These Mysterious Disappearances In History Are Pretty Unexplainable

I feel like I'm under-cutting the scale or wording when I say that it's incredibly frustrating when a person mysteriously disappears. It's also frustrating when there are no answers or clues to tell us what happened to that person.

There are an unfortunate amount of unsolved mysteries that feel like they're straight from a fictional novel. This article explores some of the most bizarre and creepy cases that have caused an insane amount of confusion for the families and law enforcement involved.

Felix Moncla

Photo Credit: Twitter / @alejandrav1010
Photo Credit: Twitter / @alejandrav1010

In November 1953, Felix Moncla was sent to check on an unidentified aircraft while working for the US Air Force.

When he flew out, the radar showed Moncla and the unidentified aircraft overlapping each other. Soon after, only one remained and the UFO flew north. There was no trace of Moncla or his aircraft.

ADVERTISEMENT

J.C.P. Williams

ADVERTISEMENT
Imgur
Imgur
ADVERTISEMENT

He was a New Zealand cardiologist that was responsible for what is now known as Williams Syndrome. J.C.P. Williams had a breakthrough discovery about a developmental disorder affecting growth and proportion in many body parts.

ADVERTISEMENT

He was offered a position at the Mayo Clinic but failed to show up and disappeared entirely. London was his last known location.

ADVERTISEMENT

Cheryl Grimmer

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Twitter / @nswpolice
Twitter / @nswpolice
ADVERTISEMENT

Cheryl Grimmer was born in 1967, and was only three years old when she went missing. Her family was at a beach in Australia when she was left alone for thirty second near the showers and was gone.

ADVERTISEMENT

Witnesses claim a man grabbed her and ran off but she was never seen again.

ADVERTISEMENT

Boston Corbett

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Twitter / @OldNewsCo
Twitter / @OldNewsCo
ADVERTISEMENT

You may know Boston from his nickname, "Lincoln's Avenger" from his time spent hunting down John Wilkes Booth — the notorious assassin.

ADVERTISEMENT

He killed Booth. But, a short time after he went insane and was put into an asylum. He broke out of that asylum and disappeared, never to be seen again.

ADVERTISEMENT

Lionel Crabb

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Twitter / @Makeleio
Twitter / @Makeleio
ADVERTISEMENT

Lionel Crabb served in World War Two in the Navy. In 1956, he was recruited by MI6 to help do reconnaissance on a Russian cruiser.

ADVERTISEMENT

Once he got in his scuba gear and jumped into the water, he disappeared immediately. A short time later, a body with no hands or head washed up on shore and it couldn't be determined if it was his.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Springfield Three

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Imgur
Imgur
ADVERTISEMENT

After a late night of partying, Suzanne Streeter and Stacy McCall went home to Streeter's house. Suzanne's mother, Sherrill Levitt, was waiting there for them to get home.

ADVERTISEMENT

All three of them vanished. Their purses were unchecked at the top of the stairs in the house. There was no sign of struggle. For nearly three decades they've been missing.

ADVERTISEMENT

John Ruffo

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Twitter / @NBCChicago
Twitter / @NBCChicago
ADVERTISEMENT

A well-known businessman, John Ruffo, conned US banks out of $350 million. He was convicted and sentenced to 220 months in prison, but he disappeared.

ADVERTISEMENT

This picture of him at this ATM is the last known picture of him. He has been at-large since 1998. He's believed to be overseas with a new identity.

ADVERTISEMENT

Forrest Schab

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Twitter / @DY
Twitter / @DY
ADVERTISEMENT

After recently signing with CP Records, Canadian rapper DY went to Mexico to celebrate. But, he wouldn't make it back to Canada after he vanished without a trace.

ADVERTISEMENT

There are a lot of rumors that surround this story, but many people believe that it could be drug-related. Very bizarre.

ADVERTISEMENT

Jim Sullivan

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Twitter / @digitalhiss
Twitter / @digitalhiss
ADVERTISEMENT

Malibu, California musician Jim Sullivan released his album U.F.O. in 1969, but he never truly got mainstream fame.

ADVERTISEMENT

He decided to pack up from Cali and drive to Nashville, but he never made it. His truck was found near New Mexico abandoned. Weirdly enough, his album U.F.O. was all about driving to a desert and leaving his family while getting abducted by aliens.

ADVERTISEMENT

Sigizmund Levanevsky

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Twitter / @maxfield_munson
Twitter / @maxfield_munson
ADVERTISEMENT

In 1937, Moscow held an event to celebrate their new bomber plane. The leader of the Soviet Union, Joesph Stalin, invited Western media to come and cover the event.

ADVERTISEMENT

Russian pilot Sigizmund Levanevsky got into the cockpit and took off. He flew toward Alaska and was never seen again. The wreckage was never found.

ADVERTISEMENT

Henry Hudson

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
GettyImages-151390860
Interim Archives/Getty Images
Interim Archives/Getty Images
ADVERTISEMENT

Henry Hudson is perhaps one of the bravest explorers known for mapping North America. He was hired to find a northern passage to Asia.

ADVERTISEMENT

He and his crew hit a very cold Canadian winter and they wanted to turn back. Hudson didn't. But, that was the last straw for the other guys onboard as he was never seen again.

ADVERTISEMENT

Charles Kingsford Smith

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Twitter / @BrisbaneAirport
Twitter / @BrisbaneAirport
ADVERTISEMENT

Smith was a popular and charismatic aviator. He was a pilot that was able to cross off a lot of "firsts", like crossing the mainland Australia entirely and flying from Sydney to London.

ADVERTISEMENT

However, in 1935, on his way back from London to Australia, he crashed near Myanmar. They discovered the undercarriage, but no other wreckage of the plane or pilot was found.

ADVERTISEMENT

Paula Jean Welden

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Twitter / @lineupweekly
Twitter / @lineupweekly
ADVERTISEMENT

Paula Jean Welden was a sophomore at Bennington College in 1946 when she vanished without a trace. She told her roommate that she was going for a quick walk and never returned.

ADVERTISEMENT

Over the next 10 years, a local Bennington man bragged that he knew where her body was buried, but couldn't lead police to the gravesite.

ADVERTISEMENT

Jodi Huisentruit

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Twitter / @mysteriYES
Twitter / @mysteriYES
ADVERTISEMENT

Jodi Huisentruit was an Iowa news anchor that was full of life and energy. She disappeared in 1995 from her parking lot at four in the morning when she was heading to work.

ADVERTISEMENT

There were no signs of a struggle and some of her belongings were found beside her car. Her fate remains unknown.

ADVERTISEMENT

Ray Gricar

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Twitter / @frontcovercom
Twitter / @frontcovercom
ADVERTISEMENT

This one is truly bizarre. Ray Gricar was a homicide prosecutor for Centre County, Pennsylvania. He told his girlfriend in 2005 that he was going to skip work for the day to do some shopping.

ADVERTISEMENT

The next day his car was found by a state trooper with no sign of him. His laptop was found six months later under a bridge with no hard drive. He has not been seen since.

ADVERTISEMENT

Brian Shaffer

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Twitter / @truecrimegarage
Twitter / @truecrimegarage
ADVERTISEMENT

This was the last picture of Brian Shaffer before he went missing. The 27-year-old medical student was seen entering an Ohio bar with his friends, but he never left.

ADVERTISEMENT

Some think that he slipped out of the bar alone as he was grieving the recent death of his mother and then something terrible happened to him.

ADVERTISEMENT

Barbara Bolick

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Imgur
Imgur
ADVERTISEMENT

Barbara Bolick went for a hike with a family friend in the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana. According to the friend, Jim Ramaker, he and Barbara headed to an overlook where they stopped for a snack.

ADVERTISEMENT

Barb walked back down the trail as Jim took one last look at the view. She then vanished without a trace. More than a decade later, she's still missing.

ADVERTISEMENT

Lauren Spierer

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Twitter / @FoxNews
Twitter / @FoxNews
ADVERTISEMENT

On June 30th, 2011 Lauren Spierer disappeared after a night of partying with her friends. The Indiana University student is still missing and there are no leads on her whereabouts.

ADVERTISEMENT

Her parents haven't given up the fight and have maintained a social media presence to help get their daughter back.

ADVERTISEMENT

Tara Calico

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Imgur
Imgur
ADVERTISEMENT

19-year-old Tara Calico left her home to go for a bike ride and was never seen again. Her case went cold until someone found this polaroid in a parking lot.

ADVERTISEMENT

Two other pictures surfaced of a girl looking like Tara. They can't be confirmed though. Police think that she was accidentally hit while on her bike and buried that same day.

ADVERTISEMENT

Teresa Butler

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Twitter / @truenoir1
Twitter / @truenoir1
ADVERTISEMENT

The husband of Teresa Butler returned home after a work shift to discover his wife was missing in 2006. Her jeep was still at the house but there were no signs of Teresa.

ADVERTISEMENT

A lot of valuables were stolen and her cell phone was missing. Two calls were made from her phone after she went missing, but neither of the people she called had ever heard of her before. There are still no answers as to where she went.

ADVERTISEMENT

Asha Degree

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Imgur
Imgur
ADVERTISEMENT

The parents of nine-year-old Asha Degree went to wake her up one morning in 2000, and she wasn't there. Asha shared a room with her brother, but he had no idea what happened.

ADVERTISEMENT

She was reportedly seen walking on the highway at four in the morning. A few days later, her books and pencils were found near a neighbors house. She's still missing and no one knows where she went.

ADVERTISEMENT

Barbara Newhall Follett

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Imgur
Imgur
ADVERTISEMENT

She was some kind of literary genius at a young age. By the time she was eight years old, she had already written a novel. By 18, she had written four.

ADVERTISEMENT

Follett fell into a depression and on the evening of December 7th, 1939, she walked out of her house after an argument with her husband and was never heard from or seen again.

ADVERTISEMENT

Patty Blough, Renee Bruhl, And Ann Miller

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Imgur
Imgur
ADVERTISEMENT

Three young women went missing without a trace after boarding a small boat on Lake Michigan. Many people believe that they were going to visit a floating abortion clinic (this took place in 1966 which was seven years before Roe v Wade).

ADVERTISEMENT

They think that one of the girls died, and the other two were killed because they were witnesses.

ADVERTISEMENT

Keith Reinhard

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Imgur
Imgur
ADVERTISEMENT

When Tom Young went to take his dog for a walk one day in 1987, he never returned. Young had been renting a retail space in town, which was then rented to Keith Reinhard.

ADVERTISEMENT

Reinhard ended up writing about Young's story. A week after Young's body was found, Reinhard went for a hike and never returned. Coincidence? No one knows.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Sarah Joe

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Imgur
Imgur
ADVERTISEMENT

Five friends departed the coast of Maui for a fun day of fishing on a small boat called the Sarah Joe. They ended up motoring into Hawaii's worst storm on record.

ADVERTISEMENT

They failed to return and a massive search was underway but failed. A decade later, the Sarah Joe was found wrecked on the coast of one of the Marshall Islands. It was next to the grave of one of the five men in the boat. How did he get there? Who buried him?

ADVERTISEMENT

Elisa Lam

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Imgur
Imgur
ADVERTISEMENT

Elisa Lam was found dead inside of a hotel's rooftop water tank in 2013. She was seen on surveillance video the night she disappeared walking into an elevator and hiding as if someone was following her.

ADVERTISEMENT

She is last seen walking out of the elevator and no one else ended up making an appearance. She was found weeks later.

ADVERTISEMENT

Ken McElroy

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Imgur
Imgur
ADVERTISEMENT

Ken was hated in the town of Skidmore, Missouri. He was accused of theft, violence, pedophilia, and all sorts of other scumbaggery.

ADVERTISEMENT

The people who lived in the town had enough of law enforcement not doing anything about him, so they took matters into their own hands. Two unknown shooters killed him in the middle of the street. There were 45 witnesses, all of which were "hiding from gunfire". The killers didn't get caught.

ADVERTISEMENT

Garnell Moore

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Imgur
Imgur
ADVERTISEMENT

Garnell has been missing since 2002. His mother is in prison and his dad is nomadic, to say the least. He was staying with his aunt the last time he was seen.

ADVERTISEMENT

When Garnell's relatives realized he was missing, his aunt gave some elusive answers. She first said he was on a field trip, then said he was dropped outside of school. She couldn't give the address of the school though. He has been missing since.

ADVERTISEMENT

Amy Lynn Bradley

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Imgur
Imgur
ADVERTISEMENT

In 1998, Virginia native Amy Lynn Bradley mysteriously disappeared while on a Caribbean cruise with her family.

ADVERTISEMENT

Many people suspect she fell overboard or left the ship voluntarily. But there have been several sighting of what looks like Bradley which suggests she was kidnapped and possibly forced into sex trade.

ADVERTISEMENT

Zach Ramsay

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Imgur
Imgur
ADVERTISEMENT

In 1996, Zach Ramsay disappeared on his walk to school in Great Falls, Montana. Known child molester Nathaniel Bar-Jonah was suspected of the crime, but there was no evidence.

ADVERTISEMENT

Bar-Jonah was arrested on other crimes, and police found a list with Zach's name on it. Police also found coded messages like "Little Boy Pot Pie" and "lunch is served on the patio with roasted children". They still haven't found him.

ADVERTISEMENT

Ylenia Carrisi

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Pinterest
Pinterest
ADVERTISEMENT

An Italian TV celebrity, Ylenia Carrisi was the daughter of Italian singers and actors Albano Carrisi and Romina Power. After visiting New Orleans in January 1994, she suddenly had disappeared without a trace.

ADVERTISEMENT

Although many people had different theories about her disappearance, whether she was abducted or ran away, upon her father’s request, she was presumed dead in January 2014. However, since her disappearance numerous people have claimed to have sighted her alive.

ADVERTISEMENT

Tara Grinstead

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Pinterest
Pinterest
ADVERTISEMENT

Tara Grinstead was a high school history teacher in Ocilla, Georgia. On October 22, 2005, she went missing under mysterious circumstances. Then, in 2009, a video surfaced on the Internet of a a self-proclaimed serial killer who called himself the “Catch Me Killer.”

ADVERTISEMENT

He went into detail on 16 murders that he had committed over the years, with one of them fitting the description of Tara Grinstead who had disappeared four years earlier. The video was later classified as a hoax and neither the Georgia police or FBI ever found any suspects of Grinstead’s body.

ADVERTISEMENT

Richey Edwards

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images
Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images
ADVERTISEMENT

Richey Edwards is best known for being the rhythm guitarist for the Welsh rock and roll group Manic Street preachers. The group came into popularity during the 1990s, so his disappearances came hard to many of his fans.

ADVERTISEMENT

Unfortunately, he had a history of alcoholism, self injury, anorexia, nervosa, and depression in the years leading up to his disappearance. However, his car was found abandoned in in a popular suicide location in 1995 although his body was never located

ADVERTISEMENT

Harold Holt

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Bettmann/Getty Images
Bettmann/Getty Images
ADVERTISEMENT

If you were around during the ‘60s then you know that Harold Holt was the Prime Minister during that time. He liked to call himself an outdoorsman and loved to go spearfishing. The water was the last thing he was afraid of and he could tread water better than he could swim.

ADVERTISEMENT

On December 17, 1967, Holt and some friends were returning to shore on a yacht when he suggested they stop by Cheviot Beach for a swim. Holt swam far out and never returned. After a massive search, he was declared dead in absentia and its widely believed that he drowned. Nobody found and this theory has never been proven.

ADVERTISEMENT

Bison Dele

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Jonathan Daniel /Allsport
Jonathan Daniel /Allsport
ADVERTISEMENT

Before he was Bison Dele, his name was Brian Williams. Williams won an NBA championship with the Chicago Bulls back in 1997 when Michael Jordan. The crazy thing is, Williams, renounced basketball and retired in his prime.

ADVERTISEMENT

He went on to explore new countries and new hobbies, most notably sailing. In the early 2000’s he planned to voyage from Tahiti to Hawaii. Dele, his girlfriend, older brother, and the ship’s captain set out on Dele’s catamaran on July 6, 2002. Dele, the girlfriend, and captain were never seen again.

ADVERTISEMENT

Glenn Miller

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
ADVERTISEMENT

Glen Miller was a big-band trombonist and bandleader during the swing era of the 1940s. Once WWII began, Miller enlisted in the Air Force to be a good citizen. On December 15, 1944, Miller was ordered to fly to Paris, where he was going to meet his band for a performance.

ADVERTISEMENT

Miller boarded a single-engine UC-64 Norseman with two other passengers, but they would never touch down in Europe. Miller and the other two passengers were never heard from again, but if they crashed, the wreckage and their bodies were never found.

ADVERTISEMENT

Scott Smith

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Larry Hulst/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Larry Hulst/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
ADVERTISEMENT

After disappearing in 2000, many believed Canadian rocker Scott Smith died in a boating accident. Smith was the bassist for Loverboy, whose hits “This Could Be the Night” and “Working for the Weekend” became huge in the ’80s.

ADVERTISEMENT

In November 2000, he and his friends embarked on a sailing trip that would send them from Mexico to Vancouver. Near San Francisco, a large wave took over the boat and Smith vanished. He probably was swept overboard, but U.S. Coast Guard searches for his body or remains turned up fruitless.

ADVERTISEMENT

Rico Harris

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

Rico Harris was a former basketball player with the Harlem Globetrotters, whose alcohol problems caused him to lose a promising career in the sport. He became a security guard after leaving the team, but eventually, his drinking caused him to lost that job too.

ADVERTISEMENT

At that point, he moved to Seattle to live with a girlfriend. In 2014, he visited California to see his mother but he would never make it back to Seattle. Authorities later found his car abandoned outside of Sacramento, but Harris was nowhere to be found.

ADVERTISEMENT

Michael Rockefeller

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
T. Nielsen/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
T. Nielsen/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
ADVERTISEMENT

Michael Rockefeller is obviously from the famed Rockefeller family, but unfortunately, his namesake wasn’t enough to get the resources to find him when he disappeared. Rockefeller went on an expedition to New Guinea to study native tribes with Harvard’s Peabody Museum.

ADVERTISEMENT

He was last seen on November 17, 1961, when his boat overturned near New Guinea. The Dutch anthropologist he was with survived, but Rockefeller’s body was never found. At this point, it is widely believed that he drowned.

ADVERTISEMENT

Connie Converse

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

Connie Converse might have been a popular singer-songwriter in her day if she hadn’t disappeared. Throughout the ‘50s, Converse lived in New York City to establish herself in the music scene. The lack of success there caused her to move to Michigan, where she worked as an editor.

ADVERTISEMENT

But soon, she lost her job and slumped into a deep depression. In 1974, she wrote letters to family and friends expressing her desire to start a new life. She was never seen or heard from again.