AI predicts where Amelia Earhart's plane wreckage could be and it's eerily specific

It's been over 90 years since Amelia Earhart's plane disappeared flying over the South Pacific, but thanks to AI, we could finally be closing in on an answer to what happened back in 1937.

When asked to name a specific place to search for Earhart's missing Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, ChatGPT pointed to the same underwater area that a team of researchers descended on this week in the South Pacific.

“If I had to put a pin on the map, I’d choose the Taraia Object in Nikumaroro’s lagoon, Kiribati,” the chatbot said, while noting the target has ‘not been confirmed as Amelia Earhart’s plane’.

People are still fascinated about the disappearance of Amelia Earhart (Bettmann/Getty Images)

The Taraia object is the focus of a expedition by the Archaeological Legacy Institute and Purdue University, whose researchers arrived on the uninhabited island Nikumaroro on October 12.

According to a Purdue press release, the group is hunting for the Lockheed Model 10-E Electra that Earhart was piloting with her navigator Fred Noonan when they vanished in 1937.

Chat GPT's first answer was more cautious. Asked to choose a single search area, the AI said it would focus on the deep-water-drop-off and seabed of Nikumaroror's western of northwestern side, describing that as 'a hypothesis, not a confirmed location'.

When pressed for something bolder, ChatGPT imagined a scenario in which Earhart landed or ditched on the ocean-facing reef edge on the island's western to northwestern side, and the aircraft was later swept over the steep reef slope into deeper water.

It put the depth at between 330 and 980 feet (100 to 300 meters) but called the depth and direction its 'own speculative guesses'.

Amelia Earhart mysteriously went missing in the 1930s (Getty Stock Photo)

What is the Taraia Object?

Earhart was attempting to fly around the world when she lost contact with the U.S. Coast Guard on July 2, 1937. At the time she and Noonan were believed to be flying to Howland Island.

Nearly 90 years later, satellite images showed a mysterious shape submerged in a lagoon near the island.

The Taraia Object is believed to lie only 10 feet from the lagoon’s shore, according to Purdue. (Perdue University)

That visual anomaly, dubbed the Taraia Object, is believed to be Earhart's Electra.

"Based on estimates from aerial photos, the Taraia Object is believed to be located only 10 feet from the lagoon's shore," officials explained, "depending on the tide, under as little as five feet of water, plus a layer of sediment of unknown depth."

Researchers with the Archaeological Legacy Institute and Purdue University arrived on the uninhabited island of Nikumaroro on October 12. (ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

How will researchers investigate the Taraia Object?

The answers are unlikely to be instant. The team must first spend days 'marking and cutting a trail through the jungle' from its landing site to Taraia Peninsula, where the lagoon is located. Officials also said the researchers must sleep on the ship, because of native coconut crabs, the largest terrestrial crustacean in the world, make staying on the island overnight 'impractical'.

Once the crew reaches the peninsula, it can use a magnetometer to detect ferrous metals that could point to artifacts, alongside sonar to detect objects on the lagoon floor.

Earhart was piloting a Lockheed Model 10-E Electra with navigator Fred Noonan when they vanished in 1937. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A water induction dredge will then remove sediment so the object can be inspected visually.

Rick Pettigrew, the Archaeological Legacy Institute’s executive director and expedition leader, said in a statement to E! News: “It is incredibly rewarding to be this close to completing our inspection of the Taraia Object and potentially solving, at long last, the outstanding mystery of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan more than 89 years ago.”