This image provided by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery and displayed at a U.S. State Department news conference on Tuesday, March 20, 2012, may provide a new clue in one of the 20th century's most enduring mysteries and could soon help uncover the fate of American aviator Amelia Earhart, who went missing without a trace over the South Pacific 75 years ago, investigators said. Enhanced analysis of a photograph taken just months after Earhart's Lockheed Electra plane vanished shows what experts think may be the landing gear of the aircraft, the small black object on the left side of the image, protruding from the waters off the remote island of Nikumaroro, in what is now the Pacific nation of Kiribati. Armed with that analysis by the State Department, historians, scientists and salvagers from The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, are returning to the island in July 2012 in the hope of finding the wreckage of Earhart's plane and perhaps even the remains of the pilot and her navigator Fred Noonan. (AP Photo/The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery)

Amelia Earhart with her Lockheed Vega surrounded by crowd after she became the first woman to fly solo from Hawaii to California in 1935. Courtesy Air and Space Museum. (AP Photo)

Amelia Earhart,second from right, poses with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, second from left, in this undated photo. The rest of the group is unidentified. (AP Photo)

Amelia Earhart, left, and Navigator Fred Noonan pose with a map of the Pacific showing route of their last flight in this undated photo. (AP Photo)

Aviatrix Amelia Earhart is shown in this undated photo. (AP Photo)

Amelia Earhart, left, poses with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in this undated photo. (AP Photo)

Miss. Amelia Earhart, 1st woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by plane in an undated photo. (AP Photo)

American aviatrix Amelia Earhart and U.S. President Herbert Hoover walk on the White House lawn in Washington, D.C. The date is unknown. (AP Photo)

American aviatrix Amelia Earhart is shown in this undated photo. (AP Photo)

This is an undated photo of Amelia Earhart with husband George Putnam. (AP Photo)

This is an undated photo of Amelia Earhart. (AP Photo)

This is an undated photo of aviator Amelia Earhart. (AP Photo)

This is a case of artifacts that holds aircraft skin, shoe heels and other evidence, shown in Washington on Monday, March 16, 1992, that Richard Gillespie, executive director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, claims is evidence that solves the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, 55 years ago. Gillespie???s team found the remnants in a search of the Pacific atoll of Nikumaroro last October. (AP Photo/Charles Tasnadi)

The recent finding of skeletal remains of two persons on Saipan Island (A) raised the possibility they might be those of Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, lost in 1937 on a flight from Lae, New Guinea to Howland Island (B). Search continued on Nov. 24, 1961 along the South New Guinea coast (C) for missing Michael Rockefeller, son of the New York Governor. (AP Photo)

Amy Otis Earhart, 79, looks at a portrait of her daughter, aviatrix Amelia Earhart, in her home in Medford, Mass., on May 21, 1947. Earhart disappeared ten years ago during her flight over the Pacific. (AP Photo)

Amelia Earhart, the transatlantic flyer, is shown at the dinner in her honor given by the Paris Chapter of the National Aeronautique Association, June 3, 1938, Paris, France. At Miss Earhart???s right is Norman Armour, Charge D???affaires at the American Embassy, and at her left is Norman Armour who presided. (AP Photo)

Miss Gladys O???Donnell of Long Beach, Calif., is shown in the cockpit of her plane at the national air races in Cleveland, on Sept. 3, 1937 after she had won the Amelia Earhart memorial race, Miss O??? Donnell has the trophy and wreath signifying victory. (AP Photo)

George Spindler, left, and Arthur Monsees, California amateur radio operators, try to establish contact with Amelia Earhart, July 13, 1937. The boys claimed to have received a signal, as yet unverified. (AP Photo/GM)

This July 4, 1937 photo shows a general view of the place of birth of American aviator Amelia Earhart, in Atchinson, Kansas. (AP Photo)

George Palmer Putnam, husband of famed aviator Amelia Earhart, is shown at a Coast Guard radio station with maps and charts to follow his wife's plane on her attempt to round the world, in San Francisco, Calif., on July 3, 1937. Earhart's plane is hours overdue while en route between New Guinea and Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo)