Nikumaroro
Island in KiribatiWikipedia
187
MENTIONS
86
EPISODES
58
PODCASTS
Search complete. 187 mentions across 86 episodes found for "Nikumaroro".
Oct 16, 2026
Bobby BonesHOST
Hit that clip.
speaker_10SOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Researchers from Purdue University and the Archaeological Legacy Institute are spending their second day on uninhabited Nikumaroro Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, traveling more than 6,000 miles to determine if this image, first discovered on Apple Maps in 2020, is indeed Amelia Earhart's airplane, possibly unlocking an 89-year-old mystery.
speaker_10SOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were last seen taking off in her twin engine plane on July 2nd, 1937.
Bobby BonesHOST
So it'd be crazy if they found it because of Apple Maps.
Ron PhillipsHOST
[laughs]
Brad StaggsHOST
Nikumaroro, Roro.
Brad StaggsHOST
And, um, here is a picture of the, uh, of the, um, Nikumaroro Island.
Ron PhillipsHOST
I've seen this before.
Brad StaggsHOST
And this is where researchers are headed from Purdue and the Archeological Legacy Institute.
Steve StocktonHOST
Oh no.
Steve StocktonHOST
They think she managed to put that crippled plane down on the jagged coral reef of a desolate, uninhabited spit of land, Nikumaroro.
Steve StocktonHOST
Now imagine surviving the crash, only to realize you are entirely alone, a thousand miles from salvation.
Steve StocktonHOST
The water's gone, the radio's dead, and you're not alone on the island.
Steve StocktonHOST
Nikumaroro is crawling with coconut crabs.
Steve StocktonHOST
Monstrous, armored things the size of small dogs, with claws strong enough to snap bone and an appetite for meat.
Steve StocktonHOST
They hunt at night, clicking and clattering over the coral.
Sam ChampionHOST
A team from Purdue University and the Archaeological Legacy Institute is searching high and low on a remote Pacific island for what could be the final resting place of Amelia Earhart's lost plane.
speaker_0NARRATOR
We're at day two on Nikumaroro.
Sam ChampionHOST
And we're with the team on Nikumaroro, an uninhabited island in the South Pacific, where they've set up operations and begun an underwater survey of a mysterious plane-like object spotted on satellite images.
Sam ChampionHOST
And now they're searching beneath the lagoon floor for clues.
speaker_28SOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
We're still very early in the phases of our work.
Lana ZakCORRESPONDENT
A tiny island in the South Pacific so remote it took the 17-member expedition team five days at sea just to reach it.
Lana ZakCORRESPONDENT
They're scouring this lagoon on uninhabited Nikumaroro Island because of this mysterious object spotted on satellite camera.
Lana ZakCORRESPONDENT
They believe it could be Amelia Earhart's missing Lockheed Electra plane
Richard PettigrewSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
planeWe're still very much in the data gathering phase.
Gregg GiannottiHOST
They've been working to get to this island, which is uninhabited by humans.
Gregg GiannottiHOST
I think it's like Nikumaroro.
Gregg GiannottiHOST
And there's these giant coconut crabs on Nikumaroro.
Boomer EsiasonHOST
Yeah.
Boomer EsiasonHOST
[laughs] Nikumaroro.
Gregg GiannottiHOST
[laughs] I think that's the name of it.
Gregg GiannottiHOST
Yeah, it's Nikumaroro.
Gregg GiannottiHOST
So there's these giant coconut crabs on Nikumaroro, so they can't stay there.
Gregg GiannottiHOST
They've been working to get to this island, which is uninhabited by humans.
Gregg GiannottiHOST
Think it's like Nikumaroro, and there's these giant coconut crabs on Nikumaroro.
Boomer EsiasonHOST
Yeah.
Boomer EsiasonHOST
[laughs] Nikumaroro.
Gregg GiannottiHOST
[laughs] I think that's the name of it.
Gregg GiannottiHOST
Yeah, it's Nikumaroro.
Gregg GiannottiHOST
So there's these giant coconut crabs on Nikumaroro, so they can't stay there.
Gregg GiannottiHOST
So they've got, like, a boat that's out there that they go back and forth to 'cause they can't sleep on Nikumaroro because these giant crabs that could get up to three feet tall and can snap your finger off are gonna be all over them.
Brian TaftHOST
Yeah, you heard that correctly.
Brian TaftHOST
Scientists busy right now scouring the remote Pacific island of Nikumaroro, where satellite images have revealed the outlines of what appears to be a plane, that plane apparently consistent with the one famously piloted by Amelia Earhart.
Brian TaftHOST
Ear- Earhart and her navigator disappeared July 2nd, 1937, sparking all kinds of theories.
Brian TaftHOST
Did they crash? Were they taken prisoner? Are they living somewhere under new identities? Well, that plane, first identified by satellite in 2020, could help answer that if it is in fact a plane.
John HolmbergHOST
tell you.
John HolmbergHOST
Nikumaroro Kiribati.
John HolmbergHOST
Yeah, there you go.
John HolmbergHOST
Oh, that's a college town.
Todd HollstHOST
And for the longest times, there's been this mystery as to what happened to Amelia Earhart.
Todd HollstHOST
Where did her plane go down? Well, a number of years after this occurred, uh, there were aerial photographs taken of, uh, this island called Nikumaroro.
Todd HollstHOST
Uh, it's, uh, it's in the, the Pacific, and it's the Republic, it's part of the Republic of Kiribati.
Todd HollstHOST
And in this picture, and I, I'm sure some of you have probably seen this on, uh, on the internet, uh, right off the beach of this particular island in this photograph, there seems to be some sort of anomaly right there on the coast.
76 more episodes mention Nikumaroro.
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