Archaeologist Claims To Have Solved Amelia Earhart Mystery With Stunning Pacific Discovery

A real-life Indiana Jones says he’s unraveled perhaps the greatest aviation mystery of all time — what really happened to Amelia Earhart on her doomed transglobal flight nearly 90 years ago.

Now, intrepid archeologist Dr. Richard Pettigrew is launching a daring expedition to the vast reaches of the Pacific Ocean to prove he’s right.

Pettigrew, executive director of the Archaeological Legacy Institute in Eugene, Ore., says he thinks the trailblazing pilot landed her Lockheed 10-E Electra safely in a shallow lagoon off the remote island of Nikumaroro in the western Pacific Ocean.

The spry 77-year-old explorer believes the plane likely remained hidden in sandy muck until roiling storm currents unearthed it in 2015, leaving it to be discovered five years later.

Since then, Pettigrew has analyzed roughly two dozen satellite images of the reflective, metallic object on the ocean floor.

“I’ve spent four years analyzing data,” Pettigrew tells The National Enquirer. “I spoke with many people and considered all the options. I think the best explanation is that we’ve found the Electra. I’m very excited about it. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime and I’m focused on getting the job done.”

Earhart, 39, was roughly three-quarters of the way to becoming the first female aviator to circle the world when she and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared on July 2, 1937, during a 2,555-mile leg from Papua New Guinea to Howland Island.

Earhart hit unexpectedly strong headwinds and reported a shortage of fuel just before her radio ominously stopped transmitting. She and Noonan were never heard from again, and never found despite a dogged 16-day Coast Guard search of the area.

Pettigrew suspects the legendary pilot deftly cheated death by landing on a reef flat off the Taraia Peninsula on Nikumaroro island’s nearly pristine northwest side, a bold theory he says is bolstered by the grisly discovery in 1940 of a campsite with bones nearby.

“The very idea that she wasted away on the island and eventually died and got eaten by coconut crabs — that’s a horrible, horrible vision,” Pettigrew shares. “I don’t like thinking about it, but it’s inevitable.”

The archeologist says he’s amassed a team of 10 scientists ready to depart in November on a five-day, $900,000 expedition to investigate the mysterious metallic object buried just off the coast.

“I’ve looked at this back and forth, up and down, in and out, for years now, and I think the evidence is quite overwhelming,” he says.

“I’m very confident we’re going to come home with the goods.”