© Unknown



© Unknown



A researcher at Simon Fraser University is preparing to analyze the DNA from personal letters written by the legendary aviator Amelia Earhart in hopes of learning her fate.Earhart - who had already flown solo across the Atlantic Ocean - disappeared July 2, 1937 during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe in a Lockheed Electra. She was declared dead two years later but her final resting place has been indispute ever since.SFU health sciences student Justin Long of Vancouver has supplied the university with four letters, believed to have been hand-written and sealed by Earhart. The envelopes were opened at the end leaving the gummy seal - and hopefully Earhart's saliva - intact. Long acquired the letters from a collection of 400 pieces of the aviator's correspondence collected by his grandfather Elgin Long, a lifelong Earhart biographer.Forensic specialist Dongya Yang will steam open the letters and extract DNA from the saliva used to seal the envelopes. The letters have been stored for years in a safe in Long's Nevada home."The letters he kept are personal - one was written by Amelia on airline letterhead while waiting for a flight - so we can be fairly certain that she is the one who sealed the envelopes," Long said.The DNA will be compared with samples from Earhart's sister and other living relatives, then to the contentious finger bone found on the Island of Nikumaroro, which some claim belongs to the long-missing icon.