The mystery of what happened to the famous and charismatic 1930s pilot Amelia Earhart has intrigued people for more than seventy years. It has been the subject of urban legends, and even worked into fiction — I found eight references to fictional works that mentioned her, four of which included her as a main character, including a Star Trek: Voyager episode (“the 37’s“) where several people, including Earhart and her copilot/mechanic, were found in stasis on an alien planet.

However, all this intrigue and speculation may be on the verge of being disproven, thanks to DNA testing. If so, it’s a sad and very pedestrian ending to one of the twentieth century’s great mysteries.