Amelia Earhart\'s plane disappeared in 1937, during an attempt at flying around the world. No one imagined at that time that the mystery would go unsolved for so long. Earhart, accompanied by her navigator Fred Noonan, hoped to become the first woman to circle the globe at the equator. She had completed three quarters of the journey in her Lockheed Electra plane. Earhart and Noonan were headed from New Guinea to Howland Island in the South Pacific when their plane went missing. Despite continued searches over the last seven decades, the fate of Earhart, Noonan, and the plane are still unknown.
A number of theories about the disappearance have been proposed. Many experts believe that Earhart\'s plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea around Howland Island. If that\'s true, the wreckage could be at a depth of 18,000 feet. There were rumors that Earhart was spying on the Japanese or that she and Noonan were held hostage and later executed by the Japanese on an island called Saipan. There were even rumors that Earhart had returned to the U.S. and taken on a new identity. The rumors were discredited over the years, but the search continued.
One of the main participants in the search has been The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR). The group believes that instead of crashing into the Pacific, Earhart\'s plane made an emergency landing on a shallow coral reef near Gardener\'s Island (now known as Nikumaroro Island). In 2012, they published online images taken deep underwater off the coast of the island. Visible in the images is an object that may be the wing of the Electra. The sonar image shows a 22-foot long object 600 feet below the surface. It lies in the same area as other debris that is thought to be part of the plane\'s wreckage.
One worry about retrieving the wreckage is the condition of the material. The Electra was made of a type of aluminum. Over time, the saltwater would have corroded the aluminum. If someone tried to move it, it could crumble. TIGHAR\'s idea is to bring along a tank filled with a solution to help stabilize the wreckage. If they transported it in the tank, the solution may preserve the parts so that they can be studied.
In addition to the possible wreckage, TIGHAR believes that there are signs on the island of castaways. TIGHAR has made many trips to Nikumaroro Island. Explorers have found a campsite and sites of at least nine fires, including thousands of fish, turtle, and bird bones. On an uninhabited island, these are all likely clues to the existence of a castaway at some point. In addition, more than one hundred artifacts were found on the island. They included buttons, a pocket knife, cloth, and a jar that analysts believe might have contained freckle cream. (Earhart was fair skinned and freckled.)
In 1940, the skeletal remains of a human were found on the island. An analysis of the remains concluded that the bones were likely to have been from a Caucasian female who was between 5 feet 4 inches and 5 feet 9 inches tall--a description that fit Earhart. Unfortunately, the bones were somehow lost long ago, so no further analysis is possible.
In the fall of 2014, TIGHAR plans to return to Nikumaroro Island. The organization will use the latest undersea technology to try to locate and recover what they believe to be the wreckage of Earhart\'s plane. Will the mystery of Earhart\'s disappearance ever be solved? Probably not completely. Even if scientists and researchers can identify the plane as being Earhart\'s Electra, we\'ll probably never know exactly what happened or what Earhart\'s last days were like. Even so, Amelia Earhart will continue to live on in our collective memory as an inspirational woman and aviator.
问题:
1. What is the main idea of this selection? （选择题）
a. Amelia Earhart was rumored to be spying on the Japanese at the time of her disappearance.
b. The search for Amelia Earhart\'s plane and details of her disappearance has continued over seven decades.
c. Amelia Earhart may have been a castaway on Nikumaroro Island.
2. What signs of castaways have been found on Nikumaroro Island?
3. How is a rumor different from a fact?
4. How has improved technology affected the search for Earhart\'s plane?
5. Which of these is NOT one of the artifacts found on Nikumaroro Island? （选择题）
a. buttons
b. a photograph
c. a jar
6. Why do you think people continue to search for Earhart\'s plane so long after her disappearance?