Discovery of Amelia Earhart’s Plane Reveals She Went Down Getting Litty

Last month, Deep Sea Vision, an underwater exploration company based in the US, revealed a sonar image they had taken that they believe is of Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed 10-E Electra plane that she was flying when she disappeared in 1937. 

Earhart was the first woman and second person to ever fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean, and was attempting to become the first woman to fly around the world when she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, along with their plane, mysteriously vanished off of radars and radio signals off the coast of Papua New Guinea.

Researchers were skeptical at first that this plane could belong to Earhart, but previous theories on her disappearance have all been rooted in conspiracy: ideas that she was taken hostage by the Japanese in World War II or that she somehow managed a landing but lived in anonymity for the rest of her life don’t hold as much weight as a picture of what looks like an actual plane in the actual ocean. The US government sent a team to recover this shadowy plane, but what they found was more than anyone had expected.

CNN has referred to Amelia Earhart as “the Taylor Swift of the 20th century,” and that appears to be true in more than just her iconic status in female history – or shall we say HERstory. When the plane was lifted out of the water, researchers immediately noted a certain smell that wasn’t familiar to the ocean, and more reminiscent of their college dorm rooms in the 80s. They cracked open the cockpit to reveal two waterlogged skeletons surrounded by glass bottles and jars of powder, all mostly empty. It seemed Amelia Earhart had gone out in style.

Just like when Taylor Swift says, “and by the way, I’m going out tonight,” Earhart and Noonan had decided nothing could stop their party rocking, not even flying a tiny plane in the midst of the Great Depression. The bottles were filled with remnants of a variety of alcohol, and the powders ranged from marijuana ready to be rolled into a blunt to much harder substances, some of which researchers were pretty sure hadn’t been popularized in the US by Earhart’s time. Clearly, her worldly travels had exposed her to all different kinds of local cultures, and by extension, local drugs.

While many were shocked by the news that the woman they had done one research project on in elementary school and subsequently idolized for three years was a hardcore party girl, the US government appeared comforted by the news that Earhart had not gone down in flames and terror.

“We certainly don’t condone her actions,” stated a government representative last week, “but we are happy to know she went down doing what she loved: getting both physically and mentally high as a fucking kite.”