Our enduring obsession with Amelia Earhart's mysterious disappearance

Why we can't get enough of the tantalizing tale of the famed aviator's demise

Amelia Earhart standing in front of the Lockheed Electra in which she disappeared in July 1937
(Image credit: NASA Archive / Alamy Stock Photo)

Since 1937, humans have done a lot of amazing things: We put a man on the moon, developed the atomic bomb, eradicated smallpox, invented computers, created the internet, cloned animals, transplanted hearts, erected 160-story skyscrapers, perfected the smartphone, and modernized everything from medicine to transportation to warfare.

But one thing no one on Earth — despite many, many attempts — has been able to do is determine what exactly happened to famed aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan on July 2, 1937, when Earhart's Lockheed Electra went down near Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean. The moment her last transmission was received by the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca was the beginning of one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the 20th century.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.