Group Says Brass Pull May Be Missing Link

Last year marked the 70th anniversary of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. While more than one group was raising money to attempt a definitive answer to where she disappeared, the mystery remained unsolved.

Now, the Delaware-based International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery has asked the Crawford County Historical Society in Meadville, PA for help in dating the manufacture of a small brass zipper pull made by Talon, a hookless fastener company that operated in Meadville from 1913 through the late 1980s.

Members of the group found the pull in 2007 on Nikumaroro, a coral atoll in the western Pacific Ocean. The island sits along the flight path from New Guinea to Howland Island, where Earhart's Lockheed Electra disappeared on July 2, 1937.

"This is exciting stuff," said TIGHAR executive director Ric Gillespie. "Now we have this site on the island that is producing artifacts that speak of an American woman in her 30s, and the only one missing out there is her. So, this is solid stuff."

Anne Stewart of the historical society told the Associated Press she's skeptical the pull could have belonged to Earhart... in part because Colonel Lewis Walker, who brought the company which became Talon to Meadville, would have taken advantage of the opportunity for promotion, and apparently didn't.

"I would say that it is quite possible that Amelia Earhart was wearing a suit with a zipper on it. I'm just not willing to say that the one they found was one of them," Stewart said.

So, we can't be sure the zipper will help solve the mystery, but we can be fairly certain it will produce a truckload of horrible puns. And perhaps, someday... it will bring closure, to all of us who fly.

We're really sorry about that.

FMI: www.ameliaearhart.com, www.tighar.org, www.crawfordhistorical.org/