A Cleveland museum's prized wad of hair -- originally thought to have belonged to Amelia Earhart -- has been outed as a fake.
The discovery came after the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, a group of scientists searching for the vanished pilot's remains, borrowed the "hair" from the International Women's Air and Space Museum (IWASM) for use as DNA evidence in their search. When the researchers at the nonprofit tried to extract genetic material from the clump, they were dismayed to discover that the material wasn't biological at all -- it was thread. (Uh, whoops.)
The Ohio museum inherited the "hair" 20 years ago from the Smithsonian Institute, which had received it as a donation from a Pennsylvania man decades earlier. The man claimed that it was the "unruly curl" referenced in an Earhart biography, allegedly clipped just before her ill-fated attempt to fly around the world in 1937.
Toni Mullee, the executive director of IWASM, said that the museum was "disappointed," but that they planned to keep the clump in the Earhart exhibit.
