They thought they’d found Amelia Earhart’s plane. Instead, the search continues Calgary fridge repair

The disappearance of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart more than 87 years ago has remained one of the most captivating mysteries in history, with a handful of explorers devoted to scouring the seas for any clue to her final whereabouts.

Sonar imagery captured in January revealed a plane-shaped anomaly on the seafloor about 100 miles away (161 kilometers) from the Pacific Ocean’s Howland Island — the next location where Earhart was expected to land before she was declared lost at sea. The detection renewed a worldwide interest in the mystery and left many questioning whether Earhart’s missing Lockheed 10-E Electra had finally been found. After returning to the site on November 1, Deep Sea Vision — an ocean exploration company based in Charleston, South Carolina, that captured the original sonar image — has identified the object to be a natural rock formation.

“Talk about the cruelest formation ever created by nature,” said Tony Romeo, the company’s CEO, a pilot and former US Air Force intelligence officer. “It’s almost like somebody did set those rocks out in this nice little pattern of her plane, just to mess with somebody out there looking for her.”

Romeo said he was surprised the object wasn’t at least a different plane or a man-made object.

“We didn’t pop any champagne bottles on the first time around, because we wanted to be 100% sure, (but) there was a somber moment,” Romeo told CNN in a phone call. “I think everyone just kind of took a little bit of time, little space, and then we recollected ourselves … and we got right back to work on searching some new areas that we wanted to search.”