Gone, without a trace. Mass disappearances are a very real and bizarre thing in which large numbers of people suddenly disappear without a trace, for seemingly no reason. Sometimes, an airplane full of passengers flies off into the night, never to be seen again, or a ghost ship turns up floating around in the water with absolutely no sign of its crew. Even these chilling instances, however, are small-time compared to the vanishing of an entire society.

Entire civilizations, cities, and empires have faded away, and today’s archaeologists and researchers often try to retrace their inhabitants’ steps and reconstruct what exactly happened to see if we can find a cause, and more importantly, a way to prevent it from happening to our cultures today. Interestingly, some of the cultures on this list were several hundred thousand people strong before they seemingly disappeared without a trace. Here are ten civilizations that just up and vanished mysteriously.

10 Nabateans

Semites are people who belong to a particular ancient language group, which includes Arabs, Akaadians, Hebrews, and more, and one of those groups was the Nabatean culture, which existed since at least 312 BC, as they are mentioned as having been attacked by the Macedonians.^[1] This ancient and seemingly forgotten kingdom spanned the territories of Syria, Arabia, and Palestine at one point, becoming rather massive. Nabatean writing would eventually develop over the centuries to become modern-day Arabic, and it wasn’t until recently that we were able to retrace its evolution.

They established vast trade routes and commerce and became an extremely technologically advanced civilization for the day, with vast water systems which helped them survive the arid climate of Arabia. They left us massive structures which aligned with celestial bodies as other ancient cultures did, proof of an engineering genius among these people. Toward the end of their history, they were strong allies with the mighty Roman Empire, though Emperor Trajan did annex the kingdom from AD 105 to 106. We really don’t hear about the Nabateans much after that era.

9 Clovis People

Anyone who’s ever been to the deserts of New Mexico might wonder how or why any civilization would live there before the advent of air conditioning. But this area, as well as an expansive land within the Americas, was the territory of one of the earliest American civilizations, the Clovis people, who are named after the modern-day city of Clovis, New Mexico.

A rare and important archaeological discovery was made here, namely many sharp objects and weapons, obsidian, bone tools, and hammers, which were highly sophisticated for their time, 9050 to 8800 BC based on 21st-century estimates. These same tools and designs have been found across a good chunk of North America, meaning this group was particularly widespread. Nevertheless, they eventually just totally disappeared.

It has been hypothesized that their massive size forced them, much like Rome, to branch out into smaller groups which eventually evolved into distinct peoples in different places, making them the forerunners to many other Native American cultures. That notion is supported by the fact that genetic links to the Clovis have even been found in the remains of ancient South American people.^[2] Others have speculated that they relied heavily on hunting the mammoth, which became extinct, or even that the southwestern part of the United States was hit by a comet that wiped them out.

8 Catalhoyuk

The inhabitants of Catalhoyuk were a very old Neolithic civilization who also disappeared into thin air, as far as we can tell. They lived in modern-day Turkey from 7500 to 5700 BC in mud-brick housing not unlike that of other extremely early civilizations. This particular group was extremely artistic with their religion, painting massive murals and erecting large shrines of dedication that astonish art buffs today. They lived extensively on grain and other crops for sustenance.

Researchers are continuing to unearth new facts about this group every day, so perhaps we will soon know exactly what happened to them, but as of now, we just have the empty shells of the marvelous buildings and unique homes sitting seemingly abandoned. A large part of the mystery of their disappearance is simply them being lost to time. All we have to go on is the physical evidence itself, without literary references. Digs have turned up skeletons beneath the floor of one building, of all places, suggesting they may have used it for some rather devout religious purposes, but right now, we don’t really know.^[3]

7 Rapa Nui

Arguably the most famous of disappearing cultures, the Rapa Nui people were the original inhabitants of Easter Island, leaving us the famed statues that we’ve probably all seen. The Polynesian people inhabited the island, which now belongs to Chile, though it’s 3,500 kilometers (2,200 mi) away from the country. Due to its absolute remoteness, how the original Rapa Nui arrived there is as much of a mystery as why they vanished.

So, why did they disappear? Starvation due to excessive resource consumption has been blamed. Destruction of Easter Island’s ecosystem by rats has also been fingered as the culprit. It’s also believed that the Rapa Nui traveled to another remote island, itself thousands of miles away, to start a new settlement. (Descendants of the Rapa Nui of Easter Island live in Chile today.) The truth might well be a combination of the many proposed explanations.^[4]

6 Minoans

Hailing from the Greek island of Crete, the Minoans were an old Bronze Age civilization that existed from between 3000 and 1000 BC, long before the Golden Age of Athens and Alexander the Great. The Minoans were patently a Greek culture and the forerunners of the ancient Greece that’s most famous in our history books today, and they were also a very pagan culture, practicing animal sacrifices, burning offerings, having many nuanced cults, and holding wild, orgiastic festivals of song and dance.

The ancient Egyptians mention them in hieroglyphics, which means the Minoans definitely got around in the ancient world, and they had high-quality technologies and impressive arts for the day—but then they declined and disappeared.^[5] Theories have suggested that they were decimated by a volcanic eruption in the Santorini islands near Crete, which must have ravaged the coasts of Crete with waves, ash, raining stone, and more. Herodotus, the famous Greek historian, writes that they were brought down by plagues and diseases, but there simply is no way to tell, as Herodotus wrote many centuries after the peoples of this island had disappeared.

5 Cucuteni-Trypillian Culture

Between roughly 5400 and 2700 BC, a society known as the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture lived in the areas of what is modern-day Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine in the Carpathian Mountains. Strangely, this group also disappeared off of the face of the Earth. They were an early civilization that relied heavily on agriculture and close proximity to water supplies, building houses and settling as humans of the period were largely just beginning to do. They had an extremely in-depth religion and were proficient in many arts, including sculpting, pottery, and much more.

Before its strange disappearance under unusual circumstances, this massive culture spanned an impressive 350,000 square kilometers (135,000 mi²) and practiced a rather bizarre way of life, even for the time. The social order was such that the people inhabited very densely populated settlements, which they would burn to the ground or otherwise completely abandon and rebuild every 60 to 80 years.^[6] Some have theorized that this was how they honored their dead, in a sort of mass crematory funeral.

4 Anasazi

The Anasazi culture of the North American Southwest left behind many structures and artifacts for us to find before they ultimately disappeared. Maybe it was the brutal climate of the Southwestern heartland or the changing of that climate which made conditions uninhabitable, namely where access to water is concerned, but this is one group of people who also disappeared.^[7]

Massive structures built into the cliffsides were left totally abandoned and were found in relatively pristine condition. These housing structures were perfect for fending off intruders, as they were often multiple stories high with windows for the entrance via ladders. When war would break out, the Anasazi could climb into their structures, raise the ladders, and be several stories above the invading tribes and could fire down on their enemies with impunity.

Many Native American tribes as well as some scholars claim that the Anasazi never actually disappeared; they just reached the critical mass of size that a society can become before it inevitably breaks off into smaller factions and becomes new groups of people—much like ancient Rome. They believe that certain tribes today which survive are the direct descendants of the Anasazi people.

3 Nabta Playa

The ancient people of Nabta Playa, in the southern part of modern-day Egypt, were a Neolithic group which existed in the area from roughly 11,000 to 6,000 years ago and were largely nomadic, as was common for that area at the time. The climate of the Nabta Playa basin was one of feast or famine, where seasonal shifts provided an abundance of water at some points during the year and then a complete drought at others. Eventually, the people settled down and inhabited the area as a civilization.

Changes in the climate have rendered the area almost entirely dry sand at this point, which also preserved what the people here left behind before they disappeared, such as a stone circle. The stone circle roughly aligns with the stars in many different ways and became a haven for sacrifice to the gods, with animal remains being found in vast underground caverns.^[8] Like those who built Stonehenge, the people who lived there eventually declined and then wholly disappeared.

2 Khmer Empire

Over the long timeline of history, the Khmer Empire is one of the more recent disappearances to take place. The empire existed from AD 802 to 1431 in Southeast Asia, spanning the modern-day countries of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, and was a mixed culture of Buddhists and Hindus that came about through centuries of warfare. The Khmer Empire built some of the most astonishing temples and monuments in Southeast Asia today, many of which are in near-perfect condition.

But like the others on this list, the Khmer Empire, too, declined and disappeared. Some have noted that the migration of the Thai people may have slowly overtook the Khmer people, much like the Germanic tribes slowly infiltrating the western half of the Roman Empire over time. Others have blamed the constant war that the Khmer lived with daily, but they were never wholly overtaken. Still others have pointed to possible changes in weather conditions which altered their access to rainwater, causing a mass migration. Theories run the gamut as to why they fell, but no one really knows for sure.^[9]

1 Olmecs

The Olmecs were the first large Mesoamerican civilization, and their culture was as rich as it was bizarre and unusual. They left us many standing structures and statues which exist today, and their prominence lasted from 1200 to 400 BC, with a society based on sacred religious practices for which they built pyramid-like temples. Much like the Polynesian people of Easter Island, they also carved massive stone heads, some of them as tall as 3 meters (10 ft) and weighing 8 tons.^[10]

So much of this culture that lived long ago has been lost to time, and we don’t even actually know what they called themselves or much about their language. “Olmec” is a term the Aztecs had for them centuries after their disappearance, which translates roughly to “rubber people.” Even more interesting is the fact that not a single trace of anyone who lived there remains—not even the bones. But we do have the artifacts.

They disappeared from the world stage sometime around 400 BC. Some have suggested that the insanely humid Mesoamerican climate eroded their bones away. But as for the people, the language, and the culture outside of their art and artifacts, we know next to nothing, especially not why they vanished.

In our modern age of satellite imagery and aircraft, it is incredibly easy to explore and map out new locations. In the past, though, the job fell to small expeditions of well-equipped people. Relying on nothing but their log, some rations, and a handful of mapping tools, these groups would often spend months, if not years, traversing new frontiers and recording what they found. These voyages were extremely perilous, and many ended in disaster.

A few, though, suffered an even stranger fate: They disappeared from the face of the Earth entirely. Some have since been discovered—often centuries later—but others remain missing. The mysterious disappearance of Percy Fawcett, for example, has led as many as 100 other explorers to their deaths and still hasn’t been solved.^[1] Here are ten expeditions that mysteriously disappeared.

10 Madoc

Several centuries before Columbus sailed to the Americas, a Welsh prince named Madoc departed Wales with ten ships and a dream of discovering a new land. Madoc was the son of King Owain Gwynedd, who had 18 other sons, some of them bastards. Madoc was one of the bastards. When King Owain died in 1169, a civil war broke out between the brothers over who should be the next king. Madoc, a peaceful man, assembled a party of other peace-lovers and set out to find new lands. According to the legend, he returned in 1171 with stories of his adventures and attracted more people to go with him on a second expedition, from which he never returned.^[2]

The story, which was first recorded in a Welsh manuscript in the 1500s, is shadowy on the details, but some people believe Madoc and his men landed in the vicinity of what is now Mobile, Alabama. In particular, stone forts along the Alabama River have drawn attention since they were built before Columbus’s arrival, but some Cherokee tribes say they were built by “White People.”

Some speculate that Madoc and his followers joined with and were assimilated by the Mandan Native Americans. Several rumors surround this myth, such as the alleged similarity between the Mandan language and Welsh. Governor John Sevier of Tennessee wrote a report in 1799 detailing the discovery of six skeletons encased in brass armor bearing the Welsh coat of arms, which may have been a hoax. If they were real, they would be the most solid evidence we have for the potential fate of Madoc’s expedition, which otherwise remains a mystery.

9 Vivaldi Expedition

It’s now a well-known fact that Columbus wasn’t searching for America when he left Spain; he was expecting to find Asia. And two centuries earlier, in 1291, that was also the goal of the Vivaldi expedition. Departing from Genoa, the two brothers, Vandino and Ugolino Vivaldi, and their followers hoped to reach India by navigating around the southern tip of Africa. They outfitted their expedition with enough food for ten years of travel, so they clearly expected to be gone for a long time. They passed through the Strait of Gibraltar in mid-1291 and were never seen again.^[3]

There were several attempts to discover the fate of the expedition, the first led by Lancelotto Malocello in 1312. He voyaged as far as the Canary Islands, where he built a fort and remained for over two decades without seeing any trace of the lost brothers. Sometime in the early 1300s, Ugolino’s son, Sorleone, went in search of his missing father and uncle. According to some sources, he may have made it as far as Mogadishu, but he, too, found no trace of them.

Another mention of the expedition appears in 1455, when the explorer Antoniotto Uso Di Mare said he’d met a descendant of a survivor who’d traveled with the brothers. According to him, the brothers had made it as far as Senegal, where they were captured and held captive for the rest of their lives.

8 Abubakari Expedition

The expedition of Abu Bakr II (also known as Mansa Qu), ruler of the Mali Empire, is surrounded by controversy. The best evidence we have for it comes from the Arab historian Shihab al-Umari, who met with Mansa Musa, Abu Bakr’s heir, in Cairo in the early 1300s.^[4]

According to Mansa Musa, his father refused to believe that there was no end to the ocean and outfitted an expedition of 200 ships full of sailors, food, and gold to find its edge. Only one ship returned. According to the ship’s captain, they saw a roaring waterfall in the middle of the ocean which seemed to be the edge. His ship was at the back of the fleet. The rest of the ships were sucked in, and he only escaped by rowing backward. The king refused to believe him and outfitted 3,000 ships to try again, this time traveling with them. He made Mansa Musa regent in his stead but never returned.

Several historians have suggested that Abu Bakr’s expedition reached the Americas, supported by a legend among the native Taino people of Hispaniola of black people who arrived before Columbus with weapons made of an alloy containing gold. Others have dismissed the claims, however, saying that no archaeological evidence of any such connection has ever been found. One thing is certain: Abu Bakr never returned to reclaim his kingdom.

7 Cabot’s Final Expedition

John Cabot is famous today for being the first European to discover North America since the Vikings. Cabot’s history-making voyage most likely landed in Bonavista, Newfoundland, in June 1497. In a manner which loosely resembles the Moon landing, the crew left the ship only briefly to plant the Papal banner and claim the land for England before returning to their ship and spending the next few days exploring the coast from the water. When they returned to England, Cabot was hailed as a hero and received £10 as a reward—the value of about two years’ wages for the average laborer—and a pension of £20 a year.^[5]

Despite his fame, the fate of John Cabot remains unknown to this day. We know from contemporary sources that Cabot outfitted a second expedition to the New World, this one made up of five ships. They left Bristol in May 1498 with a cargo mostly comprised of items to trade. The last mention of Cabot and his men came from the Spanish envoy in London two months later, who reported that the fleet was caught in a storm and that one ship had to stop in Ireland. The rest of the fleet went on.

He may have never returned, since no further records of John Cabot survive—not even to say that he was missing. Some speculate that he returned to England and lived there for some years afterward. Research into his final fate is ongoing, but the latter theory is at least supported by the fact that one of the men who was supposed to accompany him on his final voyage, Lancelot Thirkell, was living in London in 1501.

6 Franklin’s Lost Expedition

In 1845, the British explorer Sir John Franklin set off with a small team to navigate the last unmapped part of the Northwest Passage. Traveling on the HMS Erebus and the aptly named HMS Terror, they departed England in May. Their fates weren’t known until 2014.^[6]

The loss resulted in a flurry of activity in Britain from both the public and the government. The Admiralty organized three search teams in 1848, one by land and two by sea, but they were unsuccessful. Repeated attempts to find them would continue until the final search team was launched with public backing in 1857. (By this time, the government had declared the whole team deceased.) Through conversations with the local Inuits, some of whom had items which had belonged to the crew, they learned that the ships had become trapped in the ice. Franklin himself died in 1847. The remainder of the crew left the ships and, after wintering at King William Island, began a desperate hike back toward civilization on the Canadian mainland, a trek which resulted in the deaths of all involved. According to analysis of some of the bones, it seems the crew resorted to cannibalism.

The truth wasn’t known for sure, though, until Canadian researchers rediscovered the HMS Terror in 2014. The ship was in almost pristine condition—so great, in fact, that it would probably still float if the water was drained from it. The find suggests the ship was abandoned in an orderly manner. The crew most likely relocated to the HMS Erebus, where they made a futile attempt to sail out of the icy water before eventually being trapped again. After that, they were forced to continue on foot.

5 Eudoxus Of Cyzicus

The ancient world was more connected than we often realize. Even before the rise of the Roman Empire, the ancient Greeks were trading with India. While sailors from either country couldn’t make it the whole way, they often met in trade ports along the coast of Yemen, where the Greeks would trade for aromatics and other luxuries to bring back home.

In 118 BC, an Indian sailor was shipwrecked in the Red Sea and brought to the court of Ptolemy, the Greek ruler of Egypt. With the sailor’s help, a Greek explorer, Eudoxus of Cyzicus, made the first recorded voyage to sail directly from Egypt to India.^[7] He made the voyage again in 116 BC, this time navigating without Indian help. This was important in the history of trade across the Indian Ocean: Within a few decades, the sea trade between Greece and Rome and ancient India had increased markedly.

During this second voyage, he was blown off course and ended up sailing along the African coast. While there, he encountered a shipwreck which he concluded, based off native stories and the ship’s design, must have come from Spain. He thought it must have journeyed around the southern tip of Africa. Ever the adventurer, he decided to attempt the same journey. After he’d made his way overland to Spain, his first attempt failed after he ran into difficulties along the Morrocan coast and was forced to return. He tried again shortly after and never returned. It was the first recorded attempt to circumnavigate Africa, a feat that wouldn’t be attempted again for over 1,000 years.

4 Peter Tessem And Paul Knutsen

In 1919, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen was venturing along the northern coast of Russia as part of an expedition when one of his crewmen, Peter Tessem, began suffering chronic headaches. As a result, he was left on Cape Chelyuskin with another explorer, Paul Knutsen, who’d traveled the area before.^[8] Roald was confident that they would make it to the nearby town of Dikson, which was just over a month’s journey away. Paul Knutsen knew the locations of supply caches that had been left in the area, so the two should have been in no danger.

By 1920, however, the two men still hadn’t arrived in Dikson. The Norwegian government organized a search party shortly after but found nothing. The Soviets launched their own search in 1921, which found a Norwegian sled and a letter written by the men stating they were in good health but otherwise found nothing.

By sheer chance, a Soviet research team found the scientific equipment and data that the men had been entrusted with in 1922. Some time later, they found the body of one of the men. While they couldn’t identify it, it was wearing a gold watch engraved with Tessem’s name. The body was found within sight of Dikson. They reburied it further up the slope. Today, the site is marked by a granite monument engraved with Tessem’s name.

3 The Corte-Real Brothers

Gaspar Corte-Real was part of a family of Portuguese explorers: His father had discovered what was most likely North America in 1473, and by the time Gaspar was old enough to sail, he joined his brothers and became an adventurer.

In 1500, the Portuguese king, Manuel, sent Gaspar on an expedition to find the Northwest Passage to Asia. North America was largely unknown territory at the time, and when Gaspar encountered Greenland, he mistook it for Asia.^[9] Without landing, he turned back and gathered a larger crew for the journey. This time, he brought with him two other ships and his older brother, Miguel. They made their way toward Greenland but, hampered by ice on the water, were forced to turn south, where they most likely landed in Newfoundland. They took 57 natives captive, planning to sell them as slaves. Gaspar sent Miguel back with two of the ships to take their captives back to Portugal, carrying on south alone. He never returned.

A year later, Miguel headed back to Newfoundland to find his brother, but he, too, disappeared. Because of their success, however, the Portuguese government became heavily interested in North America and funded several other expeditions to the seas around Newfoundland before they were eventually driven out by French and English settlers.

2 George Bass

George Bass was a surgeon and navigator who played an important role in the mapping of Australia’s coast. Traveling aboard the HMS Reliance between 1795 and 1798, he studied and made records of the plants and animals in Australia, confirmed the presence of coal in Sydney, and identified the strait between New South Wales and Tasmania, which was later named after him. His many achievements led to him being elected as a member of the Linnean Society of London in 1799, the oldest natural history society in the world.^[10]

Despite his scientific achievements, Bass eventually turned his hand to commercial shipping. In 1803, he was planning for an expedition to cross from Australia to South America. In his last surviving letters, he referred to a venture which he couldn’t name: It’s likely he was planning to engage in smuggling, since Britain and Spain (and Spanish South America by extension) were not on the best of terms at the time. He departed Australia in February 1803 and was never seen again. Speculation that he was captured by the Spanish authorities has been debunked because his name doesn’t appear in Spanish or Peruvian records, and when Spain released all its British prisoners some years later, he wasn’t among them. His fate is still unknown.

1 USS Sea Gull

In August 1839, the US Navy purchased a former New York pilot boat and renamed it the Sea Gull.^[11] Alongside the newly bought Flying Fish, it was to serve as part of the US Exploring Expedition’s mission to chart the Antarctic and Pacific. The plan suffered a severe setback, however, when they reached the southern tip of South America: Cape Horn. Faced with strong winds, choppy water, and snow, the expedition waited there for months before moving on in April 1840. The Flying Fish and Sea Gull were left behind to wait for the supply ship. Once they had the supplies, they would catch up to the rest of the fleet.

But the winds were still dangerously high. On the night of April 28, the winds were particularly dangerous, and the Flying Fish and her crew made their way back to port, where they waited out the storm that followed. They last saw the Sea Gull at midnight, but it never followed them back to port. It was never seen again. The USS Sea Gull remains on the US Naval Institute’s list of “Missing and Presumed Lost” vessels to this day.

Across the world, many people over the years have disappeared, seemingly into thin air, with no satisfying explanation. The mystery is only deepened when neither the missing person nor their remains are ever seen again.

However, there have also been many cases of people who disappear in the most mysterious of circumstances, only to reappear—sometimes decades later—in equally mysterious and intriguing circumstances. What follows are just ten examples of such bizarre cases. These people vanished into thin air and then reappeared just as strangely . . .

10 Amber Smith—Discovered In A Place Previously Searched

Although two-year-old Amber Rose Smith was missing for only a day, her case is truly one of the most bizarre and intriguing. According to her father, the young girl was playing happily at their home Newaygo County, Michigan, on October 8, 2013. She was out of sight of her father only briefly as he went into another room. However, upon is return, she was no longer there.^[1]

A full-scale search involving numerous volunteers was launched almost immediately. However, despite the entire area undergoing absolute scrutiny by the hundreds-strong search party, it appeared that the young girl had seemingly vanished into thin air.

The following day, however, as searches continued, Amber Rose was found only a few miles from her home. And what’s more, she was discovered in a location that had already been thoroughly searched the previous day. How she had managed to “avoid” the search teams who went into action so soon after her disappearance, as well as how she had managed to cover so much ground, left searchers and investigators baffled.

9 Steven Stayner—Rescues Child From The House Of His Own Imprisonment

What is perhaps the most fascinating, if extremely grim, about the case of Steven Stayner are the events that would take place following his reemergence in a California police station in 1980 after having been missing for over seven years.

Steven had been missing since 1972, when he was seven years old, and had disappeared while walking home from school. His abductor, Kenneth Parnell, would hold him captive for years, sexually abusing him during this time. By the time Steven was a teenager, Parnell desired a younger boy, and after Parnell brought another abducted child to the house, Stayner was spurred on to escape with the five-year-old, stating later that he “couldn’t let another child go through what he had.”

Parnell was eventually arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison, although he was released after serving only five of those years. (He was arrested again in 2003 for attempting to “procure” a four-year-old boy.) In 1989, after gaining national attention for his part in Parnell’s arrest, Steven Stayner was killed in a motorcycle accident at only 24 years old.

Incidentally, in the years that followed, though, it would be Steven’s brother, Cary, who would be in the news. This time, though, as opposed to his being seen as a national hero who performed acts of bravery in the face of such danger and criminality as Steven had been, Cary was facing multiple charges of first-degree murder, of which he would be convicted. He was sentenced to death in 2002. Allegedly, Cary stated he wanted a “movie-of-the-week” made about his crimes—just like the television movie made of his brother’s ordeal.^[2]

8 Tanya Kach—Only A Few Miles From Home For A Decade

When 14-year-old Tanya Kach of McKeesport, Pennsylvania, vanished one day in 1996, it was assumed (given that she had simply walked out of the family home) that she had run away. In part, that was true.

It would come to light a decade later in 2006 that Kach had been convinced by a security guard at the middle school, Thomas Hose, to “run away with him.” When she did so, however, Hose would instead hold her prisoner at a house his parents owned. She would remain there for the next ten years, and Hose would routinely rape and abuse her.

After four years, Kach, under a new name, was allowed to leave the house. In 2006, she sought help, telling the owner of a deli, whom she’d become friends with, that she was being held prisoner at the hands of Hose and had been since she was a teenager. It wasn’t long before Hose was arrested, charged, and eventually imprisoned. Kach was reunited with her family.^[3]

7 Steven Kubacki—A Truly Strange Disappearance For Over A Year

Unlike our previous two encounters, the account of Steven Kubacki is not a brutal case of imprisonment but one of genuine mystery bordering on the supernatural. One February morning in 1978 near Lake Michigan, student Steven Kubacki would venture out to indulge in several hours of skiing. However, when he still hadn’t returned the following day, a huge search was put in motion.

Strangely, and ominously, footprints were discovered in a location where the student claimed to be heading. And what’s more, they stopped right at the frozen water’s edge. There was no sign of any markings on the frozen surface of the water and no signs that the ice had been broken anywhere. Later that day, Steven’s skis and backpack were discovered. However, no other sign of Kubacki came to light, and the searches were eventually called off. His family, while not giving up hope, were prepared for the worst.

Then, over a year later in early May 1979, Steven Kubacki would appear out of the blue on his parents’ doorstep. He had very little memory of where he had been. He had awoken earlier that day in a field in Pittsfield, hundreds of miles from where he disappeared and around 64 kilometers (40 mi) from the family home. Even stranger, he was wearing clothes that weren’t his and had a strange bag of maps with him that he didn’t recognize.^[4]

Rather than compensate himself financially with the many offers from media people for his story, Kubacki would retreat from the public, refusing to speak of the incident (of which he had no memory) and not wishing to undergo such things as hypnotic regression, as he wasn’t experiencing any “psychological problems” and wished to keep it that way.

6 William Bates—No Memory Of His Previous Life

Perhaps one of the strangest cases of disappearances followed by an equally strange reappearance is that of Dr. William Horatio Bates, who would seemingly vanish into thin air from New York City in August 1902. He left a short note for his wife stating that he was “called out of town to some major operations” and that he was “glad to get so much money for us all.” Furthermore, he would “write details later.” And with that, he was gone. What is perhaps curious, aside from the hurried manner with which he seemingly left, was that he was already a man of considerable wealth, which made his line of being “glad to get so much money” slightly odd.

He would not return, nor would he write as he had promised. After several days, his wife would use her husband’s fellow Mason friends to try to locate him, which, especially considering the times, was perhaps key in doing so. After his picture and details traveled across lodges around the United States and as far afield as Europe, information would reach Mrs. Bates that William was in a London hospital. Furthermore, he was not in a good way, looking “haggard, thin, and [with deeply sunken eyes].”

Bizarrely, despite access to funds at a London bank account, he appeared to be suffering from malnutrition. Even stranger, when Mrs. Bates arrived in London, William claimed to not recognize or remember her. He did, however, agree to stay with her at her hotel so that his memory might return.

Initially, all appeared well. He would even recall being asked to set sail from New York several weeks earlier and operating on a patient with a brain abscess. However, only two days later, he would leave the hotel and disappear once again. This time, at least as far as his wife was concerned, it was forever. She would pass away in 1907, still searching for her ill husband.

A fellow doctor and friend would locate Bates in Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 1910, working in an ophthalmology practice he owned. He would eventually return to New York with his friend, going into partnership together. However, Bates would never, at least according to him, recover his memories of his life before that mysterious call in 1902. Nor would he recall what had happened to him.^[5]

5 Linda Arteaga—An Incident With The Shadow People?

One of the most recent of our strange disappearance and reappearance cases occurred on September 22, 2012 in the Arkansas Ozarks. On that afternoon, brother and sister Eddie Huff and Linda Arteaga set out for a day’s hiking in the forests of the region. However, when Eddie returned alone claiming to have left his sister at a relative’s house, something seemed amiss, even more so when it was discovered that the 53-year-old woman was not at the relative’s house as Eddie had claimed.

Eddie, seemingly with no memory of what had happened, was now confused and a little disoriented, to say the least. A search party was organized, and Arteaga was eventually discovered in a seemingly random location in the middle of the deep woodland. What’s more, she appeared shocked and unnerved by whatever incident had unfolded and led her here.

She would later claim, although the details were murky at best, that her brother had suffered some kind of injury and that she had volunteered to go and find help. She would then state that as she walked through the woods, she came across other hikers who, try as she might, simply didn’t seem to be able to hear her when she called out to them. Even more disturbingly, she would witness bizarre “shadowy figures” that appeared to be watching her from the trees and bushes. The next thing she knew, she was coming to in the forest with the search party calling her name.^[6]

This rather bizarre incident remains unexplained.

4 Gabriel Nagy—Disappeared For 23 Years After Calling His Wife

On the early afternoon of January 21, 1987, Gabriel Nagy, a married father of two from Sydney, Australia, would call his wife to let her know her that he would be home from work early that day. Then, he vanished without a trace for almost a quarter of a century. Most would suspect, whether through foul play, his own hand, or some bizarre and tragic circumstances, that he had died shortly after that phone call.

However, in 2010, just before Nagy would have been officially declared dead, a clue would suddenly leap out at the detective in charge of the cold case, Georgia Robinson. A Medicare card in Gabriel Nagy’s name was eventually tracked down, leading Robinson to visit the property and its owner.

The man in question was confused as to why the police were at his door. However, it didn’t take long for Robinson to realize that the man was indeed the missing person from January 1987. And what’s more, it would appear that he was truthful when claiming no memory of his life with a wife and two children. However, with patience and using photographs of his family from the police files, Nagy had what he would later describe as “flashbulb” moments, where memories began to emerge from the haze. Slowly, a time line was pieced together.

It would appear that at some point after the phone call, Nagy was attacked, as his “first memory” is of waking up with some kind of head injury, so bad it was bleeding. Following this, his recollection was hazy at best, with the most prominent memories suggesting he had camped in various areas in Queensland, as well as working on farms and fishing boats and even, on occasion, sleeping on the streets.

Slowly, his name had come back to him (allowing him to apply for a Medicare card). He would ultimately be reunited with his family, who continue to work to restore as much of his memory as possible. Whether a physical attack would cause him to lose such vast amounts of his memories or whether, as the family suspect, dissociative fugue is to blame, remains to be seen. The case, though, is certainly one of the most intriguing of recent times.^[7]

3 Philip Sessarego—Lived Out SAS Fantasy

The case of Philip Sessarego isn’t the most mysterious, but it is most definitely intriguing, not least due to the lengths the British soldier would go to restart his life anew, particularly concerning his desire to join the ranks of the elite Special Air Service (SAS) special forces unit, which had twice turned him down.^[8] His daughter would later speak of how this rejection from the unit had caused her father to enter into a “fantasy state.” He would dress how many “SAS men” dressed and purposely drink in establishments known to be frequented by members of the unit. Then, in Croatia in 1991, he would simply disappear. (Some accounts state that he was seemingly killed by a car bomb.)

However, in 2000, a strange and intriguing book would appear on The New York Times’s bestseller list, entitled Jihad! The Secret War In Afghanistan. It was authored by an equally strange and intriguing gentleman named Tom Carew, who had made statements in (then) recent years of having served with the SAS for over two decades. He’d spoken of how he had trained mujahideen fighters against the Soviets in the 1970s and 1980s.

Carew would also become a regular talking head following the 9/11 attacks. However, the more he appeared in public, the more his claims began to unravel, not least when other SAS soldiers would essentially accuse Carew of being a fraud. By the time the BBC’s Newsnight program was involved, it was discovered that Carew was, in fact, Philip Sesserago, the same man who had tried so hard to join the SAS years previously. Interestingly, Sesserago would again disappear, eventually using the name Philip Stevenson in Belgium. In 2009, he was discovered dead in a rented garage, apparently the victim of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning.

2 Brenda Heist—‘Just Snapped’ One Day In A Park

Another person who seemingly looked to start a new life for herself was Lititz, Pennsylvania, resident Brenda Heist. While going through a divorce in 2002, she would simply walk away from it all, leaving her two children of eight and 12 years old, and vanish without a trace.

Following a widespread search and investigation, including the charging and clearing of her ex-husband, she was declared legally dead in 2010. That was until one day in 2013, when she wandered into a Florida police station and claimed that she was, in fact, Brenda Heist who had disappeared from Pennsylvania 11 years previously.

She would claim that after driving her kids to school that day in 2002, she had gone to a park, where she sat and cried. A group of “three strangers” approached her and asked if she wished to join them on their way to Florida. She would explain how she “just snapped” and went with them, leaving her old life behind. Needless to say, she would ultimately end up using drugs and, at times, living rough on the streets.

Brenda, who had been using the alias Kelsie Lyanne Smith, realized she’d made a dreadful mistake by 2013, and she went to the police station and began attempts to reestablish contact with her family. However, all attempts on her part were rebuffed, with her two children, now young adults, refusing to allow her back into their lives.^[9]

1 Richard Hoagland—Commits Fraud To Escape Impending Fraud Charges

The story of Richard Hoagland is at least as strange as any other on this list and is seemingly one orchestrated by Hoagland himself. On the afternoon of February 10, 1993, he would call his wife and explain how he was feeling unwell and was on his way to a hospital in Indianapolis. However, when his wife later attempted to track him down and find out which hospital he had arrived at, it would come to light that not only had no one calling himself Richard Hoagland been checked in, but no one under that name had even contacted any hospitals.

When his wife would make a report of the strange circumstances to the police, they would discover that Richard had not taken any substantial amounts of cash or credit cards, nor had he taken any clothes or a passport. The only lead of any type was the discovery of his car at the Indianapolis International Airport. However, the airport records show that no one bought any tickets under the name of Richard Hoagland.

In the summer of 1993, Hoagland’s two young sons each received a card in the mail containing $50. In them were the words, “Maybe sometime soon we will get to see each other. I bet I won’t even know you. It has been so long. Mind your mother. Bye, Dad.”

No one would hear or see anything of Hoagland following this, and by 2003, he was officially and legally declared dead. However, in 2016, it would come to light that Hoagland was not only alive and well, but he had hijacked the identity of Terry Symansky, who had died in 1991. Furthermore, he had remarried and even fathered a child while living in Florida (Symansky’s home state). It would turn out that Hoagland was the subject of an investigation for fraud at the time of his disappearance and made the decision to start again.^[10] Incidentally, the woman he married in Florida was completely ignorant to his schemes.

Thousands of people embark on cruises each year to enjoy vacations, holidays, and honeymoons with family and friends. But not everyone returns home from these trips.

Several people have vanished aboard cruise liners, leaving their friends and families heartbroken and confused. Here are 10 times that people mysteriously disappeared from cruise ships.

10 Ships That Simply Vanished Without A Trace

10 Amy Lynn Bradley

While on a family cruise to the Caribbean, Amy Lynn Bradley mysteriously vanished from the Royal Caribbean International Cruise Line’s Rhapsody of the Seas. The American woman was only 23 years old when she disappeared from the vessel on March 24, 1998.

Early that morning, Bradley went missing. She had danced all night with members of Rhapsody’s band, Blue Orchid. She left the band around 1:00 AM, and her father noticed her sleeping on their cabin balcony around 5:30 AM.

Her dad returned to the balcony at 6:00 AM to check on Amy, but she was no longer there. Her father reported her missing to the authorities on the cruise line, and the ship docked at Curacao, Antilles.^[1]

The cruise line and the Netherlands Antilles Coast Guard spent days looking for Amy, but the search ceased on March 29. There have been many theories about her disappearance, but none have been proven to be true.

9 George Allen Smith IV

In July 2005, George Allen Smith IV and his wife, Jennifer, were celebrating their two-week-long honeymoon on a cruise from Greece to Turkey when he mysteriously disappeared. It is believed that he went overboard due to an accident on the ship.

Smith vanished after a long night of drinking and gambling at the ship’s casino. A passenger aboard Brilliance of the Seas claimed that he heard men arguing in the Smiths’ room. Another passenger heard furniture being moved around inside the room, and Jennifer was later found passed out in a hallway.^[2]

Jennifer claimed that she did not remember much from the previous night, and nobody ever admitted to knowing anything about Smith’s disappearance. Some theories claimed that he was thrown overboard by the men with whom he was arguing. Others believe that he accidentally fell into the water after drinking too much.

In 2015, the FBI closed their investigation into the disappearance of Smith. They said that his death could have resulted from an accident, but his family was never convinced. They believe he was murdered.

8 Rebecca Coriam

In 2010, Rebecca Coriam started working for Disney Cruise Line and spent months visiting several ports in the Bahamas. On March 22, 2011, while working on the Disney Wonder, Coriam disappeared.

She was last seen on CCTV footage in the crew’s lounge talking on an internal phone. She was wearing men’s clothing and seemed visibly distressed. After hanging up the phone, she walked away, never to be seen again.^[3]

When she failed to report for her shift, crew members started looking for Coriam. After they were unsuccessful, the United States Coast Guard and the Mexican Navy were alerted and joined the search. But her body was never found.

Some theories claim that she was swept overboard while at the pool. Others say that she jumped or fell from the deck. Her family hasn’t received any answers as to why or how she went missing while aboard the cruise ship.

7 Daniel Kueblboeck

Daniel Kueblboeck, a German pop star, was famous for a short time on the talent show Germany Seeks the Superstar. He disappeared after reportedly either jumping or falling from a cruise ship. The 33-year-old was aboard an AIDA Cruises ship for a holiday from Hamburg to New York when he went missing. The cruise ship was off the coast of Canada when the incident occurred.

Witnesses aboard the ship claim they saw someone jump overboard around 6:00 AM the day he went missing. A month earlier, Daniel had posted on Facebook about being bullied as a kid, how it had affected him deeply, and that he still did not feel better mentally or physically.

Authorities believe that he jumped into the water on purpose. The search for his body was called off after four days.^[4]

6 John Halford

On April 6, 2011, John Halford went missing while aboard Thomson Cruise’s Thomson Spirit. The 63-year-old man disappeared while on a holiday cruise in Egypt. Authorities believe that Halford went missing sometime between 11:45 PM on April 6 and 7:30 AM on April 7. According to authorities, he was last seen at the ship’s bar drinking cocktails.

Halford’s suitcases were found sitting outside his cabin’s door, which is required for guests on the last night of the cruise. The luggage contained gifts that he had purchased for his wife and children. When the cruise ship docked the next morning, he was not in his room or anywhere else on the ship. His body was never found.^[5]

10 People Who Mysteriously Vanished While Traveling

5 Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell and his fiancee, Crystal Tinder, went on a Carnival cruise in July 2004 to Mexico. Carnival Cruise Line’s Carnival Fascination was near Miami on the final night of the trip when Caldwell disappeared.

That last evening, he and his fiancee had gone to dinner with some friends they met on the cruise. They all had a few drinks and decided to hit up some of the nightclubs after dinner.

Crystal then decided to head in for the night, but Caldwell chose to stay in the casino for a while. He told her he would be back shortly. But he never returned to their cabin.^[6]

Surveillance video showed Caldwell leaving the casino at 2:17 AM, and one crew member admitted that a bartender had seen Caldwell on the promenade deck around 3:30 AM. The bartender said that Caldwell had appeared to be very drunk, but the barkeep did not help his customer back to his room.

Caldwell was never seen again. It was believed that he had fallen overboard, and the coast guard spent 36 hours looking for his body. They eventually called off the search, and Caldwell was presumed to be dead.

4 Fariba Amani

Fariba Amani was enjoying a cruise with her boyfriend, Ramiz Golshani, when she mysteriously vanished from the Bahamas Celebration cruise. The 47-year-old mother of two from Canada disappeared on February 29, 2012, somewhere between the Bahamas and Florida.

Ramiz last saw her at the ship’s gift shop, and then he headed to the casino by himself. When he returned to their cabin, Fariba was not there. He eventually fell asleep. When Ramiz woke up, Fariba still had not returned. He spent an hour searching for her on the ship.^[7]

Ramiz alerted the crew about her disappearance shortly after arriving at port. The coast guard began an 84-hour search that spanned 25,900 square kilometers (10,000 mi²), but they were unable to find Fariba.

Police and the FBI also failed to find any evidence or trace of her during their investigation on the ship. The whereabouts of Fariba remain unknown, but her family suspects that Ramiz may have had something to do with her disappearance.

3 Annette Mizener

In December 2004, 37-year-old Annette Mizener embarked on a nine-day cruise with her parents and daughter. On the final day of the trip, she disappeared from Carnival’s ship The Pride.

She was last seen when the ship was around 48 kilometers (30 mi) off the coast of Ensenada, Mexico. Authorities believe that she fell or was pushed overboard, but some strange facts emerged about her vanishing.

Mizener’s beaded purse was found with beads missing near a smoking deck. But her family said she would have stayed away from there. A passenger stated that a nearby camera for that deck was covered, so there was no footage of her.

The captain of the ship waited about three hours before finally turning around and dropping rescue boats to search for Mizener. However, he only did this because he was ordered to do so by the coast guard. Her family believes foul play was involved, but her case remains unsolved.^[8]

2 Merrian Carver

Merrian Carver’s disappearance from a cruise ship around Alaska in 2004 is one of the more absurd stories. The 40-year-old woman vanished from a Royal Caribbean ship that nobody in her family even knew she had boarded.

On the second day of the cruise, a cabin attendant noticed that the bed had not been used and reported it to the boss. The supervisor said, “Just forget it, and do your job.” The attendant did as she was told, although nobody ever used the room. Carver was never seen again.

After the ship docked, her possessions were packed away. The authorities weren’t notified that she was missing. In fact, the police only learned of her disappearance when her father filed a missing person’s report days later. As her family hadn’t known that Carver was on the ship, the police needed time to trace her there.

The cruise line took three more days to confirm to authorities that she had been on the vessel, which was 26 days after she disappeared. By that time, the trail had gone cold.^[9]

1 Hue Pham And Hue Tran

In 2005, Hue Pham, 71, and Hue Tran, 67, took a seven-night Mother’s Day cruise in the Caribbean with their daughter and granddaughter. The couple, who had been married for 49 years, mysteriously vanished while on the Carnival Cruise Line ship.

On May 12, a ship employee found two passports, two pairs of flip-flops, two driver’s licenses, medication, and a wallet containing cash and credit cards. The passports belonged to Hue Pham and Hue Tran.^[10]

A full search and rescue mission began after family members realized the couple was missing, but the mission failed to find anyone. Authorities believe that the couple committed suicide by jumping into the sea together. Their son, Michael Pham, testified before Congress to urge tougher regulation of safety practices on cruise lines.

10 Eerie Last Words Of People Who Then Vanished Without A Trace

About The Author: I’m just another bearded guy trying to write my way through life.

People are reported missing all the time, leaving authorities and loved ones to piece together clues and come up with theories. Sometimes, there are logical explanations, But other times, there are no clear theories, and the mystery remains unsolved. Not all these disappearances were of the forever kind, but they definitely are all strange and thought-provoking.

This list explores ten published writers who went missing, leaving their readers and the public to wonder what exactly happened to cause their disappearance.

Related: 10 Mysterious People Who Inspired The Work Of Great Writers

10 Agatha Christie

The famous English mystery writer perplexed police, fans, and family members when she vanished in 1926 under mysterious circumstances. Christie left home in the evening and drove off without leaving any indication as to her destination. Police soon found her car abandoned with no clues about her whereabouts. As an already well-known author, her disappearance was highly publicized with a lot of energy put into her case. But, no new breaks happened in the case until 11 days later, when the author was spotted in a hotel using a fake name. When her husband came to get her, she had little memory of the previous week. Luckily her disappearance resulted in a reappearance.

The police and her husband theorized that she suffered amnesia from a car accident which accounted for her lost identity and memory. But people continued to speculate on the real reason. Suggestions ranged from a nervous breakdown brought on by the death of her mother and embarrassment of her husband’s affair to a cynical publicity stunt to promote the successful but still little-known author. Christie never publicly spoke or acknowledged her disappearance for the rest of her life. Fans and biographers continue to speculate about possibilities, leaving her disappearance an enduring mystery.^[1]

9 Barbara Newhall Follet

Follet, a child prodigy, published her first novel, The House without Windows, at only 12 years old to critics’ positive reviews. She was regularly featured in newspapers and media, showcasing her incredible talent at a young age. By age 14, she would release her second and final novel. After this early success, Follet would go through emotional challenges. Her father, a big supporter of her writing career, decided to leave Follet and her mother for a younger woman. Without much money or the encouragement of her father, Follet would go on to write two unpublished manuscripts before marrying Nickerson Rogers.

Without many prospects in her writing career, she took jobs as a secretary to make ends meet. By 1939, her marriage was in trouble. Later that year, following an argument with Nickerson, she left their home and never returned. Follet’s mother, Helen, continued to look into Follet’s disappearance, though no new leads have ever been made public. Follet has never been seen again and remains missing. Many theories revolve around the idea of foul play or suicide because of her marital issues. Since her body has never been found, neither theory has ever been proven correct.^[2]

8 Ambrose Bierce

Bierce had a prolific writing career spanning decades, earning him much respect in life and posthumously. His disappearance left behind many theories and mysteries about the man who shaped American literature with his short stories, journalism, poetry, and criticism.

Bierce was last seen in 1913 on his way to Mexico, presumably to cover the Mexican Revolution for a story. There are few known truths surrounding Bierce’s disappearance. The last known correspondence he had with a family member included a sense of impending mortality in which he referred to possibly getting killed by armies in Mexico. Scholars indicate this is the most plausible theory, given the danger he risked walking into a civil war (5). But no physical evidence or sighting confirmation has ever been given, leaving his disappearance a part of his final legacy.^[3]

7 Connie Converse

Though not a traditional author like others on this list, Connie Converse still put words to paper to share with the world. She was a songwriter who tried to start her music career in New York during the 1950s. She achieved little success in her lifetime, despite her pioneering work in the singer-songwriter genre. She dropped her music career after a decade, moving to Michigan to be near her family. In 1974, after feeling increasingly depressed over time, she left ominous notes to her family indicating that she intended to disappear and start a new life.

The last reported sighting claimed she simply packed up her car and drove away. Her family never found out what happened after she disappeared. There is the theory that she committed suicide because of her ongoing battle with depression. Another theory is that she really did start a new life somewhere. Though the end of her career and known life was tragic, her music experienced a revival in the 2000s with a reissued early album. Connie’s music, life, and disappearance have continued to influence other artists and songwriters to this day.^[4]

6 Weldon Kees

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Walden Kees was a poet and film critic who had published several collections of poetry, and his last book was published in 1954. A year after his final poetry publication, Kees vanished. Police found his abandoned car with the keys still in the ignition with no clues about what happened to the writer. He confided with various friends about suicidal thoughts or the possibility of starting a new life in Mexico before his disappearance. But there have been no confirmed clues or sightings, leaving police with no leads on the case.

Some of his work was published posthumously, and other authors continued to praise his work. Though he made a name for himself through his poetry while alive, his disappearance continues to fascinate new and old readers of his work.^[5]

5 Irmgard Keun

Before World War 2, the popular German novelist Keun wrote about subjects that the Nazi party denounced. Because of this opposition, Keun had to leave Germany. She lived abroad in France and the Netherlands until a newspaper published in 1940 reported that she had died.

But Keun was not actually dead and instead forged papers to return to Germany to see her parents. Her level of involvement in the publication of her fake death remains a mystery, as do much of the details of her assuming a new identity to return to Germany.

She lived basically unknown until she died, a big contrast to the fame she achieved early in her career. Because of her choice to remain publicly dead, much of the details about her disappearance and life after 1940 remain unclear.^[6]

4 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine was known for his fiction and poetry and also as a military pilot. His adventurous aviation career would supply inspiration for his literary career. Sadly, his last novel, The Little Prince, would be published posthumously in his native France. In 1944, he set off on what would be his final mission heading over the coast of France. He never returned.

The most likely theory was that his plane was shot down by the enemy. However, no wreckage could be located to confirm this theory until 60 years later, when the plane was found off the southern coast of France. The exact circumstances leading to the crash can still not be determined.^[7]

3 Oscar Zeta Acosta

Acosta was a writer, attorney, and activist for the Chicano movement, which pushed back against the discrimination many Mexican-Americans faced in the 1960s and 1970s. He published two somewhat controversial novels in his lifetime. He was also well known for his friendship with fellow writer Hunter S. Thompson, even becoming immortalized as a character inspiration in Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. They remained friends until his disappearance in Mexico in 1974 (11).

Thompson continued to look into his death, even giving his own theories about what may have happened—but without any concrete answers. Many theories throughout the years about his disappearance have been given, including drugs and assassination for his political activism. However, none have ever been proven.^[8]

2 Solomon Northup

Northup was born in 1807 as a free man in New York. He is well known for his book Twelve Years a Slave, based on his experience of being kidnapped and sold into slavery. Northup was eventually legally freed and returned to his family in New York. With the help of people back home, he was able to prove his freedom.

Public speaking events and extensive activism made Northup a public figure in America during his life. However, even after all of this publicity, the circumstances of his later life and death remain unknown. It is suspected that he joined the Underground Railroad, where he helped enslaved people escape.^[9]

1 Edgar Allen Poe

The famous author’s last moments in 1854 are surrounded by mystery. A week before his death, Poe was supposed to leave Richmond for work in Philadelphia and then on to meet his aunt in New York before returning to Virginia. However, he never made it to either city. He was found semi-conscious in Baltimore, delirious and unable to account for his weeklong disappearance.

Many theories exist, including alcohol use, illness, and even foul play. However, all of these explanations are solely speculations, and his disappearance during this time has never been fully explained. Because of the dark subject matter of his writing career, the mystery of his disappearance and subsequent death has fascinated and baffled readers of the author, an apparent case of life imitating art.^[1]