A new search for Amelia Earhart's plane wreckage turned up empty when an object spotted by satellite near a remote Pacific island turned out to be a tree formation, the researchers said Sunday.

The revelation means the nearly century-old mystery about the date of America's most famous female aviation pioneer lives on.

"Evidence gathered at the Taraia Peninsula on Nikumaroro confirmed that the visual anomaly first seen in satellite imagery in 2020 was likely a collection of large trees deposited along the peninsula's sandspit," the researchers said, according to CBS News.

"By the time the team arrived at the site, a good portion of the debris had fragmented and washed away, leaving only a single Y-shaped segment," the researchers saud.

Last week an expedition team led by Purdue University researcher Steve Schultz and the Archaeological Legacy Institute's Richard Pettigrew went to investigate the object.