The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) made headway on the Amelia Earhart disappearance with a sonar image that could be the aviator's long lost plane, Lockheed Electra.

Collected from an expedition near a mid-Pacific island in the Republic of Kiribati last year, the "anomaly" was spotted by TIGHAR member Richard Conroy on March 7 of this year.

According to NPR, the sonar image could be pieces of the aircraft roughly 600 feet below the surface on an underwater cliff.

"Maybe the anomaly is a coral feature that just happens to give a sonar return unlike any other coral feature on the entire reef slope," admitted TIGHAR on its website.

"Maybe it's a sunken fishing boat that isn't mentioned in any of the historical literature. Maybe it's the boat nobody knows about that that brought the castaway nobody missed who died at the Seven Site. Maybe it's pure coincidence that it's the right size and shape to be the Electra wreckage, the Electra that so much other evidence suggests should be in that location."

Earhart gained fame in 1932 by becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. In July 1937, Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared in the Pacific, with modern calculations deeming the pair crashed near Nikumaroro Island.

Richard Gillespie, the executive director of TIGHAR, believes that Earhart and Noonan managed to land the aircraft safely near Nikumaroro, and based on archeological evidence found on the island, died from the harsh condition a few days later.

But with so much conjecture, the next step for TIGHAR is to confirm the sonar image with another expedition.

"We're not going to know until we can get back out there and we're not going to get back out there until we settle the debts from the last trip and raise the money for the next one," TIGHAR admitted.

"It will cost money, money that we don't have right now, but we're hopeful that contributors will step forward with donations large and small to make it possible. Please do what you can today."

Donate at their website here to take a step closer to possibly solving the Amelia Earhart story.