The US government accepted the theory that Amelia Earhart’s plane crashed at sea long ago; after she disappeared on July 2, 1937 when attempting to be the first woman to fly around the world, the search for Earhart and her plane began and never ended. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) has now recovered old evidence that could point to Earhart dying as a castaway.

In 1940, the remains of a person were found on the island of Nikumaroro. After being analyzed, the bones were concluded to belong to a male, never leading to a connection to Earhart, but recent investigation of the files has revealed that the remains belong to a woman of Earhart’s height. Anthropologist Richard Jantz noticed that the length of the forearms is abnormally large, and after examination of historic photographs of Earhart, the two measurements of the forearms are identically.

According to Ric Gillespie, the executive director of TIGHAR, radio logs show that Earhart was sending out distress signals days after her plane crashed.

Gillespie is now trying to raise funds to send a manned submarine mission to Nikumaroro to search for evidence of Earhart and finally put the mystery to rest.