It does seem to me that -- in our eagerness to know more NOW -- we are speculating about things that are bound to be revealed in time. If (according to NatGeo) there are "lines of evidence" that "point to the 1940 bones being in this museum," they'll have to make that evidence public to support that claim; likewise with any forensic reconstruction or DNA test results from the bones they have found. Patience is a virtue.
I recall from reading through the Bones Search reports and forum discussions from before I joined TIGHAR (in my reading through past topics) that it was suggested for a BONES III search, if it were to be done, to look into the possibility of the bones being returned to Kiribati. It's entirely imaginable that they were. It appears this museum had not been checked in any TIGHAR search at that time.
Also I recall that it was remarked upon that, given the British colonial officials' passion for documenting absolutely everything, the absence of documentation of the bones' final disposition (burial, destruction, storage) suggested that there might be more records to be found. Perhaps the lines of evidence are those.
One can but hope.
LTM,
Don