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List of people who have mysteriously disappeared

This is a list of notable, historically testified people who mysteriously disappeared, and whose current whereabouts are unknown or whose deaths are not substantiated.

1412

Owain Glyndŵr, the last native Welsh person to hold the title Prince of Wales, instigated the Welsh Revolt against the rule of Henry IV of England in 1400. Although initially successful, the uprising was eventually put down, but Glyndŵr disappeared and was never captured, betrayed, or tempted by Royal Pardons. Nothing certain is now known of him after 1412, but efforts to identify his grave continue.

1483

Edward V of England and Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York, sons of King Edward IV of England, then aged 12 and 9 respectively, were placed in the Tower of London (which at that time served as a fortress and a royal palace, as well as a prison) by their uncle Richard III of England in 1483. Neither was ever seen in public again and their fate remains unknown. Ambiguous evidence has led to conflicting theories proposing various possible motives and suspects for the murder of the two princes.

1499

John Cabot: Italian explorer. His vessel disappeared, along with four other ships, during a voyage to find a western route from Europe to Asia.

1501

Gaspar Corte-Real: Portuguese explorer, disappeared on an expedition to discover the Northwest Passage from Europe to Asia.

1502

Miguel Corte-Real: Portuguese explorer. Disappeared while searching for his brother Gaspar.

1587 or 1588

Virginia Dare, born August 18 1587, and the first child of English parents to be born in the Americas, disappeared along with other Roanoke colonists.

1694

Philip Christoph von Königsmarck, Swedish count, lover of Sophia, Princess of Zelle (who was the wife of George I of Great Britain).

1803

George Bass, English explorer of Australia, set sail from Sydney for South America and was never heard from again.

1809

Benjamin Bathurst: British diplomat vanished at an inn in Perleberg.

1812

Theodosia Burr Alston, daughter of U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr and sometimes called the most educated American woman of her day, left on December 30, 1812, aboard the Patriot and sailed out of the harbor in Georgetown, South Carolina. The ship was never seen again.

1826

William Morgan of the U.S. state of New York disappeared around the time his book critical of Freemasonry was published.

1848

Khachatur Abovian (b.1809), Armenian writer and national public figure of the early 19th century, credited as creator of modern Armenian literature, left his house early one morning and was never heard from again.

1872

Captain Benjamin Briggs and nine other passengers and crew of the brigantine Mary Celeste disappeared. Their ship was found adrift with no one on board.

1888

Charles Bolles (a.k.a. "Black Bart"): U.S. outlaw of the "Old West". Disappeared shortly after his release from San Quentin State Prison in January 1888.

1890

Louis Le Prince, motion picture pioneer, disappeared after boarding a Paris-bound train at Dijon, France.

1896

Albert Jennings Fountain: and his eight-year-old son Henry disappeared near Las Cruces, New Mexico, United States.

1900

In December, three lighthouse keepers working on the Flannan Isles (off the northwestern coast of Scotland) disappeared. The mystery is commemorated in the ballad Flannan Isle.

1909

Joshua Slocum: an American seaman and adventurer (the first man to sail single-handedly around the world) disappeared in November 1909 while aboard his sloop-rigged fishing boat that he had named Spray.

1910

Dorothy Arnold: Manhattan socialite and perfume heiress, last seen in New York City on December 12, 1910.

1912

Bobby Dunbar, age 4, disappeared during a fishing trip in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. A child found in the custody of William Cantwell Walters of Mississippi some eight months later was ruled to be Bobby Dunbar by a court-appointed arbiter, and Walters was found guilty of kidnapping, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. The child grew up as Bobby Dunbar, had four children of his own, and died in 1966. In 2004, DNA tests proved that the child found was not related to Bobby Dunbar's brother, Alonzo.

1914

Ambrose Bierce (71), American author and journalist, disappeared without a trace during travels in Mexico. Last confirmed alive December 26, 1913 in Chihuahua.
F. Lewis Clark (52), businessman from the U.S. state of Idaho, disappeared while visiting Santa Barbara, California.
František Gellner (33), Czech poet, recruited to the Austro-Hungarian Army at the beginning of World War I and went to Galicia, where he disappeared.

1918

Arthur Cravan, French proto-dadaist writer and art critic, disappeared near Salina Cruz, Mexico, in November 1918, most likely drowning during a sailing trip in the Pacific Ocean.

1919

Ambrose Small: Canadian millionaire

1920

Victor Grayson: British socialist politician, probably murdered

1921

The captain and crew of the Carroll A. Deering, found beached near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

1925

Percy Fawcett (58), British archaeologist and explorer, together with his eldest son Jack and friend Raleigh Rimmell, were last seen travelling into the jungle of Mato Grosso in Brazil to search for a hidden "city of gold". Several unconfirmed sightings and many conflicting reports and theories explaining their disappearance followed, but despite the loss of over 100 lives in more than a dozen follow-up expeditions, and the recovery of some of Fawcett's belongings, their fate remains a mystery.
Frederick McDonald (53), Australian politician, set off from Martin Place, Sydney to a meeting two blocks away with Jack Lang but failed to arrive and was never heard from again. He was possibly murdered by his political rival Thomas John Ley. In 1947, Ley was convicted at the Old Bailey of "the chalkpit murder" of a barman in England and sentenced to hang, but then declared insane and sent to Broadmoor high security psychiatric hospital where he died of a cerebral hemorrhage two months later.

1927

Charles Nungesser, a French aviator, and his navigator, Francois Coli, disappeared while attempting a flight from Paris to New York. They are presumed to have crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, or possibly in Newfoundland or Maine, but no wreckage that could be confirmed to be from their biplane, The White Bird, has ever been found.

1928

Glen and Bessie Hyde: American newlyweds who disappeared while attempting to raft the Colorado River rapids of the Grand Canyon.

1930

Joseph Force Crater, Associate Justice of the New York Supreme Court, was last seen entering a New York City taxi cab, and his mistress Sally Lou Ritz went missing a few weeks later;neither was ever heard from again. Crater's disappearance prompted one of the most sensational manhunts of the 20th century, was the subject of widespread media attention and a grand jury investigation, and the term "pull a Crater" became common slang for a person vanishing. He was declared legally dead in 1939 and his missing persons file was officially closed in 1979, but Cold Case Squad detectives have investigated new leads as recently as 2005.

1934

Wallace Fard Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam.
Everett Ruess, American writer and artist known for his vagrant lifestyle and his statements on life and adventure. At the age of 20 he went into the Utah desert with two burros and never returned. His remains have never been found.

1936

Joseph Rodriguez: Four-year-old child and resident of Spanish Harlem, New York City, who disappeared in 1936 while playing with friends. Although Rodriguez' aunt received a telegram informing her that her nephew had been injured and would return home shortly, Joseph never appeared. There was no further communication from the writer and no trace of Joseph's body was ever found.

1937

Amelia Earhart, famous American aviator, and her navigator, Fred Noonan, went missing over the central Pacific Ocean in the vicinity of Howland Island, while attempting a circumnavigational flight of the globe.
Sigizmund Levanevsky, a famous Soviet aviator, missing since about August 13, 1937. He and a six-man crew attempted to make a historic flight from Moscow to the United States by way of the North Pole. They did not reach their destination, and their last radio message mentioned weather problems.

1938

Ettore Majorana, Italian physicist. Disappeared during a boat trip from Naples to Palermo.
Andrew Carnegie Whitfield: nephew of U.S. steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, disappeared while piloting a small airplane over Long Island, New York.

1939

Lloyd L. Gaines, figure in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. He successfully sued for admission to the Law School at the University of Missouri in 1938. He left his fraternity house to buy stamps and disappeared.

1944

Glenn Miller, the popular American jazz musician and bandleader, went missing over the English Channel, en route from England to France to play for troops in recently liberated Paris. The remains of the aircraft and those on board were never recovered.

1945

Heinrich Müller, Nazi Gestapo chief, last confirmed sighting in the Führerbunker on the evening of May 1st, the day after Hitler's suicide. The NARA review of his CIA file and related documents states that while the record is "...inconclusive on Müller's ultimate fate ... [he] most likely died in Berlin in early May 1945.
Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat credited with saving tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust.
Subhas Chandra Bose, one of the most prominent leaders of the Indian Independence Movement, disappeared after a plane crash in Taiwan. His body was never recovered and his death has long been the subject of dispute.

1946

Paula Jean Welden, an 18-year-old Bennington College sophomore student who vanished while hiking in the Glastenbury Mountain area a few miles east of Bennington, Vermont.

1948

Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham: prominent passenger aboard the Avro Tudor IV aircraft the Star Tiger, which disappeared on January 30, 1948 enroute from the Azores to Bermuda in an area of the Atlantic Ocean referred to as the Bermuda Triangle. Star Tiger's sister aircraft, Star Ariel, disappeared the following year on a flight from Bermuda to Kingston, Jamaica.

1950

Richard Colvin Cox: a second-year military cadet who disappeared from the United States Military Academy at West Point.

1953

First Lieutenant Felix Moncla, pilot, and Second Lieutenant Robert L. Wilson, radar operator, disappeared while hunting an unidentified flying object over the U.S.-Canadian border near Lake Superior.

1955

Curtis Chillingworth was a judge in the U.S. state of Florida who (together with his wife, Marjorie Chillingworth) disappeared from his Manapalan, Florida, home in June 1955. Authorities later learned that the couple were abducted, taken offshore and killed as part of a murder-for-hire plot.
The crew and passengers of the Joyita, which disappeared in the South Pacific ocean; five weeks later, the Joyita re-appeared with no one on board.
Weldon Kees, U.S. poet. On July 19, 1955, Kees's Plymouth Savoy was found on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge with the keys in the ignition. He left no note and his body was never found, but he was known to have talked about packing up and moving to Mexico.

1956

Lionel "Buster" Crabb: British frogman who disappeared during an MI6 mission investigating the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze in Portsmouth Harbour. A decapitated body was found some months later but never positively identified.

1957

Moira McCall Anderson was an 11-year-old schoolgirl who disappeared while on an errand for her grandmother in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, Scotland. The Moira Anderson Foundation was established in memory of her.

1959

Camilo Cienfuegos was a Cuban revolutionary. He disappeared and presumably died on October 28, 1959, in a Cessna accident due to bad weather while flying over the sea. However, neither his plane nor his body was ever recovered despite Cuban government efforts.

1961

Michael Rockefeller: son of Nelson Rockefeller, disappeared during an expedition in the Asmat region of southwestern New Guinea.

1962

Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin escaped from Alcatraz prison in the U.S. state of California and disappeared. Authorities presumed that they drowned but no bodies were ever recovered.

1966

The Beaumont children: Jane (9), Arnna (7) and Grant (4), all disappeared from a beach in Adelaide, Australia, on 26 January.

1967

Harold Holt: Australian Prime Minister, disappeared while at the beach out on a swim.
James P. Brady - a Canadian Metis leader who disappeared in northern Saskatchewan while on a prospecting trip with a Cree companion (who also disappeared).
Jim Thompson: a former U.S. military intelligence officer who once worked for the Office of Strategic Services and an entrepreneur often credited for bringing Thai silks to the Western world, disappeared while on a walk at a rural Malaysian hill-station.

1969

Donald Crowhurst - English businessman and amateur sailor who died while competing in a single-handed, round-the-world yacht race.

1970

Sean Flynn, American photojournalist and son of Errol Flynn and Lili Damita; believed captured by factions of Viet Cong and/or Khmer Rouge in 1970; believed killed 1971, Bei Met, Cambodia
Donna Lass, an American nurse last seen in Stateline, Nevada.
Robin Graham, an 18 year old student, ran out of gas on the Hollywood Freeway. She was last seen by California Highway Patrol officers who directed her to a call box, and later saw her speaking with a man beside her car. The circumstances of her disappearance resulted in CHP policy being changed to ensure the safety of stranded female motorists.

1971

D.B. Cooper: skyjacker, true identity unknown, jumped from a hijacked Boeing 727 over the Pacific Northwest region of the United States on November 24, 1971.

1972

Nicholas Begich and Hale Boggs: American Congressmen who both disappeared October 16, 1972, when the Cessna 310 in which they were riding went missing en route to Juneau, Alaska, from Anchorage.

1974

Oscar Zeta Acosta: American attorney and Chicano activist. Most famous for portrayal as "Dr. Gonzo" in Hunter S. Thompson's book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Richard Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, whose whereabouts have been unknown since his children's nanny, Sandra Rivett, was beaten to death with a lead pipe in the basement of his estranged wife's home. In 1975, Lord Lucan was the last person ever to be deemed a murderer by a coroner's jury. He was officially declared dead in 1999.
Malcolm ("Mac") Graham: An avid U.S. yachting enthusiast from San Diego, California, disappeared along with his wife from Palmyra Atoll sometime between August 28 and August 30, 1974. Although he is believed to have been murdered, and his wife's remains were found in 1981, his own remains have never been located.

1975

Bas Jan Ader: Dutch artist who disappeared while attempting to sail across the Atlantic Ocean.
Jimmy Hoffa: U.S. trade union leader, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Lyon Sisters: two U.S. pre-teen girls who disappeared on their way home from a neighborhood mall.
Juanita Nielsen, Australian publisher, heiress and anti-development campaigner, disappeared from Kings Cross, Sydney aged 38.

1976

Renee MacRae and her 3 year old son Andrew were last seen in Inverness, Scotland. They are thought to have been murdered and their remains have never been found. Their disappearance is Britain's longest running missing person's case. Northern Constabulary renewed their search for evidence in 2004 and named a suspect in a report to the procurator fiscal in October 2006, however the Crown Office declared there was insufficient evidence to go to court.

1977

Donald Mackay - Australian anti-drugs campaigner who disappeared on 15 July 1977 and is believed to have been murdered.
Helen Brach - U.S.A. an heiress who championed animal welfare, Brach disappeared February 1977 while travelling from a trip to the Mayo Clinic

1978

John Brisker: former American Basketball Association and National Basketball Association player, disappeared after flying to Uganda.
Mel Lyman: cult leader. Claimed by cult members to have died 1978, but no body, death certificate, or other proof were ever produced. The date of death and burial place are unknown outside the "Lyman Family".
Frederick Valentich 20-year old Australian pilot, disappeared while flying across Bass Strait, in what has been claimed by some people as a UFO encounter.
Genette Tate: 13-year old girl who disappeared whilst doing a newspaper round in the English county of Devon in August 1978.
Sayyid Mousa al-Sadr, Lebanese philosopher and a prominent Shi'a religious leader, disappeared on a tour to Libya on August 31 , 1978 and was never found.

1979

Etan Patz: schoolboy, disappeared while walking to New York City bus stop.
Louis Cafora: An armed robber from the U.S. state of New York.

1980

Azaria Chamberlain, Australian baby girl, presumed to have been taken by a dingo near Uluru. Some clothing items were later recovered, but her remains have never been found
Louise and Charmian Faulkner: mother and toddler daughter who disappeared from outside their residence in St Kilda, Melbourne, Australia.

1982

Johnny Gosch: Paperboy in Des Moines, Iowa, United States, abducted while delivering papers. His image was one of the first national missing children notices to appear on milk cartons, and later the cover of Newsweek.

1983

Emanuela Orlandi: a citizen of Vatican City.
Kirsa Jensen: disappeared while riding her horse to the beach at Awatoto, Napier, New Zealand on Sept 1 1983. Her disappearance is still one of New Zealand's biggest unsolved cases.

1984

Kevin Andrew Collins: U.S. youth from San Francisco
Boris Weisfeiler: U.S. mathematician who went missing in Chile.

1985

Vladimir Alexandrov, Russian physicist, disappeared while attending a nuclear winter conference in Madrid.

1986

Suzy Lamplugh, a British estate agent who went missing from Fulham, West London and was declared dead, presumed murdered, in 1994. Despite further police investigations in 1998 and 2000, no trace of her has ever been found.

1989

Jacob Wetterling, kidnapped on October 22 in St Joseph, Minnesota, USA. Was never found.

1991

Sarah MacDiarmid: young female, disappeared from Kananook station in Melbourne, Australia.
Ben Needham: 21 month old male, disappeared from the island of Kos in Greece, 24 July. He has never been found. It was believed Ben was abducted and several suspects in Kos and Veria were suggested as being responsible, no one was ever charged with abduction.
Michael Dunahee: (born May 12, 1986) is a missing child from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, disappeared aged five.

1992

The Springfield Three - Sherrill Levitt (47), her daughter Suzie Streeter (19), and Suzie's friend Stacy McCall (18) - disappeared from Levitt's home in Springfield, Missouri, in an apparent triple kidnapping and murder.

1994

Michael Anthony Hughes has been missing since his abduction from Indian Meridian Elementary School in Choctaw, Oklahoma, United States, by Franklin Delano Floyd (who claimed to be his father) on September 12 of that year. Floyd has claimed that Hughes is still alive somewhere in the U.S., but has not disclosed his location.
Ylenia Carrisi, Italian TV celebrity and daughter of singers Albano Carrisi and Romina Power. Disappeared during a vacation in New Orleans.

1995

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, born April 25 1989 in Lhari County, Tibet, and recognized by the current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, as the 11th Panchen Lama on May 14, 1995, was removed by the government of the People's Republic of China three days later. No one could meet him since then.
Richey James Edwards: member of Welsh rock band the Manic Street Preachers. His car was found abandoned next to the Severn Bridge, a bridge notorious for suicides. He was suffering from an array of mental health problems up to his disappearance, but was never considered suicidal.
Jodi Huisentruit: abducted outside her apartment while on her way to work as a KIMT news anchor in the U.S. state of Iowa.

1996

Kristin Denise Smart: a student at California Polytechnic State University who disappeared after leaving a party.

1997

Grant Hadwin: unemployed logger who cut down Canada's landmark Golden Spruce as a protest against the logging industry. He disappeared while kayaking across British Columbia's Hecate Strait en route to his trial.
Kristen Modafferi, a former college student from Charlotte, North Carolina, who vanished without trace while on a summer-away study program in the San Francisco Bay Area.

1998

Tom and Eileen Lonergan were an American couple left stranded due to a faulty head count while scuba diving in shark-infested waters off Australia's Great Barrier Reef, and not reported missing until their belongings were found on the dive boat two days later. Double suicide and murder/suicide theories were ruled out by police and the coroner, who charged skipper Jack Nairn with manslaughter; he was acquitted in November 1999. The 2003 film Open Water was loosely based on the Lonergans' story.
Amy Lynn Bradley, an American passenger on the Royal Caribbean International cruise ship MS Rhapsody of the Seas, disappeared while the ship was docking in Curaçao, Antilles.
Florinda Donner and Taisha Abelar, along with several other female followers of Carlos Castaneda, disappeared shortly after his death. The remains of one, Patricia Partin, were found in 2003; the whereabouts of the others are unknown.

2000

Bruno Manser: Swiss born activist who fervently campaigned for the preservation of rainforests in Sarawak.
Trevor Deely: Disappeared in Dublin. He was last seen on December 7, 2000

2001

Peter Falconio: a British tourist who was murdered by Bradley John Murdoch in the Australian outback but whose body was never found.
Jason Jolkowski: A 19-year-old resident of Omaha, Nebraska who disappeared on June 13, 2001. Following his disappearance, his parents founded Project Jason, a nonprofit organization that assists families of missing persons.

2002

Bison Dele (aka Brian Williams): former National Basketball Association player, thought to have been murdered in the Pacific Ocean by his brother, body never found.

2003

Ben Charles Padilla: a licensed aircraft mechanic, flight engineer, and pilot of small airplanes who has been missing since May 25 2003 when Boeing 727-223 designation N844AA with him on board was stolen from Luanda, Angola. The aircraft was subsequently sighted in Conakry, Guinea, in July 2003.
Daniel Morcombe, an Australian teenager, disappeared from the roadside near his Sunshine Coast home. Police believe he was abducted and murdered, but his body has never been found.

2004

Maura Murray: an American college student from Massachusetts, who disappeared after a one-car accident in New Hampshire.
irena asher: a 25 years old new zealand woman last seen the 10th of october 2004,around 1am near piha beach,40km from auckland

2005

Natalee Holloway, an American teenager, was last seen leaving a nightclub in Aruba with three men.
Ray Gricar: District Attorney in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania
Charles Rutherford Jr.: Attorney who disappeared with his girlfriend in Lake Huron; her body was later found.
Patrick McDermott: partner of Olivia Newton-John; disappeared on return from a fishing cruise off San Pedro, California.
George Allen Smith: from Greenwich, Connecticut, United States, was discovered to be missing on July 5, 2005, ten days after his wedding to Jennifer Hagel Smith, while cruising the eastern Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Turkey aboard the Royal Caribbean cruise ship, Brilliance of the Seas.

2006

Joe Pichler, an American child actor, vanished from his home town of Bremerton, Washington at the age of 18. Four days after he was last heard from, his car was found above the Port Madison Narrows; inside, police discovered a note which they characterized as a suicide note. The message expressed suicidal thoughts and asked that his belongings go to his younger brother, but did not explicitly state that he intended to take his own life.
Jorge Julio López, Argentine retired bricklayer, was kidnapped during the National Reorganization Process, and disappeared again during the democratic government of President Néstor Kirchner after testifying in trial against Dirty War criminal Miguel Etchecolatz.
Sivasubramaniam Raveendranath, a Sri Lankan Tamil academic and Vice Chancellor of the Eastern University of Sri Lanka, disappeared while attending a conference in Colombo.

2007

Jim Gray (63), database pioneer, Microsoft research scientist, and Turing Award winner, left San Francisco Bay in his 12 meter sailboat to scatter his mother's ashes at the Farallon Islands, a wildlife refuge 43 km away, and was reported missing when he failed to return later the same day. No Mayday call was heard, his distress radiobeacon was not activated, and despite one of the most ambitious search and rescue missions of all time, no trace of Gray or his yacht was ever found.
Derek Batten (56), and brothers Peter Tunstead (69) and James Tunstead (63), departed Shute Harbour for Townsville, Queensland aboard Batten's 9.8 meter catamaran Kaz II. Five days later when the yacht was found adrift with its sails up and engine running, all three crew were missing and the Global Positioning System showed it had been drifting since around the time of their last known radio contact, about 11 hours after leaving Shute Harbour.
Steve Fossett (63), American aviator, sailor, and adventurer went missing on September 3 and was declared legally dead the following February. The wreckage of the light aircraft he had been flying solo at the time of his disappearance was found near Mammoth Lakes, California in October 2008. Some of his personal belongings were also discovered nearby, but Fossett himself is still missing.
Madeleine McCann, a 3-year-old British girl, went missing after being left unsupervised in the unlocked ground floor bedroom of her family's rented holiday apartment in the Algarve (Portugal). There have been no confirmed sightings of her since she disappeared.

2008

Leonid Rozhetskin (41), Russian-born British media magnate, disappeared from his house in Jūrmala, Latvia, in what Latvian police described as "extremely worrying circumstances", and may have been the victim of a political murder plot.
Caylee Anthony, disappeared in June. Much speculation has been pointed at her mother, Casey Anthony.