A strange thing happened on Western Frontier. During the days of Wild West, American pioneers were moving out into untamed and treacherous land. They were building their homes in a virtual war zone, on land stolen from the natives, and that meant that their lives—and the lives of their children—were constantly at risk.

Pioneer children, in the days of the American frontier, would often be kidnapped by raiding warriors. When Native American tribes lost their own children in wars with the settlers, they would even the score. They would raid a white village, take their children, and carry them back to their homes as hostages. But when their families tracked them down and tried to rescue them, sometimes, the children didn’t want to go home.

It was a strange phenomenon the settlers of America struggled to understand. Even Benjamin Franklin commented on it. “They become disgusted with our manner of life,” he once wrote about the white children captured by native tribes, “and take the first good opportunity of escaping again into the woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them.”^[1]

10 Frances Slocum

In 1835, a trader named George Ewing met an elderly woman of the Miami tribe named Maconaquah. She was in her sixties and a respected woman among the tribe, a widowed grandmother whose husband had been their chief. And so you can imagine his surprise when this old woman told him she had born to white parents.

As a child, he soon found out, Maconaquah’s name had been Frances Slocum, the daughter of a Quaker family who had been stolen away from home by Seneca warriors when she was five years old. A Miami family had bought her for a few pelts, and they’d raised her as their own.

57 years had passed since her capture. She’d grown up among the Miami, gotten married, seen her husband rise to chiefdom, given him four children, and raised them until they had children of their own.

Frances’s brothers hadn’t stopped looking for her since the day she was captured. When word got out that she was still alive, her brother Isaac met with the sister he’d lost decades ago and begged her to come home.

Frances, though, had forgotten how to speak English. Communicating through an interpreter, she told him, “I do not wish to live any better, or anywhere else, and I think the Great Spirit has permitted me to live so long because I have always lived with the Indians.”^[2]

True to her word, she stayed with her captors until the day she died—and she was buried next to the man who had been her husband.

9 Cynthia Ann Parker

Cynthia Ann Parker was nine years old when she was kidnapped by Comanche Indians in 1836.^[3] Her family was slaughtered, and she and four other children were dragged off into the night. Incredibly, she survived the whole horrific ordeal—but she wouldn’t survive going back home.

Four years after her capture, a trader named Williams heard that she was still alive, living among the Comanche. He rode into their camp and offered their chief any amount of money he wanted for her freedom. But when he was given the chance to speak to her, Parker simply stared at the ground and refused to say a word.

It took another 20 years before she was freed. A Texas Ranger force attacked the Comanche tribe, and upon seeing the white-skinned Parker among them, brought her back to her family. After 24 years living among the Comanche, though, Parker wasn’t happy about going home.

She had been there so long that she’d married one of the Comanche warriors, a man named Peta Nocona, who the Rangers had killed. As far as she was concerned, these men weren’t her liberators. They were murderers who had killed the man she loved.

They brought her to her uncle’s farm, but Parker didn’t want to be there. She repeatedly tried to run away, and when she realized she wouldn’t escape, she simply stopped eating. Rather than live among the white man, Cynthia Ann Parker starved herself until, weakened and plagued by influenza, she died.

8 Eunice Williams

Eunice Williams’s father got to see her change. After she was kidnapped by Mohawk warriors (reenactment pictured above), her father, Reverend John Williams, tracked her down and tried to get them to let him buy her freedom. The Mohawks refused to sell her, but they did let Rev. Williams talk to the daughter who would never be his again.

Young Eunice was terrified by everything around her. She told her father about the rituals the Mohawks performed, telling him they were “mocking the Devil.”^[4] She’d described a French Catholic missionary who’d been making her pray with him. “I don’t understand one word of [the prayers],” she told her father. “I hope it won’t do me any harm.”

Ten years later, a man named John Schuyler went to see Eunice—but now she was a completely different woman. She dressed and lived like a Mohawk. She had converted to Catholicism, married a warrior, and refused to speak English. He only got four words out of her the whole two hours he spoke to her. When he asked her to come home and see her father, Eunice simply said: “It may not be.”

7 Mary Jemison

Mary Jemison went through one of the most brutal kidnappings of any child. The story of how her Iroquois kidnappers massacred her family is absolutely horrifying—and yet, for some reason, she willingly stayed with her captors until the day she died.

Mary was 13 years old when a raiding party from the Iroquois Confederacy attacked her home. The Jemisons were forced to march through the woods, urged on by a warrior with a whip who lashed them whenever they slowed their step. They were not fed. If someone asked for water, the Iroquois warriors would force them to drink urine.

In the morning, Mary was pulled apart from her family and forced to march another day. She spent the day wondering what had become of her parents. Then, when nightfall came and they stopped to rest, she found out. While she watched, a warrior pulled her mother and father’s severed scalps out of a bag, scraped them clean, and dried them over a fire.^[5]

She remembered seeing her parents’ scalps dry for the rest of her life. In her old age, she would relate the story as if it was a swashbuckling adventure from an exciting childhood, but she never left her home. She moved in with a Seneca family, married a Delaware man, and, for reasons only Mary Jemison truly understood, became so attached to her family that she refused to ever leave their side, regardless of what had happened to her parents.

6 Herman Lehmann

Herman Lehmann didn’t see himself as a white boy living among the Apaches. To him, he was an Apache warrior through and through. He was kidnapped at age ten, and it changed him so much that when he was found eight years later, he couldn’t even remember his own name.

By then, Lehman was a respected warrior in his tribe who called himself “En Da.”^[6] He’d been made a petty chief for his ability to fight, and he’d joined the Apaches in raids and battles, even leading a charge right into a fort full of Texas Rangers.

All that changed, though, when a medicine man killed his adoptive father, an Apache warrior named Carnoviste. Lehman took his revenge and killed the medicine man. He then had to flee into the wilderness. For a year, he lived alone, hiding from the Apaches and the white men alike, until he finally settled down in a Native American reservation.

When his mother heard there was a white-skinned, blue-eyed boy on the reservation, she came out, praying it was her son. At first, she didn’t recognize him, and Herman was less than friendly. “I was an Indian,” he explained, “and I did not like them because they were palefaces.” But Herman’s sister spotted an old scar only he could have and, overcome with joy, cried out, “It’s Herman!”

The sound of the name puzzled him. Somehow, Herman thought he’d heard it before. It took a long moment, Herman would later recall, before he realized that he was hearing his own name.

5 Olive Oatman

When Olive Oatman wrote about her life as a Mohave captive, she called them “savages.” She wrote about them as if they were wild men and her time with them had been hell, but there were hints she wasn’t telling the truth. The biggest clue was as a plain as her face: the large, blue tattoo that covered her jaw.

Oatman had grown up in a Mormon family, but she was captured by Apaches while her family was traveling to California. The Apaches had sold her to a Mohave family that took her as her own, and for five years, she lived as a Mohave.

When Olive’s brother—the sole surviving member of her family—found her, her tribe was suffering through a famine, and many were starving. The people around her were dying, and, worried for her life, her adoptive family let her go home.

Oatman wrote a book about her experiences that criticized the Mohave, but there were signs she wasn’t being totally honest. She dressed like them, lived like them, and had willingly agreed to the blue tattoo on her face. And she’d claimed that the “savages” had not made her “unchaste”—but her name among the Mohave was “Spantsa,” a name meaning “sore vagina.”^[7]

Nobody knew the truth about Olive Oatman’s experience except for her. But some believe that living among the Mohave may have changed her more than she was willing to admit.

4 The Boyd Children

The five Boyd children managed to get away from their captors. After years living with Iroquois and Delaware families, their father brought them back home. Instead of being grateful, though, they bolted into the night. They fled their father’s home to get back to the people who had kidnapped them.

The children had been taken by Iroquois raiders and dragged out so they could be sold to other tribes. On their painful road into captivity, they were forced to watch as the warriors beat their pregnant mother to death for failing to keep up the pace. Her dead body was left behind.

It took four years before their father, John Boyd, was able to rescue any of them. The first one he saved was his eldest son, David. The boy wasn’t as happy to see his father again as John had hoped. David protested and said he didn’t want to leave his Delaware family and, after a short time, snuck out in the night, left his father’s farm, and went back to the tribe.^[8]

Over the next four years, his father went from tribe to tribe, buying his children’s freedom and bringing them back home—and saw nearly every single one sneak out into the night and leave him to go back to their captors. He freed every single one of his children, but he wasn’t able to keep them all at home.

3 Mary Campbell

Mary Campbell is just one name among hundreds of children who were kidnapped during Pontiac’s War. She, and the other children like her, were stolen away from their parents’ homes and sent to live with native tribes as revenge for the deaths of their own people, meant to replace the children the native tribes had lost.

When the war ended, Colonel Henry Bouquet demanded the children be released. He drew up a list of over 200 names of children who had been abducted from their homes, handed it to Pontiac’s warriors, and made them promise to return every one if they ever wanted to see peace in their lives again.

The tribes agreed, and the 200-plus children were sent back to their families. Mary Campbell, though, had to be dragged back to her family by force. She didn’t want to go home—and even once they brought her back, she still tried to escape and run back to the Lenape family that had captured her.

It’s a strange story, but Campbell wasn’t the only one who tried to run from her parents. Of the children Col. Bouquet freed, nearly half tried to escape their biological families, preferring to live with the families that had kidnapped them rather than the ones that had brought them into the world.^[9]

2 Theodore Babb

Theodor Babb, 14 years old, was determined to hate his Comanche captors. They had murdered his mother and dragged him and his ten-year-old sister Bianca into captivity. They could kill him if they wanted, Theodor decided, but he would not live among them.

After days of being beaten for his stubbornness, Theodor tried to escape from his captors, but he didn’t get far. The Comanche dragged him back and beat him brutally. Theodore, though, wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of crying. He wouldn’t even flinch, no matter how hard they hit him.

Frustrated, the Comanche tied him to a tree and started placing grass and branches at his feet, ready to burn him alive. Bianca wailed and cried for her brother’s life, but Theodor still wouldn’t flinch. Throughout it all, he stared the men who were getting ready to kill him in the eyes, daring them to go through with it.^[10]

They didn’t. The Comanche realized this young boy was unusually brave and, instead of killing him, trained him to be a warrior. They armed him, taught him to ride like a Comanche warrior, and showed him how to run raids.

For all he’d resisted it, as a Comanche warrior, Theodore started tapping into a part of himself he’d never been able to touch before. Within six months, he was so much a part of the tribe that when his father tried to buy him back, the Comanche chief was convinced he would refuse to leave.

In the end, Theodore did go home—but he had changed. After just six short months of captivity, he was already a Comanche warrior who had joined in on multiple raids on white men’s farms.

1 Adolph Korn

After Adolph Korn was freed from his Comanche captors, his parents moved him far away from the tribe that had harassed them. Unlike the other children on this list, he had no way to get back to the people who had kidnapped him, so, rather than live with his own parents, he fled into the wilderness and spent his life alone in a cave.

Korn had been captured when was ten years old and sold to a childless Comanche woman. She took him in as his own, and although he was initially distraught over losing his family, he soon started to enjoy it. Living in a frontier home, he’d struggled to get any attention from his eternally busy parents. Now, though, he had an adoptive mother who focused every second of her energy on him. He felt more loved that he had ever felt before.

His parents managed to get him home three years later, but he never stopped being a Comanche. He would raid his neighbors’ farms and steal their cattle. Soon, he’d built up a long police record, and terrified they’d lose their boy to a different type of captivity, his parents moved far away to a remote ranch.

Korn, though, refused to become a white man. Instead, he left his parents’ home and moved into a cave, where he lived in solitude until the day he died. As a family member said, for the rest of his life, “Adolph kept a solitary vigil for the Comanche brothers whom he knew would never return.”^[11]

Most of us know and understand the general idea of alien abduction and what it might entail. It usually includes being taken from your car on a lonely road or even from your bed and then transported into a hovering flying saucer in a bizarre and intense light, for example.

However, from the many accounts on record, it is possible to build up a checklist of sorts. And should you suddenly find yourself experiencing any or all of these, you might want to pay attention. Just maybe, you might have already been an unknowing victim of alien abduction. What follows, then, are ten apparent telltale signs that you may have received visits from life from another planet. So, with paranoia reigning high, let’s get to it.

Related: 10 Bizarre Encounters With The Craziest Aliens Ever

10 Strange Windows of Missing Time

Perhaps the biggest indicator of alien abduction is the sudden realization of missing time. These windows can last from a few minutes to up to several hours.

Quite often, those suffering from these disturbing episodes turn to hypnotic regression to unlock these repressed memories. Incidentally, the use of such techniques divides opinion, even in the UFO community. Many skeptics suggest that the results achieved under hypnosis are unreliable. Some even claim they are simply cases of the witness being led by the person performing the session. We should also note, though, that many others believe hypnotic regression to be very credible. What’s more, it is used often for various reasons outside of UFO circles.

Obviously, the longer the amount of time a person can’t account for, the more unnerved they feel. That edginess then turns to constant anxiety. And that is where we will turn our attention next.^[1]

9 Sudden Feeling of Constant Anxiety

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

A sudden feeling of anxiety is often recalled by people who discover they have been abducted by aliens. What’s more, this panicked state often results in other issues. For example, many have a sudden feeling of having to be ready to go on the run at any moment. They don’t, however, know who or what they are running from. Or why.

It is perhaps worth noting one of the most famous cases of alien abduction—the Betty and Barney Hill case. Before regression revealed their encounters, they would speak of how they would suddenly begin keeping a packed bag by their door. This was ready to load into their car should they need to make a quick getaway. From what, however, they didn’t know.

Again, such sudden anxiety can develop for a whole host of reasons that have nothing to do with alien abduction. However, when experienced with one or more of the other points on our list, it is perhaps worth taking note of them.^[2]

8 Hearing Strange Noises While Going in and out of Sleep

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Many paranormal researchers suggest that the moments when a person is going into and coming out of sleep are of importance. This is, some claim, when they, or perhaps their mind, are most open to unknown energies that surround us. Many abductees have reported hearing the chatter and whispers of these strange entities during this time. These little-understood moments, even today, are the subject of debate.

As far as alien abductions are concerned, though, some researchers believe these sounds are actually the last memories of the conscious mind. Perhaps it was recalling the beginning or the end of an alien abduction incident. For example, many people report hearing a strange machine-like buzzing during these moments. Might these sounds be of a genuine alien aircraft?

Other sounds include metallic tapping noises. And perhaps most unsettling, the constant sound of strange voices speaking an equally strange language. Such notions are nothing more than speculation. However, many who claim alien abduction often mention such details. And that means we surely can’t ignore it completely.^[3]

7 The Appearance of Unusual Markings on the Body

Perhaps as much as missing time, another alleged clear indicator of alien abduction is the sudden appearance of strange markings. These are often red dots or squares and usually are regularly spaced on the body. As if from a purposely designed template.

What’s more, these markings are often in particular patterns and not simply a mark or bruise. Indeed, the markings are very similar to “branding.” Most often, these marks fade after several days.

Might these bizarre dots, squares, circles, and a whole host of other shapes be physical proof of an alien encounter? If we accept the many people who have made such claims are genuine, then it is certainly an area of intrigue. And a detail that can’t be dismissed without further study.

Incidentally, these strange markings often result in the discovery of strange pieces of metal buried within the abductee’s body. We will come back to this point shortly.^[4]

6 Waking up in a Different Place from Where You Fell Asleep

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Many people sleepwalk. And they do so for a variety of reasons. However, many of those who make claims of alien abduction also claim that they often wake up in a different room of their house. And what’s more, they are often unclothed or redressed in their clothes, but in a chaotic order. As if they had been dressed by someone who had little idea of how such clothes should be worn.

Even stranger, the apparent abductee often wakes to find dirt or soil on their feet. Or even with cuts or scratches to their legs or arms. Similar to marking they may receive from walking outside while being ill-dressed to do so.

There could be many reasons for these strange accounts. However, once more, when combined with some of the other points on our list, they just might be a concern to some. Perhaps especially if they are experienced alongside the details of our next stop.^[5]

5 Intense Nightmares Leading to Insomnia

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Everyone has a nightmare from time to time. In fact, it would be quite strange if we were not to have a frightening dream every now and then. However, many people who claim to be abductees also claim to begin having extremely intense night terrors.

In fact, so bad are these dreams that they usually lead to a state of insomnia. According to the many files on the subject, these nightmares usually feature a creature with “large eyes.” More intriguing, many witnesses claim that owls haunt these strange and intense dreams. We should note that some researchers liken the owl’s image to a confused sighting of a grey alien.

With this in mind, it is perhaps easy to see why people who make such claims often exhibit other traits such as paranoia. Even if these events are only in their own minds, they most often lead to the drained state they will find themselves in. This, as ironic as it might be, most often harms their credibility in the eyes of the wider public.^[6]

4 Bizarre Effects Around Electrical Equipment

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Another point of intrigue is that many alien abductees often witness electronic equipment acting strangely when they are near. And these can be anything from small devices such as alarm clocks to televisions and computers. In more extreme cases, these electronic shortages result in small fires.

In some cases, abductees claim higher electric bills begin to arrive out of nowhere. As if they were somehow draining the power system at their homes. In most cases, a reason for such high usage escapes the energy providers.

Perhaps even stranger, many abductees who report such problems also report having a strange and constant buzzing in their ears. Quite often, this buzzing takes place when a device might be acting strangely. Might this suggest a link between the two? Perhaps some kind of release of electrical energy from the abductee and the respective electrical equipment.

There are repeated examples of this type of activity in the files of UFO and alien investigators. Particularly those who focus on the claims of alien abduction.^[7]

3 Sudden Paranormal Activity and Shadow People

The link between paranormal activity and alien abduction is stronger than many people might think. Perhaps one of the strangest of these ghostly encounters is the claims of abductees seeing shadow people in and around the home.

These shadow people are so called as they are nothing but a black body-shaped figure. And even more unnerving, they are seen only from the corner of the person’s eye. And only then for a very brief time.

Could these be alien entities moving around a person’s home? Maybe using unknown (to us) cloaking technology? Or might alien abduction be more of a paranormal experience than a cosmic one? Even more intriguing, other paranormal encounters are also reported by abductees. These include such chilling incidents as fast-forming fogs or mists out of nowhere.

These claims might be easy to dismiss. That is if it wasn’t for the several people who have managed to capture such strange entities in photographs. Or better still, after having set up CCTV (remember the constant anxiety), they have spotted these shadowy forms moving across the screen.^[8]

2 A Sudden Development of Psychic and Telepathic Ability

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Perhaps one of the strangest signs of alien abduction is a sudden ability to foresee future events. And in some cases, even the ability to use telepathy. There are various theories as to why this might be. Not least that such strange events might result in channels opening in the brain that have previously been shut off. Whether that event was real or imagined, it would appear, is not an important factor.

As well as these psychic abilities, many people also speak of a sudden awareness of the world around them. Others, similarly, mention that they have a sudden understanding of the powers of the universe.

Could close contact with these alien creatures, even if only imagined, result in the opening of these channels in the human mind? And is this simply a result of such an encounter? Or might it be a purposeful act? And if so, why would aliens wish for us to have the use of such powers?^[9]

1 “Alien” Implants

Perhaps one of the biggest signs of alien abduction is the discovery of strange pieces of metallic or stone-like material inside the body. These implants are often found during visits to a dentist or when receiving treatment for another medical condition. In some instances, these strange implants simply fall out of a person’s body, during a nosebleed, for example. Most people attempt to preserve such implants for testing. However, even more bizarrely, these devices often simply melt away into nothing.

Why they are placed into some people, and by whom, remains unknown. It would appear they are some kind of tag. Indeed, many people who come to realize they are a victim of alien abduction also realize that such events have happened over many years. Sometimes even in different locations as the person moves around during their lives. Perhaps of all of our points, implants might be the most definitive and solid proof of a truly bizarre incident.^[10]

It is difficult to give accurate statistics regarding the number of children that go missing every year, given that this type of data is not available in many countries. However, an estimated 460,000 children are reported missing every year in the United States alone, and 112,853 children in the United Kingdom.

The term “missing” can encompass a variety of scenarios, from children that have run away to a child that has gone missing under a set of unknown circumstances to children that either family members or strangers have kidnapped.

Regardless of the circumstance behind a child’s disappearance, each passing day, month, and year leaves the family with more questions than answers, especially when there are no solid leads or clues about the child’s whereabouts. Sadly, some cases are never solved.

However, for the families on this list, just when all hope seemed lost, they received a true miracle—a notification that their child had been found 20, 30, or even 50 years after their disappearance.

Here are the stories of ten abducted children who were miraculously reunited with their families decades later.

10 Mao Yin

Mao Yin was born on February 23, 1986, in China and was described as a “very clever, cute, and healthy” baby. However, on October 17, 1988, when Yin’s father was bringing him home from nursery school, the toddler asked for water, so the two stopped near the entrance of a hotel in Xian. Unfortunately, as Yin’s father attempted to cool down some water for the boy to drink, Yin was taken.

Yin’s mother worked tirelessly to find her son by handing out approximately 100,000 flyers, quitting her job, appearing on local TV networks, and even volunteering for a group called “Baby Come Back Home,” which helped parents locate their missing children. While Yin’s mother helped 29 other children find their way back home to their families, her own son was still missing.

Then, on May 10, 2020, Mother’s Day in China, and over 30 years after the disappearance of their son, Yin’s parents received the news they had desperately been waiting for. Yin had been located.

Thanks to an incoming tip regarding a man who had purchased a child from Xian in the late 1980s, police were able to use a photo of Yin as a young boy and create an adult image of what he might look like. The image was then run through a government database which located a man with a similar resemblance. From there, a DNA test was done, confirming the man was indeed Mao Yin.

Yin had been sold to a childless couple for $845 (6,000 yuan) and raised under the name Gu Ningning, never aware that his parents had spent the last three decades searching for him. They were reunited on May 18, 2020.^[1]

9 Melissa Highsmith

Alta Apentenco had put an ad in the local Fort Worth, Texas, newspaper in 1971 searching for a babysitter for her daughter, Melissa Highsmith. Unfortunately, while Apentenco was at work, her roommate allowed Highsmith to go with a woman who answered the ad. This was the last time the 21-month-old girl was seen.

Numerous tips came in over the years, although none of them panned out. Highsmith’s family never gave up hope of finding their daughter. Then, in one final attempt to locate their missing daughter, on November 22, 2022, Highsmith’s father submitted his DNA to the 23andMe website, which matched him to the three children of a couple named John and Melanie Brown.

“Melanie” turned out to be Melissa, who was still living in Fort Worth, Texas, just a few miles from where she was abducted. Highsmith was reunited with her family on November 24, 2022, Thanksgiving Day, after 51 long years.^[2]

8 Holly Clouse

In 1980, married couple 21-year-old Harold “Dean” Clouse Jr. and 17-year-old Tina Gail Linn Clouse, along with their baby Holly left their home in Volusia County, Florida, for Dean to pursue a carpentry position in Texas. The couple wrote letters to their families back home, but the last time anyone received correspondence from the couple was in October of 1980. However, a few months later, Dean’s family received a phone call from someone claiming to have information about the couple.

The caller, who identified herself as “Sister Susan,” stated she was in possession of the couple’s car, which they were willing to return in exchange for $1,000. Dean’s family agreed to meet the caller at a racetrack in Daytona, Florida. It was during this encounter that “Sister Susan,” along with a group of other women, stated Dean and Tina had joined their religious group and wanted no further contact with their families and were giving up their possessions.

Naturally suspicious, Dean’s family contacted authorities, who reportedly took the group of women into custody, although no formal police report was ever recorded.

Then, on January 12, 1981, Dean and Tina’s bodies were found in a wooded area near Houston, Texas. However, at the time, the bodies could not be identified, only known as the “Harris County Does.” It was not until October 2021 that genetic genealogy would provide a break in the case and allow the Clouses to finally be identified.

While their families were glad to finally have answers, the question remained—what happened to Dean and Tina’s daughter Holly? Therefore, in an attempt to find answers, the Hope for Holly Project was launched, and thanks to DNA tests, screening, and the use of genealogy, Holly was located eight months later in Oklahoma. She was finally able to connect with her family 42 years after her disappearance, on what would have been her father’s 63rd birthday.

Investigators in the case have learned that Holly was dropped off at a church in Arizona in November of 1980 by two women belonging to a nomadic religious group. The investigation into Dean and Tina’s deaths is still ongoing.^[3]

7 Li Jingwei

When Li Jingwei was only four years old, he was kidnapped from his village in Zhaotong, China, by a neighbor and sold into a child trafficking ring in 1989. Jingwei was then taken to live with another family in the Henan province, over 1,118 miles (1,800 kilometers) away.

While Jingwei was very much aware of his abduction growing up, given that he had been taken so far and had no recollection of his own name, his parents’ name, or the name of his village, returning home seemed impossible.

On the other hand, Jingwei could remember the most vivid details of his village, such as where trees and bamboo shoots grew, the twists and turns of roads and rivers, and even where cows grazed, and he often drew maps of his village as a child. It would be Jingwei’s photographic memory that would lead him back home.

In a final attempt to find his parents, Jingwei drew a detailed picture of his village on December 24, 2021, and posted it to the video-sharing app Douyin. The drawing went viral and was shared across social media platforms, eventually getting the attention of the Ministry of Public Security, which then began assisting Jingwei in his search.

Shortly after that, authorities were able to locate a woman they believed was Jingwei’s mother, and on December 28, 2021, a DNA test confirmed their findings. Jingwei was finally reunited with his mother on January 1, 2022, more than 30 years after his abduction. Unfortunately, his father had already passed away.^[4]

6 Jermaine Mann

On June 24, 1987, 21-month-old Jermaine Allan Mann was abducted by his father, Allan Mann Jr., during a court-ordered visit in Toronto, Canada. Later that year, Mann moved to the United States, creating a new life for himself and Jermaine using fake birth certificates. He also later told Jermaine that his mother was dead.

Although it took nearly three decades, thanks to more than 200 tips received by authorities in both the United States and Canada, they were able to track down Mann using facial recognition. He had been living in Vernon, Connecticut, under the alias of Hailee Randolph DeSouza. Mann was arrested on October 26, 2018, by officials from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development after discovering his birth certificate was counterfeit. Jermaine and his mother were finally reunited on October 27, 2018, after 31 long years.

Mann was charged with making false statements and making false statements to obtain HUD housing after having received more than $180k in housing and Medicaid benefits during his time in the United States. Mann was sentenced to 18 months in prison and was ordered to be deported to Toronto to face abduction charges after serving his sentence in the United States.^[5]

5 Carlina White

When Joy White and Carl Tyson’s 19-day-old daughter, Carlina, began running a high fever on August 4, 1987, they brought her to the Harlem Hospital in New York for treatment. Little did they know that was the last time they would see their daughter. A woman named Ann Pettway, who pretended to be a nurse taking the baby for treatment, kidnapped Carlina and raised her under the alias of Nejdra Nance.

However, as Carlina grew older, she noticed the lack of resemblance between herself and her “mother.” Her suspicions only grew when Pettway could not produce a copy of her birth certificate or social security card, claiming Carlina had been given to her by a woman who used drugs.

It wasn’t until December 2010 that Carlina went on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s website. Imagine her surprise to find a photo similar to her own baby pictures. Carlina then called their hotline and was put in touch with her mother, Joy White.

DNA tests later confirmed Carlina was, in fact, her missing daughter, and they were reunited in January 2011, 23 years after her abduction. Pettway turned herself in on January 23, 2011, and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.^[6]

4 Sun Wei

Four-year-old Sun Wei was walking home from kindergarten in Lianshan Yi when he was given sweets by a stranger, lured into a van, and kidnapped in 1995. He was taken to the city of Jieyang, sold to a couple, and given a new name and birthdate. While Sun Wei’s identity was changed, he never forgot his kidnapping.

The boy’s father, Sun Zhenghua, reported the kidnapping to the police, but given that he and his wife had no photographs of their son, finding him seemed impossible. However, Zhengua refused to give up and began a cross-country journey, working odd jobs across several provinces in hopes of finding his son. Unfortunately, his attempts were unsuccessful. Refusing to be defeated, Zhengua later registered his DNA with the Chinese missing persons’ authorities.

When Sun Wei was 14 years old, he quit school to begin working and was later persuaded by his friends to register his DNA in the missing person’s database as well. The family was reunited in October 2015, 20 years after Sun Wei’s kidnapping.^[7]

3 Dollie Ann Henson

At the age of five, Dollie Ann Henson (who was born Darlene McDaniel) was playing at a neighbor’s house in Houston, Texas, when the woman asked her if she wanted to go on a train ride. Little did Henson realize at the time that the “train ride” was a kidnapping. She was taken to Louisiana before ending up in San Francisco, California, 1600 miles (2,574 kilometers) away from her family.

Henson’s kidnapper changed her name, birth date, and birth certificate, even going so far as to keep any information that would lead to Henson’s past locked in the trunk of her car. While Henson’s kidnapper claimed her biological family never wanted her, that wouldn’t stop Henson from eventually finding them. However, the challenge was a bit harder after a fire destroyed all the documents in the car, and her kidnapper passed away in 1977.

After getting married and having children of her own, Henson told them the story of her abduction. It was her daughter Kia’Ora who contacted a local television station that allowed Henson to go on-air and share her story on November 12, 2009.

Miraculously, Henson’s family members happened to be watching the broadcast, and they were able to connect by phone on November 13, 2009. Unfortunately, Henson’s birth mother had already passed away, but she was able to spend Christmas that year getting to know the rest of her family and making up for the previous 55 years.^[8]

2 Susan Gervaise

Susan Gervaise, born Susan Preece, had a rough beginning as a young child. Her mother was a single mom, and she and her six siblings lived on a traveler’s site, in and out of foster care in Yorkshire, England.

Therefore, when a Scottish couple who also lived on the site offered four-year-old Gervaise the opportunity to go to Disney World in 1969, her mother agreed. The couple asked Gervaise’s mother for her birth certificate as well so “she could be put on their passport.” Unfortunately, this ruse was nothing more than a disguised kidnapping that would take Gervaise from Canada to New Zealand and Australia.

While Gervaise claimed she had “a cherished life where she was spoiled rotten” with her traveling family, it wasn’t until she was 16 years old that she found out she had been stolen from her family. Gervaise later moved to Australia as an adult, got married, and had three children, never thinking much about her “real family.” That is, until a friend of Gervaise’s, who had been adopted, caused her to think about what her family must have gone through all these years.

Gervaise then located a Facebook page dedicated to the auburn of Pontefract, where she had been taken, and posted her story. Within 30 minutes, her family had been found. Gervaise was reunited with four of her six siblings and other family members in September of 2022, 53 years after her disappearance. Unfortunately, Gervaise’s biological mother had passed away eight years prior.^[9]

1 Feng Lulu

At 22 months of age, Feng Lulu was abducted in 1989 while playing outside her home in Xinxing, China. Lulu was later sold to another family and renamed Zhang Qianqian. While her foster family later claimed that Lulu’s parents couldn’t afford her as the reason they sold her, that was far from the truth.

However, thirty years would pass before the All-China Women’s Federation learned of Lulu’s parents’ search for their missing daughter and assisted them in contacting local police. Thanks to a “statistical database,” Lulu was located, and a DNA test confirmed her identity on March 30, 2021.

On April 2, 2021, Lulu was reunited with her parents after 32 long years and was able to meet her younger brothers and sister for the first time.^[10]