A
fter Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed
Electra disappeared during its
attempted 29,000-mile flight
around in the world in the
summer of 1937, several wildly
conflicting theories arose. One
presumed her plane had simply
run out of gas and crashed into
the Pacific Ocean. Another
speculated that Earhart had
managed to land her plane, but had been captured by the
Japanese and died while in Japanese custody.
There is, of course, a third theory—one that suggests that
Earhart, experiencing a mechanical error or a navigational
mishap, landed her plane on a remote island in the Pacific and
lived alone as a castaway for some time before succumbing to
the elements.
This is the theory that Murrysville resident Mike Silvert
believes, and the one he has spent the past several years
determined to prove.
Silvert’s fascination with Amelia Earhart began when he
was a child growing up in the growing up in the 1950s. His
mother regaled him with stories about Earhart, who was still
very much in the public consciousness.
“She was quite the groundbreaking person of her time,”
says Silvert, 71, referring to the fact that Earhart had been the
first woman and only the second person to fly solo across the
Atlantic Ocean.
After high school, Silvert joined the U.S. Navy, where he
specialized in navigation. He learned how to navigate using
the same pre-GPS methods, like celestial navigation, that
Amelia Earhart used to pilot her plane across the Pacific,
further stoking his interest in the Earhart mystery.
Berkley canine forensic
dog at channel entrance
to Niku.
A native of Baltimore,
Silvert came to Murrysville
in 1982 after he landed
a sales job at the former
Channel 22, which was based
in Monroeville. About a
year and a half later, Silvert
left Channel 22 to work for
WPXI-TV, where he stayed
for 24 years before retiring
in 2008.
It was sometime in the
early 1990s when Silvert’s curiosity about Earhart was piqued
once again, when he read about The International Group for
Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), a nonprofit foundation
dedicated to promoting responsible aviation archaeology and
historic preservation. The group had taken several expeditions
to a deserted island in the Pacific to investigate Earhart’s
disappearance.
Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro Island) was located
approximately 356 nautical miles away from Earhart’s intended
target, Howland Island, which was a one-square-mile island
in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Based on the number and
location of Amelia’s final radio messages, TIGHAR believes
that Gardner Island is where Earhart actually landed her
plane—and also where its members have found numerous
artifacts that support their theory.
In 1991, for example, the group found an aluminum patch
that likely had been used to replace the broken navigation
window on the Electra’s starboard fuselage. Since then, other
evidence has been found that points to Earhart having spent
time on the island, including shoe parts and glass bottle
fragments that point to habitation by Westerners.
Continued on next page >
Aerial photo of Nikumaroro.
MURRYSVILLE ❘
SPRING 2020
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