Comets go missing. Yes, we know that sounds weird. Comets are huge and have distinctive tails, so they tend to stand out. And it isn’t like they can be stolen by aliens, or something. Nevertheless, sometimes they just disappear.

Missing comets are a puzzle to astronomers. Most of the time, they suspect the comet broke apart or was flung out of our solar system when it got too close to a planet. Jupiter is very guilty of this. However, it’s not exactly easy to get a definitive answer. For all we know, the comet might even be around but could not be observed for certain reasons. Some comets have even disappeared, only to reappear and disappear again.

10 Great Comet Of 1264

The Great Comet of 1264 appeared over the skies between July and October 1264. It was visible throughout the day but was most visible just before the Sun rose in the early mornings. It also arrived at a time when comets were viewed as bad omens.

At the time, people believed comets were sent by supernatural beings and could cause deaths, floods, and diseases. The superstition was reinforced when Pope Urban IV became ill around the time the comet first appeared. He died on October 3, 1264, the last day the comet was observed. People said the comet killed the pope.

A similarly bright comet mysteriously appeared in 1556 and was appropriately called the Great Comet of 1556. In 1778, astronomer Guy Pingre claimed the comets of 1264 and 1556 were the same one. He surmised that it returned every 292 years and predicted it would return again in 1848. The comet did not return.

If we were to go by Pingre’s calculations, the comet should return in 2140. However, there is no evidence that this will happen. This means this entry could contain two missing comets.^[1]

9 Biela’s Comet

Biela’s Comet was discovered by Jacques Leibax Montaigne on March 8, 1772. It was rediscovered by Jean-Louis Pons in 1805 and Wilhelm von Biela in 1826. Pons did not realize the comet had been observed earlier, but Biela did when he determined it had the same orbit as the comets recorded by Montaigne and Pons.

Biela’s Comet returned in 1832, 1846, and 1852 before disappearing. It remains unclear whether it broke up or another celestial body altered its orbit. However, most astronomers believe it broke apart. Another known comet, Comet NEAT (207P/NEAT) was even suspected to be one of its fragments.

Author Mel Waskin claimed Biela’s Comet broke up. In his book, Mrs. O’Leary’s Comet: Cosmic Causes of the Great Chicago Fire, Waskin claimed Biela’s comet broke up into two smaller comets in 1845. Astronomers continued to track one piece, while the other later crashed into the Earth in 1871. He claimed the impact caused several fires, such as the Great Chicago Fire and the fires of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and Manistee, Michigan, which all occurred on October 8, 1871.^[2]

8 Caesar’s Comet

The mysterious Caesar’s Comet is possibly the brightest comet ever. It appeared in 44 BC and was widely observed and recorded before disappearing. The comet is named after the famous Roman general and statesman Julius Caesar, who was assassinated on March 15 the same year.

Caesar’s Comet appeared in July, four months after Caesar’s death. The Romans were holding the Ludi Victoriae Caesaris games in honor of Caesar at the time the comet appeared. It was very bright and clearly visible during the day. And it remained visible for seven days before disappearing.

People claimed the comet was the soul of Julius Caesar. These assertions were not surprising, since Caesar himself used to claim he was a god. His family also claimed to be descendants of Aeneus, who supposedly founded Rome, and Venus, a goddess.^[3]

Nevertheless, 44 BC was the only time we ever saw Caesar’s Comet. It is suspected to be a nonperiodic comet, as in one that does not orbit the Sun. This means that it might never return again. Others think it could have broken into smaller parts.

7 Brorsen’s Comet

Brorsen’s Comet (aka 5D/Brorsen) was discovered by Theodor Brorsen on February 26, 1846. It remained visible until April 22, when it finally traveled too far to be observed. Johann Franz Encke claimed it returned every 3.44 years, but it was later agreed to be around 5.5 years.

Brorsen’s Comet was expected to return in September 1851, but it never did. However, it returned in March 1857, when it was rediscovered by Karl Christian Bruhns. Bruhns did not realize he had found the missing comet until it was established that his discovery was not a new comet but the previously lost Brorsen’s Comet.

The comet returned again in 1862 but was not observed. It showed up in 1868 and was spotted. Meanwhile, astronomers had already noticed that the comet always flew too close to Jupiter, which was altering its orbit. It was supposed to return in 1874 but appeared a year earlier because the gas giant shortened its orbit.

Brorsen’s Comet came back around in 1879, the last time it was ever seen. It was supposed to return in 1884, 1895, 1901, and other subsequent years but never did. Astronomers extensively searched for it in 1973, when it was expected to make another flyby. It was never found and remains missing.^[4]

6 Comet Lexell

Comet Lexell was 2.2 million kilometers from the Earth at its closest, making it the nearest any comet has ever come to our planet. It appeared in 1770 and was first observed by Charles Messier. However, it got its name after Anders Johan Lexell calculated its orbit and determined that it ended somewhere around Jupiter. He said the comet would return every five and a half years.

Comet Lexell was expected to return in 1776, but it never did. Nor did it show up ever again. Urbain Le Verrier determined the comet’s orbit had been altered when it strayed too close to Jupiter. Jupiter either increased its orbit, which means it could return sometime in the future, or flung it away from our solar system.^[5]

5 Great Daylight Comet Of 1910

In January 1910, as anxious skygazers awaited the arrival of the famous Halley’s Comet, another one suddenly appeared in the sky. This comet, which was aptly called the Great Daylight Comet of 1910, was so bright that it was clearly visible in the daytime sky. It was five times brighter than Venus.

Some miners in South Africa were believed to have first spotted the comet on January 12. The comet soon appeared over the US, where smart entrepreneurs organized “comet-watching parties” to allow curious people observe it with a telescope. The comet remained visible until the first weeks of February and has not been seen ever since.

Interestingly, the appearance of the Great Daylight Comet of 1910 outshone Halley’s Comet, which arrived few months later. When Halley’s Comet returned in 1985–1986, some people who claimed to have seen it when it arrived in 1910 ended up describing Great Daylight Comet.^[6]

4 Comet Perrine-Mrkos

Comet Perrine-Mrkos was discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine on December 9, 1896. Perrine did not realize he had found a new comet. He thought it was part of the lost Biela’s Comet, which was believed to have broken up. He calculated that the comet would return in 1903, but it was not observed.

It was spotted again in 1909 but not seen afterward for some time. Comet Perrine-Mrkos was supposed to return in 1916, but its visibility would have been so poor that nobody bothered to look for it. It was expected to return again in 1922 and 1929 but was not seen in either year.

The comet was finally observed again on October 19, 1955, when it was spotted by Antonin Mrkos. Mrkos thought it was a new comet or part of the supposedly fragmented Biela’s Comet. However, Leland E. Cunningham deduced that it was neither a new comet nor part of Biela’s Comet. It was the lost comet earlier discovered by Perrine.

Astronomers noticed that the orbit of Comet Perrine-Mrkos had been altered at the time it was rediscovered by Mrkos. This was because it often traveled close to Jupiter, which we’ve already fingered for flinging comets out of our solar system. Nevertheless, the comet was visible in the sky until February 1956.

Afterward, the comet was declared missing again until it reappeared in 1961 and 1968. It was declared missing yet again when it did not reappear in 1975.^[7]

3 Comet Boethin

Comet Boethin was discovered by Reverend Leo Boethin on January 4, 1975. Astronomers calculated its orbit and determined that it would return in 11 years. Their calculations proved correct when the comet showed up in January 1986, 11 years later. It was observed by several astronomers until March 1.

Comet Boethin was expected to return again in April 1997, but it never did. If it did, it was not observed. However, astronomers finally agreed it was missing when it did not return in December 2008.

NASA was so sure that the comet was coming that at one point, they planned to send their Deep Impact spacecraft to intercept it. NASA launched the spacecraft in 2005 and left it orbiting the Sun, expecting the arrival of Comet Boethin, which never showed up. It is suspected to have broken apart.^[8]

2 75D/Kohoutek

75D/Kohoutek was discovered by Lubos Kohoutek in February 1975. It is distinct from the more well-known Comet Kohoutek. Astronomers determined that 75D/Kohoutek would not have been visible from Earth if Jupiter had not altered its orbit on July 28, 1972.

75D/Kohoutek was determined to return roughly every seven years. It appeared in 1988 but was declared missing when it did not return in 1994. It did not appear in 2000, 2007, or 2014, either. Astronomers will dump the missing label if the comet reappears in March 2021.^[9]

1 83D/Russell

83D/Russell (formerly 83P/Russel) was discovered by Kenneth S. Russell on June 16, 1979, and remained visible until August 14. M.P. Candy calculated its orbit and determined it would return every 7.43 years. Daniel W.E. Green countered this when he calculated that the comet to return in 6.13 years.

Green was right. 83D/Russell returned again in April 1985 and was first observed by J. Gibson on April 9. It was seen until June 17. Afterward, the comet strayed too close to Jupiter. The gravitational force of the planet altered its orbit, increasing its perihelion distance from 1.61 to 2.18 astronomical units.

At the time, astronomers predicted the alteration could render the comet missing. In fact, that was also the last time the comet was seen. The comet was expected to return in 1991 and 1998, but the conditions did not favor its observation. 2006 was expected to have better conditions, but 83D/Russell wasn’t seen, so it’s missing.^[10]

According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons database (NamUS), more than 600,000 people go missing every year in the United States alone. While the vast majority of missing persons cases are resolved quickly, such is not always the case. Sadly, the families left behind are filled with heartbreak and uncertainty and forced to endure an emotional rollercoaster as they desperately await any news or updates. Unfortunately, that also does not does not necessarily mean that families will find their loved ones alive and well.

In the instance that a loved one is found deceased, the outcome still may not bring much closure, especially when circumstances seem to defy any sort of rational logic. In some cases, the tragic fate of those who have vanished seems to elude authorities.

This list tells the stories of ten tragic incidents of missing persons where the search for truth proved much stranger than fiction. From tales of weird statues, confined spaces, and sea creatures, the cases of these vanished souls led investigators to eerie, unbelievable, and heartbreaking discoveries. Here are ten tragic missing persons cases that ended in unlikely places.

Related: 10 Missing Persons Cases Solved by YouTube Divers

10 Decorative Dinosaur Statue

On May 22, 2021, an unnamed father and son noticed a smell coming from a paper mache Stegosaurus statue in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a suburb of Barcelona, Spain. When the father looked through a crack in the dinosaur’s leg, he saw a body and contacted authorities.

Three fire brigade teams were called to the scene to help cut into the statue and remove the body. It is believed that the 39-year-old man—who was not identified—was trying to retrieve a cell phone, which he dropped inside the statue. He entered the statue head first but became trapped in the statue’s leg, unable to get out.

The man was a Spanish national whose family hadn’t heard from him for several days. Sadly, he had been reported missing just a few hours before his body was discovered. The decorative statue, used to advertise an old cinema, has since been removed from outside the city’s Cubic Building.^[1]

9 Behind Cooler in Closed Supermarket

On November 28, 2009, 25-year-old Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada became upset and ran out of his Council Bluffs, Iowa, home during a snowstorm. Despite the cold weather, Murillo-Moncada left wearing only blue jeans and a blue long-sleeved shirt, but no shoes, socks, or coat. The man’s mother, Ana Moncada, and a friend went searching for Murillo-Moncada but found no sign of him. Ana reported her son missing on November 29, 2009.

Before his disappearance, on November 27, 2009, Murillo-Moncada had returned home from work at the No Frills Supermarket and seemed disoriented, so Ana took him to see a doctor. Murillo-Moncada was prescribed an antidepressant for anxiety, but his parents believed the medication he was taking caused his irrational behavior. She said, “He was hearing voices that said ‘eat sugar.’ He felt his heart was beating too hard and thought if he ate sugar, his heart would not beat so hard.”

Sadly, it would be nearly ten years before Murillo-Moncada would be found.

On January 24, 2019, a contracting firm was removing shelving and coolers from the No Frills Supermarket, which had closed in 2016, when they discovered a body behind a cooler. They then contacted the police. The clothing on the body matched what Murillo-Moncada was wearing when he disappeared, and his parents’ DNA was later used to confirm his identity.

Investigators believe that after Murillo-Moncada ran away, he went into the storage area in the supermarket and climbed on top of one of the coolers. Former employees of the supermarket stated it was common for workers to be on top of the coolers since the space was used for storing goods. Employees would even sit on the cooling units when they wanted to take an “unofficial break.”

Unfortunately, after scaling the 12-foot (3.6-meter) cooler, it is believed that Murillo-Moncada fell into an approximately 18-inch (45-cm) gap between the cooler and the wall, leaving him trapped. Additionally, the noise from the coolers’ compressors would have muffled any sounds. An autopsy found no signs of trauma, and Murillo-Moncada’s death was deemed accidental.^[2]

8 Inside a School Shark

Just before midnight on February 18, 2023, 32-year-old Diego Barría was riding his ATV home in the Patagonian province of Chubut, Argentina. However, Barría stopped to greet some fishing friends and texted his partner, Virginia Brugger, to let her know he would be home later than expected. Unfortunately, Barría never returned home and was not responding to text messages or phone calls. On February 20, 2023, his family reported him missing.

As agents began to search the area on February 20, 2023, they discovered Barría’s damaged all-terrain vehicle, along with his cracked helmet, on a beach near Rocas Colorados. Sadly, there was still no sign of Barría. (Link 12)

On February 26, 2023, two fishermen went to the coastguard to report that they had caught three school sharks—also known as tope or soupfin sharks—near the beach where Barría’s ATV was located. Sadly, “when they were cleaning them, they found human remains in one of them.” Barría’s family identified him based on a tattoo visible in the fishermen’s findings.

Officials stated they would continue to investigate what happened to Barría. However, given that there had been a strong tidal surge the weekend Barría disappeared, police suspect that Barría had an accident in which he collided with a rock while driving his ATV, and then his body was washed out to sea.^[3]

7 Hotel Pool Pipe

Jose Daniela Jaico Ahumada rented a room at the Doubletree by Hilton Houston Brookhollow Hotel in Houston, Texas, so that her family could enjoy a day of swimming, an activity that her daughter—eight-year-old Aliyah Jaico—loved. Unfortunately, what should have been a day of fun turned into a missing persons case with an even more tragic ending.

On March 23, 2024, Aliyah was enjoying the “lazy river style” pool of the hotel with her family. Ahumada stepped away for a brief moment, and just before 5 pm, Aliyah “disappeared in a split second” in the lazy river. Ahumada frantically searched for Aliyah for approximately one hour, even asking hotel staff to look at the CCTV footage. However, Ahumada claimed that the hotel management “denied her request and explained that police would have to be present to view the video surveillance.” Around 5:45 pm, Ahumada then contacted police to report Aliyah missing.

Once police arrived, investigators reviewed security video showing Aliyah had gone underwater but never resurfaced. The search crew drained the pool, and Texas EquuSearch was called in to inspect the pool’s pipes. At 11:30 pm, Aliyah’s body was found 20 feet (6 meters) inside the piping, and it took crews approximately 13 hours to recover her body. Aliyah was pronounced dead at the scene as a result of drowning and mechanical asphyxia.

An inspection by the City of Houston’s Health Department revealed that the “Operator failed to obtain a pre-opening inspection prior to placing the pool in operation after a remodel.” While it was not certain when the remodel occurred, the new piping appeared to be malfunctioning, and rather than pushing water out, it was pulling water in. The pool was also not in compliance with federal laws meant to protect drain entrapment and child drowning, along with multiple other violations.

Ahumada has since filed a lawsuit against Doubletree’s parent company, Hilton, and the local operator of the hotel, Unique Crowne Hospitality, for $1 million.^[4]

6 Laundry Cart

On January 18, 2023, 21-year-old Rosa Chacon left her home in Little Village—a neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois—and got into an Uber. Chacon left without her coat or ID, and the only thing she said to her mother was, “I’ll be back, Mom. I got the Uber ride there and the Uber ride back.” However, Chacon never returned home.

Chacon was reported missing, and on January 23, 2023, the Chicago Police Department issued a missing person bulletin to the media. Chacon’s mother stated that Uber refused to give her any information about who ordered the ride for Chacon or her destination. She also claimed that authorities did little to assist in their search, so after months of searching on their own and handing out flyers, Chacon’s family hired a private investigator.

Sadly, around 10:45 am on March 15, 2023, Chacon’s body was found in a laundry cart, just 2 miles (3.2 km) from her home. Unfortunately, the medical examiner’s office has been unable to determine the cause of Chacon’s death. To date, the case remains unsolved.^[5]

5 Department Store Bathroom

Sixty-three-year-old Bessie Durham of Columbia, South Carolina, worked for KBS, a company contracted to clean the Columbiana Mall. Durham clocked in for work at 7 am on the morning of September 15, 2022, and went into a family bathroom of the Belk department store in the mall. However, Durham never clocked out from work that day.

After not hearing from Durham for four days, her family reported her missing. Columbia Police called the store in hopes of locating Durham, but sadly, on September 19, 2022, Durham’s body was found by store employees locked inside the bathroom she went in to clean. An autopsy later revealed that Durham died from a cardiac event.

On September 19, 2023, one year after Durham’s tragic death, her family filed a lawsuit against the Belk chain for negligence, as well as the contractor Durham worked for. Durham’s family questioned why none of the store employees thought it suspicious that Durham’s cleaning cart remained outside the restroom for four days, given that the store was open for regular hours the entire time. They also claimed that a store policy—which was enacted earlier in 2022 due to a mall shooter—required that the restroom door be locked, which “further exacerbated the problem.”^[6]

4 Community College Ventilation System

On October 25, 2023, 36-year-old Jason Anthony Thompson of Clinton Township, Michigan, told his family and his girlfriend that he was running from the police. In an attempt to evade arrest, he was hiding on the roof of a building at Macomb Community College. Unfortunately, the text messages from Thompson to his family stopped, and on November 1, 2023, he was reported missing.

On November 7, 2023, Sterling Heights police asked the Macomb College police to check the performing arts center’s roof to see if anyone had entered the ventilation system, but there was no evidence of access or anyone on the roof. Sterling Heights police reached out to college police again on November 17, 2023, asking them to review video footage of the area around the facility. Unfortunately, that area had no camera coverage.

It wasn’t until November 26, 2023, over a month after Thompson’s disappearance, that police were called to look for “the source of a foul odor” coming from part of the campus building. Hours later, it was determined that the odor was coming from a mechanical room not available for public access. Using X-ray equipment and a small camera, the Michigan State Police Bomb Squad was able to determine that there was an inverted body in the vent, which was later confirmed to be Thompson.

It is believed that after entering from the roof, Thompson traveled through the ductwork, essentially burrowing deeper into the HVAC system. However, as he came to a downward vertical duct, he entered head first and became stuck in a narrowed section. Thompson’s cause of death was deemed to be accidental asphyxia/entrapment/environmental suffocation.

Although Thompson was indeed a fugitive and had five warrants for his arrest, authorities later stated there was no evidence he was being actively pursued.^[7]

3 Truck Bed Toolbox

Forty-nine-year-old Jannell Martensen of Spokane, Washington, struggled with drug addiction and had been in an on-and-off relationship with 37-year-old Colton Russell. Sadly, the relationship was riddled with violence. In one particular incident in 2021, Russell drove Martensen to a rural area, severely beat her, and simply left her there. Thankfully, a stranger found Martensen and took her home.

In June 2023, the couple called it quits. Martensen moved in with a friend, and Russell found a new girlfriend—23-year-old Kiara Morgan-Weiland. Despite the tumultuous relationship and Russell’s seemingly moving on, Martensen didn’t stay away from Russell.

On November 18, 2023, Martensen left to go camping with Russell and Morgan-Weiland. In the early morning hours of November 19, 2023, Martensen texted her cousin, Alisha Galbreath, and several other friends with messages such as “Please come get me I’m scared to death” and “I’m afraid he’s going to kill me please.” Unfortunately, because Martensen had made similar calls in the past but then refused to leave Russell, no one went to get her.

When Martensen failed to show up for Thanksgiving with her children and grandchildren and stopped answering her phone, Gilbreath reported her missing. In the following days, Martensen’s friends questioned Russell regarding her disappearance, but he frequently changed his story, claiming to have last seen her with several different people. Russell and Morgan-Weiland became suspects in Martensen’s disappearance, but before either Russell or Morgan-Weiland could be questioned, they were found dead on December 8, 2023.

On December 9, 2023, authorities searched Russell’s house and found blood splatter on the living room walls, a bloody sponge in the garbage, and large sections of carpet that had possible traces of blood. Detectives also discovered that Morgan-Weiland had been performing searches on YouTube, which included “serial killer couples” and “how to dispose of dead bodies.”

On December 14, 2023, detectives seized Russell’s truck and a truck bed toolbox, which had been abandoned on a residential property because it allegedly broke down. Sadly, Martensen’s body was discovered inside of the toolbox. Her cause of death was later revealed to be due to blunt force injuries.

On December 16, 2023, the couple’s friend, Brandon Kenny, admitted to shooting Russell and stabbing Morgan-Weiland 51 times. Kenny stated that Russell admitted to “accidentally killing” Martensen but then put a gun in Kelly’s mouth and told him he “had to move her body” or he would be killed too.

Kenny claimed he “needed to kill” Morgan-Weiland because “she was the only other person who knew anything about the situation.” Kenny has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder.^[8]

2 Asian Restaurant

Twenty-nine-year-old Mingming Chen and her husband, 34-year-old Liang Zhao, had a daughter named Ashley Zhao. However, rather than raising the child together, Zhao’s mother cared for Ashley until she turned four so he could focus on his business—Ang’s Asian Cuisine in North Canton, Ohio. Unfortunately, after the couple began caring for Ashley, Chen became frustrated with how disobedient her daughter had become.

On January 9, 2017, Chen became angry with five-year-old Ashley after she had an accident, striking her on the head several times. Zhao tried to revive Ashley, but instead of calling for help, the couple drove to their restaurant and hid Ashley in a salt container in the restaurant’s freezer.

Twelve hours later, Zhao called the police and claimed that Ashley was missing. Chen and Zhao told police that they last saw Ashley sleeping in a makeshift bed near the restaurant’s back door, leading investigators to believe the little girl had wandered off. After a frantic daylong search, Ashley was found in the family’s restaurant on January 10, 2017.

On January 11, 2017, Chen was charged with first-degree murder and felonious assault. Zhao was charged with complicity to commit murder and complicity to commit felonious assault. In January 2018, Chen was sentenced to 22 years in prison after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and other charges through a plea agreement. Chen, who was in the U.S. illegally, will also be deported to China after serving her sentence. Zhao was sentenced to 12 years for obstructing justice and corpse abuse.^[9]

1 Convention Center Walls

On the evening of August 22, 2020, 40-year-old Joseph Edward Mejica disappeared in Oakland, California. He was later reported missing by his mother, the last person believed to see him alive. Mejica was homeless at the time of his disappearance and was “known to frequent unsheltered encampments.” His family also offered a $5,000 reward for any information about his location.

Unfortunately, Mejica was not found until March 9, 2022, when a construction worker was tearing out a wall inside the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, which had been closed since 2005. While investigators were not able to immediately identify Mejica, the coroner matched a serial number on a tubular implant in Mejica’s leg to records at Highland Hospital, where he’d had surgery nearly two decades prior. From there, officials were able to confirm his DNA.

His mother said that “Mejica would often try to steal copper wiring from construction sites for money.” Therefore, authorities believe that Mejica may have fallen from the roof area above, and over time, his body slipped toward the bottom of the cavity space. His death was believed to be accidental.^[10]

A staggering 600,000 people go missing every year in the US. And while the vast majority of them turn up again within the same year, far too many do not. That doesn’t necessarily mean those people are never seen again, but with each passing year, the likelihood decreases. Which is what makes it so remarkable when a person who, by all accounts, should never have been seen again makes a reappearance. And while that, in and of itself, is remarkable, sometimes the way it happens is far more bizarre than you could imagine. Let’s look at ten of the most incredible times the missing reappeared. 

10. One of John Wayne Gacy’s Supposed Victims Turned Up Alive 34 Years Later

John Wayne Gacy was one of America’s most infamous serial killers. He murdered at least 33 young men and boys and likely more back in the 1970s. As you can imagine, that led to a lot of ruined and devastated families. And though he was finally caught, the fact that the number of his victims was never accurately pinned down meant that anyone else in the right age range who went missing at that time in that area could have just as easily fallen prey to him. There was no way to tell, and the remains of several unidentified victims were found.

In 1977, 19-year-old Harold Wayne Lovell left his Chicago home one day and was never seen again. His family believe he had fallen victim to Gacy once his crimes came to light. There were unidentified remains of eight victims related to Gacy’s crimes. Lovell’s family was assisting law enforcement to see if they could match DNA with some of the victims and finally determine Harold’s fate. Instead, they discovered that he’d been arrested on marijuana charges in Florida a few years earlier.

For 34 years, Harold had been living his life and had just never informed his family. He left home willingly and never looked back. His reason? He said he “never felt wanted” there, so he went somewhere else. He did, however, reconnect with his siblings after they discovered he was still alive. 

9. Woman Missing for 11 Years Was Next Door

When someone goes missing, a good way to start a search is to establish a sort of perimeter. If the person was last seen in one spot, you can guess that they could have traveled maybe ten miles away, and now you have a circle with a ten mile radius in which to search. As time passes, you can expand outward. 

None of this happened when an 18-year-old woman named Sajitha left her parent’s house in Kerala, India. They say police searched high and low for her but apparently not close. She had gone across the street. 

Turns out Sajitha was in love with her neighbor Rahman. Being of different religions, they feared their relationship wouldn’t be accepted, so she secretly lived with him for 11 years without anyone, even his parents, who lived in the same house, knowing. They were only discovered when they moved to a new town and didn’t tell anyone, so Rahman was considered a missing person and tracked down as well.  

8. A Tortoise Was Found in a House After 30 Years

Okay, so this one isn’t a missing person so much as a missing pet, but it’s pretty dramatic nonetheless. Manuela the tortoise went missing in 1982. The Brazilian family was unable to find the creature and assumed the worst as one does. And then, in a baffling twist, the tortoise showed up again in the house’s attic. And sure, that’s amazing, but it was 2013 when they found it again. 

Manuela had vanished when the house was being renovated, so there was a lot of clutter. The grandfather was a bit of a hoarder and had jammed the house with old junk. That’s what kept the tortoise hidden. The family suspects she was surviving on termites.

7. Lawrence Joseph Bader Vanished for 8 Years, Then Was Found with a New Name

Soap operas are infamous for stories of amnesiacs and you’ll see it on film every now and again, too. Someone gets in an accident, forgets who they are, starts a whole new life. Does that ever really happen? Lawrence Joseph Bader claims it did. 

Bader had gone fishing on Lake Erie in 1957, despite being warned by the man renting the boat and the Coast Guard that a storm was coming. His boat was found, but he was not. He left behind a wife and four kids.  But in 1965, his niece ran into him at a sporting goods convention halfway across the country in Chicago. 

Bader had become Fritz Johnson. He had become a radio personality and then a local TV star known for his big personality. His backstory? A former Navy man, discharged for having a bad back. 

Fingerprints confirmed Johnson was Bader, but he claimed to have no memory of that life. Lawyers would later argue a tumor, which had cost him his eye, was responsible. He died a year later when his cancer returned.

6. Teruo Nakamura Fought WWII for 30 Extra Years

Here’s a question you may never have pondered before. If you were fighting a war in a remote location and the war ended, how would you know? Presumably you’d get the call on a phone or radio, right? What if you didn’t have those things? That’s sort of what happened to Teruo Nakamura. 

Nakamura had been stationed on an Indonesian island in 1944. He was presumed dead after a battle, but he had escaped to the jungle with some other soldiers. They’d been told to keep on fighting. So he did. 

Leaflets dropped on the island in 1945 that the war was over were dismissed as propaganda. Years went by, and Nakamura and his few fellow soldiers stayed hidden. They watched aircraft evolve and assumed it was the results of an arm race. 

By 1956 he was alone, growing sweet potatoes and harvesting bananas. In 1974, he was spotted by some locals who reported him to Indonesian authorities. They began making arrangements to send him home and also give him 30 years of back pay, which amounted to $227.59.

5. Singer Shelagh McDonald Disappeared for 30 Years After an Acid Trip

Scottish folk singer Shelagh McDonald disappeared in 1971, just when her music career was really taking off. Thirty-four years later some of her music was re-released and so she decided to turn up and explain her disappearance.

Turns out McDonald had gotten super high on LSD. How high? Disappear for over 30 years high. Apparently she tripped out for a solid 18 months at her parents’ house. She had no contact info for friends, so she didn’t contact them. But she did meet a man and fall in love. They lived in a tent together for 6 years at one point and were quite happy. 

4. Lucy Ann Johnson Disappeared for 52 Years 

Try to imagine being a kid and one day your mom just never comes home.The police even dig up your yard looking for her body, but nothing turned up. Then, 52 years later, you get a call from a woman who saw your mom’s picture in a missing person ad and says that’s her mom, too.

This is the story of Lucy Ann Johnson. Linda Evans was seven when her mother went missing from Surrey, British Columbia. She turned up in the Yukon with a whole new family. Her husband, Evans’ father, had been abusive and a cheater and so one day she walked out. She tried to take the kids, but he refused and so she left, never to come back. The man himself didn’t report his wife missing for about four years.

3. A 5-Year-Old Boy From India Used Google Earth to Find Home Decades Later

The story of Saroo Brierley is hard to believe but has been well documented and as amazing as it is nightmarish, especially if you’re a parent. When Saroo was five, he was taking a train with his nine-year-old brother. The boys lived with their siblings and mother in a small town in India. Their father had left them and Saroo’s older brother Guddu was trying to help his mother by scavenging and stealing what he could. One day, he brought Saroo with him.

The plan was to look for lost change on a train. But the brothers got separated, and Saroo fell asleep on the train. When he awoke, he was alone with no idea where he was. At five, and from rural India, he also didn’t know the name of his town, or his family surname. 

He ended up in Calcutta, unable to find anyone who spoke the same language as him. Eventually, he ended up in a juvenile center where he was adopted by the Brierleys, a kind couple from Australia.

In 2009, Saroo had grown into a happy and popular teen. He was still curious about his past, and Google Earth was able to provide answers. Though he didn’t know place names, he recognized landmarks and used them to hunt down his hometown. He even made use of that old math question about a train leaving a station traveling at a certain speed for a certain number of hours to narrow his search area, since that’s exactly what happened to him. His search took years.

Having been gone for about 25 years, Saroo finally found his hometown of Khandwa and returned in 2012. There, he reunited with his mother, sister and one of his brothers and learned Guddu had died shortly after his disappearance.  

2. Carlina White Was Missing for 23 Years

It was the summer of 1987 when Carlina White disappeared. At 19 days old, someone took her from the hospital where she’d been born and it would be a stunning 23 years before she was heard from again. 

Carlina’s mother got a message in 2010 from a woman named Nejdra Nance that came with baby pictures. They were pictures of Nance herself. She had been on a missing person’s website and seen pictures of Carlina, the 19-day-old baby. She noticed they looked a lot like her own baby pictures. 

Police DNA tested both Nance and Carlina White’s parents and confirmed that Nance was, in fact, Carlina. 

She had been abducted by a woman named Anne Pettway. Carlina said she was always a little suspicious since she looked nothing like Pettway and the woman was unable to provide a birth certificate a few years earlier when she needed one. Later, she confessed to not being her birth mother but insisted her real parents abandoned her. 

Despite being a kidnapper, White admitted of her fake mother that, although strict, she was a good mother. Her friends, she said, always thought she was cool.

Her suspicions prompted her to look into missing person’s cases, which is how she ended up discovering her own disappearance. She was reunited with her birth parents in 2011.

1. Julian Hernandez Found Out He Was Kidnapped When He Tried to Go to College

Solving your own missing person’s case is not unprecedented, as we’ve seen, but having no idea anyone was looking for you and stumbling upon it as a result of doing routine paperwork may be. That’s how things worked out for 18-year-old Julian Hernandez.

Hernandez was applying to go to college and ran into a strange problem when trying to fill out his application. He found out his social security number was wrong. As in, it didn’t belong to him. So he got the help of a school guidance counselor and together they discovered Hernandez’s picture on a database of missing children. He’d disappeared 13 years earlier when he was just five-years-old. 

Because it was his father that had taken him, Hernandez had no idea that anything was wrong. He was told his mother had abandoned him, which was not the case. And despite how it sounds, Hernandez was a vocal supporter of his father during the ensuing trial, saying his father had been a good dad and made sure he got good grades, noting that punishing him for taking him from his mother was essentially doing the same thing to him all over again. He was given four years in prison.

The mythical Heart of the Ocean sparked a major hunt in the popular movie Titanic. And while the Heart of the Ocean may not really be a missing gemstone, there are plenty of jewels that really have been lost to time. Here are ten missing gems and jewels which still have yet to be found.

Related: Top 10 Sparkling Legends About Gemstones

10 The Blue Diamond

The Blue Diamond was a 69-carat diamond found in India and is largely considered the world’s first blue diamond. It was bought by King Louis XIV of France in 1668, and the king cut the diamond down to about 69 carats. From there, he proceeded to mount it in a beautiful Catholic chivalric order called the Order of the Golden Fleece.

Now, while we know a fair amount about where the diamond came from and who owned it, what we don’t know is what happened during the later half of the diamond’s life.

In 1791, King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, were arrested as they attempted to flee the country because of the ongoing revolution. Of course, they were captured and imprisoned, and the revolutionaries decided to loot the royal palace. During the looting, thieves laid claim to the French crown jewels—including the famed Blue Diamond. That was the last that was ever seen of the French Blue.

Unlike some of the other gemstones that have been lost to time, the French Blue seems to have been simply remodeled. Scientists have run tests on the Hope Diamond, currently housed in the Smithsonian Institute, and believe it is the long-lost French Blue, although it’s been cut down to about two-thirds of its original size.^[1]

9 The Great Mogul Diamond

The Great Mogul Diamond was named as such because it was the largest diamond ever mined in India. The diamond weighed a whopping 787 carats when it was mined in 1650.

The diamond, which was owned by Emperor Aurangzeb, was sent to Venice to be cut by a man named Hortentio Borgis, who reduced the diamond by roughly 500 carats in size. The Emperor wasn’t impressed and fined the jeweler for every penny he had.

That was the last that was ever really heard of the diamond, and many people believe that the diamond was lost in the 1739 sack of Delhi. Although the diamond is officially missing, there are those who believe that the Orlov diamond is the same Great Mogul Diamond. The reason for this is that both diamonds were said to be “the shape of half an egg,” but with little other evidence to go by, we may never know the truth.^[2]

8 The Irish Crown Jewels

The Irish crown jewels were once the property of the Order of St Patrick, an aristocratic order in Ireland. They were an important part of swearing-in ceremonies and were worn by the Viceroy in Ireland or the Grand Master of the Order. The order was operational up until 1974, when the last knight of the order passed away.

Unfortunately, the Irish crown jewels went missing far before the order’s end. On July 6, 1901, the crown jewels were discovered to be missing. This was just days before King Edward VII was set to visit Dublin—and use the crown jewels to swear in a new knight of the Order of St. Patrick!

Despite launching a police hunt all over the city, the jewels were never found. In the following years, there were several claims that the jewels had been uncovered, but all of them turned out to be false alarms.^[3]

7 The Marlborough Diamond

The Marlborough Diamond was a 45-carat diamond that was the property of a well-to-do jewelry store in London. The diamond was displayed proudly in the store’s front window, although perhaps this didn’t turn out the be the best idea.

The Chicago mob had seen the diamond in the window, and they were determined to have it. On September 11, 1980, Art Rachel and Jerry Scalise donned disguises as Arab Shikhs and held up the store in broad daylight.

Despite making it out of the store and even out of the country, they were stopped at O’Hare airport in Chicago upon their return to their home country. The two were promptly arrested and spent more than forty years in prison.

What’s interesting is that while the mobsters themselves were caught and made to pay for their crimes, the Marlborough Diamond was never recovered. Police believe that the two mobsters, who are now free, know the whereabouts of the diamond, but if that’s the case, they have yet to spill the beans.^[4]

6 The Atocha Star

The Atocha Star is a famous Colombian emerald that was mined during the 17th century. This emerald weighed about 25 carats and was sent from Colombia to Spain on a ship called Nuestra Señora de Atocha in 1622.

Tragically, the ship never made it to its destination. A hurricane sunk the ship somewhere off the coast of Florida, taking with it the emeralds and several chests of gold and silver.

Despite this tragedy, all was not lost forever. A man named Mel Fisher led a diving group to the wreck site in 1985 and found six pounds of ship cargo dating back about 400 years. One of the treasures found in the cargo was the Atocha Star.

You’d think that after the re-discovery of the emerald, it would have gone on to live in a museum. However, that’s not quite the case. Mel Fisher had the Atocha Star cut down to around 12 carats and mounted to a golden statue of an eagle.

In 2016, the Golden Eagle was stolen from its owner in Vancouver while on display at the Art Vancouver Exhbit. Despite the fact that police have been actively hunting for the statue and the emerald for years, its whereabouts are still unknown.^[5]

5 Akhbar Shah

The Akbar Shah is a pear-shaped diamond that originally weighed around 119 carats and was set into the Peacock Throne of Emperor Akbar of the Mughal Empire.

Being part of the throne, however, the jewel didn’t survive very long in the Mughal emperor’s court. The throne was plundered and taken to Iran, where it remained hidden for nearly a hundred years.

Then, in 1866, the Akhbar Shah reappeared in the hands of a merchant named George Blogg. Blogg called the stone “The Shepherd Stone” and took it to London, where he had it reshaped. He then sold the stone to Malhar Rao in India.

Today, heirs of the Rao family have filed tax returns that show the gemstone may still be in the family’s possession. However, this is unverified, and there is still some suspicion that the stone was sold or traded hands at some point. In short, the stone’s whereabouts are unknown.^[6]

4 The Florentine Diamond

The Florentine diamond was a yellowish diamond that weighed around 137 carats. Although no one is sure of the diamond’s origins, it’s thought to have belonged to Charles, the Duke of Burgundy.

When the Duke of Burgundy was felled in battle in 1476, a nearby soldier picked up the gem and sold it for cash. Later, the gem turned back up in Tuscany in the care of the de’ Medici family, although he, too, sold it in 1657.

The jewel changed hands a number of times in the following years, eventually making its way into the hands of Charles I of Austria. During Charles I’s exile in World War I, the gemstone was stolen. Although no one knows exactly what happened next, many believe that the gem was sent to the United States, where it was recut and sold to mask its identity. Despite these rumors, historians have yet to corroborate the story.^[7]

3 Hawaiian Crown Jewels

Although Hawaii is currently a state of the United States of America, it was once its own sovereign nation with a royal family. And, as you might expect, that royal family had its own set of crown jewels. These jewels are shrouded in mystery.

On April 3, 1893, Queen Liliuokalani was deposed, leaving the state in shock. However, that was just half the surprise when the new government discovered that the trunk containing King Kalakaua’s crown had been broken into and the crown itself had been stripped of its jewels. In total, officials discovered that more than 600 jewels had been stolen from the Hawaiian treasury.

Some of the jewels were discovered in the pockets of the royal guards, but many of them were distributed on the black market, never to be recovered.^[8]

2 The Romanov Crown Jewels

The Bolshevik Revolution is famous for the mystery surrounding Princess Anastasia and Prince Alexei. However, these two royals weren’t the only things to go missing during the kerfuffle. The Romanov crown jewels also disappeared during this regicide.

Interestingly enough, the Romanov crown jewels were thought to have all been accounted for until a book turned up in 1922, alluding to previously unknown pieces from the collection. One of the pieces was eventually discovered, but the other three continue to be missing.

While we don’t know where the remaining crown jewels are, we do have a good idea of what happened to them. Some experts believe that Soviet agents stole some of the jewels, while others believe they may have been hidden during the royal family’s exile in Siberia.^[9]

1 The Eagle Diamond

Unlike many precious gems and jewels which come from Europe, South America, or the Far East, the Eagle Diamond was actually discovered in Eagle, Wisconsin. The stone, which weighed somewhere between 15 and 16 carats, was found in 1876 while workers in the area were building a well.

A woman named Clarissa Woods picked up the stone and took it to a local jeweler. The jeweler, thinking the stone could be worth something, sent it to Chicago for analysis. What the analysis discovered was that it was actually the largest diamond found in the U.S. up until that point in history.

The stone was sold to Tiffany’s in New York City, and from there, it eventually made its way into the American Museum of Natural History. Years later, in 1964, the Eagle Diamond was stolen by a famous thief called “Murph the Surf.” Even though many of the jewels in the heist were recovered, the Eagle Diamond remains lost to this day.^[10]

Over 30 years, the United States has averaged over 600,000 missing person cases per year. As the U.S. is only one of 195 countries globally and given that many missing persons are not reported, we can only guess at the number of people around the globe who go missing each year. It is certainly in the millions, and it is chilling to imagine just how high it may be. 

Thankfully, many of the missing are quickly found—in the U.S., the vast majority are found within days. Many who go missing choose to do so to begin a new life. But given the sheer number of reported cases, there is still an unsettling amount of unsolved disappearances. In some of these unsolved cases, the clues left behind pose as many questions as they do answers, or support so many different theories that it’s impossible to decide on a conclusive answer. 

This has left us armchair sleuths with a ton of frustrating dead-ends and tantalizing mysteries to pore over, in the hopes of finding those we’ve lost. Here are ten of those missing person cases whose mysteries persist to this day.

10 Frederick Valentich

On October 21, 1978, pilot Frederich Valentich began a solo flight from Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia to nearby King Island, just one hour away. Though the weather that day was clear, sunny, and with little wind, he never reached his destination, his remains were never found, nor was any part of his plane ever recovered.

Partway through his trip, Valentich radioed Melbourne air traffic control and said that an unidentified aircraft was following him. They replied that no aircraft were in the area. He said that the other vehicle was playing games with him, hovering above his craft and keeping pace. He radioed again later to say that the aircraft was on top of him again, and was “not an aircraft.” Then his radio went silent for 17 seconds, followed by what was described as scraping, metallic sounds. UFO believers claim that Valentich was abducted, plane and all, by aliens. Others note Valentich’s own vocal belief in UFOs and believe he faked the crash. Still others cite his dubious flying record and posit that he simply crashed into the ocean. Either way, it is strange that no trace of either him or his plane were ever found.

9 The Jamison Family

All three members of the Jamison family disappeared in Red Oak, Oklahoma, on October 8, 2009, under a number of mysterious circumstances. Over four years later, their remains were found in the woods about three miles from their abandoned truck and were too decomposed to provide a conclusive cause of death.

The Jamisons were in the area scoping out a plot of land for a potential new homestead. The first indication that they were missing was when someone discovered their abandoned pickup truck on the side of the road, absent of Jamison’s but mysteriously containing their wallets, cellphones, IDs, around $32,000 in cash, and their family dog Maisie (who was thankfully still alive). Later, surveillance footage from the Jamison’s house was found and showed them on the day they last left their home, packing their car, their behavior described as “trance-like.” Theories abound as to why they went missing and how they died, including Satanic cults, ritual suicide, and a drug deal gone awry.

8 Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon

Like the Jamisons, Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon went missing, and also like the Jamisons, their skeletal remains were found much later. Kris and Lisanne were Dutch students who were volunteering in Panama when they disappeared. On April 1, 2014, the two girls began hiking the El Pianista trail and were never seen alive again.

Lisanne’s backpack was found by a local ten weeks later. Among much of the two girls’ possessions, it contained both of their phones. Their phone records paint a scary picture. Within hours of the hike’s start, both girls tried calling 112 (the international emergency number) and 911 (the local emergency number) but did not have enough service to get through. There are many of these calls over ten days, though it appears Kris stop calling after only three, which many attribute to her having died first. Lisanne’s camera also contained cryptic clues, with over 90 photos taken of almost total darkness and a few that show rocks, an allegedly makeshift trail marker, and the back of Kris’s head, which many say looks to be injured. Whether the girls simply got lost in the jungle or were the victims of foul play, the details are still a mystery.

7 Brian Shaffer

Brain Shaffer was seen on a security camera entering a bar on the night of March 31, 2006, in Columbus, Ohio, never left the club on camera, and was never seen again. Strangely, there was no easily accessible entrance/exit to the bar other than that which the camera faced. If/how he got out and where we went is a mystery.

Shaffer is seen on the camera talking to two women outside the bar around 2 am, reentering the bar, and never leaving again. The camera shows that every single person who entered the bar that night also left, except for Shaffer. Suspiciously, Brian’s friend William Florence- who was with Shaffer the night of his disappearance- refused to take a police lie detector test about that night. Most intriguingly, for months after Shaffer’s disappearance, his girlfriend called his phone every night before going to bed. Every night it went straight to voicemail… except for one night in September, when it rang three times before hanging up.

6 Daylenn “Moke” Pua

Daylenn Pua, known as Moke, was a native of the Big Island, Hawaii, who visited his grandmother in Oahu when he went missing. The young man had decided, against his grandmother’s wishes, to hike Oahu’s famed ‘Stairway to Heaven’ trail, which at the time was in a state of disrepair and illegal to hike.

Moke texted his family pictures of the trail as he hiked, showing off the beautiful views and lush flora. When Moke was declared missing, the pictures were pored over by his family. Hidden in the background of the very last photo Moke sent before his disappearance, they noticed something interesting. An adult man can be seen, just off the trail, partially crouched behind some vegetation. Naturally, his presence in Moke’s last ever photo raised suspicions, but no answer to Moke’s whereabouts or how we went missing have ever been found.

5 The Sodder Children

On Christmas Eve of 1945, the home of the Sodder family- George, Jennie, and nine of their ten children- burned down to ash and timbers. George and Jennie escaped with four of their children and assumed the remaining five had died in the blaze. However, when firefighters finally arrived and searched the house’s remnants, they found no trace of the five missing children- no bones, teeth, or any remnant.

There were many curious findings about the Sodder home. Their phone line, thought burned in the fire, was determined to have been cut first. Both of their trucks failed to start in the following days. Officials suspected that someone had tampered with it. A ladder from the home had gone missing and was later found at the bottom of a nearby embankment. And experts believe that the fire was not nearly hot enough to completely incinerate bone. All of this suggests premeditation and possibly kidnapping. The Sodder’s surviving children have always maintained that the five missing kids were indeed kidnapped and are still out there.

4 Brandon Lawson

On the night of August 8, 2013, Brandon Lawson argued with his girlfriend Ladessa, left their home in San Angelo, Texas, and phoned his father that he was coming to visit him in Crowley, Texas, a few hours away. Lawson never arrived and was never seen again.

He was heard from, though. In the middle of his trip, Lawson phoned his brother Kyle to say that three people were “chasing me out of town” and that he had run out of gas. More calls followed. One was to 911, in which Lawson said in part that he was “in the middle of a field” and “there’s one car here. The guy’s chasing (inaudible) to the woods. Please hurry!” Some claim gunshots can be heard in the audio background. Chillingly, both Kyle and a sheriff’s deputy arrived at the scene of Lawson’s abandoned truck and received a call from Lawson saying, “I can see you; I’m right here” though neither man could see Lawson and he would never be seen or heard from again.

3 Jennifer Kesse

Jennifer Kesse vanished on January 24, 2006. Her home was undisturbed, and her clothing and toiletries suggested that she had gotten ready for work that morning as usual and left uneventfully. Her car was not in her driveway but was found at an apartment complex a mile away. Luckily, security cameras at the complex caught video of the man who dropped her car off there, presumably involved in her disappearance.

But unluckily for detectives, the video did not show the man’s face. This was because the security camera worked by snapping photos every three seconds. The man shown is walking behind the complex’s fence, and every shot of his face just happens to be behind a different fencepost. Chances of him just happening to have the perfect pace to accidentally hide his face behind a series of posts in exact three-second intervals is low. One reporter called him “the luckiest person of interest ever.” Kesse has never been found.

2 Croatoan Island

The lost colony of Roanoke is one of America’s oldest mysteries and involved the disappearance of an entire colony of 115 people. In its first year, the colony struggled with starvation, causing settlement leader John White to sail back to England to retrieve supplies. When he arrived back at Roanoke three years later, he found the colony deserted.

A cryptic piece of evidence at the scene was the word “Croatoan” carved into a tree. White took this note to mean that the colony had relocated to nearby Croatoan Island, though nobody ever found settlers there. Numerous expeditions searched for the settlers over the following decades, all to varying degrees of failure. Numerous theories have been proposed involving massacres by natives, relocation to an unknown location, and (probably most commonly) intermingling with native settlements. In the early 1700s, English explorer John Lawson visited Croatoan Island (now known as Hatteras Island) and reported that the natives there claimed to have white ancestors, a claim supported by the fact that several of the natives had grey eyes- a uniquely European feature.

1 Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Probably the most famous disappearance of this century is that of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared somewhere between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, China. On board the flight were 227 passengers and 12 crew members. Although search teams found some debris in the Indian Ocean, no one has ever found the bulk of the large aircraft, including all 239 people on board.

Conflicting initial reports and a lack of concrete evidence have led to a ton of theories as to what happened to the plane. These include hijacking, crew suicide, being shot down by world governments who then covered it up, and even a meteor strike. And of course, the usual UFO abduction theory persists. At one point, it was even suggested that a mini black hole had swallowed the plane.

When the Mona Lisa was stolen by a museum worker back in 1911, the global attention it got turned it into one of the most famous works of art in history. While it was recovered barely two years later, many other masterpieces by renowned artists remain missing to this day. Quite a few of them were taken during one particularly-famous heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990, when art thieves made off with paintings valued at over $500 million. 

10. Landscape With An Obelisk, Govert Flinck

Originally thought to be a Rembrandt, Landscape with an Obelisk is actually an artwork by the Dutch artist Govert Flinck. It’s an oil painting on wood measuring 21 by 28 inches, portraying a stormy landscape with an obelisk, a fallen tree trunk, and a miniature man on horseback. 

This artwork gained global popularity when it was stolen – along with several other pieces – during Boston’s infamous Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist in 1990. Two men disguised as policemen managed to break the museum’s security, overpowered the guards, and stole 13 artworks, including Landscape with an Obelisk. The will of the museum’s founder demanded that the hanging order of the pictures in the museum remains unchanged, which is why one can still see the empty frame that once housed the masterpiece. 

9. Just Judges, Jan Van Eyck

The Ghent Altarpiece is a set of panels created by Jan Van Eyck and his brother Hubert. One of them, the Just Judges panel, has been missing since 1934, thanks to a heist at the St. Bavo’s Cathedral where it was originally placed.

The crime was discovered by a sexton at the Cathedral, who was the first person to notice the missing panels. The thieves had forced the chapel’s door and removed the panels by dismantling their iron hinges, complete with a note that claimed that the theft was revenge for the WW1 Treaty of Versailles.

The police investigation initially revealed little, except the fact that the thief operated under the alias D.U.A. It got a bit more interesting when a ransom demand of one million Belgian francs was sent to the bishop of Ghent, though it was later found to be a diversion. While negotiations with D.U.A. led to the return of the other missing panel, John the Baptist, the Just Judges panel remains stolen and missing even today. 

8. Storm On The Sea of Galilee, Rembrandt

In 1990, Rembrandt’s 1633 masterpiece, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, was another masterpiece stolen during the heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. As we mentioned above, it was one of the largest art heists in US history, when two people posing as police officers gained entry to the museum, immobilized the security staff, and made off with 13 known artworks. 

The thieves took many measures to seize these works, first cutting them from their frames and then removing them from the walls like professionals. Despite extensive investigations by the FBI and a $5 million reward offered for leads, the painting remains missing to this day. One theory suggests that local mobsters were behind the heist and wanted to sell the artworks on the black market. Till now, however, law enforcement agencies have explored more than 30,000 leads to little success. 

7. Poppy Flowers, Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh’s Poppy Flowers – also sometimes referred to as Vase and Flowers – has been stolen more than once in history, and it remains missing to this day. Created in 1887, it depicts vibrant yellow flowers with red blooms contrasted against a dark background. After the artist’s death, the masterpiece made its way from Paris to Cairo, where it became a part of the prestigious Mohamed Khalil Museum collection.

The first theft occurred in 1977 when it was moved between palaces, with little information about the culprits, though it was eventually recovered in Kuwait. Poppy Flowers was stolen again in August, 2010, when the thief – or thieves – managed to cut it from its frame unnoticed in broad daylight. The heist exposed many glaring problems with the museum’s safety mechanisms, as only a fraction of the security cameras were operational at the time, with all of its alarms inactive. With a current estimated value of around $50 million, the painting’s current whereabouts remain unknown.

6. View Of Auvers-sur-Oise, Cézanne

Now valued at about $5.5 million AUD, View of Auvers-sur-Oise by Paul Cézanne was stolen from the Ashmolean Museum on December 31, 1999. It was taken during New Year’s Eve celebrations in Oxford, as the thieves took advantage of the festivities to break into the museum. They climbed the scaffolding around the museum’s library extensions, broke a skylight, and deployed a smoke bomb to block the security cameras, as they removed the painting from its frame and escaped using a rope ladder. Although the alarms worked well enough, security guards initially thought that they were caused by a fire and not theft. 

View of Auvers-sur-Oise was the museum’s only Cézanne, and surprisingly, nothing else was stolen from the gallery, which also housed pieces by artists like Renoir, Rodin, and Toulouse-Lautrec. According to theories, the specific nature of this crime suggests that the painting was stolen on demand, as its fame and limited marketability would make selling it on any market almost possible. Despite extensive investigations by British and international art crime specialists, however, the painting remains missing even today.

5. Nativity With St. Francis And St. Lawrence, Caravaggio

Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence was painted by the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio in 1609. The artwork portrays an infant Christ on a bed of straw surrounded by saints and shepherds, along with an ox watching over him as an angel reaches down from heaven with a banner reading ‘Gloria’.

The painting was stolen from the Oratory of Saint Lawrence in Palermo, Sicily, on October 18, 1969. Despite extensive investigations and theories about its ultimate fate, the painting’s current location remains a mystery. It is now valued at around $20 million and is listed among the FBI’s top 10 art crimes of all time.

Over the years, many accounts and rumors about the painting have emerged around the world, ranging from being burned, abandoned, or cut into pieces. Some believe that it remains intact and hidden in Sicily, possibly being used as collateral in drug deals. 

4. Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud

While most people know about the renowned artists Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, not many are aware of their 25-years-long friendship that began in the mid-1940s. They lived and collaborated in the backdrop of London’s bohemian scene, and were known for regularly scrutinizing and criticizing each other’s works, despite their contrasting artistic styles.

Lucian Freud painted a portrait of Francis Bacon in 1952 on a small copper canvas, which was then stolen during an exhibition at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin in 1988. Despite Freud’s extensive efforts to find it, including a ‘Wanted’ poster campaign in Berlin, the painting remains missing to this day.

3. Danish Jubilee Egg, Peter Carl Fabergé

The Danish Jubilee Egg was one of the six missing Fabergé Imperial Easter eggs, originally created by Peter Carl Fabergé for the Russian royal family. They were commissioned as Easter gifts from Russian Tsars to their wives, and out of the 52 eggs Fabergé created, only 46 are accounted for today, with the remaining six still missing in the wild.

According to the only known description of the Danish Jubilee Egg, it was an ‘egg with blue and white enamel in gold mounted on columns with lions, and an elephant above; in the middle a screen with a portrait of the Danish King and Queen, applied with precious stones’. Crafted in 1903, it symbolized the highest order of the Danish Kingdom, and the stand within the egg held a two-sided portrait of the Danish King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Hesse-Kassel. It was last seen at the Gatchina Palace in July 1917, though its fate after the events of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia remains unknown.

2. Portrait Of A Young Man, Raphael

While we don’t have a precise date for its creation, Portrait of a Young Man was painted by the Renaissance master Raphael some time around 1513 and 1514. Once a part of the Princes Czartoryski Museum in Kraków, Poland – alongside masterpieces by Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt – It now remains missing for over 75 years thanks to the Nazis.

According to some theories, the masterpiece was taken by Hans Frank – the Nazi official in charge of the Polish General Government during the war – though it’s not clear if he kept it or sold it off to another private collection. Its value potentially exceeds $100 million in today’s money, making it one of the most valuable missing works of art in history. Till today, the frame it sat in at the Princes Czartoryski Museum remains empty as a tribute to the famous artwork.

1. The Concert, Vermeer

Easily the single most expensive missing work of art in history, Vermeer’s The Concert was another casualty of the infamous 1990 heist at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Painted by Johannes Vermeer sometime between 1663 and 1666, it was a classic example of Vermeer’s portrayal of domestic scenes during the social life of that era, depicting a sitting room with three figures engaged in creating music. 

The value of The Concert extends beyond its monetary worth, as it was also the first major work of art acquired by the museum’s founder, Isabella Stewart Gardner. The missing painting – valued at over $200 million in today’s currency – is still the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation. The Gardner Museum continues to offer a large reward in exchange for information leading to the recovery of all of its stolen artworks, including The Concert.

The National Park Service in the United States preserves untouched natural beauty. The Grand Canyon, for example, is considered one of the Modern Natural Wonders of the World. Waterfalls, geysers, rushing rivers, and still lakes, along with the plentiful wildlife and serenity of nature, are just some of the breathtaking attractions of these paths. There is another feature to these parks, however, and that is danger.

The obvious dangers include those rushing rivers and waterfalls leading to drownings, those steep drop-offs leading to injury and loss of life, and those endless trails leaving people lost in remote, confusing, and sometimes dangerous terrain. In the majority of cases, people are found, but unfortunately, in some cases, only the remains are found. In other cases, the only thing found is a mystery. There are currently 24 cold cases of missing persons listed by the National Park Services Investigative Services Branch. These are some of their stories.

Related: 10 Historical Figures Who Disappeared And Have Never Been Found

10 Morgan Heimer

There is an obvious connection between the sometimes rugged and difficult terrain of National Parks and missing persons and deaths that occur there. Many people enter the parks inexperienced or unprepared. However, in the disappearance of Morgan Heimer, this was not the case. In fact, Heiman was an employee of Tour West, a rafting company on the Colorado River.

Heiman was regarded as an outstanding swimmer and experienced trekker. He was a strong and fit 22-year-old. On the sixth day of an eight-day excursion, Heimer was last in line bringing the rafters back from a swim. The lead tour guide recalled walking away from the cliff they were standing on to talk to a member of the excursion group. When he went back to Heimer, he was simply gone.

The guide mentioned that Heimer wanted to take a break, so no one was particularly concerned at the time. Not only that, but they were confident in his skills, and he was wearing a life jacket and familiar with the terrain. When he didn’t come back to the group for dinner, authorities were called. This launched a six-day search. His disappearance occurred on June 2, 2015. No one has seen Morgan Heimer since.^[1]

9 Drake Kramer

Another experienced outdoorsman who enjoyed the Grand Canyon was a 21-year-old college student, David Kramer. His love of nature and exploring areas like the Grand Canyon motivated him to major in Geology at the University of Texas. His decision to visit the canyon wouldn’t be surprising to his family or friends. The circumstances for this trip, however, were slightly more unexpected.

Kramer, without any warning, chose to take off to California and, from there, the Grand Canyon. He arrived at the Bright Angel Lodge in Arizona on February 1st. Although Kramer had been there a few times before, it was unlike him to travel alone. His parents had seen him just before on January 29th and said he was in good spirits; they even attended a movie together. Even more jarring was a message Kramer sent to his mother, seemingly explaining the reason for his trip. He told his mother that he “needed to be back with Mother Earth and set his soul free.”

Because of this message, authorities counted suicide as a high probability after he left his car at the lodge and traveled along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon on his own. His family, in great hopefulness, saw the message as David needing to spend time in nature and do a bit of soul searching. The terrain of the South Rim is very mixed, so it can be difficult to traverse, but it is very rare that no sign of him or his remains would be found in that area. Despite this, neither Kramer’s body nor any clues about what happened to him have ever been found.^[2]

8 Ruthanne Ruppert

Ruthanne Ruppert left her home in Florida to vacation in Yosemite National Park in August of 2000. The trip was not an unusual one for Ruppert. She was an extremely experienced climber and often traveled to reach new heights. One of her favorite experiences to share was that she had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and did so with a frozen foot! As other people fretted over Y2K, Ruppert went to the Argentine Peak in Colorado to ring in the new year.

The trip to Yosemite should’ve been a piece of cake for such an experienced climber. Ruppert had planned to be a member of a backpacking group traveling 30 miles across the park. She was devastated when she woke up with an eye infection that caused her to miss the group while receiving medical care. Although she was upset, she still needed to figure out how to spend the rest of her trip. She rented a tent cabin in Curry Village and went shopping. After this, Ruppert seemed to simply vanish.

Her stock of supplies was left behind, not something an experienced hiker would forget. Her family is certain she would not have left them and had no intentions to harm herself. It seems missing that trip was the biggest issue in Ruthanne’s life and certainly wasn’t something she would go to extremes over. After a search and rescue operation, nothing could be found of Ruppert.

Oddly enough, eight years later, Ruppert’s backpack was found in Fireplace Creek, stuck in a drainage area. Fireplace Creek is almost eight miles away from Curry Village. How Ruppert’s backpack ended up there, along with her whereabouts, remains a mystery.^[3]

7 Stacy Ann Arras

Stacy Ann Arras was only 14 years old when she went on a guided tour at Yosemite National Park. The trip was attended by her father and six others, all riding mules. The area has several campsites, all within a mile or two of each other. Stacy’s group was at the furthest set of cabins, Sunrise High Sierra Camp. After settling in, Stacy wanted to go to a nearby lake to take pictures and asked her father to join her. He chose to rest instead, so an elderly gentleman, Gerald Stuart, from the tour group went along with her.

Stuart was 77 and, along the way, decided to stop to rest as well. The group could see Stacy and Stuart along the path as they were downhill from the cabins. They saw Stuart stop and sit on a rock as Stacy continued, and shortly after, he walked back up to the cabins from the place he had sat down. He asked other campers who came from Stacy’s direction if they had seen her, but no one had. When the group realized Stacy was not along the trail, at the lake, or back with them, they began searching for her.

A massive search party began the next day. They went over and beyond any of the searches mentioned so far. They had three helicopters, two dog search and rescue teams, and close to one hundred people searching the park. Despite the immediate and immense response to Stacy’s disappearance, the only trace of her that has ever been located was her camera lens cap. If she was harmed, the perpetrator was incredibly careful as not so much as a drop of blood was found.

It is unlikely that a 14-year-old at the farthest part of a mountain would have simply walked off on her own, never to be seen again. If she was injured along the trail, certainly one of the many people in the area at the time or in the search parties would’ve found her or something of hers. Another vanishing act in Yosemite National Park.^[4]

6 George Penca

As seen with Stacy Ann, there is not always safety in numbers. As an avid churchgoer, when George Penca decided to visit Yosemite National Park, he did so with 80 other followers from his congregation. Penca was not an experienced hiker but was in a well-traveled area with his friends and tour guides. It should have been a good experience for all involved.

However, at some point, Penca was separated from his group. It has been said that he had not felt well and decided to turn back, but others said the group split into two, and somehow during that separation, Penca was lost in the jumble. The last time that anyone recalls seeing Penca was at 2:40 in the afternoon. As the rest of the group expected to meet Penca back at their campsite, he was not reported missing until 9:00 that night.

The Upper Yosemite Falls they were hiking is a strenuous hike, rated difficult by the Park itself as a difficult trail for visitors. It is also rated high on the “crowd factor,” meaning plenty of people use this trail. No one outside of the church group remembers seeing him along the trail. He was carrying a bag with water and a bit of food. Neither the bag nor any of its contents were ever found. None of his clothing, his blood, or any trace of his body was ever found. In a heavily populated area, visible to the town of Yosemite itself, in nice weather, with a trusted group of churchgoers, George Penca disappeared in Yosemite National Park.^[5]

5 Thelma Pauline “Polly” Melton

Polly Melton was not someone you would expect to be an avid hiker. Although out of shape and a heavy smoker, she still loved the mountains, hiked regularly, and made the base of the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina her summertime home. She had spent years visiting this location. And she was well known in the mountain town community, even volunteering almost daily at a senior home in town.

Melton went on a trail marked “Easy” in September of 1981. She was with two friends, and it should have been a leisurely walk for the experienced Melton. According to the two women she was hiking with, she sped up ahead of them. It wasn’t a far distance, but she went up over a knoll out of sight. When the two women she had been walking with only moments prior got over the hill, Melton had completely vanished. They heard no strange noises indicating distress, saw no sign of scuffle. They continued to the campsite, and still, no Polly.

Melton didn’t have any belongings with her, not even a change of clothes or her purse. She was also on medications for high blood pressure and nausea, and she didn’t have these with her either. There was just no trace of her until over a year later when a check in her name was cashed in Alabama. Police failed to say without a doubt that it was her signature.

There is a popular theory that Melton had decided to run off that day. Her husband, the third and last presumably, had fallen ill, her mother had recently passed, and her pastor speculated she was having an affair. The day before she went missing, she was volunteering at the senior home like usual; however, she asked to use their phone for the first time in the four years she had worked there.

Did Melton meet her lover in the woods, run off with no personal possessions or identification, and leave the Mountains that she loved so dearly, along with her husband and friends? For a woman that is said to have smoked two packs of Pall Malls a day and described as “too large to be kidnapped,” she must’ve been swift on her feet that day. Even though she would now be in her 90s, with no evidence to say otherwise, the National Park Service keeps her missing person case open year after year.^[6]

4 Michael Ficery

Michael Ficery was “an off-the-grid kind of guy” even when he was young. He spent his youth and into his adulthood surfing, cycling, and especially hiking. His family also said that he had the memory of an elephant. This would be very helpful in navigating the sheer amount of trails that the Yosemite National Park has to offer. Even for incredibly experienced people like Ficery, the National Park Service does not ever recommend hiking alone. Ficery, nonetheless, began a solo hike on the morning of June 15th, 2005.

Not only would he be backpacking alone, but he was also doing so in one of the less-traveled areas of Yosemite, the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. His plan was to begin there and head toward Lake Vernon. At some point, his plans changed a bit, and he chose to take the Pacific Crest Trail toward TilTill Mountain. The Pacific Crest Trail here is not steep like the other parts of Yosemite but rather gradually rises and falls. However, the area can be rocky, so there is the danger of getting injured or waylaid.

Getting hurt on tough terrain was something Ficery had been through before, having cracked an ankle at Yellowstone, having to crawl all the way out of the wilderness. So, when the outdoorsman failed to return from his adventure after his permit expired and his family expected him home, they feared the worst. The search for Ficery was so massive the United States Marines were involved. Unlike some others on this list, they did find something that belonged to Ficery: his bag. It contained his map, water, and camera. His friends and family were even more concerned at this point because they believed that Ficery would never willingly leave his bag at any time during a hike.

Unfortunately, in the 16 years that have passed, not another trace of Ficery has been found. Also, unlike others on this list, Ficery had not experienced any recent tragedies or shown signs that he was a danger to himself at all. His sister joined a company called Pack six years later, which puts together essential packs for explorers, and put out a statement regarding her brother. She believed he was unprepared for his trek, dangerously went out alone, and spoke of the dangers of changing your itinerary, as it makes it harder for search and rescue teams to follow the trail. However, if he had sustained an injury or passed, why is there still no other trace of him?^[7]

3 Floyd Roberts III

The first time Floyd Roberts visited the Grand Canyon was in 1992 when a friend of his, Ned Bryant, suggested they make the trip together. Roberts enjoyed it so much he became Bryant’s regular hiking companion. They went several times over the years, and in June of 2016, they went again, bringing along Bryant’s daughter. Both Bryant and Roberts at this time were considered experienced hikers and were well prepared.

On June 17th, the three of them were headed along a trail when they decided to take different paths, the Bryants over the hill before the trailhead and Roberts around it. Roberts did not meet them on the other side. After waiting to see if he simply needed to catch up with them, the father and daughter began to worry and went back the way that Roberts took around the hill. Still no sign of him. They then went back to their camp and put bright-colored sleeping bags on nearby trees to provide a sort of flag to help Roberts find them.

The Bryants had good reason to believe that Roberts would be fine. He was an intelligent man; he even worked for NASA before teaching game design and programming for high school students. He was also well prepared. Robert’s bag had enough food to last him a week, and he carried two gallons of water with him, as well as a map outlined by Bryant with all of their trail plans. Unfortunately, Roberts never returned to camp, and the Bryants had to hike to find cell service to report his friend missing.

A canine team was brought in immediately but provided no answers. After six days and a massive search, the officials were forced to reduce the search power. Kelly Tanks, the area they were exploring, is one of the more remote sections of the park, and the heat that day presented problems, with temperatures reaching around 92 degrees.

Five years and countless hikers in the area have passed through, yet nothing at all can be found of this man. This was a man who had been in the area before, with resources to help him find help and survive, and a good friend with him. Why did he choose to go off alone? What happened on the side of the hill that the other two couldn’t have heard him if he needed help? How, once again, is there not a single footprint, a scrap of fabric, or remains of any sort to be found?^[8]

2 Paul Braxton Fugate

Park Rangers are standard in the National Park Service. They are who you contact when someone is hurt or lost. Paul Braxton Fugate was a Park Ranger at Chiricahua National Monument, a National Park in Arizona. So it was shocking when Fugate disappeared at the park himself. Fugate finished his shift at the visitor center around 2:00 pm and went for a hike. He was still dressed in his uniform as he went out to check a trail. He mentioned to one coworker that they could start closing duties without him if he wasn’t back by 4:30. He was then seen starting down the trailhead.

That was the last any person spoke to him or saw him.

His disappearance was immediately realized when he did not return to close the park. He was the only permanent staff member at the park and would not have left the other seasonal employee to finish that job. Unfortunately, Fugate would’ve been the natural expert in a search and rescue mission at the park. But the Cochise County Sherrif’s Department and the National Park Service had to work without him.

To make things more difficult, Chiricahua has 17 square miles of canyons, treacherous terrain, and wildlands. The search and rescue teams found absolutely nothing related to the Park Ranger. When this effort failed, a reward for information that led to Fugate’s whereabouts—that eventually reached $60,000—was offered to the public. This disappearance took place in January of 1980. It has been 41 years since Fugate disappeared at the age of 41. The NPS had him listed as missing but told his wife that they believed he walked off the job and therefore was terminated.

This left Fugate’s wife, Dody, unable to collect his pension or any survivor’s benefits. They even demanded she repay the $6,000+ that they had paid her over the time he had been missing. Fortunately, in 1986, five years later, the case was reviewed again, and Dody did have access to his benefits after that time. While this means the National Park Service agreed there was no reason to believe Frugate was still living, the search for him is still ongoing.^[9]

1 Teresa “Trenny” Gibson

On October 8, 1976, a sixteen-year-old high school student, Teresa “Trenny” Gibson, left Knoxville with her classmates and teachers to explore the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Specifically, they were planning on going to Clingman’s Dome, where a stunning view of the mountains can be seen from a 45-foot tall observation tower. Gibson appeared to be enjoying the trip, walking along with her friends.

Along one of the trails, she walked with two other girls who said they slowed down a bit to rest. Gibson carried on a little ahead of them, but this trail was being used by dozens of groups that day. There were people before and after her on the trail the entire time they were hiking. The general consensus from the group was an expression heard over and over again—one minute she was there, and the next minute she was gone.

The trail that they were on at the time of her disappearance is relatively steep, with some major drop-offs along one side. Gibson’s group alone was 40 students, plus teachers. If she had fallen down one of the drop-offs, she would have had to do so silently for no one around to hear her. Likewise, if someone abducted her, they would have also had to be incredibly quiet and either incredibly quick or invisible for no one to have seen anything.

Even if she had wanted to run away and thought this was a great opportunity, she did so with no identification or the savings she had been collecting. The search for her was made difficult by rain and fog the night that she was reported missing. A slew of volunteers came to the park to help look for Gibson. Several dog units were also brought in to help find any trace of her. Interestingly one of the dogs found a trace that went past the Dome, about a mile and a half further than she was last seen around Newfound Gap. However, the trail went cold then. Gibson, like the rest of the National Park Services’ missing cold cases, simply vanished.^[10]

We all have our guilty online pleasures. Be it cute cat videos, makeup tutorials, recipes you’ll never cook, celebrity gossip, and such. For me, I went down the internet rabbit hole and found myself hooked on YouTube videos of volunteer divers solving missing persons’ cold cases.

Using fairly basic equipment like fish finders, they are aiding law enforcement agencies and granting closure to families by bringing their lost loved ones home. While some of these teams may not like being categorized as YouTubers, many of these groups are funded only by YouTube monetization, donations, merch sales, and the occasional reward payment. YouTube is just one means that enables them to finance their amazing work.

Here are ten missing person cases that have been solved by YouTube dive teams.

Related: 10 Times Smartphones And The Internet Saved Lives

10 Jed Hall: Missing since 2018

In the early morning hours of January 22, 2018, 16-year-old Matthew “Jed” Hall was reported missing in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Jed left a note behind indicating that he may attempt suicide; however, a journal was also found detailing plans to run away from home. Despite ongoing searches, his disappearance remained unsolved for over four years. Amazingly, the cold case was solved within 20 minutes by YouTubers Adventures with Purpose (AWP).

“We came into this like we come into all cases,” AWP diver Doug Bishop explained. “We determine if someone is missing and if someone is missing with a vehicle. We specialize in sonar the way that law enforcement doesn’t have the capability. Do we have a cellphone ping, a last known location? Locations that are frequented, etc. That’s how we base the waterways that we need to search, and that’s how we choose those waterways.”

Using a cellphone ping as a starting point, AWP started searching an area of the Snake River. Just 20 minutes later, they were able to locate Jed’s vehicle under about 2.5 meters (8 feet) of water, roughly 68.5 meters (75 yards) away from a boat ramp. The Idaho Falls Police Department later confirmed that they had positively identified that the human remains found in the rear of the vehicle were Jed’s.^[1]

9 Ruth Hemphill: Missing since 2005

Miriam “Ruth” Hemphill, of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was 84 years old when she disappeared on July 22, 2005. Three months earlier, her daughter was found dead, and her death was ruled a suicide. Bill Hemphill told police that his wife Ruth had left a note about their daughter’s death, and he also found a newspaper clipping his wife had cut out concerning a person who drove into a lake.

Bill felt certain that his wife was dead and that she’d driven her car into one of the lakes in the area. Police agreed that this scenario was likely to be correct, but numerous searches were unable to turn up any sign of Ruth or her car.

The case attracted the attention of Jeremy Sides, whose YouTube channel is “Exploring with Nug.” He explained, “I pretty much just went there and just started sonaring the river until I found some cars. We started finding some cars and the third one we found was hers.” He’d found her vehicle in Melton Hill Lake, and when it was pulled out, human remains were located inside.

Sides has said that he just wants to bring some closure to families of cold case victims. “It feels good to be able to help someone. It’s always been in my blood to want to go beyond myself to help somebody else out.”^[2]

8 Nicholas Allen: Missing since 2020

While most of those in law enforcement are more than happy to accept the assistance of the likes of AWP and other volunteer dive teams, sadly, that’s not always the case.

In February 2020, 17-year-old Nicholas Allen disappeared. His cellphone was switched off, so it could not be tracked, but his vehicle was seen in the vicinity of the murky Yadkin River. The family, frustrated by the apparent disinterest of local law enforcement, reached out to AWP. “My gut feeling just keeps telling me he’s in that river… Something bad has happened to him,” Trudy Bernstein, Nicholas’s aunt, said.

Using information provided by the family, AWP used sonar and found the vehicle less than two hours after arriving at the river. However, when they notified local law enforcement of the discovery, the now-viral video shows the officer arriving on the scene displaying an appalling lack of empathy toward the family and outright hostility toward the AWP dive team.

In response to the public backlash, Sheriff Richie Simmons issued an apology to both the family and AWP. Saying in part that the officer’s abrasive attitude was “not empathetic or kind to the family of Nick, and also was not welcoming or appreciative to Adventures with Purpose. Please know that the interaction you had with our investigator does not represent how we train our officers, and his actions are not in accordance with our expectations. There are no excuses for this type of behavior.”^[3]

7 Jan Shupe Smith: Missing since 2021

A Florida family waited ten agonizing months before discovering what happened to 59-year-old Margaret “Jan” Shupe Smith. She went missing on April 2, 2021, driving her little green Kia Soul. The family reached out to AW), who searched for Smith’s car in several bodies of water in the Lakeland area of Polk County.

AWP was about to suspend their search when a Polk County deputy informed them that Smith had been in a minor traffic accident on the day she went missing. This pointed them in the direction of a small retention pond in a new housing development, about a mile from the crash site. Within mere minutes of arriving at the shallow algae-filled pond, Jan’s car was discovered, and a body was located inside. It was hidden just 46 centimeters (18 inches) under the surface of the water.

Smith had gone missing at night, and she reportedly had poor night vision. The neighborhood was also under construction, which could have led to her being confused about her surroundings, causing her to accidentally drive into the unmarked, unfenced pond at the end of an uncompleted road. “This was a tragic accident, and our prayers are with the family,” Polk County Sheriff, Grady Judd, stated. “We’re grateful for Adventures with Purpose working with us in locating the vehicle.”^[4]

6 Timothy Robinson: Missing since 2008

AWP and several other similar dive groups did not initially start out solving cold cases. AWP’s Jared Leisek started his YouTube channel to document his progress toward his goal of diving to pick up 2,000 pounds of trash littering waterways in a three-month timeframe.

The group was doing a live stream of an environmental cleanup project on the Willamette River in Oregon in May 2020 when they pulled the car belonging to missing 56-year-old Timothy Robinson out of the water. Unbeknownst to AWP, Robinson had vanished in November 2008, having left a suicide note saying he intended to drive off a boat ramp. Twelve years later, the live stream was quickly cut when the AWP team realized that the vehicle had human remains inside.

Edward’s niece Jessica was surprised to receive a call from detectives after the discovery and was pleased that the family could finally have some answers 12 years after he disappeared. “Thank you for bringing closure to this family. It’s been a long time, and now he can finally be put to rest. Thank you, and God bless,” she said. ^[5]

5 Brian Goff & Joni Davis: Missing since 2018

Ohio resident 66-year-old Brian Goff was the full-time caretaker of 55-year-old Joni Davis, who had suffered a traumatic brain injury several years earlier. They were last seen leaving a Pizza Hut on June 18, 2018, then they disappeared.

While taking a break from looking into another cold case, Chaos Divers decided to see if they could locate the missing couple. Team member Lindsay Bussick later described how the team found them one mile south of where their cell phone pinged. “When the vehicle came across the sonar, there was no doubt what it was.” Goff and Davis were found in the Ohio River in their submerged Oldsmobile, still strapped in by their seatbelts.

While authorities are unsure exactly how the vehicle ended up in the water, they have confirmed that they have ruled out foul play. Local councilman Jack Regis theorized, “One of them could have had a health problem at that time. Nobody knows that answer, and we’ll never know,” he said. “It’s just a shame, but at least the families got closure finally.”^[6]

4 Carey Mae Parker: Missing since 1991

Young Texan mother of three, Carey Mae Parker, was just 23 years old when she vanished without a trace in March 1991. After more than 30 years, the mystery of her disappearance was finally solved in February 2021, when AWP located her vehicle submerged in the waters of Lake Tawakoni.

The road was closed, and part of the disintegrating vehicle was recovered from the water, matching the description of Parker’s car. AWP returned to the lake several months later and conducted a grid search, recovering the rest of the vehicle, as well as human remains. They also located some items of clothing and a child’s bicycle. Parker’s sister, Patricia Gager, explained that on the day she disappeared, Carey was planning to buy a bicycle for her son’s 6th birthday. “She will still have to be identified through DNA, but I have no other reason to believe [it’s] not her,” she explained.^[7]

7 Samantha Hopper & Her Babies: Missing since 1998

An Arkansas woman, 20-year-old Samantha Hopper, was almost nine months pregnant when she and her two-year-old daughter Courtney were reported missing on September 11, 1998. Hopper was on her way to drop her daughter off before going to a concert in the city of Little Rock when they disappeared.

Chaos Divers and Adventures with Purpose joined forces to bring resolution to the 23-year-old mystery. Using information from the family about Hopper’s habits and schedule, they narrowed down possible locations and split up to search possible locations of interest, scanning different areas of Russellville Lake. Around an hour into the search, they located the vehicle in the lake, submerged in about 3 meters (10 feet) of water.

As the vehicle was being recovered, human remains were found inside. Hopper’s surviving daughter, Dezarae Carpenter, was relieved that her mother and siblings could finally be given a proper farewell. Chaos Divers later posted on Facebook, “while it was gut-wrenching to have to see the tears stream down their faces as they were told the news, it was also incredibly heartwarming to see the smiles on their faces and the weight release from their shoulders knowing they were potentially bringing their loved ones home.”^[8]

2 Erin Foster & Jeremy Bechtel: Missing since 2000

When best friends 18-year-old Erin Foster and 17-year-old Jeremy Bechtel disappeared without a trace on April 3, 2000, the rumor mill in Sparta, Tennesee, went into overdrive. But their families knew that something was terribly wrong. “Just a nightmare, man. Just a total nightmare,” described Erin’s father, Cecil Foster.

Months turned into years, and eventually, Sheriff Steve Page decided to revisit the cold case. Starting over, Page said he came across one piece of paper that changed everything. It was the initial missing person’s report filed by Erin’s family. Details in the report seemed to suggest that authorities had been looking for the missing pair on the wrong side of the county. When Exploring with Nug’s Jeremy Sides expressed interest in the case, Page knew exactly where to send him. Following Page’s hunch, Sides used sonar to scan a section of the Calfkiller River. Just 4 meters (13 feet) below the surface of the water, he located the Pontiac Grand Am driven by Foster.

The car was recovered, and the remains of both Erin and Jeremy were found inside. After over two decades, Sheriff Page was able to tell the families what had become of their children. All indications are that it was just a traffic accident, and they simply ran off the road. “I don’t think I believed it even though he’s got the license plate in his hand,” Erin’s father said.^[9]

1 Janet Farris: Missing since 1992

It turns out you don’t necessarily need any training or even specialist equipment to do this kind of thing. Sometimes all it takes is a little luck and good timing. In British Columbia, Canada, 13-year-old Max Werenka was using his GoPro in Lake Griffen when he and a group of visitors to the lake located a car containing the body of 69-year-old Janet Farris, who was reported missing in 1992.

Farris disappeared while driving from Vancouver Island to a wedding in Alberta. “Two weeks later, we received a phone call from that family in Alberta asking why she never came to the wedding,” Farris’s granddaughter, Erin Farris-Hartley, explained, “So she had actually been missing for two weeks with nobody knowing.”

The GoPro footage that Max provided to the RCMP clearly showed an upside-down car resting on the rocky bottom of the lake. When the vehicle was recovered, authorities finally knew what had happened to Janet. “I think the worst thing was not knowing,” her son, George Farris, explained. “We kind of assumed that maybe she had gone off the road or fallen asleep, or tried to avoid an accident or animal on the road,” he said, adding that “given a sad situation, it’s the best of all outcomes.”^[10]