Google Earth is a great tool and many people have tried to help TIGHAR’s search for the Earhart Electra by closely examining the Google Earth image of Nikumaroro. We greatly appreciate those efforts but, although there are many shapes visible in the image that might suggest the presence of an airplane or wreckage, higher-resolution satellite imagery from other sources shows them to be either natural features or “artifacts” of the image processing software. For example, you can find what appears to be the remains of an entire village on the bottom of the lagoon in the Google Earth image of Nikumaroro if you know where to look – but there’s really nothing there.