In 2020, an amateur researcher spotted an elongated, white object while browsing through Apple Maps satellite images of Nikumaroro Island in the West Pacific. In those blurry photos, it almost resembled an aircraft not unlike the plane Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan attempted to fly around the world in 1937.

The unusual shape, which came to be known as the Taraia object, immediately captivated researchers who had long searched for Earhart’s plane. Could she and Noonan have landed on the remote, uninhabited island and become marooned there, never to be seen or heard from again?

Last week, an expedition team arrived at Nikumaroro Island to investigate the Taraia object, hoping to finally solve the decades-old mystery of Earhart and Noonan’s disappearance. Their task was arduous. The object was located on the edge of Taraia Peninsula in the island’s lagoon and submerged in several feet of water, complicating investigative efforts. Plus, Nikumaroro is absolutely crawling with coconut crabs—freakishly large crustaceans so oppressive the team couldn’t stay on the island overnight.

Over the course of a week at Nikumaroro, the researchers spent four days studying the Taraia object, trekking back and forth between their ship and the lagoon daily. After all that, their search turned up empty.

“Perhaps no words better capture this expedition than Amelia Earhart’s own: ‘Adventure is worthwhile in itself,’” Steve Schultz, expedition member and general counsel for Perdue University, said in a statement.

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