How did Amelia Earhart die? Here’s what researchers think happened to the famed pilot.

Amelia Earhart disappeared 86 years ago, but researchers and fans aren’t done talking about her. The famed pilot was a household name during her life and broke several records for women and pilots.

Her disappearance is the subject of books, documentaries and continuing investigations. Experts told USA TODAY in 2017 that the mystery endures, in part, because her spirit and message of perseverance “still resonate today.”

Now, an ocean exploration company may have found another clue – a sonar image of what appears to be an aircraft in the Pacific Ocean.

Who was Amelia Earhart?

Amelia Earhart was an American aviator who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland. She also set several speed and altitude records. When she disappeared in 1937, she was setting out to be the first woman to complete a circumnavigation flight around the globe.

“Aviation, this young modern giant, exemplifies the possible relationship of women and the creations of science,” she said of her travels.

Earhart was born in Kansas on July 24, 1897, according to the History Channel. She served as a Red Cross aid in Canada during World War I, where she spent time watching pilots train. She was a pre-med student at Columbia University after the war.

She rode her first airplane in December 1920 with World War I pilot Frank Hawks and began taking flying lessons the following month. She earned her National Aeronautics Association license in December 1921 and broke her first record only a year later.

She was the first woman awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, a military distinction from Congress for “heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight,” the History Channel says.

Earhart also helped create the Ninety-Nines, an organization for the advancement of women in aviation and became its first president.

Unanswered questions: Why are we obsessed with the mystery of Amelia Earhart?

What happened to Amelia Earhart?

Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, departed from Oakland, California on May 20, 1937, on a Lockheed Electra aircraft. According to the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, they made 29 additional stops, including their last known refuel stop in Lae, New Guinea on July 2 at 10 a.m. local time.

Earhart and Noonan were due on Howland Island – about 2,500 miles away from Lae – about 18 hours later. Coast Guard cutter Itasca was waiting with fuel and received intermittent voice messages from Earhart as her signal increased. But neither Earhart nor Noonan knew Morse code, so there was no two-way contact, according to the Smithsonian Institute’s analysis of government records. It’s unclear if she ever heard any of the Itasca’s transmissions at all.

After losing contact, the Navy and Coast Guard searched about 250,000 square miles of ocean in search of Earhart and Noonan. The unsuccessful endeavors cost roughly $250,000 per day, TIME reported at the time. Eighteen months after their disappearance, the Navy declared Earhart and Noonan legally dead and deduced that their plane had run out of fuel and crashed into the Pacific. Today, many experts contend a combination of bad weather and the long journey caused the plane’s downfall.

With ongoing searches and conspiracy theories galore, Earhart’s disappearance remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of the 20th century.

In one theory, she crash landed not in the ocean but on the remote, uninhabited Nikumaroro atoll. Nikumaroro (previously known as Gardner Island) is about 400 miles south of Howland.

Three years after she disappeared, an expedition to Nikumaroro recovered several human bones, including a skull. A University of Tennessee researcher examined the bones and determined they were likely Earhart’s. The bones have more similarity to Earhart than to 99% of reference sample individuals, according to the 2018 study published in Forensic Anthropology. No remains of Noonan’s were found, though a sextant box similar to the one he carried was among the remains.

The aircraft itself was never found, though in late 2023, an ocean exploration company in South Carolina captured a sonar image in the Pacific Ocean that "appears to be Earhart's Lockheed 10-E Electra" aircraft.

TIGHAR’s Earhart Project is founded on the theory that Earhart and Noonan landed on Nikumaroro and died there. They believe they continued on their navigational line after they couldn’t find Howland Island, where they landed and sent a series of radio signals. Her messages were originally dismissed by government officials as hoaxes, but TIGHAR executive director Richard Gillespie identified 57 credible signals that civilians picked up around the world.

The last credible transmission, Gillespie believes, said this: “We have taken in water, my navigator is badly hurt ... we are in need of medical care and must have help. We can’t hold on much longer.”

Another theory says that Earhart crash-landed on the Marshall Islands and was taken captive by the Japanese, where she eventually died. Fans of this theory back their beliefs up with a photo from the U.S. National Archives that shows a woman and man who resemble Earhart and Noonan. Japanese authorities told NBC there are no records indicating she was in custody.

Another widely-disputed offshoot of this theory, popularized by retired Air Force Major Joseph Gervais, is that Earhart survived Japanese captivity and was smuggled back to the U.S. disguised as a nun, where she settled to live in Monroe Township, New Jersey. According to National Geographic, Gervais identified banker Irene Bolam as Earhart seemingly because of physical similarities.

“I looked this lady straight in the face, and I knew who it was … I would know her anywhere in the world,” Gervais said, per National Geographic.

Bolam’s response? “I am not a mystery woman. I am not Amelia Earhart!” She later sued for damages.

How old was Amelia Earhart when she died?

Born in 1897, Earhart was 39 years old when she disappeared and was declared legally dead. She would be 126 years old today.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What happened to Amelia Earhart? Theories about how she died.