Amelia Earhart: Hull Hypothesis
In 1970, the US Air Force (USAF) developed a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) called the Minuteman III. The USAF needed to determine the accuracy of the new missile. The Air Force Space and Missile Test Center (SAMTEC) developed a range instrumentation concept.
Three “Splash Detection Radars” triangulated the splash of the warheads launched from SAMTEC/Vandenberg AFB in California. The radar system pin-pointed the exact location of splashdown into a test area in the Pacific Ocean. Three Splash Detection Radars were constructed one each on Canton/Kanton, Enderbury and Hull/Orona Islands within the Phoenix Islands. Construction and operations were staged from Canton Island. Helicopters were utilized to visit the three islands and other islands in the area.
In 1973, in support of the SAMTEC project, Tom Maxwell worked as a Department of Defense (DoD) contractor at Canton, now known as Kanton Island. After work, the contractors, pilots, radar technicians and optics workers frequently gathered at the Red Dawg Saloon; a shanty constructed of plywood boards and a tin roof. Many discussions over beverages revolved around WWII activities at Canton, battles in the Pacific theater and from time to time the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Other than the Red Dawg dart board, one of the chief recreational activities at Canton was scuba diving. A Canton Island dive club was formed.
One evening, while Tom was at the Red Dawg, the conversation turned to WWII wreck diving. Members of the dive club had just returned from a dive trip vacation to Truk and Palau Islands. They shared stories of their experience diving on Japanese aircraft in the Truk and Palau lagoons. A member of the helicopter aircrew, or possibly one of the numerous technicians who rode the helicopter to Hull commented:
I think there is a WWII airplane in the lagoon at Hull….I saw it from the chopper
…or words to that effect. There was no follow-up on this statement as the DoD forbade scuba diving at Hull or any of the remote islands and the comment passed without further discussion.
Years later, as retirement approached, Tom became interested in the search for Amelia Earhart’s airplane. Soon the Nikumaroro hypothesis (AKA Niku, formerly Gardner Island) was on the front pages of newspapers. There was a flurry of arguments about the validity of the Niku hypothesis and the associated “evidence”. Tom’s distant aircraft-in-Hull-Island-lagoon memory from 35 years ago, recounted in Canton’s Red Dawg Saloon, bubbled up. He discovered if Earhart made it to Niku Island, she also had enough fuel to arrive at Hull Island, now known as Orona Island.
In the late fall of 2007, Tom began to study the Google Earth (GE) images of the Hull/Orona Island lagoon. The low-resolution GE images of 2005 and earlier were not useful. Tom was drawn, however, to DigitalGlobe Incorporated’s 2006 QuickBird satellite image of the lagoon. Tom recognized the complex maze of coral towers he had previously observed in Pacific Island lagoons. The 2006 water surface conditions were near perfect regarding the light being reflected into the satellite camera.
In the spring of 2008, after scrutinizing the Hull Lagoon, Tom located objects below the water surface he hypothesizes as aircraft wreckage. Since then the Hull Object team has purchased a high-resolution image of the Hull Lagoon. Research is ongoing.