinea, also the largest city in the South

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Pacific.

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That's kind of a rough reputation.

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It can be a little dangerous, a little gritty, but if you can look past its imperfections,

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it's actually a pretty cool spot.

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I like to think of Port Moresby as the most isly spaceport from Star Wars.

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On one hand, the Cantina Bar has a good happy hour.

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On the other hand, Han Solo might shoot you in the face.

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In other words, it pays to watch your back, which is exactly what these guys are here

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to do.

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Hey, Josh.

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How are you, Dean?

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I am.

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Nice to meet you.

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Good to meet you.

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Yeah, good to meet you.

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Hey, Jack.

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Hey, Jack, how are you?

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Nice to meet you.

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How do you think of yourself?

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I'm good.

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Looking safe and secure?

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The second B&G can be.

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Yeah, how safe is that?

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This is our insurance policy case.

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Something goes wrong.

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In case it's not safe.

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Great.

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Perfect.

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So why the muscle?

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Well, with rampant political corruption and gang-controlled neighborhoods, the capital

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can get a little interesting.

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But I like interesting, and Port Moresby is the gateway to one of the wildest nations

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on Earth.

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It's made up of a thousand different ethnic tribes speaking more than 800 languages.

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Even the National Parliament House is diverse.

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A modern government building fused with an ancient tribal spirit house.

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The people here, generally speaking, are fiercely independent.

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Locals are more apt to identify with their clan than with their fellow countrymen.

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Case in point, the Asaro Mudmen.

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Legend has it that this tribe was once on the cusp of defeat in battle and retreated

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into the nearby river.

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When they emerged, caked in dried, white mud, their enemies believed they were evil spirits

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and fled in terror.

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I can't say I blame them.

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Hi.

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Not very talkative.

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It's heavy.

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Those are real teeth?

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I'm not going to ask where those came from.

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Today, thousands of years later, they still pay homage to that legendary battle.

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And the tradition continues with me.

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It's okay?

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Yeah?

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Yeah.

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What do you think?

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Ha ha ha.

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What do you think?

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I think I'm an honorary mud man now.

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This fast-melting pot of Papua New Guinea played center stage as one of the last stops

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on Earhart's round-the-world flight.

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But I'm not just here for nostalgia purposes.

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There are those who believe that Earhart didn't just take off from PNG,

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but that she may have circled back here.

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Newly discovered wreckage in the jungles and in the ocean are waiting to be examined.

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So from the capital, I'm boarding a flight to investigate the last documented sighting

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of Earhart's Electrum.

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It's a 45-minute trip from Port Moresby to Leigh,

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where Earhart began one of the final legs of her fateful journey.

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Leigh is a bustling industrial port that links the coastal waters of PNG

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to the wild highlands of the interior.

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I'm here to meet with a local tribe who has information on a recently found wreck.

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But first, I have an important stop to make.

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In the middle of town, this narrow field of grass is today an empty lot,

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a place to stack shipping containers.

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Its true significance has been overgrown by the dense wilderness of history.

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Doesn't look like much today, but this is the old Leigh airfield.

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This is the very last place that anybody saw Amelia Earhart alive.

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On May 21, 1937, Amelia Earhart departs Oakland, California

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in an audacious attempt to be the first woman in history to circumnavigate the globe.

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Over 21 days and 25,000 miles, Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan

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make stops along the top of South America, before crossing Central Africa,

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the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia.

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Finally, she lands in Papua New Guinea.

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It was here, on July 2, 1937, in this very spot,

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that a fuel-heavy Lockheed Electroplane gained momentum

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and took off into the blue for the very last time.

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Whole world was watching, and that shiny Lockheed Electro would have come right down here,

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taken off right over the Pacific, never to be seen again.

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I don't know, for me, as someone who loves Earhart,

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who really has been obsessed with her for a long time,

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to be here in this spot is kind of, I don't know, emotional.

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It's kind of a powerful place.

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With only 7,000 miles left to go,

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it's easy to imagine the excitement she must have felt at being in the home stretch,

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but she still had to face her most difficult challenge,

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crossing the immense Pacific Ocean.

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Amelia's next stop is Howland Island, about 2,500 miles and 18 long hours away.

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Howland is merely a speck in the vast South Pacific Ocean,

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but the plane must land and refuel for the final onward flights to Honolulu and Oakland.

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Earhart transmits one of her last radio messages

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to the United States Coast Guard ship, Etasca,

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which is stationed offshore to help guide her to the island.

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We must be on you, but cannot see you.

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Have been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet.

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The Etasca receives the transmission,

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but Amelia apparently can't hear the Coast Guard's response.

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Her radio is likely damaged.

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Soon after, Earhart, her navigator Fred Noonan, and the Electra disappear.

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The only evidence here in lay of that historic flight is this.

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A weathered, and by the looks of it,

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mostly forgotten memorial to a woman

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whose daring adventure still soars in our imaginations.

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Having made the pilgrimage here, I feel even more inspired to search for answers.

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To find them, I've arranged a meeting with a tribal chief

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to discuss the news reports of a recently found wreck in the jungles to the north.

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At the end of a long dirt road, I'm walked to a makeshift wall

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of what looks like jungle fronds.

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Coming up.

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13-year-old boy, you find human bones under your house?

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It freaked me out.

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It never ever came back into my life,

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until I read this thing about Amelia Earhart.

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Was the rest of that crawl space under the house thoroughly explored?

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No, not at all.

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Really?

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I got a bone down here.

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My goodness.

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There's more down here.

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There's more down here.

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It's everywhere I look.

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I mean, I'm putting the skeleton together down here.

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I'm in Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific,

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following new leads in the search for Amelia Earhart.

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I've come to a local village to meet with a chief,

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who has information about a wreck that's recently been found in the jungles.

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He leads me to what appears to be a wall of palm fronds.

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This is the craziest welcome I've ever seen.

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I mean, I assume it's a welcome.

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I could be murdered in the next 10 minutes.

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I don't know.

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This is not a tourist attraction.

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This is not a theme park.

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This is the real deal.

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It's called a sing-sing,

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a ritual in which villages come together through song and dance.

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Reasonably certain that I'm not going to end up as a human pincushion,

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I relax and enjoy the welcome.

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Like many other trods in Papua New Guinea,

253
00:14:03,060 --> 00:14:06,060
its people are caught between the past and the present.

254
00:14:06,060 --> 00:14:09,060
It seems only fitting that I meet them halfway.

255
00:14:12,060 --> 00:14:14,060
Good look for me, right?

256
00:14:26,060 --> 00:14:28,060
Thank you, goodnight!

257
00:14:28,060 --> 00:14:30,060
Thank you, Leigh!

258
00:14:30,060 --> 00:14:32,060
We'll be here all week!

259
00:14:33,060 --> 00:14:35,060
Okay, I may not be Ringo Starr,

260
00:14:35,060 --> 00:14:37,060
but my drumming is good enough that my crew and I

261
00:14:37,060 --> 00:14:40,060
have been invited to don the tribe's colors and join the clan.

262
00:14:40,060 --> 00:14:42,060
It's a genuine honor,

263
00:14:42,060 --> 00:14:44,060
though something tells me that they use more than food coloring

264
00:14:44,060 --> 00:14:46,060
in these strong smelling paint.

265
00:14:46,060 --> 00:14:47,060
Saliva?

266
00:14:47,060 --> 00:14:49,060
Is this Saliva?

267
00:14:49,060 --> 00:14:50,060
Yeah!

268
00:14:50,060 --> 00:14:51,060
Great!

269
00:14:54,060 --> 00:14:56,060
What do these markings mean?

270
00:14:58,060 --> 00:14:59,060
Brave warrior.

271
00:14:59,060 --> 00:15:00,060
Yeah.

272
00:15:00,060 --> 00:15:01,060
Yeah, right.

273
00:15:01,060 --> 00:15:03,060
Village idiot, probably.

274
00:15:03,060 --> 00:15:04,060
That's all.

275
00:15:04,060 --> 00:15:05,060
Is that it?

276
00:15:05,060 --> 00:15:06,060
Yeah.

277
00:15:06,060 --> 00:15:07,060
Okay, how do I look?

278
00:15:09,060 --> 00:15:11,060
I am joining the tribe.

279
00:15:14,060 --> 00:15:16,060
Once the sing-sing lines down,

280
00:15:16,060 --> 00:15:19,060
I'm granted an audience with the village elder named Iru,

281
00:15:19,060 --> 00:15:21,060
while my security guard serves as translator.

282
00:15:22,060 --> 00:15:24,060
So how many people live here in the village?

283
00:15:24,060 --> 00:15:26,060
We live in more than 2500.

284
00:15:26,060 --> 00:15:28,060
More than 2500?

285
00:15:28,060 --> 00:15:30,060
More than 2500, wow.

286
00:15:30,060 --> 00:15:32,060
Because it's a very big village.

287
00:15:32,060 --> 00:15:34,060
Yeah, I'm not the first Westerner to come here.

288
00:15:34,060 --> 00:15:36,060
These are the direct descendants of the tribes

289
00:15:36,060 --> 00:15:38,060
that Earhart met in 1937.

290
00:15:38,060 --> 00:15:40,060
Through oral tradition,

291
00:15:40,060 --> 00:15:43,060
they have preserved the memory of her time in PNG.

292
00:15:43,060 --> 00:15:46,060
So listen, you know, we're very interested in Amelia Earhart,

293
00:15:46,060 --> 00:15:48,060
and I've been told that you have some knowledge,

294
00:15:48,060 --> 00:15:49,060
some stories about her.

295
00:15:49,060 --> 00:15:50,060
What can you tell me?

296
00:15:53,060 --> 00:15:54,060
According to our elders,

297
00:15:54,060 --> 00:15:57,060
when she landed here, it was very exciting for our village,

298
00:15:57,060 --> 00:15:59,060
and for Papua New Guinea.

299
00:15:59,060 --> 00:16:02,060
At that time, airplanes were very uncommon.

300
00:16:02,060 --> 00:16:04,060
Most people had never seen a plane.

301
00:16:04,060 --> 00:16:06,060
Some had never seen a white woman.

302
00:16:06,060 --> 00:16:09,060
It was a big event when she took off.

303
00:16:09,060 --> 00:16:12,060
But other tribes say that she circled back here,

304
00:16:12,060 --> 00:16:15,060
that the plane crashed not far from their village.

305
00:16:16,060 --> 00:16:19,060
Those tribes weren't the only ones who thought she crashed in PNG.

306
00:16:19,060 --> 00:16:24,060
In 1945, an Australian corporal was on patrol in the same jungles,

307
00:16:24,060 --> 00:16:27,060
and stumbled on something that has baffled experts.

308
00:16:27,060 --> 00:16:30,060
A rusted and badly damaged airplane engine.

309
00:16:31,060 --> 00:16:33,060
Though he didn't know his exact position,

310
00:16:33,060 --> 00:16:37,060
he did jot down a partial serial number on a weathered map.

311
00:16:37,060 --> 00:16:41,060
Intriguingly, S3H1 is the same model series as the Electra,

312
00:16:41,060 --> 00:16:45,060
and 1055 matches the construction number of her plane.

313
00:16:45,060 --> 00:16:48,060
And has anybody since then been able to find the wreck?

314
00:16:48,060 --> 00:16:53,060
Just a few weeks ago, we heard from the village

315
00:16:53,060 --> 00:16:56,060
that the banning tribe in Raabao found the wreckage.

316
00:16:56,060 --> 00:16:58,060
They think it might be a plane.

317
00:16:58,060 --> 00:17:00,060
Her plane.

318
00:17:00,060 --> 00:17:03,060
Due to the largely impenetrable jungles,

319
00:17:03,060 --> 00:17:06,060
the plane spotted in 1945 has never been relocated.

320
00:17:06,060 --> 00:17:10,060
But now, it sounds like this remote tribe may have finally stumbled

321
00:17:10,060 --> 00:17:12,060
across the mysterious wreck.

322
00:17:12,060 --> 00:17:15,060
So why wasn't anyone searching here earlier?

323
00:17:16,060 --> 00:17:18,060
Within hours of Earhart's disappearance,

324
00:17:18,060 --> 00:17:22,060
the U.S. launched one of the most extensive manhunts in history.

325
00:17:22,060 --> 00:17:24,060
But based on fuel calculations,

326
00:17:24,060 --> 00:17:27,060
only searched a four-hour flight radius from Howland,

327
00:17:27,060 --> 00:17:30,060
which included the nearby Gilbert and Phoenix Islands.

328
00:17:30,060 --> 00:17:33,060
But some experts believe those calculations are wrong.

329
00:17:34,060 --> 00:17:36,060
To keep the plane as light as possible,

330
00:17:36,060 --> 00:17:39,060
Earhart left key navigational instruments behind.

331
00:17:39,060 --> 00:17:42,060
Though she should have had only four hours of fuel remaining

332
00:17:42,060 --> 00:17:44,060
when she reached Howland, if she was off course,

333
00:17:44,060 --> 00:17:46,060
and if she flew conservatively,

334
00:17:46,060 --> 00:17:50,060
researchers have argued that the Electra could have limped back to PNG,

335
00:17:50,060 --> 00:17:52,060
only to crash before landing.

336
00:17:53,060 --> 00:17:55,060
It says that if you want to get more information,

337
00:17:55,060 --> 00:17:59,060
head down to Rabaul and then check the people up in the tribes out there

338
00:17:59,060 --> 00:18:00,060
and go for the search.

339
00:18:00,060 --> 00:18:01,060
Get to Rabaul?

340
00:18:01,060 --> 00:18:02,060
Yep.

341
00:18:02,060 --> 00:18:03,060
Okay.

342
00:18:03,060 --> 00:18:05,060
And the tribe in Rabaul?

343
00:18:05,060 --> 00:18:06,060
They're friendly?

344
00:18:06,060 --> 00:18:08,060
They can be aggressive, but you'll be okay.

345
00:18:08,060 --> 00:18:09,060
I'll be okay?

346
00:18:09,060 --> 00:18:10,060
You'll be okay.

347
00:18:10,060 --> 00:18:11,060
Thank you very much.

348
00:18:11,060 --> 00:18:13,060
Your village is incredible.

349
00:18:13,060 --> 00:18:14,060
Ah!

350
00:18:14,060 --> 00:18:15,060
Whoa!

351
00:18:15,060 --> 00:18:16,060
Whoa.

352
00:18:16,060 --> 00:18:17,060
Earthquake.

353
00:18:17,060 --> 00:18:18,060
Whoa.

354
00:18:18,060 --> 00:18:19,060
Whoa.

355
00:18:19,060 --> 00:18:20,060
Whoa.

356
00:18:20,060 --> 00:18:21,060
Whoa.

357
00:18:21,060 --> 00:18:22,060
Whoa.

358
00:18:22,060 --> 00:18:23,060
Whoa.

359
00:18:23,060 --> 00:18:24,060
Oh, f***.

360
00:18:29,060 --> 00:18:33,060
I'm in Papua New Guinea investigating the theory that famed pilot Amelia Earhart

361
00:18:33,060 --> 00:18:35,060
could have crash landed here.

362
00:18:35,060 --> 00:18:38,060
One of the villagers has new information that a fellow tribe to the north

363
00:18:38,060 --> 00:18:42,060
has found a wreck in the jungle that could be her missing aircraft.

364
00:18:42,060 --> 00:18:44,060
He says that if you want to get more information,

365
00:18:44,060 --> 00:18:48,060
head down to Rabaul and then check the people up in the tribes out there

366
00:18:48,060 --> 00:18:49,060
and go for the search.

367
00:18:49,060 --> 00:18:50,060
Get to Rabaul.

368
00:18:50,060 --> 00:18:51,060
Yep.

369
00:18:51,060 --> 00:18:52,060
Oh!

370
00:18:52,060 --> 00:18:53,060
Oh!

371
00:18:53,060 --> 00:18:54,060
Earthquake.

372
00:18:54,060 --> 00:18:55,060
Whoa.

373
00:18:55,060 --> 00:18:56,060
Okay, that's it.

374
00:18:56,060 --> 00:18:57,060
Whoa.

375
00:18:57,060 --> 00:18:58,060
Watch out.

376
00:18:58,060 --> 00:18:59,060
Whoa.

377
00:18:59,060 --> 00:19:00,060
Whoa.

378
00:19:00,060 --> 00:19:01,060
Oh, f***.

379
00:19:01,060 --> 00:19:02,060
Oh.

380
00:19:02,060 --> 00:19:03,060
Oh.

381
00:19:03,060 --> 00:19:04,060
Oh.

382
00:19:04,060 --> 00:19:05,060
Oh, f***.

383
00:19:11,060 --> 00:19:13,060
That was insane.

384
00:19:13,060 --> 00:19:14,060
It happens a lot.

385
00:19:14,060 --> 00:19:15,060
It happens a lot here.

386
00:19:15,060 --> 00:19:16,060
It happens a lot here.

387
00:19:16,060 --> 00:19:17,060
Yeah, yeah.

388
00:19:18,060 --> 00:19:20,060
I mean, that was like, the whole plan.

389
00:19:20,060 --> 00:19:22,060
Yeah, it just went like this.

390
00:19:24,060 --> 00:19:26,060
Massive earthquake during an interview?

391
00:19:26,060 --> 00:19:27,060
Check.

392
00:19:27,060 --> 00:19:30,060
I made it through unscathed and so did the rest of the village.

393
00:19:30,060 --> 00:19:32,060
Even the pigs.

394
00:19:32,060 --> 00:19:35,060
Life goes on and so does my search for Earhart.

395
00:19:40,060 --> 00:19:43,060
With a substantial lead in the jungles to the northeast,

396
00:19:43,060 --> 00:19:45,060
I'm carrying on with my investigation.

397
00:19:46,060 --> 00:19:50,060
From Lay, I'm traveling about 400 miles to the island of New Britain

398
00:19:50,060 --> 00:19:53,060
and touching down in the former capital of Rabaul.

399
00:19:54,060 --> 00:19:58,060
The island, like much of PNG, looks to be a paradise on Earth.

400
00:19:58,060 --> 00:19:59,060
And it is.

401
00:19:59,060 --> 00:20:01,060
But it also has a dark history.

402
00:20:01,060 --> 00:20:03,060
Just beneath the jungle canopy,

403
00:20:03,060 --> 00:20:07,060
long, silenced anti-aircraft guns still point to the skies.

404
00:20:07,060 --> 00:20:10,060
A reminder that this paradise was once a war zone.

405
00:20:10,060 --> 00:20:14,060
PNG's strategic location just north of Australia

406
00:20:14,060 --> 00:20:17,060
is the prime real estate for the Japanese during World War II.

407
00:20:17,060 --> 00:20:20,060
If you look closely along the side of the road,

408
00:20:20,060 --> 00:20:24,060
you can still catch sight of foreboding tunnels that bore into the mountains.

409
00:20:24,060 --> 00:20:26,060
Inside is another world.

410
00:20:27,060 --> 00:20:30,060
This is actually the remains of an underground Japanese hospital.

411
00:20:30,060 --> 00:20:34,060
All told, there are more than 500 miles of tunnels underneath Rabaul.

412
00:20:34,060 --> 00:20:38,060
And a lot of them are filled with bats and creepy crawlies.

413
00:20:38,060 --> 00:20:40,060
After capturing Rabaul in 1942,

414
00:20:40,060 --> 00:20:43,060
the Japanese Empire immediately set their army to work,

415
00:20:43,060 --> 00:20:46,060
digging miles and miles of serpentine tunnels

416
00:20:46,060 --> 00:20:49,060
to shelter their forces from Allied attacks.

417
00:20:49,060 --> 00:20:54,060
By 1943, Rabaul was home to over 100,000 Japanese troops.

418
00:20:55,060 --> 00:20:57,060
Ghosts of the past are everywhere.

419
00:20:59,060 --> 00:21:02,060
Tanks, weapons, bombs.

420
00:21:02,060 --> 00:21:05,060
One tunnel even contains the decomposing remains

421
00:21:05,060 --> 00:21:08,060
of massive Japanese landing barges.

422
00:21:08,060 --> 00:21:11,060
I have to wonder, with all these abandoned relics of war,

423
00:21:11,060 --> 00:21:14,060
there must have been hundreds of downed planes here,

424
00:21:14,060 --> 00:21:17,060
which makes the hunt for Earhart's Electra a nightmare.

425
00:21:19,060 --> 00:21:23,060
Nearby, I descend into one of the most historic bunkers in the world.

426
00:21:25,060 --> 00:21:28,060
This fortification was the base of operations for the commander-in-chief

427
00:21:28,060 --> 00:21:30,060
of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

428
00:21:30,060 --> 00:21:34,060
This is Admiral Yamamoto's bunker from World War II.

429
00:21:34,060 --> 00:21:37,060
He's the guy who orchestrated the attack of Pearl Harbor at Midway.

430
00:21:37,060 --> 00:21:41,060
And this was the Japanese base of naval operations in World War II.

431
00:21:41,060 --> 00:21:44,060
You can still see writing on the walls.

432
00:21:44,060 --> 00:21:47,060
It's all perfectly preserved under all this concrete,

433
00:21:47,060 --> 00:21:50,060
absolutely astounding piece of World War II history.

434
00:21:50,060 --> 00:21:52,060
From this austere war room,

435
00:21:52,060 --> 00:21:56,060
Admiral Yamamoto's forces coordinated the Theater of War in the Pacific

436
00:21:56,060 --> 00:22:00,060
until his plane was shot down leaving Rabaul in 1943.

437
00:22:01,060 --> 00:22:04,060
Back above ground, I make my way to a nearby market

438
00:22:04,060 --> 00:22:08,060
to meet with a World War II aviation expert and PNG historian

439
00:22:08,060 --> 00:22:12,060
who can shed more light on the rumors of a wreck in the jungles of Rabaul.

440
00:22:17,060 --> 00:22:19,060
While I wait for him to arrive,

441
00:22:19,060 --> 00:22:22,060
I have time to sample PNG's favorite addiction.

442
00:22:22,060 --> 00:22:25,060
You may notice that nearly everyone here has a red-stained mouth.

443
00:22:25,060 --> 00:22:27,060
That's because of this.

444
00:22:27,060 --> 00:22:31,060
Buai is a seemingly random recipe of beetle nut, mustard stick, and lime.

445
00:22:31,060 --> 00:22:33,060
Show me how I do this.

446
00:22:34,060 --> 00:22:36,060
I use my teeth to open it?

447
00:22:36,060 --> 00:22:39,060
Already doesn't seem like a good idea.

448
00:22:39,060 --> 00:22:41,060
Not good for your teeth.

449
00:22:41,060 --> 00:22:42,060
Okay.

450
00:22:42,060 --> 00:22:44,060
Oh, I want the middle piece. I see.

451
00:22:44,060 --> 00:22:46,060
Soft piece. Boom. The whole thing.

452
00:22:46,060 --> 00:22:47,060
Okay.

453
00:22:47,060 --> 00:22:49,060
Oh, it's bitter.

454
00:22:49,060 --> 00:22:50,060
Now what?

455
00:22:50,060 --> 00:22:51,060
Small one.

456
00:22:51,060 --> 00:22:52,060
And the lime.

457
00:22:54,060 --> 00:22:56,060
The ingredients are combined and chewed,

458
00:22:56,060 --> 00:22:59,060
producing torrential amounts of bright red saliva,

459
00:22:59,060 --> 00:23:02,060
which Papuaen spit on just about every surface in sight.

460
00:23:02,060 --> 00:23:03,060
Maybe one more?

461
00:23:03,060 --> 00:23:04,060
No, that's enough.

462
00:23:04,060 --> 00:23:08,060
Believe it or not, this is the fourth most consumed drug in the world

463
00:23:08,060 --> 00:23:10,060
after nicotine, booze, and coffee.

464
00:23:10,060 --> 00:23:14,060
It is definitely not recommended by the American Dental Association,

465
00:23:14,060 --> 00:23:18,060
and for the uninitiated, the chemical combination can be a little intense.

466
00:23:20,060 --> 00:23:22,060
Starting to feel a little dizzy.

467
00:23:24,060 --> 00:23:25,060
It's good.

468
00:23:25,060 --> 00:23:26,060
What does it do?

469
00:23:26,060 --> 00:23:29,060
When you feel sleepy, you take this one, your eyes open.

470
00:23:29,060 --> 00:23:30,060
Your eyes open.

471
00:23:30,060 --> 00:23:32,060
I don't know about that. My eyes are about to close.

472
00:23:34,060 --> 00:23:35,060
Whoo!

473
00:23:36,060 --> 00:23:37,060
Whoo!

474
00:23:37,060 --> 00:23:39,060
Where all these people come from?

475
00:23:41,060 --> 00:23:42,060
Good day.

476
00:23:43,060 --> 00:23:47,060
Okay, I'm just gonna lay here for a while until the world stops spinning.

477
00:23:51,060 --> 00:23:53,060
Moments later, I'm back on my feet.

478
00:23:53,060 --> 00:23:54,060
Sort of.

479
00:23:54,060 --> 00:23:57,060
Apologies, just give me a moment here. It wears off fast.

480
00:23:57,060 --> 00:23:59,060
I'm good, let's go.

481
00:24:00,060 --> 00:24:04,060
Finally feeling less dizzy, I'm ready to meet up with historian Rob Rowenson.

482
00:24:04,060 --> 00:24:08,060
As an aircraft expert with the organization Pacific Rex,

483
00:24:08,060 --> 00:24:11,060
Rob lives here and speaks Papua dialects,

484
00:24:11,060 --> 00:24:14,060
making him a critical intermediary between outside investigators

485
00:24:14,060 --> 00:24:18,060
and the remote tribe that claims to have found a downed plane in the jungle.

486
00:24:19,060 --> 00:24:22,060
We've had someone report say there was an engine there,

487
00:24:22,060 --> 00:24:24,060
and some parts of an airplane.

488
00:24:24,060 --> 00:24:27,060
Of course you get these reports and then you have to go there yourself

489
00:24:27,060 --> 00:24:29,060
and try and determine what sort of airplane it was.

490
00:24:29,060 --> 00:24:31,060
Yeah, what's the road like out to this village?

491
00:24:31,060 --> 00:24:34,060
It's rough. You need vehicles that can handle those sort of conditions.

492
00:24:34,060 --> 00:24:37,060
I do know of a vehicle that might help you out.

493
00:24:37,060 --> 00:24:38,060
Okay.

494
00:24:55,060 --> 00:24:58,060
Once airborne, we loft up over the island of New Britain

495
00:24:58,060 --> 00:25:00,060
and head toward the unknown.

496
00:25:00,060 --> 00:25:05,060
The helicopter will fly us 40 miles inland to the remote village of Vunalama.

497
00:25:05,060 --> 00:25:09,060
Below us are some of the wildest and least explored jungles on Earth.

498
00:25:09,060 --> 00:25:14,060
Papua New Guinea is often referred to as the lost world, and for good reason.

499
00:25:14,060 --> 00:25:17,060
More new species are discovered here than anywhere else on Earth,

500
00:25:17,060 --> 00:25:19,060
an average of two a week.

501
00:25:20,060 --> 00:25:25,060
The tribes that live in these jungles exist off the grid and far from the reach of modern laws.

502
00:25:25,060 --> 00:25:28,060
There are still isolated reports of murder, cannibalism,

503
00:25:28,060 --> 00:25:32,060
and sacrifice associated with sorcery and tribal beliefs.

504
00:25:33,060 --> 00:25:36,060
Rob, there's supposed to be a village in these coordinates, yes?

505
00:25:36,060 --> 00:25:39,060
We're in the survival zone too, but I'm on the street in the long run now.

506
00:25:39,060 --> 00:25:41,060
We'll find out when we get on the road.

507
00:25:41,060 --> 00:25:44,060
Rob's contacts have given us the rough location of the Baining Village

508
00:25:44,060 --> 00:25:48,060
that reported the wrecked plane, but all we're seeing is jungle.

509
00:25:48,060 --> 00:25:54,060
I'm genuinely concerned here, since landing in the wrong tribe's territory could be a fatal mistake.

510
00:25:54,060 --> 00:25:59,060
But with the weather worsening, we've got one shot at this, so we touch down in a nearby clearing.

511
00:25:59,060 --> 00:26:00,060
Good, we're down.

512
00:26:00,060 --> 00:26:05,060
My cameraman leaps out first to film the landing, and before I can unhook my harness,

513
00:26:05,060 --> 00:26:07,060
he realizes that we've got company.

514
00:26:11,060 --> 00:26:14,060
You need to go be a f***ing angry looking bro.

515
00:26:14,060 --> 00:26:15,060
They're here to meet us.

516
00:26:15,060 --> 00:26:17,060
Look over there on the other side.

517
00:26:19,060 --> 00:26:25,060
With my helicopter pilot not sticking around to see how this turns out, we're on our own.

518
00:26:25,060 --> 00:26:27,060
Wait, wait, wait, wait, hey!

519
00:26:34,060 --> 00:26:37,060
I've just been dropped into the jungles of Papua New Guinea,

520
00:26:37,060 --> 00:26:42,060
looking for a local tribe with information about a plane wreck that could be Amelia Earhart's.

521
00:26:42,060 --> 00:26:43,060
Good, we're down.

522
00:26:45,060 --> 00:26:47,060
You need to go be a f***ing angry looking bro.

523
00:26:49,060 --> 00:26:52,060
I'm not sure if this is a welcome crew or a war party,

524
00:26:52,060 --> 00:26:56,060
but at 6'3", I'm a pretty easy target for a well-aimed projectile.

525
00:26:56,060 --> 00:26:58,060
Wait, wait, wait, hey!

526
00:27:02,060 --> 00:27:03,060
How are you?

527
00:27:03,060 --> 00:27:04,060
Fine, alright.

528
00:27:04,060 --> 00:27:06,060
Nice to meet you, what's your name?

529
00:27:06,060 --> 00:27:07,060
Bill.

530
00:27:07,060 --> 00:27:08,060
Bill?

531
00:27:08,060 --> 00:27:09,060
Yes.

532
00:27:09,060 --> 00:27:10,060
You don't look like a Bill.

533
00:27:10,060 --> 00:27:11,060
Nice to meet you.

534
00:27:11,060 --> 00:27:12,060
Hello.

535
00:27:12,060 --> 00:27:13,060
Hello.

536
00:27:13,060 --> 00:27:14,060
What's your name?

537
00:27:14,060 --> 00:27:15,060
Clemens.

538
00:27:15,060 --> 00:27:16,060
Clemens, nice to meet you.

539
00:27:16,060 --> 00:27:17,060
How are you doing?

540
00:27:17,060 --> 00:27:18,060
How are you?

541
00:27:18,060 --> 00:27:19,060
I'm good.

542
00:27:19,060 --> 00:27:20,060
So, you're going to go to the rain?

543
00:27:20,060 --> 00:27:21,060
Yeah.

544
00:27:21,060 --> 00:27:22,060
Some place there with cover?

545
00:27:22,060 --> 00:27:23,060
You may go to a long place.

546
00:27:23,060 --> 00:27:24,060
You're not going to rain too much.

547
00:27:24,060 --> 00:27:25,060
Yeah, go.

548
00:27:25,060 --> 00:27:26,060
Yeah?

549
00:27:26,060 --> 00:27:27,060
Okay, great, let's go.

550
00:27:28,060 --> 00:27:32,060
It turns out that Bill and Clement are more likely to offer me tea than the pointy end of their spears.

551
00:27:32,060 --> 00:27:33,060
I don't know.

552
00:27:33,060 --> 00:27:35,060
That was a little touch and go there for a minute.

553
00:27:35,060 --> 00:27:37,060
You were worried I could have put a spear through.

554
00:27:37,060 --> 00:27:40,060
The show of force is just a ritual greeting of the Baining tribe,

555
00:27:40,060 --> 00:27:44,060
and the children from the village run out to have a good laugh at our expense.

556
00:27:44,060 --> 00:27:45,060
Evan, I found an umbrella for your camera.

557
00:27:45,060 --> 00:27:49,060
I mean, what kind of land of a lost leaf is this?

558
00:27:49,060 --> 00:27:50,060
Here you go.

559
00:27:50,060 --> 00:27:51,060
Stay dry.

560
00:27:53,060 --> 00:27:56,060
With the rain coming down, we need to get to the village as quickly as possible

561
00:27:56,060 --> 00:27:59,060
before the downpour destroys our camera equipment.

562
00:27:59,060 --> 00:28:02,060
Okay, me put it like, sit down and dry, go dry, alright?

563
00:28:03,060 --> 00:28:05,060
Did you catch Rob's translation?

564
00:28:05,060 --> 00:28:08,060
The Baining tribe, like many Papuans, speak Pidgin,

565
00:28:08,060 --> 00:28:10,060
that consists largely of English and German words,

566
00:28:10,060 --> 00:28:13,060
repurposed into a unique language.

567
00:28:13,060 --> 00:28:17,060
Though the vocabulary is familiar, it sounds like total gibberish.

568
00:28:17,060 --> 00:28:19,060
One-time camera now, kiss me with a lot of camera or...

569
00:28:19,060 --> 00:28:22,060
Number one timer.

570
00:28:22,060 --> 00:28:25,060
It's the first time I've ever had new people out here with cameras.

571
00:28:25,060 --> 00:28:27,060
Yeah, that's what I was asking.

572
00:28:27,060 --> 00:28:29,060
I'm thankful when we finally arrive at the village,

573
00:28:29,060 --> 00:28:32,060
and even more thankful that these jawbones aren't human.

574
00:28:32,060 --> 00:28:34,060
Okay, first order of business is just to get dry,

575
00:28:34,060 --> 00:28:36,060
to get the equipment dry, yeah?

576
00:28:36,060 --> 00:28:40,060
It looks like they are, like, in real time, making a shelter.

577
00:28:40,060 --> 00:28:41,060
Can I help? What can I do?

578
00:28:41,060 --> 00:28:43,060
These first?

579
00:28:43,060 --> 00:28:44,060
Up, up, up?

580
00:28:44,060 --> 00:28:46,060
We're in the middle of the jungle,

581
00:28:46,060 --> 00:28:49,060
but in no time at all our new friends have built us a cozy guesthouse.

582
00:28:49,060 --> 00:28:53,060
This is now a couch they've made, and they're adding banana leaves as cushions.

583
00:28:53,060 --> 00:28:54,060
Amazing.

584
00:28:54,060 --> 00:28:57,060
This is the fastest construction crew I've ever met.

585
00:28:57,060 --> 00:29:00,060
Five minutes flat, addition to your house.

586
00:29:00,060 --> 00:29:02,060
This jungle is their home,

587
00:29:02,060 --> 00:29:05,060
and the tribe has welcomed me with five-star accommodations

588
00:29:05,060 --> 00:29:08,060
and a complimentary beverage.

589
00:29:12,060 --> 00:29:15,060
I'm anxious to speak to the chief about the wreck they discovered,

590
00:29:15,060 --> 00:29:19,060
but first, the tribe insists on welcoming us with a sacred fire dance.

591
00:29:19,060 --> 00:29:22,060
This is a seldom seen ritual.

592
00:29:33,060 --> 00:29:35,060
So the women have gone away?

593
00:29:35,060 --> 00:29:36,060
The women have gone away.

594
00:29:36,060 --> 00:29:37,060
Why is that?

595
00:29:37,060 --> 00:29:39,060
Because we'll never see this sort of thing.

596
00:29:39,060 --> 00:29:40,060
Wow.

597
00:29:40,060 --> 00:29:43,060
Only men are allowed to participate or watch.

598
00:29:43,060 --> 00:29:46,060
If any women in the village were to witness this, they would be killed.

599
00:29:46,060 --> 00:29:51,060
The men tend the fire, feeding it until the flames begin to devour the darkness.

600
00:29:52,060 --> 00:29:55,060
At which point, the dance begins.

601
00:29:58,060 --> 00:30:00,060
The dancers are completely barefoot

602
00:30:00,060 --> 00:30:02,060
and attempt to ward off evil spirits

603
00:30:02,060 --> 00:30:05,060
by passing directly through the flames and embers.

604
00:30:05,060 --> 00:30:07,060
I think that's right in the fire.

605
00:30:07,060 --> 00:30:09,060
It's amazing.

606
00:30:09,060 --> 00:30:13,060
The dance is performed to initiate young men into adulthood,

607
00:30:13,060 --> 00:30:16,060
or in this case, to celebrate visiting outsiders.

608
00:30:19,060 --> 00:30:24,060
The dance itself is frenetic, wild, and not for the faint of heart.

609
00:30:24,060 --> 00:30:28,060
And I feel totally overwhelmed at being able to witness it firsthand.

610
00:30:28,060 --> 00:30:32,060
With the ceremony complete and my eyebrows singed,

611
00:30:32,060 --> 00:30:36,060
I'm granted access to the chief to discuss the plane wreck in the jungle,

612
00:30:36,060 --> 00:30:38,060
which could be Earhart's lost Electra.

613
00:30:38,060 --> 00:30:39,060
That was incredible.

614
00:30:39,060 --> 00:30:41,060
I've never seen anything like that.

615
00:30:41,060 --> 00:30:42,060
Thank you for welcoming us here.

616
00:30:42,060 --> 00:30:43,060
Thank you.

617
00:30:43,060 --> 00:30:44,060
Thank you.

618
00:30:44,060 --> 00:30:45,060
Thank you.

619
00:30:45,060 --> 00:30:46,060
Thank you.

620
00:30:46,060 --> 00:30:47,060
Thank you.

621
00:30:47,060 --> 00:30:48,060
Thank you.

622
00:30:48,060 --> 00:30:49,060
Thank you.

623
00:30:49,060 --> 00:30:50,060
Thank you.

624
00:30:50,060 --> 00:30:51,060
Thank you.

625
00:30:51,060 --> 00:30:52,060
Thank you.

626
00:30:52,060 --> 00:30:53,060
Thank you.

627
00:30:53,060 --> 00:30:54,060
Thank you.

628
00:30:54,060 --> 00:30:55,060
Thank you.

629
00:30:55,060 --> 00:30:56,060
Thank you.

630
00:30:56,060 --> 00:30:57,060
Thank you.

631
00:30:58,060 --> 00:31:00,060
Yeah, there's some wreckage in the bush.

632
00:31:00,060 --> 00:31:02,060
They don't know who they came from.

633
00:31:02,060 --> 00:31:05,060
Is the wreckage definitely from an airplane?

634
00:31:05,060 --> 00:31:07,060
It's from a plane.

635
00:31:07,060 --> 00:31:08,060
From a plane.

636
00:31:08,060 --> 00:31:10,060
How far is the wreckage from the village?

637
00:31:10,060 --> 00:31:12,060
I'm stuck inside there.

638
00:31:12,060 --> 00:31:13,060
He says the wreckage is close by.

639
00:31:13,060 --> 00:31:14,060
Yeah.

640
00:31:14,060 --> 00:31:17,060
And could we have permission to go and to look at the wreckage?

641
00:31:17,060 --> 00:31:19,060
Can you guide us and show us where it is?

642
00:31:19,060 --> 00:31:22,060
No, one bloll is a long way to start, yes, but it will be one time.

643
00:31:22,060 --> 00:31:25,060
People who know exactly where it is, they will guide us.

644
00:31:25,060 --> 00:31:26,060
Terrific.

645
00:31:26,060 --> 00:31:27,060
Let's do it.

646
00:31:27,060 --> 00:31:28,060
Okay, okay.

647
00:31:28,060 --> 00:31:29,060
Come on.

648
00:31:29,060 --> 00:31:30,060
Okay, okay.

649
00:31:30,060 --> 00:31:41,060
The jungles of New Britain are no joke, especially at night, but some believe that Airheart's

650
00:31:41,060 --> 00:31:53,060
electric could be out here, waiting in the darkness.

651
00:31:53,060 --> 00:31:55,060
These are real deal jungles.

652
00:31:55,060 --> 00:32:01,060
A lot of predators out here, snakes, spiders, and we're very far from hospitals, so we'd

653
00:32:01,060 --> 00:32:03,060
be very, very careful going through here.

654
00:32:03,060 --> 00:32:05,060
Whoa, big hole right here.

655
00:32:05,060 --> 00:32:06,060
Whoa, big hole.

656
00:32:06,060 --> 00:32:07,060
Drops down.

657
00:32:07,060 --> 00:32:08,060
What do you think, impact point?

658
00:32:08,060 --> 00:32:09,060
It's open yet.

659
00:32:09,060 --> 00:32:14,560
In 1945, in these very jungles, an Australian Army patrol stumbled on a crash site they

660
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:16,520
believed was Airheart's.

661
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:18,060
But no one ever found it again.

662
00:32:18,060 --> 00:32:21,060
Could this be the same wreck?

663
00:32:21,060 --> 00:32:24,060
Oh, that's a piece of wreckage for sure.

664
00:32:24,060 --> 00:32:27,060
Look at this, Rob, come here.

665
00:32:27,060 --> 00:32:29,060
It's an airplane engine?

666
00:32:29,060 --> 00:32:30,060
Yeah.

667
00:32:30,060 --> 00:32:32,060
Oh, definitely an airplane engine.

668
00:32:32,060 --> 00:32:34,060
They've taken the propellers off.

669
00:32:34,060 --> 00:32:36,060
Let's get the vines off it.

670
00:32:36,060 --> 00:32:38,060
Airheart's elector was a twin prop plane.

671
00:32:38,060 --> 00:32:41,060
We've found one engine, and I'm desperate to find another.

672
00:32:41,060 --> 00:32:45,060
The problem is, the wreckage is scattered all over the jungle.

673
00:32:45,060 --> 00:32:46,060
Rob, check this out.

674
00:32:46,060 --> 00:32:48,060
There's an interlocking piece there.

675
00:32:48,060 --> 00:32:49,060
It looks like a fold.

676
00:32:49,060 --> 00:32:50,060
Maybe this is the strut?

677
00:32:50,060 --> 00:32:51,060
Out of the strut.

678
00:32:51,060 --> 00:32:52,060
Part of the strut for the wheel, maybe?

679
00:32:52,060 --> 00:32:53,060
Yeah.

680
00:32:53,060 --> 00:32:55,060
This looks like, what do you think, part of the strut?

681
00:32:55,060 --> 00:32:57,060
The strut and exhaust and stuff like that.

682
00:32:57,060 --> 00:33:00,060
I would say that when the plane came in, it burned.

683
00:33:00,060 --> 00:33:02,060
It burned quite severely.

684
00:33:02,060 --> 00:33:03,060
Something over there?

685
00:33:03,060 --> 00:33:04,060
Yeah.

686
00:33:04,060 --> 00:33:05,060
Let's go look.

687
00:33:05,060 --> 00:33:06,060
More.

688
00:33:06,060 --> 00:33:08,060
Rob, we got more over here.

689
00:33:08,060 --> 00:33:09,060
Unbelievable.

690
00:33:09,060 --> 00:33:11,060
Look at this.

691
00:33:16,060 --> 00:33:22,060
I'm in the jungles of Papua New Guinea investigating a wreck that could be Amelia Airheart's lost plane.

692
00:33:22,060 --> 00:33:25,060
Suddenly, we find a crucial piece of evidence.

693
00:33:25,060 --> 00:33:27,060
Something over there?

694
00:33:27,060 --> 00:33:28,060
More.

695
00:33:28,060 --> 00:33:29,060
Rob, we got more over here.

696
00:33:29,060 --> 00:33:30,060
Unbelievable.

697
00:33:30,060 --> 00:33:31,060
Look at this.

698
00:33:33,060 --> 00:33:34,060
What is this part?

699
00:33:34,060 --> 00:33:35,060
It's not the landing gear.

700
00:33:35,060 --> 00:33:36,060
It's part of the undercarriage?

701
00:33:36,060 --> 00:33:37,060
It's undercarriage, yeah.

702
00:33:37,060 --> 00:33:39,060
So, we're looking at part of the wing, yeah?

703
00:33:39,060 --> 00:33:42,060
Yeah, this will be part of the wing, and it's been fairly badly burnt too.

704
00:33:42,060 --> 00:33:43,060
Yeah, it looks very burned.

705
00:33:43,060 --> 00:33:46,060
Rob, let's pull out that schematic of the elector.

706
00:33:48,060 --> 00:33:51,060
So, elector is a twin engine, Lockheed.

707
00:33:51,060 --> 00:33:52,060
Yep.

708
00:33:52,060 --> 00:33:53,060
This looks like a twin or a single to you?

709
00:33:53,060 --> 00:33:54,060
Well, I think it's a twin.

710
00:33:54,060 --> 00:33:56,060
And what leads you to believe that it's a twin engine?

711
00:33:56,060 --> 00:33:58,060
Because this is a very strong undercarriage.

712
00:33:58,060 --> 00:33:59,060
Right.

713
00:33:59,060 --> 00:34:02,060
On a single engine aeroplane, it's usually just the one strut.

714
00:34:02,060 --> 00:34:03,060
Right.

715
00:34:03,060 --> 00:34:05,060
When we have a twin strut here, it's a radial engine too.

716
00:34:05,060 --> 00:34:06,060
Same type of engine design, right?

717
00:34:06,060 --> 00:34:07,060
Same type of engine design.

718
00:34:07,060 --> 00:34:10,060
All right, well, she's still a candidate then.

719
00:34:10,060 --> 00:34:12,060
There should be another engine here somewhere.

720
00:34:12,060 --> 00:34:14,060
Have you found a second engine?

721
00:34:14,060 --> 00:34:15,060
No.

722
00:34:15,060 --> 00:34:16,060
No, one only.

723
00:34:16,060 --> 00:34:18,060
I mean, if it hits so hard, I mean, it could have gone 200 meters down the buddy bush.

724
00:34:18,060 --> 00:34:19,060
Sure.

725
00:34:19,060 --> 00:34:20,060
You know?

726
00:34:20,060 --> 00:34:21,060
I mean, it's a Pratt & Whitney engine.

727
00:34:21,060 --> 00:34:22,060
That's right, yeah.

728
00:34:22,060 --> 00:34:23,060
Can you tell if that's a Pratt & Whitney or not?

729
00:34:23,060 --> 00:34:24,060
Well, I can't.

730
00:34:24,060 --> 00:34:25,060
That's the problem.

731
00:34:25,060 --> 00:34:26,060
It may well be a Pratt & Whitney.

732
00:34:26,060 --> 00:34:27,060
If we can get close and see some identification on it.

733
00:34:27,060 --> 00:34:28,060
Just take a look.

734
00:34:28,060 --> 00:34:31,060
Let's see if we can get some identifying marks off the engines.

735
00:34:31,060 --> 00:34:36,060
In 1945, an Australian Army patrol found a Pratt & Whitney engine here in this jungle,

736
00:34:36,060 --> 00:34:39,060
and they were convinced it belonged to Earhart's Electra.

737
00:34:39,060 --> 00:34:43,060
If this is the same engine, we might have struck gold.

738
00:34:43,060 --> 00:34:45,060
God, I wish we had a propeller or something like that,

739
00:34:45,060 --> 00:34:47,060
because on propellers, you have dates on them.

740
00:34:47,060 --> 00:34:49,060
Someone's taking a lot of the stuff away from here.

741
00:34:49,060 --> 00:34:51,060
The Pratt & Whitney airball is littered with wrecks.

742
00:34:51,060 --> 00:34:55,060
Earhart's plane has features that distinguish it from most World War II aircraft.

743
00:34:55,060 --> 00:34:59,060
It was designed with a unique twin tail, unpainted aluminum body,

744
00:34:59,060 --> 00:35:03,060
and was packed with a dozen fuel tanks in the fuselage and wings

745
00:35:03,060 --> 00:35:07,060
to feed the twin Pratt & Whitney wasp engines on her long flight.

746
00:35:07,060 --> 00:35:13,060
Any tags or identifiable parts with serial numbers have either been stolen or destroyed.

747
00:35:13,060 --> 00:35:16,060
Most of what looters left behind is burned beyond recognition.

748
00:35:16,060 --> 00:35:18,060
So we can't really tell if it's a Pratt & Whitney or not?

749
00:35:18,060 --> 00:35:21,060
Maybe, because we can't find any identifying marks on it.

750
00:35:21,060 --> 00:35:24,060
There's got to be something we're missing.

751
00:35:24,060 --> 00:35:29,060
I've just realized something. This is the undercarriage leg of a dual-leg undercarriage.

752
00:35:29,060 --> 00:35:34,060
The undercarriage on an Electra is a single oleo leg with a wishbone on the bottom

753
00:35:34,060 --> 00:35:35,060
and the wheel between them.

754
00:35:35,060 --> 00:35:36,060
Forks over the wheel?

755
00:35:36,060 --> 00:35:37,060
Forks over the wheel.

756
00:35:37,060 --> 00:35:40,060
It indicates to me a much heavier aircraft.

757
00:35:40,060 --> 00:35:43,060
This wreck has two full struts on each side of the wheels,

758
00:35:43,060 --> 00:35:47,060
but Earhart's Lockheed Electra had a single strut for each wheel

759
00:35:47,060 --> 00:35:52,060
with a wishbone that wrapped around the tire, a subtle but damning piece of evidence.

760
00:35:52,060 --> 00:35:57,060
My opinion is at present it's not an Electra.

761
00:35:57,060 --> 00:36:00,060
Now what I think it is is probably Japanese,

762
00:36:00,060 --> 00:36:04,060
and the only way to identify that is to take this information that I have now

763
00:36:04,060 --> 00:36:07,060
and compare it with information that I have back in Rival.

764
00:36:07,060 --> 00:36:11,060
So, wheel structure doesn't match the Electra, so we know it's not Earhart's plane?

765
00:36:11,060 --> 00:36:12,060
Definitely not.

766
00:36:12,060 --> 00:36:13,060
But still a mystery?

767
00:36:13,060 --> 00:36:14,060
Still a mystery.

768
00:36:14,060 --> 00:36:15,060
And an important mystery?

769
00:36:15,060 --> 00:36:20,060
Yeah, well people died here, so it deserves our attention most certainly.

770
00:36:20,060 --> 00:36:25,060
It's not Earhart's plane, but with further investigation this wreck will solve a different mystery

771
00:36:25,060 --> 00:36:29,060
and answer questions about the demise of another downed pilot.

772
00:36:29,060 --> 00:36:31,060
Thank you very much for showing us this.

773
00:36:31,060 --> 00:36:33,060
Also we're going to need somewhere to sleep.

774
00:36:33,060 --> 00:36:34,060
Ha.

775
00:36:34,060 --> 00:36:36,060
Helicopter will be back in the morning.

776
00:36:36,060 --> 00:36:38,060
Alright, we're down to our very last torches here.

777
00:36:38,060 --> 00:36:39,060
Let's get back to the village.

778
00:36:39,060 --> 00:36:42,060
Otherwise we're going to be like this plane, we're going to be out here forever.

779
00:36:42,060 --> 00:36:43,060
Ha.

780
00:36:46,060 --> 00:36:50,060
By the light of a new day, we leave the jungle behind and head back to Rival.

781
00:36:50,060 --> 00:36:55,060
The wreck may or may not be the same one that the Australians found in 1945.

782
00:36:55,060 --> 00:36:59,060
Either way, we know that it isn't Earhart's plane.

783
00:36:59,060 --> 00:37:03,060
But this isn't the only developing lead here in PNG.

784
00:37:03,060 --> 00:37:07,060
Locals believe that unidentified underwater wreckage off the coast of Rival

785
00:37:07,060 --> 00:37:10,060
may in fact be the missing Electra.

786
00:37:10,060 --> 00:37:15,060
After grabbing a set of wheels, I'm rumbling my way over to where Rival used to be.

787
00:37:15,060 --> 00:37:19,060
Back on the ground headed over to old Rival, or what's left of it,

788
00:37:19,060 --> 00:37:23,060
that is an active volcano named Vulcan.

789
00:37:23,060 --> 00:37:26,060
Still active, very much alive, very dangerous.

790
00:37:26,060 --> 00:37:31,060
This is one of two very pissed off looking volcanoes that loom over Rival.

791
00:37:31,060 --> 00:37:34,060
But its twin brother, Tarvavor, is the one to keep an eye on.

792
00:37:35,060 --> 00:37:40,060
In 1937, an eruption killed more than 500 people.

793
00:37:40,060 --> 00:37:44,060
And less than a month before my arrival, it decided to wake up again.

794
00:37:50,060 --> 00:37:53,060
Holy smoke and delete old shit.

795
00:37:53,060 --> 00:37:57,060
Along the side of the road here, you see this big wall is just 10 feet tall of ash

796
00:37:57,060 --> 00:37:59,060
and we're just driving over volcanic ash.

797
00:37:59,060 --> 00:38:02,060
All of this is just from the most recent eruption.

798
00:38:03,060 --> 00:38:07,060
Looking up at the hills, nearly every palm tree in sight is scorched to bits.

799
00:38:07,060 --> 00:38:10,060
Okay, we should be coming into Rival.

800
00:38:10,060 --> 00:38:13,060
As I approach the crater and the coordinates of old Rival,

801
00:38:13,060 --> 00:38:16,060
it might seem like I'm in the wrong spot.

802
00:38:16,060 --> 00:38:19,060
But the town is here. I'm just driving on top of it.

803
00:38:21,060 --> 00:38:24,060
Peaking up from the ash are the ghostly remains of an entire city,

804
00:38:24,060 --> 00:38:27,060
destroyed by the volcanoes in 1994.

805
00:38:27,060 --> 00:38:31,060
Motels, nightclubs, banks,

806
00:38:31,060 --> 00:38:34,060
entire city streets, gone.

807
00:38:34,060 --> 00:38:39,060
Perched atop the ring of fire, PNG is one of the most volcanic nations in the world.

808
00:38:39,060 --> 00:38:42,060
The earthquake I felt in lay is not a good sign.

809
00:38:42,060 --> 00:38:45,060
And judging by the billowing smoke rising from Tarvavor

810
00:38:45,060 --> 00:38:48,060
and the boiling water coming up by my feet,

811
00:38:48,060 --> 00:38:50,060
I'm suddenly struck by a question.

812
00:38:50,060 --> 00:38:53,060
What the hell am I doing here?

813
00:38:53,060 --> 00:38:57,060
Well, nobody said looking for air heart was going to be easy or safe.

814
00:38:57,060 --> 00:39:01,060
So I'm channeling my inner explorer and pressing on with the search.

815
00:39:03,060 --> 00:39:06,060
The wreck in the jungle was one of two leads here.

816
00:39:06,060 --> 00:39:09,060
Next, I'm going to explore another promising theory

817
00:39:09,060 --> 00:39:12,060
that air heart crashed in the waters off Papua New Guinea.

818
00:39:12,060 --> 00:39:15,060
Next stop here is to me with a guy named Rod,

819
00:39:15,060 --> 00:39:17,060
a dive expert and a World War II historian.

820
00:39:17,060 --> 00:39:21,060
And he knows more about down to aircraft in these parts in the waters than anybody.

821
00:39:21,060 --> 00:39:25,060
Recently, local divers reported seeing wreckage off of Rival

822
00:39:25,060 --> 00:39:28,060
that they believe looks like the Electro.

823
00:39:28,060 --> 00:39:31,060
To check out the report, I make my way down to the harbor,

824
00:39:31,060 --> 00:39:34,060
which is today home to a listing collection of ghost ships

825
00:39:34,060 --> 00:39:36,060
decimated by the volcano.

826
00:39:36,060 --> 00:39:40,060
But amidst the waterlogged fleet are a few sea-worthy vessels,

827
00:39:40,060 --> 00:39:43,060
one of which is captained by Rod Pierce.

828
00:39:43,060 --> 00:39:44,060
Hey, how are you?

829
00:39:44,060 --> 00:39:45,060
How are you, Rod?

830
00:39:45,060 --> 00:39:46,060
Good, good, yeah.

831
00:39:46,060 --> 00:39:47,060
Nice to meet you.

832
00:39:47,060 --> 00:39:48,060
Pleasure.

833
00:39:48,060 --> 00:39:50,060
So I hear you're the man in the know about airplane wrecks.

834
00:39:50,060 --> 00:39:51,060
Yes, yes.

835
00:39:51,060 --> 00:39:53,060
Been researching them since the 70s.

836
00:39:53,060 --> 00:39:54,060
And there's a lot of them here.

837
00:39:54,060 --> 00:39:59,060
There's, from World War II, there's over 500 in the Gazelle area alone.

838
00:39:59,060 --> 00:40:00,060
Amazing.

839
00:40:00,060 --> 00:40:01,060
I look for MIAs.

840
00:40:01,060 --> 00:40:07,060
I see closure to a lot of people from pilots from all nations,

841
00:40:07,060 --> 00:40:09,060
Japanese, Australians, Americans.

842
00:40:09,060 --> 00:40:10,060
How do you locate these wrecks?

843
00:40:10,060 --> 00:40:13,060
Basically with sonar.

844
00:40:13,060 --> 00:40:19,060
And that will draw you an outline of a plane or a wreck or whatever you're looking for.

845
00:40:19,060 --> 00:40:23,060
We've heard reports, recent reports of some aircraft wreckage out here near Rebal,

846
00:40:23,060 --> 00:40:27,060
and some people sort of whispering that they think it may be Airheart's plane

847
00:40:27,060 --> 00:40:28,060
that may have come back here.

848
00:40:28,060 --> 00:40:29,060
You heard those stories?

849
00:40:29,060 --> 00:40:31,060
I've also heard that.

850
00:40:31,060 --> 00:40:32,060
You think it could be her plane?

851
00:40:32,060 --> 00:40:34,060
Anything's possible.

852
00:40:34,060 --> 00:40:40,060
The only way to know is to go out, investigate it, and see what we can find.

853
00:40:40,060 --> 00:40:44,060
As we head out to sea to search the coordinates where divers claim to see a wreck

854
00:40:44,060 --> 00:40:48,060
matching the Electra, I'm captivated by the possibility of finding the plane.

855
00:40:48,060 --> 00:40:50,060
But also have been unnerved.

856
00:40:50,060 --> 00:40:54,060
After all, we're cruising in the shadow of two active volcanoes,

857
00:40:54,060 --> 00:40:56,060
one of which is still smoking.

858
00:40:56,060 --> 00:41:00,060
Even more alarming, the entire harbor is a volcanic caldera.

859
00:41:00,060 --> 00:41:03,060
1500 years ago, this bay exploded.

860
00:41:03,060 --> 00:41:08,060
The ash cloud was so huge, it darkened the skies of Europe for a year.

861
00:41:09,060 --> 00:41:11,060
Ryan, walk me through this.

862
00:41:11,060 --> 00:41:12,060
This looks like a missile.

863
00:41:12,060 --> 00:41:14,060
Okay, this is a towfish.

864
00:41:14,060 --> 00:41:20,060
The idea is to run it about five to ten metres above the bottom to get ideal footage.

865
00:41:20,060 --> 00:41:21,060
Cool.

866
00:41:21,060 --> 00:41:23,060
Looks like a pretty serious piece of equipment.

867
00:41:23,060 --> 00:41:25,060
Very serious piece of equipment.

868
00:41:25,060 --> 00:41:29,060
A capable of picking up a nipple on a mermaid.

869
00:41:29,060 --> 00:41:32,060
But it will do the job, I can assure you.

870
00:41:32,060 --> 00:41:35,060
I'm just hoping for the nipple on the mermaid at this point.

871
00:41:37,060 --> 00:41:39,060
Okay, Ryan, here we go.

872
00:41:44,060 --> 00:41:45,060
Here we go, she's gone.

873
00:41:45,060 --> 00:41:46,060
Alright.

874
00:41:47,060 --> 00:41:48,060
Keep it going.

875
00:41:52,060 --> 00:41:53,060
Okay, she's out.

876
00:41:53,060 --> 00:41:55,060
Let's see what she sees.

877
00:41:56,060 --> 00:41:58,060
With the sonar in the water, the search begins.

878
00:41:58,060 --> 00:42:04,060
We're scanning a largely unexplored area near where the divers reported seeing a wreck.

879
00:42:04,060 --> 00:42:10,060
Lockheed only produced 147 model 10 electras, only four ever visited Papua New Guinea,

880
00:42:10,060 --> 00:42:12,060
and three are accounted for.

881
00:42:12,060 --> 00:42:16,060
If Rod and I find an elector in this harbor, it's Earhart's.

882
00:42:16,060 --> 00:42:18,060
This is kind of a waiting game now.

883
00:42:18,060 --> 00:42:21,060
We've got this side scan sonar in the water, we're towing it behind the boat,

884
00:42:21,060 --> 00:42:24,060
and it's just giving us a beautiful image of the ocean floor.

885
00:42:24,060 --> 00:42:28,060
And we're just kind of going back and forth, eliminating each sector as we go through it,

886
00:42:28,060 --> 00:42:31,060
and looking for wreckage while we go.

887
00:42:31,060 --> 00:42:35,060
Rod has been investigating Papua New Guinea's waters for over 30 years.

888
00:42:35,060 --> 00:42:38,060
Needless to say, he calls the shots.

889
00:42:38,060 --> 00:42:40,060
And I take beverage orders.

890
00:42:40,060 --> 00:42:42,060
Josh, do you know how to make tea?

891
00:42:42,060 --> 00:42:44,060
Cup and tea coming up.

892
00:42:45,060 --> 00:42:47,060
And I want it before Christmas.

893
00:42:47,060 --> 00:42:48,060
Aye aye.

894
00:42:48,060 --> 00:42:50,060
I feel like I'm with Quint from Jaws.

895
00:42:50,060 --> 00:42:53,060
Oh, for a splatter of rock.

896
00:42:53,060 --> 00:42:56,060
Don't have to take this abuse much longer.

897
00:42:58,060 --> 00:43:00,060
I got the kettle on.

898
00:43:00,060 --> 00:43:03,060
So, let's see what we got here.

899
00:43:03,060 --> 00:43:05,060
Peanut butter.

900
00:43:06,060 --> 00:43:08,060
Big beans.

901
00:43:11,060 --> 00:43:13,060
Look at this mug.

902
00:43:19,060 --> 00:43:21,060
Okay, tea coming up.

903
00:43:23,060 --> 00:43:26,060
Okay, cuppa, tea coming up.

904
00:43:26,060 --> 00:43:28,060
Cheers mate. All the best.

905
00:43:28,060 --> 00:43:30,060
How's it looking up here?

906
00:43:30,060 --> 00:43:31,060
Good, good.

907
00:43:31,060 --> 00:43:33,060
Alright, I'm headed back to my station.

908
00:43:36,060 --> 00:43:38,060
Not the manliest mug.

909
00:43:41,060 --> 00:43:43,060
Oh, Rod, got something.

910
00:43:43,060 --> 00:43:45,060
Rod, come here.

911
00:43:45,060 --> 00:43:47,060
Off the starboard side.

912
00:43:47,060 --> 00:43:49,060
Something big right off the starboard side, see it?

913
00:43:49,060 --> 00:43:51,060
Oh, yes, yes.

914
00:43:51,060 --> 00:43:53,060
That's nice. That's a big ship.

915
00:43:53,060 --> 00:43:54,060
You think so?

916
00:43:54,060 --> 00:43:55,060
Yeah, it's a big ship.

917
00:43:55,060 --> 00:43:56,060
Okay.

918
00:43:56,060 --> 00:43:58,060
World War II.

919
00:43:58,060 --> 00:44:00,060
How big do you think? What's the scale?

920
00:44:00,060 --> 00:44:03,060
It's probably around about 3, 4,000 tons.

921
00:44:03,060 --> 00:44:04,060
Unbelievable.

922
00:44:04,060 --> 00:44:06,060
Lying upright.

923
00:44:06,060 --> 00:44:07,060
Crazy.

924
00:44:07,060 --> 00:44:09,060
Okay, so not a plane, but we got a wreck.

925
00:44:09,060 --> 00:44:11,060
Not a plane, unfortunately.

926
00:44:11,060 --> 00:44:13,060
Okay, all right. Keep going.

927
00:44:13,060 --> 00:44:14,060
We're on to the top.

928
00:44:14,060 --> 00:44:15,060
Top to top, we're on it.

929
00:44:15,060 --> 00:44:17,060
We're finding wrecks.

930
00:44:19,060 --> 00:44:22,060
The harbor is 8 miles long and 6 miles wide,

931
00:44:22,060 --> 00:44:25,060
and slowly but surely we're scanning every inch of it.

932
00:44:29,060 --> 00:44:30,060
Oh, Rod, I got a plane.

933
00:44:30,060 --> 00:44:32,060
Rod, I got a plane for sure. Come here.

934
00:44:32,060 --> 00:44:34,060
Look at that. Look at that.

935
00:44:34,060 --> 00:44:36,060
That's a f***ing plane.

936
00:44:40,060 --> 00:44:44,060
I'm in Papua New Guinea using side-scan sonar equipment

937
00:44:44,060 --> 00:44:47,060
to scan Rebal Harbor for Amelia Earhart's missing plane,

938
00:44:47,060 --> 00:44:49,060
and we just got a major hit.

939
00:44:50,060 --> 00:44:52,060
Oh, Rod, I got a plane.

940
00:44:52,060 --> 00:44:54,060
Rod, I got a plane for sure. Come here.

941
00:44:54,060 --> 00:44:56,060
Look at that. Look at that.

942
00:44:56,060 --> 00:44:58,060
That's a f***ing plane. That's a plane.

943
00:44:58,060 --> 00:44:59,060
Right?

944
00:44:59,060 --> 00:45:01,060
Now that is definitely a plane.

945
00:45:01,060 --> 00:45:02,060
Great.

946
00:45:03,060 --> 00:45:04,060
That's amazing.

947
00:45:04,060 --> 00:45:06,060
One wing is buried in the sand.

948
00:45:06,060 --> 00:45:07,060
Or missing.

949
00:45:07,060 --> 00:45:08,060
Or missing?

950
00:45:08,060 --> 00:45:09,060
Or missing?

951
00:45:09,060 --> 00:45:10,060
Look at that. That's a plane.

952
00:45:10,060 --> 00:45:11,060
We'll put the anchor down.

953
00:45:11,060 --> 00:45:12,060
Let's do it.

954
00:45:15,060 --> 00:45:16,060
That's a plane.

955
00:45:16,060 --> 00:45:17,060
Let's get wet.

956
00:45:33,060 --> 00:45:35,060
Okay, we're heading down the line.

957
00:45:38,060 --> 00:45:40,060
Based on the sonar readings,

958
00:45:40,060 --> 00:45:43,060
there may be multiple wrecks scattered beneath the boat,

959
00:45:43,060 --> 00:45:46,060
and we descend into the murky depths to investigate them.

960
00:45:46,060 --> 00:45:47,060
Ah!

961
00:45:47,060 --> 00:45:50,060
We're coming up on almost 60 feet down here.

962
00:45:50,060 --> 00:45:52,060
Pretty murky conditions.

963
00:45:52,060 --> 00:45:54,060
Visibility's not very good.

964
00:45:57,060 --> 00:45:59,060
Definitely see something.

965
00:45:59,060 --> 00:46:02,060
See something in the dark that's there, definitely a shape.

966
00:46:03,060 --> 00:46:04,060
Definitely an airplane.

967
00:46:04,060 --> 00:46:05,060
Look at that.

968
00:46:05,060 --> 00:46:06,060
Unbelievable.

969
00:46:18,060 --> 00:46:22,060
That's booked upside down, but amazingly intact.

970
00:46:24,060 --> 00:46:27,060
Looks like the right wing is buried in the sand.

971
00:46:27,060 --> 00:46:29,060
The left wing is fairly intact.

972
00:46:30,060 --> 00:46:34,060
The million dollar question is whether this could be the Electra.

973
00:46:34,060 --> 00:46:37,060
As we scour the wreckage, vital clues come into focus,

974
00:46:37,060 --> 00:46:40,060
including a slot on the bottom of the plane.

975
00:46:42,060 --> 00:46:43,060
Down here.

976
00:46:43,060 --> 00:46:45,060
This is the pilot.

977
00:46:45,060 --> 00:46:48,060
This is where it would have leaped into the deck of the aircraft carrier.

978
00:46:48,060 --> 00:46:49,060
There it is.

979
00:46:50,060 --> 00:46:52,060
Looks like definitely single engine.

980
00:47:00,060 --> 00:47:03,060
This could be a Japanese Zero.

981
00:47:04,060 --> 00:47:06,060
Japanese Zero, yes.

982
00:47:06,060 --> 00:47:13,060
From 1940 to 1945, the Mitsubishi A6M Zero was the infamous symbol of Japan's air power.

983
00:47:13,060 --> 00:47:17,060
A legendary long range fighter responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor,

984
00:47:17,060 --> 00:47:20,060
the Zero was light, fast, and deadly.

985
00:47:22,060 --> 00:47:24,060
Let's see if we can get any markings out of the way.

986
00:47:25,060 --> 00:47:28,060
This is where the Inamuru shoot bay.

987
00:47:30,060 --> 00:47:32,060
That's the red circle to meet all they call it.

988
00:47:32,060 --> 00:47:34,060
Japanese flag symbol.

989
00:47:34,060 --> 00:47:35,060
Then this parade.

990
00:47:36,060 --> 00:47:39,060
If this is a Zero, we may be able to find the Inamuru,

991
00:47:39,060 --> 00:47:43,060
the red circular sun that adorned the wings of Japanese warplanes.

992
00:47:46,060 --> 00:47:48,060
There it is, right there.

993
00:47:48,060 --> 00:47:51,060
You can just see the white pane on the edge.

994
00:47:51,060 --> 00:47:53,060
You can see the curve of it right there.

995
00:47:53,060 --> 00:47:54,060
It's perfect.

996
00:47:54,060 --> 00:47:57,060
Amazing, the beach is still on there after all these years.

997
00:47:57,060 --> 00:48:03,060
Definitely, not a million airhards plain, but an amazing wreck nonetheless.

998
00:48:06,060 --> 00:48:08,060
This guy is staying out the other side.

999
00:48:08,060 --> 00:48:10,060
Copy that, right behind you.

1000
00:48:11,060 --> 00:48:15,060
The second sonar hit is located only a short distance from the Japanese Zero,

1001
00:48:15,060 --> 00:48:18,060
and it's another shot at finding airhards plain.

1002
00:48:21,060 --> 00:48:23,060
Definitely wreckage down here.

1003
00:48:23,060 --> 00:48:26,060
We've got something down here. Looks like another plane.

1004
00:48:28,060 --> 00:48:31,060
This plane looks like it's in pretty bad shape.

1005
00:48:33,060 --> 00:48:36,060
Yeah, I'm trying to land it, but it's awfully hot.

1006
00:48:36,060 --> 00:48:39,060
Rod and I scour the wreck to look for more identifying markers,

1007
00:48:39,060 --> 00:48:42,060
but this plane is badly mangled.

1008
00:48:43,060 --> 00:48:45,060
What type of aircraft is this looking at here?

1009
00:48:46,060 --> 00:48:48,060
It's in such bad condition as how it's known.

1010
00:48:49,060 --> 00:48:53,060
The cockpit on the Electra had a wide field of view, but short narrow windows.

1011
00:48:53,060 --> 00:48:57,060
The cockpit area here looks like a much more open design.

1012
00:48:58,060 --> 00:49:03,060
Let's get around to the front here and see if we can get into the cockpit area at all.

1013
00:49:07,060 --> 00:49:10,060
Looks familiar. Looks like an American plane.

1014
00:49:10,060 --> 00:49:13,060
Is it a L engine or a twin? It's hard to tell.

1015
00:49:14,060 --> 00:49:18,060
I would have to guess, single engine, TBS, TBS, L engine.

1016
00:49:19,060 --> 00:49:24,060
Based on the configuration, Rod believes that this is a Grumman TBF Avenger,

1017
00:49:24,060 --> 00:49:28,060
an Allied torpedo bomber that proved indispensable in defeating the Japanese.

1018
00:49:29,060 --> 00:49:34,060
This is where the cockpit should be, but it's just about to come out of us.

1019
00:49:35,060 --> 00:49:39,060
Just going to sit in this sand lightly, trying not to disturb anything too much in here.

1020
00:49:39,060 --> 00:49:42,060
See if we can see anything very dark in here.

1021
00:49:44,060 --> 00:49:46,060
I think we have human remains here.

1022
00:49:47,060 --> 00:49:51,060
We have a phone down here. Looks like there may be human remains in the cockpit still.

1023
00:49:52,060 --> 00:49:57,060
Shockingly, it appears the three-person crew are still trapped in the cockpit.

1024
00:49:58,060 --> 00:50:00,060
That certainly reminds me.

1025
00:50:00,060 --> 00:50:03,060
How many crew would have been aboard this type of plane, do you think?

1026
00:50:04,060 --> 00:50:07,060
It would have been K, D, M, T, D, N, T, and three.

1027
00:50:08,060 --> 00:50:11,060
Want to leave this and tag it for further analysis?

1028
00:50:11,060 --> 00:50:13,060
Certainly don't want to disturb us in here.

1029
00:50:15,060 --> 00:50:17,060
Yep, yep, let's do that.

1030
00:50:18,060 --> 00:50:22,060
Let's make our way back to the surface and continue from there.

1031
00:50:24,060 --> 00:50:29,060
The plane and the soldiers inside are likely either from New Zealand or the United States.

1032
00:50:29,060 --> 00:50:32,060
Even though this isn't the Electra, it's a major find.

1033
00:50:33,060 --> 00:50:38,060
Since Rod and his team can now begin the important work of identifying the servicemen who died here,

1034
00:50:38,060 --> 00:50:40,060
and having these heroes repatriate at home.

1035
00:50:41,060 --> 00:50:46,060
Perhaps in time, this will bring closure to someone searching for these missing pilots.

1036
00:50:48,060 --> 00:50:53,060
It's time for me to bid farewell to the exotic shores of Papua New Guinea.

1037
00:50:54,060 --> 00:50:58,060
After exploring the jungles of New Britain and scanning the harbor of Rabaul,

1038
00:50:59,060 --> 00:51:02,060
we've eliminated two high-profile leads in the case.

1039
00:51:03,060 --> 00:51:05,060
With so many aircraft wrecks yet to be identified here,

1040
00:51:06,060 --> 00:51:09,060
it's easy to see why people believe airhards could be among them.

1041
00:51:10,060 --> 00:51:14,060
But at the end of the day, I don't believe there's enough physical evidence to support the theory.

1042
00:51:14,060 --> 00:51:20,060
Furthermore, I remain personally doubtful that she could have had enough fuel to limp all the way back here.

1043
00:51:21,060 --> 00:51:23,060
But my search for answers has just begun.

1044
00:51:24,060 --> 00:51:30,060
There's another breaking lead in the case, one that's so compelling it has recently captured worldwide attention.

1045
00:51:31,060 --> 00:51:35,060
There's stunning new evidence to suggest that once Airheart failed to locate Howland Island,

1046
00:51:35,060 --> 00:51:38,060
she headed someplace much closer than PNG.

1047
00:51:38,060 --> 00:51:44,060
Just 400 miles south of her target, crash landing on the uninhabited island of Nica Mararo.

1048
00:51:45,060 --> 00:51:49,060
A renowned expert believes she may have died on this lonely island as a castaway.

1049
00:51:50,060 --> 00:51:54,060
And the kicker? He may actually have a piece of her plane to prove it.

1050
00:51:55,060 --> 00:51:56,060
Coming up.

1051
00:51:57,060 --> 00:52:00,060
13-year-old boy, you find human bones under your house?

1052
00:52:01,060 --> 00:52:05,060
It never ever came back into my life until I read this thing about Amelia.

1053
00:52:05,060 --> 00:52:09,060
Was the rest of that crawl space under the house thoroughly explored?

1054
00:52:09,060 --> 00:52:10,060
No, not at all.

1055
00:52:10,060 --> 00:52:11,060
Really?

1056
00:52:11,060 --> 00:52:12,060
Never.

1057
00:52:12,060 --> 00:52:13,060
I got a bone down here.

1058
00:52:13,060 --> 00:52:14,060
There's more down here.

1059
00:52:14,060 --> 00:52:15,060
There's more down here.

1060
00:52:15,060 --> 00:52:18,060
It might be time to call the police department to come over here and take a look,

1061
00:52:18,060 --> 00:52:21,060
because a couple of them could be human, I don't know.

1062
00:52:26,060 --> 00:52:30,060
I'm flying at about 35,000 feet and headed to Wilmington, Delaware

1063
00:52:30,060 --> 00:52:34,060
to interview an expert on the disappearance of Amelia Airheart.

1064
00:52:34,060 --> 00:52:41,060
On one of the last legs of her transworld flight, Airheart was supposed to travel 2,500 miles from Lea Papua New Guinea

1065
00:52:41,060 --> 00:52:44,060
to tiny Howland Island in the middle of the South Pacific.

1066
00:52:45,060 --> 00:52:50,060
But she never reached her destination and vanished without a trace.

1067
00:52:51,060 --> 00:52:53,060
Or so we all thought.

1068
00:52:55,060 --> 00:53:01,060
Rick Gillespie is the executive director of Tiger, an organization dedicated to finding Airheart's Electra.

1069
00:53:01,060 --> 00:53:07,060
He believes that Airheart missed Howland Island and crashed on the nearby atoll of Nica Moraro.

1070
00:53:07,060 --> 00:53:14,060
When we started this organization, my attitude toward looking for Amelia Airheart was,

1071
00:53:14,060 --> 00:53:19,060
she probably just got lost looking for a tiny island in a big ocean, ran out of gas, crashed it,

1072
00:53:19,060 --> 00:53:24,060
see the technology doesn't exist to find such a small target in such a big ocean.

1073
00:53:24,060 --> 00:53:31,060
And it wasn't until two of our members who were retired military aerial navigators came to us and said,

1074
00:53:31,060 --> 00:53:37,060
the things that Airheart is known to have said on the radio make perfect sense to a navigator.

1075
00:53:37,060 --> 00:53:45,060
She was doing exactly what she should have done and that should have brought her to one of two islands that she had enough fuel to get to.

1076
00:53:45,060 --> 00:53:47,060
And nobody ever looked at her.

1077
00:53:47,060 --> 00:53:53,060
Airheart's final transmissions indicate that her and Noonan believed they were in the right spot, but couldn't see Howland.

1078
00:53:54,060 --> 00:53:59,060
You're on the line, one, five, seven, three, three, seven, two, one, keep this message.

1079
00:53:59,060 --> 00:54:02,060
You're running on line north to south.

1080
00:54:02,060 --> 00:54:08,060
If in fact Airheart followed that line, it would have likely passed near the Phoenix Group, leading straight to Gardner Island,

1081
00:54:08,060 --> 00:54:11,060
known today as Nica Moraro.

1082
00:54:11,060 --> 00:54:18,060
Okay, if all those radio signals people thought were genuine were real, then the airplane would have to be on land.

1083
00:54:18,060 --> 00:54:21,060
We've looked on the land and there's no airplane on the land.

1084
00:54:21,060 --> 00:54:24,060
Therefore, the radio signals must be somehow bogus.

1085
00:54:24,060 --> 00:54:28,060
Let's go look in the ocean for a floating airplane and that's what they did.

1086
00:54:28,060 --> 00:54:30,060
They didn't find one. They didn't find anything.

1087
00:54:30,060 --> 00:54:32,060
How many times have you been out to Nica Moraro?

1088
00:54:32,060 --> 00:54:34,060
I've been in Nica Moraro ten times.

1089
00:54:34,060 --> 00:54:37,060
Ten times? And not an easy island to reach?

1090
00:54:37,060 --> 00:54:40,060
No, it's one of the most remote places on earth.

1091
00:54:40,060 --> 00:54:44,060
And what's your level of confidence that that's where she set that plane down?

1092
00:54:44,060 --> 00:54:45,060
Hundred percent.

1093
00:54:45,060 --> 00:54:46,060
Hundred percent?

1094
00:54:46,060 --> 00:54:47,060
Hundred percent.

1095
00:54:47,060 --> 00:54:59,060
We just established last week that a piece of aluminum that we found on that island in 1991 matches in every respect

1096
00:54:59,060 --> 00:55:02,060
a unique part of Airheart's airplane.

1097
00:55:05,060 --> 00:55:14,060
When Airheart was in Miami, she had a special custom-made window on the right side of the airplane replaced

1098
00:55:15,060 --> 00:55:17,060
with a plain aluminum patch.

1099
00:55:17,060 --> 00:55:24,060
It has a unique rivet pattern, unique proportions dictated by the size of the hole it was covering and the structure of the airplane.

1100
00:55:24,060 --> 00:55:25,060
Right.

1101
00:55:25,060 --> 00:55:28,060
So a piece of a million Airheart's airplane ended up on that island.

1102
00:55:28,060 --> 00:55:33,060
Critics will say, yeah, well, it could have floated up there because we found it washed up.

1103
00:55:33,060 --> 00:55:39,060
And if that was the only thing we'd ever found on Nica Moraro, you could say, yeah, well, maybe.

1104
00:55:39,060 --> 00:55:42,060
But it's not the only thing we've ever found.

1105
00:55:43,060 --> 00:55:47,060
September 1940, this is a man named Gerald Galleher.

1106
00:55:47,060 --> 00:55:54,060
He went down there and found a partial skeleton, total of 13 bones.

1107
00:55:54,060 --> 00:56:01,060
And it looked like this person had been lying under a tree and had died there.

1108
00:56:01,060 --> 00:56:05,060
And he looked at this and said, this might be a million Airheart.

1109
00:56:06,060 --> 00:56:11,060
Galleher was a colonial soldier who landed on Nica Moraro as part of a British settlement.

1110
00:56:11,060 --> 00:56:16,060
He packed the skeleton he discovered into a box and took it back to Fiji for analysis.

1111
00:56:16,060 --> 00:56:21,060
The bones were sent to the School of Medicine and given only a cursory examination,

1112
00:56:21,060 --> 00:56:24,060
in which the doctor concluded they were from a male.

1113
00:56:24,060 --> 00:56:28,060
Before anyone could test to see if they belonged to Airheart's navigator,

1114
00:56:28,060 --> 00:56:31,060
the bones disappeared somewhere in the island's archives.

1115
00:56:32,060 --> 00:56:39,060
But we have the notes the doctor took of the measurements of those bones.

1116
00:56:39,060 --> 00:56:44,060
And we've given those measurements to two independent forensic anthropologists,

1117
00:56:44,060 --> 00:56:47,060
plugs it into the databases available now.

1118
00:56:47,060 --> 00:56:51,060
What comes out of the computer is white female of Northern European descent

1119
00:56:51,060 --> 00:56:53,060
who stood 5'7", 5'8".

1120
00:56:53,060 --> 00:56:56,060
Whoa, there's nobody else like that missing out there.

1121
00:56:56,060 --> 00:56:59,060
That's a description of a millionaire Airheart.

1122
00:56:59,060 --> 00:57:04,060
It's an amazing lead, but the question remains, what became of the bones?

1123
00:57:06,060 --> 00:57:10,060
Fiji's main newspaper is now reporting a new lead in the case.

1124
00:57:10,060 --> 00:57:15,060
If the bones can be found, it may finally close the greatest missing persons case in history.

1125
00:57:15,060 --> 00:57:20,060
Time for me to head back to the skies, get to Fiji and join the search.

1126
00:57:21,060 --> 00:57:26,060
Since the dawn of aviation, every pilot and passenger has seen this view,

1127
00:57:26,060 --> 00:57:29,060
the endless cloudscape that swaddles planet Earth.

1128
00:57:29,060 --> 00:57:34,060
It was just over a century ago, on a windy stretch of beach in North Carolina,

1129
00:57:34,060 --> 00:57:37,060
that the Wright brothers launched the first powered aircraft,

1130
00:57:37,060 --> 00:57:39,060
the fragile looking Wright Flyer 1.

1131
00:57:39,060 --> 00:57:42,060
The plane may have only flown for 12 seconds,

1132
00:57:42,060 --> 00:57:45,060
but humanity's terrestrial shackles were finally broken.

1133
00:57:45,060 --> 00:57:47,060
The world would never be the same.

1134
00:57:47,060 --> 00:57:50,060
It's hard to know to what extent early aviation pioneers like Airheart

1135
00:57:50,060 --> 00:57:52,060
envisioned what would follow,

1136
00:57:52,060 --> 00:57:58,060
but she probably never imagined Richard Branson, seatback TVs, or double-decker jumbo jets.

1137
00:57:59,060 --> 00:58:03,060
And yet, despite this technological golden age of aviation,

1138
00:58:03,060 --> 00:58:05,060
some things haven't changed.

1139
00:58:05,060 --> 00:58:07,060
We still lose planes.

1140
00:58:07,060 --> 00:58:12,060
In fact, more than 80 aircraft have completely vanished since the end of World War II.

1141
00:58:17,060 --> 00:58:20,060
Many aspects of Airheart's disappearance seem eerily relevant

1142
00:58:20,060 --> 00:58:23,060
with the recent loss of Malaysia Flight 370.

1143
00:58:23,060 --> 00:58:27,060
It serves to remind us that our dominion over the skies is not absolute,

1144
00:58:27,060 --> 00:58:33,060
and that an awe-inspiring 90% of the world's oceans remain unexplored.

1145
00:58:33,060 --> 00:58:36,060
Thanks to brave aviation pioneers like Airheart,

1146
00:58:36,060 --> 00:58:41,060
my modern jumbo jet will make the 5,000-mile trip across the Pacific in a matter of hours.

1147
00:58:42,060 --> 00:58:45,060
I touch down in the Fijian capital of Suva,

1148
00:58:46,060 --> 00:58:50,060
a bustling and cosmopolitan town with a laid-back island charm.

1149
00:58:50,060 --> 00:58:54,060
This is the last place the missing remains from Nicarmarro were taken.

1150
00:58:57,060 --> 00:59:00,060
Exploring a new culture is always an eye-opening experience,

1151
00:59:00,060 --> 00:59:02,060
and Suva is no exception,

1152
00:59:02,060 --> 00:59:05,060
like seeing these authentic Fijian recliners.

1153
00:59:05,060 --> 00:59:08,060
I like your chairs. Do you mind?

1154
00:59:08,060 --> 00:59:10,060
This is very nice.

1155
00:59:12,060 --> 00:59:14,060
Oh, yeah, you guys got it all figured out here.

1156
00:59:14,060 --> 00:59:16,060
Are you guys working right now?

1157
00:59:16,060 --> 00:59:18,060
Yeah, you are.

1158
00:59:18,060 --> 00:59:20,060
We're not allowed to drink beer when you're working.

1159
00:59:20,060 --> 00:59:22,060
Are you allowed to sit in a wheelbarrow?

1160
00:59:26,060 --> 00:59:31,060
I'm in town to meet with Nemané Dela Batiki, the editor-in-chief of the Fiji Sun.

1161
00:59:31,060 --> 00:59:33,060
His name is Nemané Dela Batiki,

1162
00:59:33,060 --> 00:59:36,060
and he's a great actor and a great actor.

1163
00:59:37,060 --> 00:59:40,060
His paper recently published a new report on the missing bones

1164
00:59:40,060 --> 00:59:44,060
that came to Fiji from Nicarmarro, where Earhart may have perished.

1165
00:59:44,060 --> 00:59:47,060
According to the article, a doctor Kenneth Gilchrist,

1166
00:59:47,060 --> 00:59:49,060
the former head of the Fiji Medical School,

1167
00:59:49,060 --> 00:59:52,060
may have been in possession of the bones.

1168
00:59:52,060 --> 00:59:54,060
The doctor has passed away,

1169
00:59:54,060 --> 00:59:57,060
but three Fijian employees were named as beneficiaries in his will.

1170
00:59:57,060 --> 00:59:59,060
All three men have also died,

1171
00:59:59,060 --> 01:00:01,060
and investigators believe that the box of bones

1172
01:00:01,060 --> 01:00:04,060
may have been inherited by one of their family members.

1173
01:00:04,060 --> 01:00:09,060
There were three Fijians who were close to the doctor,

1174
01:00:09,060 --> 01:00:12,060
and apparently they had knowledge of the box.

1175
01:00:12,060 --> 01:00:16,060
The mystery is which one got the box.

1176
01:00:16,060 --> 01:00:19,060
Two of the men's families have already been interviewed,

1177
01:00:19,060 --> 01:00:21,060
and neither have the bones.

1178
01:00:21,060 --> 01:00:23,060
The third man's son has yet to be found.

1179
01:00:23,060 --> 01:00:25,060
If I can find him and the box,

1180
01:00:25,060 --> 01:00:30,060
DNA testing could prove whether the bones are the remains of Earhart or her navigator.

1181
01:00:30,060 --> 01:00:33,060
We heard that the bones were found in the box.

1182
01:00:33,060 --> 01:00:36,060
We heard that one of the three people

1183
01:00:36,060 --> 01:00:39,060
lived in Navala, a remote village.

1184
01:00:39,060 --> 01:00:40,060
Navala.

1185
01:00:40,060 --> 01:00:43,060
Navala village on the western side of Fiji.

1186
01:00:50,060 --> 01:00:53,060
With no time to lose, I'm heading to the village to investigate.

1187
01:00:53,060 --> 01:00:55,060
Since I'll be showing up uninvited,

1188
01:00:55,060 --> 01:00:57,060
it's important that I don't go empty-handed.

1189
01:00:57,060 --> 01:01:00,060
So I'm heading to the market to pick up a gift.

1190
01:01:04,060 --> 01:01:09,060
We got spices. We got beans. We got whatever that is.

1191
01:01:09,060 --> 01:01:13,060
Since I'm not seeing any Starbucks cards or vanilla-scented candles,

1192
01:01:13,060 --> 01:01:15,060
I decide to go with a Fijian classic.

1193
01:01:15,060 --> 01:01:19,060
Kava. You have lots of kava. I need to buy some.

1194
01:01:19,060 --> 01:01:21,060
The roots of the kava plant are mashed

1195
01:01:21,060 --> 01:01:26,060
and turned into an intoxicating sedative that's wildly popular in this part of the world.

1196
01:01:26,060 --> 01:01:27,060
How much is it?

1197
01:01:27,060 --> 01:01:29,060
$35 a kilo.

1198
01:01:29,060 --> 01:01:30,060
$35 a kilo.

1199
01:01:30,060 --> 01:01:32,060
Sounds like a fair price.

1200
01:01:32,060 --> 01:01:35,060
I don't know how much kava is supposed to cost, so I trust you.

1201
01:01:35,060 --> 01:01:36,060
$10 a kilo.

1202
01:01:36,060 --> 01:01:38,060
Okay, I'll take a kilo.

1203
01:01:38,060 --> 01:01:40,060
Do you drink kava?

1204
01:01:40,060 --> 01:01:41,060
Does he drink kava?

1205
01:01:41,060 --> 01:01:42,060
No.

1206
01:01:42,060 --> 01:01:43,060
No, he doesn't like it?

1207
01:01:43,060 --> 01:01:45,060
It's an acquired taste.

1208
01:01:45,060 --> 01:01:46,060
Look at that.

1209
01:01:46,060 --> 01:01:48,060
That looks amazing.

1210
01:01:48,060 --> 01:01:50,060
The quidditch with this thing.

1211
01:01:50,060 --> 01:01:51,060
Bye.

1212
01:01:51,060 --> 01:01:55,060
With my offering in hand, I'm starting my journey to the village.

1213
01:01:55,060 --> 01:02:00,060
I'm hopeful to find the man who may be in possession of the missing bones.

1214
01:02:00,060 --> 01:02:06,060
Here, in Fiji's rugged back country, may be the answers to one of the world's greatest unsolved mysteries.

1215
01:02:08,060 --> 01:02:09,060
Coming up.

1216
01:02:09,060 --> 01:02:10,060
This is where it happened.

1217
01:02:10,060 --> 01:02:11,060
Right there.

1218
01:02:11,060 --> 01:02:14,060
There has gotta be a better way to make a living.

1219
01:02:14,060 --> 01:02:20,060
When you found the box, did they go through the underside of this house with a fine-tooth comb?

1220
01:02:20,060 --> 01:02:21,060
Nope.

1221
01:02:21,060 --> 01:02:22,060
This looks like bone.

1222
01:02:22,060 --> 01:02:26,060
It might be time to call the police department to come over here and take a look.

1223
01:02:31,060 --> 01:02:46,060
I'm on the island of Viti Levu in Fiji, searching for a man who may be in possession of bones that were brought here from a remote Pacific island in 1945, and which could be the remains of Amelia Earhart.

1224
01:02:46,060 --> 01:02:54,060
After picking up a traditional offering of kava plant, I'm heading off the grid to search a remote village where the man was last known to live.

1225
01:02:55,060 --> 01:03:00,060
Beyond the capital, Fiji reveals her true colors.

1226
01:03:00,060 --> 01:03:04,060
These islands are an undeveloped wonderland brimming with stunning natural beauty.

1227
01:03:05,060 --> 01:03:12,060
While the small village of Navala is just 55 miles northeast of Suva, the road system isn't exactly state-of-the-art.

1228
01:03:13,060 --> 01:03:18,060
Fiji's rustic charm may be pleasing to the eye, but it does come with some minor drawbacks.

1229
01:03:19,060 --> 01:03:20,060
No rush.

1230
01:03:35,060 --> 01:03:38,060
Okay, that may be the end of this road.

1231
01:03:39,060 --> 01:03:42,060
Hopefully the village is not too far from here.

1232
01:03:43,060 --> 01:03:44,060
Here we go.

1233
01:03:44,060 --> 01:03:50,060
In this part of the world, reaching a remote village involves more than just a bumpy ride down a dirt road.

1234
01:03:50,060 --> 01:03:54,060
In this case, I'll have to channel my inner huck fin to reach my destination.

1235
01:03:54,060 --> 01:03:55,060
Buda!

1236
01:03:58,060 --> 01:04:00,060
Are you going to the village?

1237
01:04:00,060 --> 01:04:01,060
To the village?

1238
01:04:01,060 --> 01:04:02,060
Can I have a ride?

1239
01:04:03,060 --> 01:04:04,060
Okay.

1240
01:04:06,060 --> 01:04:08,060
Think I'm about to sink your boat.

1241
01:04:14,060 --> 01:04:15,060
Alright, we're floating.

1242
01:04:16,060 --> 01:04:25,060
A few generations ago, an outsider like myself arriving uninvited at some Fijian villages could have become the main course in a cannibalistic feast.

1243
01:04:25,060 --> 01:04:33,060
While I'm not afraid of winding up on the menu these days, I am worried that it's going to take me a month to paddle there on what the locals call a Billy Billy Raft.

1244
01:04:34,060 --> 01:04:38,060
This is the 2014 model of the Billy Billy Raft.

1245
01:04:38,060 --> 01:04:42,060
It comes with a full bamboo sunroof, obviously.

1246
01:04:44,060 --> 01:04:45,060
Natural air conditioning.

1247
01:04:46,060 --> 01:04:47,060
Manual transmission.

1248
01:04:51,060 --> 01:04:52,060
Here?

1249
01:04:52,060 --> 01:04:53,060
Village?

1250
01:04:53,060 --> 01:04:54,060
Yeah.

1251
01:04:55,060 --> 01:04:56,060
Okay.

1252
01:04:56,060 --> 01:05:00,060
I don't really know where the emergency brake is on this thing, so I'm just going to smash it into the rocks here.

1253
01:05:04,060 --> 01:05:05,060
Okay, my friend.

1254
01:05:05,060 --> 01:05:06,060
Benaka, vaca, levo.

1255
01:05:06,060 --> 01:05:07,060
Bye.

1256
01:05:13,060 --> 01:05:18,060
It wasn't exactly an express trip, but the journey comes with an instant reward.

1257
01:05:18,060 --> 01:05:25,060
The traditional village is beautiful beyond words, and the brilliant smiles of its youngest residents make the journey well worth the effort.

1258
01:05:34,060 --> 01:05:45,060
This village is reportedly home to a man who may have inherited the possible remains of Amelia Earhart, but an outsider doesn't just waltz in and start snooping around.

1259
01:05:45,060 --> 01:05:48,060
First, I'll need to get approval from the village chief.

1260
01:05:51,060 --> 01:05:53,060
I'm immediately led to the chief's hut.

1261
01:05:53,060 --> 01:05:54,060
His word is law here.

1262
01:05:54,060 --> 01:06:01,060
With the future of my investigation riding on winning him over, I'm hoping my kilo of kava helps grease the wheels.

1263
01:06:04,060 --> 01:06:06,060
And the old lady.

1264
01:06:06,060 --> 01:06:07,060
And the old lady.

1265
01:06:07,060 --> 01:06:08,060
And the old lady.

1266
01:06:12,060 --> 01:06:21,060
So when you present your ship, if it's accepted, that means you are welcome to the village.

1267
01:06:24,060 --> 01:06:28,060
The men take away the root, mash it, and turn it into a drink.

1268
01:06:29,060 --> 01:06:35,060
Though it's consumed by millions of people throughout the Pacific, to outsiders, kava is an acquired taste.

1269
01:06:36,060 --> 01:06:45,060
Yes, it's bitter, gritty, and resembles muddy water, but it also comes with a warm wave of euphoria, thanks to its properties as a natural sedative.

1270
01:06:46,060 --> 01:06:47,060
I pass to you.

1271
01:06:47,060 --> 01:06:49,060
No, you have to finish it.

1272
01:06:49,060 --> 01:06:50,060
I have to finish it.

1273
01:06:50,060 --> 01:06:52,060
Kava is more than a drink.

1274
01:06:52,060 --> 01:06:53,060
It's ceremonial.

1275
01:06:53,060 --> 01:06:57,060
Not finishing every last drop is considered an insult.

1276
01:06:57,060 --> 01:06:59,060
So, bottoms up.

1277
01:07:07,060 --> 01:07:09,060
And now, it all comes down to the chief.

1278
01:07:09,060 --> 01:07:11,060
His is the final approval.

1279
01:07:11,060 --> 01:07:18,060
I'm in a small Fijian village looking for answers to the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.

1280
01:07:18,060 --> 01:07:24,060
A recent news story reported that a man in this village may have a box containing her bones.

1281
01:07:24,060 --> 01:07:30,060
If I can find these remains, it may solve one of the greatest puzzles in modern human history.

1282
01:07:31,060 --> 01:07:36,060
But first, I need to win over the chief, who is the absolute authority here.

1283
01:07:36,060 --> 01:07:41,060
Without his permission, I won't be able to stay in the village and continue my investigation.

1284
01:07:41,060 --> 01:07:46,060
After downing a few cups of ceremonial kava, the chief is ready to make his decision.

1285
01:07:46,060 --> 01:07:49,060
Hopefully, he thinks I'm a good drinking buddy.

1286
01:07:49,060 --> 01:07:51,060
But I'm not going to be able to do that.

1287
01:07:51,060 --> 01:07:53,060
I'm going to be able to do that.

1288
01:07:53,060 --> 01:07:55,060
I'm going to be able to do that.

1289
01:07:55,060 --> 01:07:58,060
And now, it's time for the chief to make his decision.

1290
01:07:58,060 --> 01:08:01,060
Hopefully, he thinks I'm a good drinking buddy.

1291
01:08:01,060 --> 01:08:03,060
Everything is accepted.

1292
01:08:03,060 --> 01:08:09,060
You are no longer a visitor here. You are part of our village family.

1293
01:08:09,060 --> 01:08:12,060
Oh, that's very nice to hear. Thank you very much, Venaka.

1294
01:08:12,060 --> 01:08:19,060
Thank you very much for allowing me to come here and for accepting the kava and for sharing the drink with me.

1295
01:08:19,060 --> 01:08:22,060
I appreciate it. Thank you. Venaka.

1296
01:08:22,060 --> 01:08:24,060
There are some pizzas up in here, huh?

1297
01:08:26,060 --> 01:08:30,060
If I give you one inch, don't take one mile.

1298
01:08:30,060 --> 01:08:32,060
Okay, sounds good.

1299
01:08:42,060 --> 01:08:44,060
The chief thinks I need one for the road.

1300
01:08:44,060 --> 01:08:48,060
After obliging, I head out into the village to begin my hut to hut search

1301
01:08:48,060 --> 01:08:54,060
for the man who might have the mysterious box that experts believe could contain the bones of Amelia Earhart.

1302
01:08:56,060 --> 01:08:58,060
Pula, how are you?

1303
01:08:58,060 --> 01:09:00,060
I'm good. Thank you, Anil.

1304
01:09:00,060 --> 01:09:01,060
I'm good.

1305
01:09:06,060 --> 01:09:10,060
Pula, hello. Listen, I'm trying to find these men.

1306
01:09:10,060 --> 01:09:12,060
Do you know these men? Do you know these names?

1307
01:09:12,060 --> 01:09:14,060
Do any of them live here?

1308
01:09:14,060 --> 01:09:15,060
No.

1309
01:09:15,060 --> 01:09:16,060
Strike one.

1310
01:09:16,060 --> 01:09:17,060
Okay, next.

1311
01:09:17,060 --> 01:09:18,060
No.

1312
01:09:18,060 --> 01:09:19,060
No?

1313
01:09:19,060 --> 01:09:20,060
None of them live here?

1314
01:09:20,060 --> 01:09:21,060
No.

1315
01:09:21,060 --> 01:09:22,060
Venaka.

1316
01:09:22,060 --> 01:09:23,060
Strike two.

1317
01:09:23,060 --> 01:09:27,060
Just as I'm about to give up, I meet with one last man in the village.

1318
01:09:27,060 --> 01:09:28,060
Pula.

1319
01:09:28,060 --> 01:09:29,060
Pula.

1320
01:09:29,060 --> 01:09:30,060
How are you?

1321
01:09:30,060 --> 01:09:35,060
I'm good. I'm good. I'm looking for these three men. Do any of these names look familiar to you?

1322
01:09:35,060 --> 01:09:37,060
Uh-huh. Kalabiti.

1323
01:09:38,060 --> 01:09:41,060
He was in the village, baby, but he passed away.

1324
01:09:41,060 --> 01:09:42,060
He passed away?

1325
01:09:42,060 --> 01:09:43,060
He passed away.

1326
01:09:43,060 --> 01:09:44,060
Does he have any family here still?

1327
01:09:45,060 --> 01:09:48,060
Uh, no, not what I know.

1328
01:09:48,060 --> 01:09:56,060
And we're looking for these men because they may have been in possession of a box with human bones.

1329
01:09:56,060 --> 01:10:01,060
When this man died, did he have any possessions here in the village, a box maybe?

1330
01:10:01,060 --> 01:10:03,060
Kalabiti doesn't have any belongings when he passed away.

1331
01:10:03,060 --> 01:10:04,060
Right.

1332
01:10:04,060 --> 01:10:05,060
There wasn't any box.

1333
01:10:05,060 --> 01:10:06,060
Okay.

1334
01:10:06,060 --> 01:10:10,060
I think there's another man he should see. He's staying in Suva.

1335
01:10:10,060 --> 01:10:11,060
In Suva?

1336
01:10:11,060 --> 01:10:12,060
In Suva.

1337
01:10:12,060 --> 01:10:13,060
Who is that?

1338
01:10:13,060 --> 01:10:14,060
John Gray.

1339
01:10:14,060 --> 01:10:17,060
John Gray? That's a familiar name to me. John Gray is who?

1340
01:10:17,060 --> 01:10:21,060
He was one of those, uh, some bones in the box.

1341
01:10:21,060 --> 01:10:23,060
Yes, many years ago, we found bones, right?

1342
01:10:23,060 --> 01:10:24,060
Yeah.

1343
01:10:24,060 --> 01:10:28,060
The name John Gray has long been linked to the Earhart mystery.

1344
01:10:28,060 --> 01:10:35,060
As a boy in 1968, he was exploring a crawl space underneath his home in Fiji when he made a startling discovery.

1345
01:10:35,060 --> 01:10:38,060
He found a box of bones that included a human skull.

1346
01:10:38,060 --> 01:10:43,060
Furthermore, the house had previously belonged to an employee from the Fiji School of Medicine.

1347
01:10:43,060 --> 01:10:48,060
Some believe that these bones could be the very same ones that went missing from Nicarmarro.

1348
01:10:48,060 --> 01:10:52,060
But in a maddening twist, these bones have also been lost.

1349
01:10:58,060 --> 01:11:03,060
My trip to the village has confirmed that the last man mentioned in the article didn't have the bones.

1350
01:11:03,060 --> 01:11:06,060
But a new lead is drawing me back to Suva.

1351
01:11:06,060 --> 01:11:11,060
Could John Gray provide any new insight about the bones he found nearly 50 years ago?

1352
01:11:11,060 --> 01:11:15,060
Perhaps he holds the key to solving this epic mystery.

1353
01:11:16,060 --> 01:11:18,060
So you were about how old when this happened?

1354
01:11:18,060 --> 01:11:19,060
13.

1355
01:11:19,060 --> 01:11:24,060
And so, 13-year-old boy, you find human bones under your house?

1356
01:11:24,060 --> 01:11:26,060
How did you come to be digging under your house?

1357
01:11:26,060 --> 01:11:30,060
Me and my cousins decided that we needed to go and check the place out.

1358
01:11:31,060 --> 01:11:38,060
And I crawled under this house and looked, and lo and behold, there was this box under there.

1359
01:11:38,060 --> 01:11:45,060
As we took off part of the covering, we saw this roundish, whitish-brownish thing.

1360
01:11:47,060 --> 01:11:53,060
And then, having pulled it out and seen what was the skull, it freaked me out.

1361
01:11:53,060 --> 01:11:54,060
Yeah.

1362
01:11:54,060 --> 01:11:55,060
And it's buried under your house?

1363
01:11:55,060 --> 01:11:56,060
Absolutely.

1364
01:11:56,060 --> 01:11:59,060
I mean, this is like the Poltergeist. This is like a horror movie.

1365
01:11:59,060 --> 01:12:00,060
Yeah.

1366
01:12:00,060 --> 01:12:03,060
And then what became of the box and the bones?

1367
01:12:03,060 --> 01:12:06,060
It was all given to the Fiji Museum.

1368
01:12:06,060 --> 01:12:10,060
I just really didn't want to have anything to do with that skull again.

1369
01:12:10,060 --> 01:12:11,060
Right.

1370
01:12:11,060 --> 01:12:18,060
So it never, ever came back into my life until I read this thing about Amelia Earhart.

1371
01:12:18,060 --> 01:12:24,060
Something clicked in my mind to say, John, that skull that you had is perhaps that.

1372
01:12:24,060 --> 01:12:27,060
Do you think there's a chance that it's still in the museum?

1373
01:12:27,060 --> 01:12:31,060
Well, I hope so.

1374
01:12:31,060 --> 01:12:35,060
Was the rest of that crawl space under the house thoroughly explored?

1375
01:12:35,060 --> 01:12:36,060
No, not at all.

1376
01:12:36,060 --> 01:12:37,060
Really?

1377
01:12:37,060 --> 01:12:41,060
Never. Even if I did want to, I couldn't. Because someone else owned it.

1378
01:12:41,060 --> 01:12:43,060
Now, though, it is a possibility?

1379
01:12:43,060 --> 01:12:47,060
The current owner is amenable to us going in there and excavating if we need to.

1380
01:12:47,060 --> 01:12:51,060
And you do think it's possible there could be other material remains under the house?

1381
01:12:51,060 --> 01:12:52,060
Absolutely.

1382
01:12:52,060 --> 01:12:53,060
You do?

1383
01:12:53,060 --> 01:12:55,060
Absolutely. She needs closure.

1384
01:12:55,060 --> 01:12:56,060
Hmm.

1385
01:12:56,060 --> 01:12:58,060
Amelia needs closure.

1386
01:13:03,060 --> 01:13:06,060
John made arrangements for us to search the crawl space tonight.

1387
01:13:06,060 --> 01:13:13,060
In the meantime, I want to further investigate his claim that the bones he found could still be in the archives at the Fiji Museum.

1388
01:13:13,060 --> 01:13:19,060
The museum boasts an impressive collection that spans nearly 4,000 years.

1389
01:13:19,060 --> 01:13:25,060
There are authentic Fijian rafts and even the rudder from the infamously mutineered HMS bounty.

1390
01:13:25,060 --> 01:13:29,060
But much of the collection is devoted to Fiji's violent cannibal past.

1391
01:13:29,060 --> 01:13:32,060
These islands were once a hotbed of human consumption.

1392
01:13:32,060 --> 01:13:36,060
One missionary was even eaten right down to the soles of his shoes.

1393
01:13:36,060 --> 01:13:39,060
The one part the natives found too tough to eat.

1394
01:13:39,060 --> 01:13:48,060
In a museum brimming with human remains, I'm not feeling very optimistic about finding a single box of bones handed over by a teenage boy in the 1960s.

1395
01:13:48,060 --> 01:13:53,060
But I've come this far and plan to leave no stone or bone unturned.

1396
01:13:56,060 --> 01:13:59,060
I'm fortunate to be granted access to the museum's archives.

1397
01:13:59,060 --> 01:14:06,060
However, what little hope I have shrinks as I realize that this place is essentially that room at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

1398
01:14:06,060 --> 01:14:08,060
This might take a while.

1399
01:14:14,060 --> 01:14:18,060
I comb through row after row of jumbled, disintegrating files.

1400
01:14:25,060 --> 01:14:29,060
Eventually, I do manage to turn up some intriguing reports about Earhart.

1401
01:14:31,060 --> 01:14:33,060
But no potential remains.

1402
01:14:34,060 --> 01:14:39,060
As I continue to comb through the museum's collection, I find countless weapons and relics.

1403
01:14:39,060 --> 01:14:41,060
But they're not what I'm looking for.

1404
01:14:44,060 --> 01:14:46,060
Oh, box! Check this out.

1405
01:14:47,060 --> 01:14:49,060
That kind of fits the description.

1406
01:14:49,060 --> 01:14:52,060
As he said, it's got clasps on the front.

1407
01:14:55,060 --> 01:15:11,060
I'm at the Fiji Museum looking for a lost box of bones that some think can be traced to Amelia Earhart.

1408
01:15:11,060 --> 01:15:13,060
Oh, box!

1409
01:15:13,060 --> 01:15:17,060
After scouring the archives, I've come upon a box that matches the description.

1410
01:15:18,060 --> 01:15:20,060
Nothing.

1411
01:15:20,060 --> 01:15:22,060
Can't win them all.

1412
01:15:22,060 --> 01:15:26,060
My search through the museum's archives doesn't turn up the remains.

1413
01:15:28,060 --> 01:15:31,060
It costs me the day, but I haven't lost all hope.

1414
01:15:31,060 --> 01:15:36,060
I'm traveling to the childhood home where John Gray found a box of bones over 40 years ago.

1415
01:15:36,060 --> 01:15:40,060
The police never searched the crawl space after John made his discovery,

1416
01:15:40,060 --> 01:15:43,060
so there could still be more evidence buried in the dirt.

1417
01:15:43,060 --> 01:15:45,060
This is it. This is your childhood home.

1418
01:15:45,060 --> 01:15:47,060
This is the home.

1419
01:15:47,060 --> 01:15:49,060
Does it look the same?

1420
01:15:49,060 --> 01:15:54,060
A little overgrown with shrubs and things like that, but the house looks exactly the same.

1421
01:15:54,060 --> 01:15:56,060
All right, well, here we go.

1422
01:15:56,060 --> 01:15:59,060
So this is where it happened.

1423
01:15:59,060 --> 01:16:00,060
This is the entry.

1424
01:16:00,060 --> 01:16:02,060
Right there.

1425
01:16:04,060 --> 01:16:08,060
Okay, so 13-year-old boy, you decide you're going to go into that crawl space.

1426
01:16:08,060 --> 01:16:13,060
Yep, I got into that, crawled out of the house, and there it was, this box.

1427
01:16:13,060 --> 01:16:16,060
Do you think anybody has been under here since 1968?

1428
01:16:16,060 --> 01:16:18,060
Well, it looks like things, no.

1429
01:16:18,060 --> 01:16:24,060
The box of bones that John found in 1968 was strikingly similar to the one that went missing decades before.

1430
01:16:26,060 --> 01:16:30,060
If there are any more remains buried under this house, they very well could be air hearts.

1431
01:16:31,060 --> 01:16:36,060
I'm not thrilled about poking around under an old house looking for air hearts bones in the dark,

1432
01:16:36,060 --> 01:16:40,060
but I've come this far, and there's no way I'm turning back now.

1433
01:16:44,060 --> 01:16:47,060
Where under here did you find the box?

1434
01:16:47,060 --> 01:16:50,060
Right in there, where that timber stump is.

1435
01:16:51,060 --> 01:16:53,060
I see it, yeah, about halfway back.

1436
01:16:53,060 --> 01:16:54,060
That's great.

1437
01:16:54,060 --> 01:16:56,060
And it was just sitting there, it was buried?

1438
01:16:56,060 --> 01:16:57,060
It was sitting there.

1439
01:16:57,060 --> 01:17:00,060
So if you get there, that's where the box was.

1440
01:17:00,060 --> 01:17:03,060
Well, that seems like that's our spot to start digging around.

1441
01:17:04,060 --> 01:17:05,060
Here we go.

1442
01:17:07,060 --> 01:17:09,060
So please just caution as you go through.

1443
01:17:09,060 --> 01:17:10,060
Okay.

1444
01:17:13,060 --> 01:17:15,060
Definitely some spiders, God.

1445
01:17:17,060 --> 01:17:19,060
So John, you're talking about that post there?

1446
01:17:19,060 --> 01:17:21,060
Correct, right in the middle of the house.

1447
01:17:21,060 --> 01:17:23,060
If I find any money under here, I keep it, right?

1448
01:17:23,060 --> 01:17:28,060
Doesn't look like anyone's really been down here in the past 40 years.

1449
01:17:28,060 --> 01:17:31,060
I found a button, looks like a button off a piece of clothing.

1450
01:17:31,060 --> 01:17:35,060
This is the first thing I've really found down here that looks from the human world.

1451
01:17:35,060 --> 01:17:39,060
Lots of broken bits of pottery.

1452
01:17:39,060 --> 01:17:41,060
It's a glass.

1453
01:17:42,060 --> 01:17:45,060
Looks like a child's marble.

1454
01:17:45,060 --> 01:17:48,060
Yeah, we used to play with those things in the old house.

1455
01:17:48,060 --> 01:17:50,060
You've lost your marbles, John.

1456
01:17:54,060 --> 01:17:58,060
Okay, John, I'm pushing over toward the area where you found the box.

1457
01:17:58,060 --> 01:17:59,060
Oh, boy.

1458
01:17:59,060 --> 01:18:02,060
There has gotta be a better way to make a living.

1459
01:18:04,060 --> 01:18:06,060
Is it this beam right here, the small one?

1460
01:18:06,060 --> 01:18:07,060
You're right there.

1461
01:18:07,060 --> 01:18:08,060
That's it?

1462
01:18:08,060 --> 01:18:09,060
That's it.

1463
01:18:09,060 --> 01:18:10,060
Okay.

1464
01:18:10,060 --> 01:18:12,060
So this was where the box was.

1465
01:18:12,060 --> 01:18:14,060
I'm going to go down there.

1466
01:18:14,060 --> 01:18:17,060
Okay, so this was where the box was.

1467
01:18:27,060 --> 01:18:29,060
A lot of coral down here.

1468
01:18:29,060 --> 01:18:33,060
It must have, when they were building the house, used this as part of the landfill.

1469
01:18:37,060 --> 01:18:38,060
John?

1470
01:18:38,060 --> 01:18:39,060
Yep?

1471
01:18:39,060 --> 01:18:41,060
Just making sure you didn't go home.

1472
01:18:41,060 --> 01:18:43,060
When you found the box, did they go through the...

1473
01:18:43,060 --> 01:18:46,060
underside of this house with a fine tooth comb?

1474
01:18:46,060 --> 01:18:47,060
No.

1475
01:18:47,060 --> 01:18:49,060
I just wanted to get rid of the box.

1476
01:18:49,060 --> 01:18:51,060
But the police didn't come down here?

1477
01:18:51,060 --> 01:18:52,060
No.

1478
01:18:52,060 --> 01:18:56,060
You would think after they found this box filled with bones that would have come down here

1479
01:18:56,060 --> 01:19:02,060
and done a more thorough search, but I don't see anything around there other than a lot of dirt and some of this coral.

1480
01:19:05,060 --> 01:19:07,060
Hold on, let me see what's down here.

1481
01:19:09,060 --> 01:19:11,060
This does not look like coral to me.

1482
01:19:14,060 --> 01:19:16,060
This looks like bone.

1483
01:19:25,060 --> 01:19:27,060
Hold on, let me see what's down here.

1484
01:19:27,060 --> 01:19:33,060
I'm in Fiji searching underneath a home for bones that some believe may be the remains of Amelia Earhard.

1485
01:19:33,060 --> 01:19:36,060
After a bit of digging, I may have found something.

1486
01:19:36,060 --> 01:19:39,060
This does not look like coral to me.

1487
01:19:39,060 --> 01:19:41,060
This looks like bone.

1488
01:19:46,060 --> 01:19:49,060
I got a bone down here for sure.

1489
01:19:49,060 --> 01:19:51,060
A big piece of bone.

1490
01:19:51,060 --> 01:19:55,060
I don't know if it's human or not, but this is definitely bone.

1491
01:19:55,060 --> 01:19:56,060
Wow.

1492
01:19:56,060 --> 01:19:57,060
That is a bone.

1493
01:19:57,060 --> 01:19:59,060
I mean, that looks like a human bone to me.

1494
01:19:59,060 --> 01:20:01,060
Another one?

1495
01:20:01,060 --> 01:20:03,060
Part of a vertebrae?

1496
01:20:03,060 --> 01:20:04,060
My goodness.

1497
01:20:04,060 --> 01:20:06,060
More?

1498
01:20:06,060 --> 01:20:10,060
In a million years, I didn't think I was going to actually find bones under this house,

1499
01:20:10,060 --> 01:20:14,060
but I'm looking at a handful of them right here and I'm just barely scratching the surface.

1500
01:20:14,060 --> 01:20:16,060
Amazing.

1501
01:20:16,060 --> 01:20:17,060
There's more down here.

1502
01:20:17,060 --> 01:20:19,060
There's more down here.

1503
01:20:20,060 --> 01:20:22,060
I mean, there's a skeleton down here.

1504
01:20:22,060 --> 01:20:25,060
There's bits of bone all over the place down here.

1505
01:20:26,060 --> 01:20:28,060
More bones.

1506
01:20:28,060 --> 01:20:29,060
I mean, what is that from?

1507
01:20:29,060 --> 01:20:30,060
It's everywhere I look.

1508
01:20:30,060 --> 01:20:33,060
I mean, I'm putting the skeleton together down here.

1509
01:20:33,060 --> 01:20:36,060
It might be time to call the police department to come over here and take a look,

1510
01:20:36,060 --> 01:20:38,060
because a couple of them could be human.

1511
01:20:38,060 --> 01:20:39,060
I don't know.

1512
01:20:44,060 --> 01:20:46,060
All right, I'm coming out.

1513
01:20:52,060 --> 01:20:54,060
Oh my goodness.

1514
01:20:55,060 --> 01:20:57,060
Well, there's more under the house, John.

1515
01:20:57,060 --> 01:20:58,060
Vertebrae?

1516
01:20:58,060 --> 01:21:02,060
This obviously is going to be a chicken bone, something much smaller.

1517
01:21:02,060 --> 01:21:06,060
This could be a cow bone, but this, I mean, things like this, I don't know.

1518
01:21:06,060 --> 01:21:08,060
That could be human.

1519
01:21:09,060 --> 01:21:13,060
We assume that what was in the box was all that there was.

1520
01:21:13,060 --> 01:21:18,060
And for a 13-year-old kid, you never want to go back in to find out if there's anything else.

1521
01:21:22,060 --> 01:21:24,060
I'm going to do a surgical look down here.

1522
01:21:24,060 --> 01:21:26,060
So we don't need any cameras at the moment?

1523
01:21:26,060 --> 01:21:27,060
Okay.

1524
01:21:27,060 --> 01:21:28,060
Okay, we see it.

1525
01:21:28,060 --> 01:21:29,060
No cameras?

1526
01:21:29,060 --> 01:21:30,060
Oh, okay.

1527
01:21:33,060 --> 01:21:40,060
The bones that I found under the house transformed our television production into a criminal investigation.

1528
01:21:40,060 --> 01:21:46,060
After lengthy questioning at the police station, the Fiji CSI unit has bagged the evidence for review,

1529
01:21:46,060 --> 01:21:51,060
and I've got no choice but to head back to my hotel for a much-needed shower.

1530
01:21:53,060 --> 01:21:59,060
The next morning, I return to the scene of the crime, only to find more investigators crawling under the house.

1531
01:21:59,060 --> 01:22:01,060
Hazmat Suze.

1532
01:22:02,060 --> 01:22:04,060
Why didn't I think of that?

1533
01:22:06,060 --> 01:22:08,060
The police tape says it all.

1534
01:22:08,060 --> 01:22:14,060
The case is now out of my hands, and I'm told that analysis and DNA testing could take months.

1535
01:22:14,060 --> 01:22:20,060
However, the lab has already confirmed that at least one of the bones is human.

1536
01:22:21,060 --> 01:22:24,060
A revelation that turns out to be front-page news.

1537
01:22:25,060 --> 01:22:32,060
As I make my way back to the airport to bring my expedition to a close, I have a lot to reflect on.

1538
01:22:32,060 --> 01:22:40,060
The shocking discovery of human remains beneath John Gray's house is a genuinely newsworthy lead in the search for the Queen of the Skies.

1539
01:22:40,060 --> 01:22:48,060
In addition, the potential identification of the aluminum panel from the island of Nica Moraro makes it tempting to conclude

1540
01:22:48,060 --> 01:22:52,060
that Earhart did indeed crash on or around the remote island.

1541
01:22:52,060 --> 01:22:57,060
But much of the evidence, though hugely compelling, is still circumstantial.

1542
01:22:57,060 --> 01:23:03,060
Until her bones or the full wreckage of the Electra is identified, no one can say for certain.

1543
01:23:04,060 --> 01:23:11,060
Back in Papua New Guinea, the overgrown World War II wreckage that we found in the jungle and the eerie wrecks beneath the waves

1544
01:23:11,060 --> 01:23:15,060
are, in a sense, every bit as important as Earhart's plane.

1545
01:23:15,060 --> 01:23:19,060
After all, pilots went missing, lives were lost.

1546
01:23:19,060 --> 01:23:26,060
My hope is that the bones from the sunken Allied plane can be identified and repatriated home for the burial they deserve.

1547
01:23:29,060 --> 01:23:36,060
At the heart of Earhart's world flight was a commitment to opening new frontiers and to unite the many cultures of the world.

1548
01:23:36,060 --> 01:23:40,060
In that regard, her mission has been a success.

1549
01:23:41,060 --> 01:23:47,060
She helped herald in the modern age of aviation, which now serves to connect every nation on Earth.

1550
01:23:48,060 --> 01:23:54,060
In the end, I'm most drawn to the unanswered question, why do we continue the search?

1551
01:23:54,060 --> 01:24:00,060
To me, the magnificent thing about Amelia is that in the eyes of the world, she never died.

1552
01:24:00,060 --> 01:24:04,060
Her fear never witnessed, her failure never recorded.

1553
01:24:04,060 --> 01:24:11,060
Earhart's legacy of inspiration is amplified because her adventure is perpetual, unbroken by gravity.

1554
01:24:11,060 --> 01:24:16,060
We simply think of her as missing, and perhaps that's where she belongs.

1555
01:24:16,060 --> 01:24:20,060
Somewhere over that limitless blue horizon.