Throw on your bomber jackets and fasten your seatbelts, cause we’ve got one corker of an adventure to map out! The story takes off on June 1, 1937, when famed aviator Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan set out to circle the globe, flying eastward from California in a Lockheed Model 10-E Electra plane. After one month, Earhart and Noonan had flown 22,000 miles and arrived in New Guinea. On July 2, they embarked on the longest single flight section of their tour, heading for Howland Island, roughly halfway between Australia and Hawaii. They never made it to Howland, and exactly what happened to the Electra and her passengers has been a mystery for nearly a century.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) has long believed that Earhart actually flew to Nikumaroro Island, an atoll part of the Republic of Kiribati, that lies 350 nautical miles south of Howland. Through decades of poring over records and satellite images, as well as a few missions to the uninhabited island, TIGHAR developed a theory that Earhart landed Electra on a reef and that she and Noonan survived on the island briefly. (Evidence suggests they even continued to send distress signals that went unheard or ignored.) A big break came, of all things, with Cyclone Pam in 2015, the second most intense tropical cyclone to hit the South Pacific Ocean. Pam’s fierce winds blew away sediment on the Taraia Peninsula of Nikumaroro, revealing a “visual anomaly” that became known as the Taraia Object. This past Monday, a crew of researchers aboard the Marin Mainiku arrived at Nikumaroro on an expedition to inspect the Taraia Object for themselves. You guys — we might be on the cusp of confirming Electra’s final resting place!!

A group of researchers with the Archaeological Legacy Institute and Purdue University landed in Nikumaroro, an uninhabited island in the South Pacific, Oct. 12 in search of the famed pilot’s missing plane after satellite images showed a mysterious shape submerged in a nearby lagoon.

The visual anomaly, dubbed the Taraia Object, is believed to be the Lockheed Model 10-E Electra aircraft Earhart was piloting alongside her navigator Fred Noonan when they vanished in 1937.

But it will be a while before investigators get their answers. After all, they will spend days “marking and cutting a trail through the jungle” from their landing site to Taraia Peninsula, where the lagoon is located, according to a Purdue press release.

In addition, officials said the researchers must sleep on a ship as native coconut crabs—the largest terrestrial crustacean in the world—make staying on the island overnight “impractical.”

But once the crew arrives at Taraia Peninsula, they will be able to use a magnetometer to detect the presence of ferrous metals for potential artifacts, as well as employ sonar technologies to detect objects on the lagoon floor, according to Purdue.

Researchers will then use a water induction dredge to remove sediment for visual inspection of the Taraia Object.

“Based on estimates from aerial photos, the Taraia Object is believed to be located only 10 feet from the lagoon’s shore,” officials explained, “and depending on the tide, under as little as five feet of water, plus a layer of sediment of unknown depth.

Earhart was attempting to fly around the world when she lost contact with the U.S. Coast Guard on July 2, 1937. At the time, she and Noonan were believed to be flying to Howland Island, a remote parcel of land located northwest of Nikumaroro.

“It is incredibly rewarding to be this close to completing our inspection of the Taraia Object,” Archaeological Legacy Institute executive director and expedition leader Rick Pettigrew said in a statement, “and potentially solving, at long last, the outstanding mystery of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan more than 89 years ago.”

[From E! News]

I hope that my extensive intro (which took me a decent amount of studying to put together!) relays my nerdish, wondrous, reverent enthusiasm over this exciting news that sits at the intersection of history and science. However, if you’re like me, you were pretty much stopped in your tracks at: “native coconut crabs—the largest terrestrial crustacean in the world.” I’m sorry, what’s this now?! Just in time for spooky season, a vision to haunt me for the rest of my waking life: meet Birgus latro, the unnervingly large coconut crab whose claw span can reach up to 3.2 FEET and lift objects the weight of a 10-year-old child. They spend most of their lives on land, eating coconuts (which their claws can hack into), rats, and birds. I’ll be praying for the valiant researchers as they seek to unearth unlagoon the truth of Amelia Earhart, Fred Noonan, and the Electra. Cause if it were me, I’d be nope-ing the f–k out of there at the sight of those big-ass crabs!

Photos are public domain via Wikipedia, Coconut Crab photo credit: Laura J. Beauregard, USFWS