Scores of people go missing every day. An overwhelming majority of such cases end up resolved, often quite promptly. Still, far too many families of missing persons never know closure, be it reuniting with their lost loved ones or finally learning of their fate.

When someone vanishes without a trace, it’s not uncommon for that person’s last words to others to stand out in their memories. These final words can be ominous, poignant, or quite unremarkable. They may offer disturbing hints as to the missing person’s fate, or they may be innocuous statements which in no way foreshadowed what was to come. The following are accounts of ten people who disappeared, as well as the last things they said to 911 operators, coworkers, friends, or family.

SEE ALSO: 10 Unsettling Cases Of Famous People Who Disappeared

10 ‘They’re After Me. More Than One.’

Michael “Mike” McClain spent the evening of April 20, 2019, at the Tropical Lounge nightclub in Nashua, New Hampshire. The 29-year-old resident of nearby Manchester was at the club with friends and, by all accounts, had no reason to abandon his life.

That night, a dispute occurred between two women at the club. They stepped outside, at which point the situation escalated. A crowd formed. Mike, who knew one of the women, broke the fight up, but the police had been called. They dispersed the onlookers, and it was at this point that Mike’s friends lost track of him. A bit before 2:00 AM the next morning, Mike called his boss and said, “They’re after me. More than one.” This ominous statement prompted her to call him back, but there was no answer. Mike hasn’t been seen since that night.

Mike’s family knew something was amiss when he didn’t return calls on Easter or call his sister on her birthday. It is believed that he left the nightclub on foot. His phone was last pinged at a McDonald’s a few blocks down the street from the Tropical Lounge at around the time he called his boss, but there are few other clues for investigators to go on. His credit cards have shown no activity, and he hasn’t posted anything on social media. He remains missing as of this writing.^[1]

9 ‘I’m Putting Dinner On.’

Will Cierzan, 58 years old, was a longtime employee at Six Flags Magic Mountain and enjoyed watching sports, collecting Coca-Cola bottles, and cooking. He spent the afternoon of January 26, 2017, at his home in Santa Clarita, California, watching golf on TV with his nephew. After the nephew left, Will began to make dinner. At around 4:30 PM, his wife, Linda, called him, and Will said, “I’m putting dinner on.” When she called again at roughly 5:00 PM, Will was in a good mood and said that the chicken was cooked.

However, when Linda arrived home at around 6:00 PM, Will was nowhere to be seen. Dinner was cooked, the oven was turned off, and Will’s coat, keys, and wallet were all present. Nothing had been taken from the wallet. The family’s dog was at home, and Will’s truck was parked outside.

A few cryptic clues would emerge. In February 2017, it was revealed that some of Will’s blood had been found in the house. Surveillance footage from a neighbor’s house showed that a white SUV backed up to Will’s garage a bit after 5:00 PM. It left only a few minutes later. Police stated that this vehicle belonged to a family member. Neither of these leads panned out.

In May 2017, detectives named Will’s nephew as a person of interest. However, he cooperated with investigators, and no arrests were made. In December 2018, a human skull was found not far from Valencia, Will’s neighborhood. This skull has not been linked with Will, though, and may very well be unrelated. Will’s fate is still unknown.^[2]

8 ‘I’m Scared.’ / ’Never Mind.’

June 21, 2013, was a busy day for Brookelyn Farthing of Madison County, Kentucky. The 18-year-old and her younger sister, Paige, took their driver’s license tests that day. Afterward, they attended their grandfather’s 70th birthday party. That evening, Brookelyn, Paige, and a cousin went to a second birthday party, this one held out in a field.

Paige and Brookelyn’s cousin decided to leave the party early on. This was fine with Brookelyn, who had made plans to sleep over at the home of a friend who was also at the party. Plans changed, however, when Brookelyn’s friend decided she wanted to spend the night at a boy’s house. The two argued, and the friend left.

Toward the end of the party, Brookelyn was seen leaving with two young men (names withheld). One of the men was dropped off, and the other man took Brookelyn to his house in Berea. It was from here, at around 4:00 AM on June 22, that Brookelyn called Paige and asked if their cousin could come pick her up. However, the cousin had had too many drinks and was in no condition to drive. Brookelyn didn’t want her mother to have to come get her, so she called her ex-boyfriend, who worked third shift. He agreed to give her a ride home when he got off work. It was at this point that the man who’d brought Brookelyn to the house left.

Before long, Brookelyn’s ex-boyfriend received several texts from her:

“Can you hurry,” “Please hurry,” and then “I’m scared.” However, another text came in, telling the ex to “never mind” and that Brookelyn was going to a party in neighboring Rockcastle County, the edge of which Berea is near. He asked who she was going with, but there was no response. Brookelyn hasn’t been heard from since.^[3]

The owner of the house later returned to find it on fire, and firefighters would find some of Brookelyn’s belongings still inside. The man speculated that the fire could have been started by a cigarette she was smoking when he left. He said he left her there because he was friends with her ex-boyfriend and did not feel comfortable being there when he arrived. He also confirmed that Brookelyn had spoken of a party in Rockcastle County. Brookelyn’s whereabouts remain unknown, and no arrests have been made in the case.

7 ‘I’ll Call You Back.’

Marion Barter, a primary school teacher in Australia’s Gold Coast, lived a seemingly normal, happy life. Things changed, however, when her third marriage ended in the mid-1990s. A few years later, in 1997, Marion abruptly sold her home and went on a trip to England.

Her family received no further word from her until July 31, when a message from Marion appeared on the answering machine of her daughter, Sally Leydon. Marion later called again from a pay phone. Marion said she was in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and was having tea and scones with some old women and that she was having a good time. The conversation played out in several chunks, as Marion had to add money to the phone. Finally, Marion ran out of coins, and the phone call had to end. Her last words to Sally were, “I’ll call you back.” Marion, 51 years old at the time, hasn’t been seen or heard from since.^[4]

Sally believes her mother truly was in England, due to the delay effect on the calls. The case became stranger in October 1997, however, when thousands of dollars were withdrawn from Marion’s bank account. Sally learned from a bank worker that the money was withdrawn in Byron Bay, New South Wales. Police in Byron Bay never found any sign of Marion.

Marion remains unaccounted for.

6 ‘Can You Send Me A Picture Of My Son In The Movies?’

At 9:30 PM on July 13, 2019, Erika Gaytan of El Paso, Texas, sent a text message to the father of her seven-year-old son: “Can you send me a picture of my son in the movies?” Erika, 29, was attending a concert at the El Paso County Coliseum, so this request didn’t seem too strange. What is strange, if not outright unacceptable, to Erika’s family and friends is the notion that she would have just abandoned her son.

Erika was at the concert with a date, her attendance confirmed by social media posts. According to the date, after the concert had ended, she was waiting for an Uber to pick her up. The date left at this point.

It is worth noting that at the time of her disappearance, Erika was facing criminal charges, both for credit card abuse and criminal mischief. Her next court date was July 26. However, El Paso detectives do not believe this is why she vanished. They do, however, consider her disappearance suspicious and have asked anyone with information to come forward.^[5]

5 ‘I Love You, Pop.’

Chase Allen Lackey, age 25, was a member of a recreational softball league. On June 30, 2017, he played a game, watched by his father, Craig. Craig will never forget Chase’s last words to him that day: “I love you, Pop.”

The next day, Chase was seen walking his dog outside his Houston-area apartment. Neither he nor his dog have been seen since. Nothing was stolen from Chase’s apartment, and his truck remained untouched.

Although investigators characterized Chase has having lived “a normal life,” foul play is suspected in his disappearance. Few details have been publicly released, but apparently some of Chase’s friends had been involved in illegal doings.^[6] However, no arrests have been made in the case, and two years on, both Chase and his dog remain missing.

4 ‘I Just Want To Talk While I Have The Chance.’

Matthew Weaver moved from his parents’ home in Simi Valley, California, to his own apartment in Granada Hills, Los Angeles, in the summer of 2018. Things were looking good for the 21-year-old power line worker, and he had plans to travel the world. These aspirations were seemingly not meant to be.

On August 9, Matthew told his father that he was going out with a new a female acquaintance. Matthew picked her up at around 9:30 PM and dropped her off during the early morning hours of August 10. During this time, they reportedly “had a private talk.” Matthew then drove to Topanga, an area in the Santa Monica Mountains. Near sunrise, he posted a Snapchat picture of a scenic view and is believed to have entered a hiking trail. A few hours later, Matthew’s female friend received some strange text messages. They read: “Like some crazy is going onsh— is going on” and “I jusst to talk while i have the chance.” There was no further communication from Matthew.^[7]

Matthew’s last known location, according to Snapchat and cell phone records, was near Rosas Outlook. At 1:30 AM on August 11, several hikers in the area called 911 after hearing cries for help. At around that time, California Highway Patrol officers reportedly also heard screams and possibly someone yelling, “He’s got a gun!” Matthew’s car was found near a hiking trail, but the keys weren’t located until January 2019, when hikers found them a mere 25 feet (7.6 m) from where the car had been. That same month, high-resolution drone photos of the area enabled Matthew’s family to find a baseball cap and a torn T-shirt which they believe were Matthew’s. Despite these strange clues, Matthew remains missing.

3 ‘Don’t Ever Say Goodbye.’

During the summer of 2013, Candice L’hommecourt of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, celebrated her daughter’s first birthday. Among those in attendance was Candice’s older sister, 25-year-old Shelly Dene. Not long after that, in August, Shelly vanished without a trace. Shelly’s last words to Candice were, “Don’t ever say goodbye.”

Shelly was known known for her adventurous spirit and love of travel and had spoken of a taking a trip to the Yukon. Over the next several months, calls and texts to Shelly went unreturned. Concern greatly increased in November, when Shelly’s phone was disconnected.

Shelly was finally reported as missing. A clue came in the form of a witness report that a man was seen taking suitcases from Shelly’s apartment around the time that she went missing. However, by the end of 2014, police had exhausted all leads.

Candice has expressed her frustration with the police, who she says are reticent to work on Shelly’s case because of her First Nations heritage and her “high-risk” lifestyle. While Shelly’s family acknowledge that she had dealt with drug and alcohol addictions, Candice noted that:

[Police] label every First Nations person that is missing or murdered [as having] a high-risk lifestyle or a high-risk profile. They keep blaming the victim for what has happened to them. They don’t blame society and what’s wrong with society . . . these things shouldn’t be happening to innocent people, no matter what type of lifestyle they live.^[8]

Shelly Dene has not been found.

2 ‘Things Are Going To Get Better.’

Olivia Medel didn’t have much, but she had her two children, Enrique and Delfina. The single mother worked hard to support them, and things were good until Olivia lost her job. After this, the family had to move from Kansas City, Missouri, back to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the children had originally been born. Though it wasn’t easy at first, Olivia found work in Albuquerque. Enrique, however, began to fall in with the wrong crowd.

It started when Enrique, then 13, began to hang out with a teenager named Andy, who was around six years older. Olivia had a bad feeling about Andy, but now that she was working again, she couldn’t keep an eye on her son all the time. Sometimes, Enrique would disappear in the middle of the night. Eventually, he was expelled from school for having a gun. Olivia believes the firearm was Andy’s idea.

On March 16, 2011, Enrique, now 14, spoke to his mother. He said, “Mom, I know you’re going through a hard time, but things are going to get better.” Olivia never saw her son again. Enrique’s uncle spotted him that night outside an Allsup’s (a convenience store). The uncle told Enrique to go home, but the latter said he was going to stay with some friends. He stopped answering his phone later that night and has been missing ever since.^[9]

Olivia felt that the police didn’t take her seriously when she reported her son missing, taking Enrique for a runaway. Ultimately, investigators did question Andy several times. The shady youngster gave inconsistent answers and was also found to be in possession of some of Enrique’s belongings. So far, however, no arrests have been made, and the case seems to have gone cold.

1 ‘No, I Need The Cops.’

In 2013, Brandon Lawson, 26, was living in San Angelo, Texas, with his longtime girlfriend and their four children. The oil field worker had found a new, more stable job with better hours and was set to start soon. But then Brandon didn’t come home on the night of August 7. This led to an argument with Ladessa, his girlfriend, on the evening of August 8. He had dealt with drug issues in the past and had recently relapsed, so Brandon staying out all night was cause for concern. At around 11:53 PM, Brandon grabbed his cell phone, a charger, his keys, and his wallet and left. His pickup truck was low on gas.

Before long, Brandon called his father, Brad, and asked to stay with him for the night. Brad said Brandon was welcome, but since the former lived three hours away in Crowley, he advised Brandon to go back home and work things out with Ladessa. A few minutes later, Ladessa called Brandon and suggested that he go stay with his brother, Kyle, if he was still angry and didn’t want to come back home. Kyle lived only five minutes away. Brandon must not have been into the idea, because Ladessa then called Kyle, saying she was worried about Brandon.

At 12:34 and 12:36 AM, Brandon tried to call Ladessa, but she didn’t answer either time. At 12:38, he called Kyle and said he’d run out of gas on Highway 277, not far from Bronte. Kyle called Ladessa, who left a gas can on the porch for Kyle before going to take a bath. Kyle and his girlfriend, Audrey, left to pick up the gas can at 12:45. At 12:48, Brandon tried to call Ladessa again but got no response.

Here’s where things become really strange. At 12:54 AM, Brandon made a disconcerting 911 call. Parts of the 43-second call were unintelligible. Brandon spoke of running out of gas and being in a field. He said he “accidently ran into” some people before there was background noise that may have been gunshots. The operator asked Brandon if he needed an ambulance. Amid indeterminate background noise, Brandon first replied in the affirmative but then changed his mind and said, “No, I need the cops.” Brandon did not respond to the operator after this, though the unidentified background noise seemed to get closer to him before the call ended.

Four minutes later, a passing trucker spotted Brandon’s pickup truck parked awkwardly on the highway and called 911 about it. At 1:10 AM, Kyle and Audrey found Brandon’s truck and were surprised to see a Coke County sheriff’s deputy there, too. There was no damage to Brandon’s truck. Kyle and Audrey initially assumed that Brandon was hiding in the field since he had an outstanding warrant in Johnson County. They surreptitiously called Brandon and managed to reach him one last time. Brandon said he was ten minutes into the field and bleeding and implored his brother to get to him quickly. The call ended, and Brandon responded to no further calls or texts.

Multiple searches for Brandon yielded nothing. Neither his bank account nor his cell phone showed any activity after that night. A few months after Brandon’s disappearance, investigators decided that Kyle was a suspect. They questioned him, and Kyle volunteered to take a polygraph test. He passed. Brandon is still missing.^[10]

There was a time when there was no greater calling than that of an explorer. So much of the world was still unknown to us and it was up to a few brave and curious adventurers to probe the deepest, darkest corners of the planet to illuminate the rest of us.

It was dangerous work and many lives were sacrificed during the pursuit of this noble endeavor. As you are about to see, some men who probed the unfathomable abyss were never heard from again.

10. The Vivaldi Brothers

Not much is known about Vadino and Ugolino Vivaldi. We know that they were two brothers from the Republic of Genoa who lived during the second half of the 13th century and that they were both thriving maritime merchants. Whether or not the siblings had a history of exploration and adventure, we cannot say, but in 1291 they set off on a very ambitious journey – to try and find a sailing route from Europe to India via Africa. 

Basically, it was the cape route that they were looking for – the sea lane that traversed the South Atlantic Ocean, rounded Africa at the Cape of Good Hope, and then crossed the Indian Ocean. It served, basically, as the most important shipping route in the world for centuries, but the Vivaldi brothers attempted to sail it almost 200 years before it was actually discovered by European explorers. 

Suffice it to say that things did not go to plan. The brothers left Genoa in May 1291 aboard two galleys, possibly named the Sanctus Antonius and the Alegrancia. They were known to have made it out of the Mediterranean and to have sailed off the coast of Morocco, but once they hit the open ocean, they were never heard from again.

9. John Cabot

Like the Vivaldi brothers, Giovanni Caboto was an Italian explorer, but he sailed under the auspices of King Henry VII of England, hence the anglicized version of his name, John Cabot. The adventurer undertook three voyages for England, but it is his second journey in 1497 that he is most famous for. Simply known as the Cabot Expedition, this trip saw the intrepid explorer reach the coast of North America, becoming the first European to do so since the Vikings. The exact spot where he landed is still under debate, although the Canadian Government recognizes Cape Bonavista in Newfoundland as Cabot’s landfall.

Since this voyage was a success, Cabot intended to repeat it a year later, with the full backing of the king. This time, he had more ships, and they had been loaded with merchandise, suggesting that Cabot was looking to trade. 

The fleet set off from Bristol in May 1498. We know that one of the ships was damaged early on during a storm and had to return to England. From that point on, the expedition and John Cabot himself simply disappeared from the historical record. Possible outcomes for them included the obvious – that they were lost at sea – or that they reached Canada, but shipwrecked and died at Grates Cove on the Avalon Peninsula.

However, some historians believe that Cabot did make it back to England in 1500 and died there a few months later, although this doesn’t really explain why there is no mention of his return or death. 

8. Henry Hudson

A hundred years after Cabot, there was another navigator who sailed under the English flag and explored the northeastern coast of North America. He was Henry Hudson, the man who gave his name to the Hudson River, the Hudson Strait, and a few other places.   

There are quite a few similarities between Henry Hudson and our previous entries. Like Cabot, he undertook several successful voyages to the New World during the early 1600s. Then, like the Vivaldi brothers, Hudson embarked on a very ambitious mission that proved to be his doom. In his case, it was the search for the Northwest Passage, the sea route that connected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by passing through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. 

The first man to successfully complete this route was Roald Amundsen in 1906, so we already know how things went for Hudson who attempted it 300 years earlier. The explorer set off from London in 1610 aboard the Discovery with a crew of 23, including his son, John Hudson. He reached the Arctic Ocean, but got trapped in ice in James Bay and had no choice but to go ashore and wait out the winter. 

Miraculously, the expedition only lost one man during the coming months but, by the time spring came around, most of the crew wanted to return back to England. They mutinied and placed Henry Hudson, his son, and seven loyal shipmates in a boat and cast them adrift, and they were never seen again.

7. La Pérouse 

During the late 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment was in full swing, and expeditions of scientific exploration were the new hot ticket. Following the voyages of James Cook, France felt like it was lagging behind England slightly, so in 1785 King Louis XVI ordered his government to organize an expedition around the world and complete Cook’s exploration of the Pacific.

The man chosen to lead this scientific mission was Jean-François de Galaup, Count of La Pérouse, a senior naval officer who had distinguished himself fighting against England during the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution. La Pérouse was given command of two frigates – La Boussole and L’Astrolabe – fully stocked with the most modern scientific equipment of the day, plus a sizable library, and a crew that included multiple scientists.

The expedition left France in August 1785 and, for three years, things went very well. La Pérouse started by sailing to South America, then rounding Cape Horn and traveling northwards all the way to Alaska. He then crossed the Pacific and reached East Asia before heading south to Polynesia. In January 1788, the two ships reached Australia, where they docked for a month-and-a-half. They left in early March and were never seen again.

Their disappearance was considered a national tragedy in France and several rescue missions could not find a trace of what had happened to them. Even King Louis XVI, on the day of his execution, was reported to have asked his captors on the way to the guillotine if there was any news of La Pérouse.

It wasn’t until almost 50 years later that sailors found remnants that suggested that both ships smashed against the reef of an island called Vanikoro and sunk, but this still did not explain the fates of the crewmen. Local oral history said that survivors spent months on the island, building a schooner before setting out to sea again and disappearing once more.

6. Douglas Clavering

Scottish naval officer Douglas Clavering made a name for himself as an Arctic explorer, leading an expedition that surveyed Greenland and the Svalbard archipelago in 1823. That, however, had nothing to do with his mysterious disappearance. After making his successful return to England, Clavering was given a different commission as part of the West Africa Squadron, Britain’s recent anti-slavery initiative. 

The squadron was formed in 1808, following the passing of the Slave Trade Act, and it consisted of a fleet of Royal Navy ships that patrolled the waters off the coast of West Africa in an effort to suppress slavery. Captain Clavering became part of this squadron in 1825, after being appointed commander of the brig-sloop HMS Redwing. 

Although the West Africa Squadron seized around 1,600 slave ships during its 50-year existence, little is known of Clavering’s personal involvement. What we do know is that two years after his appointment, the Redwing set sail from Sierra Leone and was never seen again. Bits of wreckage that washed ashore suggested that the vessel might have caught fire, perhaps from a lightning strike.

5. Baron von Toll

In 1900, geologist and explorer Baron Eduard von Toll was commissioned by the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences to lead a new Russian polar expedition to the arctic to survey an archipelago called the New Siberian Islands. Specifically, he was to search for the mythical Sannikov Land and prove, once and for all, whether or not the island actually existed.

This landmass had been first spotted a hundred years earlier and, ever since then, several explorers claimed to have seen it, including von Toll himself during an earlier expedition. This made him perfect for the mission so, in June 1900, he set off for the arctic with a 19-man team aboard the Zarya. 

Unfortunately for von Toll, Sannikov Land did not exist and this proved to be his undoing. After two years in the arctic, his team gathered plenty of scientific data, but no sign of the elusive island. With the expedition coming to a close, von Toll tried one last bold gamble. After the winter of 1902 passed, he and three crewmen left the Zarya and went on a separate journey using sleighs and canoes to maneuver easier through the archipelago. They were supposed to rendezvous with the rest of the team on Bennett Island, but the thick ice prevented the ship from getting anywhere close. From that point on, the fate of von Toll and his three crewmen became a mystery. Months later, a search party found their camp on Bennett Island along with several notes written by the explorer, but no trace of the men could ever be found.

4. Joshua Slocum

In 1898, Canadian sailor and adventurer Joshua Slocum turned into a worldwide sensation after becoming the first man to single-handedly sail around the world. He had spent the last three years traveling 46,000 miles aboard his sloop named Spray. Slocum then wrote an account of his experience titled Sailing Alone Around the World, which became an international bestseller.

Slocum’s success also provided him with some financial stability, which allowed him to buy some land and settle down. However, the old seadog soon realized that he was more at home on the open ocean than on terra firma, so he resumed his sailing, often traveling between the United States and the West Indies or South America. 

Unfortunately, it was one such trip that led to Slocum’s demise. In November 1909, he left Massachusetts and headed for the Caribbean aboard his trusty Spray. He was last seen resupplying in Miami before disappearing. Neither man nor ship was ever found. Although the obvious scenario suggests Slocum perished at sea, especially since he apparently never learned to swim, there is another idea that suggests that the adventurer faked his disappearance in order to start a new life away from his family.

3. Roald Amundsen

In the pantheon of polar explorers, the name Roald Amundsen probably rings out greater than any other, but not even he was spared an untimely and uncertain demise.

In 1906, Amundsen led the first expedition that successfully navigated through the Northwest Passage. Five years later, he became the first man to reach the South Pole. Those were his two biggest claims to fame, but Amundsen stayed involved with arctic exploration until the very end.

On May 25, 1928, the polar airship Italia crashed somewhere in the Svalbard archipelago. This prompted an international rescue mission, which included an aging Amundsen, who boarded a Latham 47 flying boat prototype with a team of five to help search for the wreckage. The plane left Tromsø, Norway on June 18 and disappeared without a trace over the Barents Sea. 

The wreckage of the Italia was eventually found and multiple survivors were rescued, but the same could not be said for Amundsen’s Latham 47. Even modern searches using the latest sonar technology and underwater vehicles have yielded no results so, for now, the final resting place of one of the greatest arctic explorers remains a mystery.

2. Michael Rockefeller

Michael Rockefeller was born into the fabulously wealthy Rockefeller family, but unlike his predecessors, he eschewed the worlds of business and politics and opted, instead, for a life of adventure. 

After studying history and economics at Harvard, Rockefeller took an interest in ethnology and anthropology. In 1960, he joined an expedition to serve as the sound man on a documentary about the Dani people in Western New Guinea, back then part of the Netherlands. While there, Michael encountered another group of people called the Asmat, who fascinated the young Rockefeller with their artwork.

The following year, he funded his own expedition back to New Guinea, hoping to study the Asmat people in detail and even organize an art exhibition back in New York. The team consisted only of him, Dutch anthropologist Rene Wassing, and two local Asmat teenagers. For three weeks, the expedition went well, as Rockefeller visited and traded in 13 different villages, amassing a sizable collection of Asmat artifacts.

Things went wrong on November 16, while the team was sailing down a river to the next village. Some powerful waves and crosscurrents overturned the boat, plunging all four men into the water. The two Asmat teenagers quickly swam ashore and went to get help, but Wassing and Rockefeller had no choice but to hold onto the overturned raft and drift down the river. After an entire night like this, Rockefeller tried to make it to shore…and that was the last time that anyone ever saw him. Wassing was spotted from a helicopter and rescued the following day.

Rockefeller’s official cause of death was drowning, but in the years that followed, a story went around that he had actually been murdered and cannibalized by the people from a village called Otsjanep. However, by then, Western New Guinea was no longer part of the Netherlands, so no official investigation was ever carried out.

1. Peng Jiamu

We end with the most recent entry on our list, which goes to show that even in modern times, there are still plenty of unknown parts of the world that hold hidden perils. By 1980, Peng Jiamu had already established himself as one of China’s premier biochemists, having taken part in multiple scientific expeditions over the previous 25 years to study the wildest, most remote regions of the country. That year, he left to explore the Lop Nur, a desert in the Tarim Basin. Five days into the mission, Peng vanished without a trace, seemingly swallowed by the vast emptiness of the desert. 

It appeared that the scientist left the camp alone in the middle of the night to search for water and got lost in the desert. This was very puzzling given that Peng was an experienced explorer who would have known better. Add to that the fact that extensive searches by the Chinese government uncovered no signs of him and this prompted several conspiracy theories that suggested that Peng could have been murdered by his colleagues, kidnapped by the Russians or Americans, or even defected of his own will. The truth remains a mystery.

Everything comes from somewhere. It’s a statement so preposterously obvious it’s rarely worth even making. And yet the implications of it are rarely explored. Where do you come from? Finding the precise time and place that humans began is no easy feat, and it’s the same for most life forms. But there are some things we can trace back with a fair degree of accuracy, often with surprising results.

10. Modern Cattle Can Be Traced Back to One Herd About 11,000 Years Ago

The average American eats 55lbs of beef per year, so there’s a lot of love for cow meat there. Our ancient ancestors never had that pleasure because, while there were herds of animals like aurochs back in the day, the modern cow as we know it never existed in the wild. We can actually trace our current world-wide cattle family back to a herd of 81 female animals that were bred nearly 11,000 years ago.

Researchers from across Europe analyze DNA samples from living cattle as well as from DNA extracted from bones taken from archaeological sites that date back to the beginning of farming as we know it. The differences in genetics seen in modern cattle could only exist if the original herd was limited to a size of about 80 animals which descended from the ancient aurochs which was kind of similar to a modern cow, but not exactly the same thing and certainly much bigger and wilder.

9. Domesticated Hamsters All Trace Back to One Pair in Syria

A lot of attention is paid to the domestication of both cats and dogs, the two most common house pets in the world. Most of us know that dogs were domesticated long ago from wolves, and cats seem to have domesticated themselves alongside mankind as an almost strategic move that ensured food and shelter. But humans do keep a lot of other animals as pets, like hamsters for instance. 

A wild hamster is probably not something most of us have ever come across, but they do exist and the modern domesticated hamster can be traced back to a specific breeding pair from Syria. Their story is a curious and remarkable one.

Jewish biologist Israel Aharoni had made it his mission to identify the animals listed in the Torah. The problem was that the animals didn’t have names, just very vague descriptions. And one animal that he had a special interest in had a name that translated to English as “Mr. Saddlebags.” The only description of it stated it was golden. Not much to go on. 

In 1930, Aharoni traveled to Syria and hired a hunter. They traveled the countryside looking for clues and then, on a farm, dug a hole and discovered a nest of small, golden animals. He had discovered hamsters. Mr. Saddlebags. 

Aharoni took the hamsters, and things quickly spiraled out of control. The mother ate several babies. A handful more escaped and were never found. But one pair of siblings bred, as hamsters tend to do. They became the Adam and Eve of the modern hamster world. That pair had 150 babies. They were transported to labs around the world and continued to breed. Today if you see a hamster in a pet store anywhere in the world, it’s almost guaranteed to be a descendent of that breeding pair.

8. White Mushrooms Can Be Traced to a Pennsylvania Farm in 1925

If you go to the grocery store looking for mushrooms right now, you will probably have a small handful of options, depending on how much variety your store has. But if they sell fresh mushrooms at all, then they’re going to be those white mushrooms sometimes called table or button mushrooms. They’re probably the most common type in the Western world and they can all be traced back to a single Pennsylvania farm in the year 1925.

Prior to 1925 mushrooms were chiefly brown. Your local store may sell brown cremini mushrooms next to white button mushrooms today and they look identical except for the color. That’s because they basically are. 

Louis Ferdinand Lambert was growing brown mushrooms at Keystone Mushroom Farm when he discovered a white one in the mix. It was a mutation, just a random chance. But he was an amateur mushroom scientist in the making, so he took that one back to his lab and cultivated the spores. 

The white mushrooms grew faster and were more uniform in shape and size. By 1933 it was the leading mushroom crop in the country and soon tens of millions of pounds were being produced each year. Customers were more attracted to the color and shape and it’s still the most popular mushroom today, all thanks to one little mutant in 1925.

7. 200 Million Rabbits in Australia Came From Just a Handful in the 1800s.

Australia is home to a wild rabbit population of around 200 million. Is that a lot of rabbits for a country the size of Australia? Definitely, when you consider it’s supposed to have none. As one of the many invasive species that has caused problems down under, rabbits were never meant to be there in the first place. Those 200 million all come from a handful that were released in the year 1859.

Though the animals had been on the continent as early as 1788, it’s believed that either 13 or 24 of them were let loose in 1859 from the farm of settler Thomas Austin. He had let the animals run in his yard and may have set them free for hunting. Obviously he didn’t manage to hunt them all. 

Australians have been fighting the losing battle against rabbits ever since. In the late 1800s they were killing two million per year and getting nowhere. Most famously they tried to erect a rabbit-proof fence across the entire country which is effective against larger animals but did not work on the rabbits. They were already on the far side of the fence before construction was finished.

6. Golden Retrievers Come From Two Dogs Named Nous and Belle

According to the American Kennel Club, the Golden Retriever was the third most popular dog breed in America in 2021. It’s consistently in the top ten breeds, in fact. They’re loveable and a bit goofy and they seem to make good family dogs. The entire breed can also be traced back to two specific dogs named Nous and Belle in the year 1868.

A Scotsman named Sir Dudley Courts Marjoribanks was the owner of the first of the breed, the dog named Nous who was said to be a yellow retriever of some kind. The original story was that Nous was a Russian circus dog but there’s no evidence of that being true. The real story seems to be that he was just out walking one day, saw the dog, and bought it off a cobbler.

Sir Dudley, as a breeder, kept detailed breeding logs. The records are still available today which show that he bred the dog with another named Belle, a Tweed Water Spaniel, in 1868 and they had a litter of four puppies. The resulting mix of Retriever and Water Spaniel made a light-coated sporting dog that clearly struck a chord with people. 

5. South Dakota’s Mountain Goats Come From Six Escaped Canadian Goats

Mountain goats, more properly known as Rocky Mountain Goats, can be found across Western Canada and the United States. Their population estimate is somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000. The ones found in the Black Hills can all be traced back to six goats from Canada. They were gifted to Custer State Park back in 1924 but goats being goats; they were not content to stay in their pens.

The six goats escaped and made their way into the wild where they took up residence in the granite mountains. That number is up over 200 today with no sign of slowing down any time soon. 

4. A Majority of Macadamia Trees Can Be Traced to One Australian Tree

Hawaii is famous for a lot of things from beautiful beaches to the luau. Macadamia nuts are also huge in the state with 40 million pounds being produced in 2019. While the bulk of macadamia nuts in the world come from Australia and South Africa, their origins are not so diverse. Seventy percent of all the macadamia nuts in the world can be traced to one single tree in Australia. 

Biodiversity in plants is a big deal. The lack of diversity in bananas cause an entire strain of them to die out once already, so this field is of great interest to scientists. When trying to trace the origins of macadamia trees they tested samples from farmed trees in Hawaii and wild ones in Australia and found they all linked back to a very small population on a private island called Moloo. The genetic differences between trees was so small that they believe they all probably descended from the same individual tree. 

3. Most Thoroughbreds Can Be Traced to the Darley Arabian

When a horse proves itself on the racetrack, it often gets retired to life as a stud where breeders try to continue and improve upon his genetic line. No horse seems to have done a better job of that than the Darley Arabian.

There are 500,000 Thoroughbred horses in the world. Thoroughbred, which is sometimes used as a synonym for “purebred,” is more properly a distinctive breed of race horse. These are typically considered the best racehorses in the world and nearly all half million can trace their lineage back to 28 specific horses. And among those, 95% of all males can be traced to one specific stallion – the Darley Arabian. 

Thomas Darley was said to have purchased, or maybe stolen, the colt from a sheik in Syria. The horse’s name was Manak or Manica. Many famous horses were sired by the Arabian back in England and it’s said the horse lived to be 30, which is a pretty advanced age for a horse. 

2. Almost 150,000 Faroese People Are All Descended From One Guy

The Faroe Islands are located in the North Atlantic Ocean near Iceland. There are about 158,000 people who live or have lived there and a stunning 149,000 of them can all trace their lineage back to the same man. The family reunions must be epic.

The prolific ancestor of most of the Faroese Islanders is known as Clemen Laugesen Follerup. Back in the 17th century he had 23 children. That turned into 66 grandchildren in 27 villages. 

Back in 2006, the people of the island were registered in something called the Genetic BioBank, a sort of national registry of genetics for the Faroese people. The computer program kept reading errors because everyone it registered turned out to be a cousin of everyone else. 

1. Blue Eyed People Can Be Traced to One Ancestor

Blue eyes are the second most common eye color in the world, though only about 10% of people have them. The color itself is a genetic mutation and scientists have traced it all the way back to a single common ancestor that lived between 6,000 and 10,000 years. Back then there were only brown eyed people. Mutation in a specific gene that governs eye color occurred in one individual and was passed down through the generations to the 10% of blue eyed people who exist today. 

The gene mutation worked in a way that switched off the brown allele for the affected individual and their ancestors. Basically, the option for brown eyes was removed because the body’s ability to produce melanin is reduced due to the mutation. That means brown eyes can’t fully form and you get blue eyes instead. There’s no genetic advantage to the mutation, but there’s no disadvantage either, and it seems to be one of those random chance things that pops up in nature.