Have you ever been ghosted? If so, you know how it feels. Suddenly, someone you’re emotionally invested in (be it in a romantic way or otherwise) ignores you. In a way, it’s almost as if they’ve completely disappeared. Well… almost. Real disappearances tend to be more… morbid. When someone vanishes into thin air, they leave their loved ones with nothing but confusion, anxiety, and, if the person in question never returns, grief. But some disappearances are so bizarre, so seemingly inexplicable that they’ll leave you in utter bewilderment. Intrigued? If so, keep reading to learn about 4 such mysterious disappearances.
Amelia Earhart
This is likely the most famous disappearance on the list. Amelia Earhart was a trailblazing aviator, whose achievements granted her the status of a legend. Her innumerable records helped popularize commercial flying, and they inspired women from all over the world to give the male-dominated, then-nascent field of aviation a try.
Yet, as fate would have it, on July 2, 1937, all traces of Amelia Earhart as well as of her escort Frederick Noonan disappeared. As the pair was attempting to fly around the globe, they sent a message to a nearby ship stating that they were lost and running low on supplies. After that, any and all contact was lost.
There are a bunch of theories regarding Hart’s disappearance. One, for instance, affirms that Hart and Noonan were captured and tortured by the Japanese after being mistaken for American spies. Another theory states that the two aviators crashed near Nikumaroro island and started living there as castaways, eventually succumbing to nature’s mercilessness. But these are mere speculations; more than 80 years after Hart’s disappearance, no one knows for certain what happened to the legendary aviation pioneer.
Paula Jean Welden
On one fateful Winter day in 1946, a Vermont college student Paula Jean Welden decided to take a break from studying and go for an innocent stroll along Vermont’s Long Trail. As you might have guessed, that was the last anyone saw of her. Numerous witnesses reported seeing her on her journey, but at some point, Paula simply… disappeared. No traces of her or her body were ever retrieved. It’s almost as if she never existed in the first place.
Some have tried to explain this mysterious disappearance by pointing to Paula’s alleged problems with depression (in other words, some claim it was simply suicide), whereas others insist her father’s suspicious behavior in the course of the investigation indicates that he was involved. But, with no evidence whatsoever, we will likely never know what happened to Paula Jean Welden.
Ray Gricar
As an accomplished district attorney nearing retirement, Ray Gricar seemed rather content with how his life had gone. Most people, were they to be put in his shoes, would likely be looking forward to a quiet and well-deserved retirement. Unfortunately, life had something entirely different planned for Ray. One day in 2005, he decided to go for a long, relaxing drive. This didn’t set off any alarm bells, as it was hardly the first time he’d done that. Yet, this particular drive was… quite a bit longer than expected.
Ray’s partner Patty grew more and more anxious as the love of her life was not home by 11:00 and did not return any calls. Eventually, she filed a missing persons report, and the search for Ray commenced. All that was found, however, was his car and his phone. Ray Gricar had completely disappeared.
Now, theories concerning Ray’s disappearance are plenty, but all of them refer, in one way or another, to his laptop (or rather, what he wanted to do with it). You see, shortly before Ray disappeared, he had been looking up terms like “how to fry a hard drive” or “water damage to a notebook computer.” Clearly, he was hiding something that wasn’t supposed to ever see the light of day. But what was it? Why did he see the need to hide it? What happened to him on that fateful drive? That we don’t know.
Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon
Imagine you’ve just graduated from university and you’re about to go on a trip to the beautiful country of Panama with your best friend. Sounds thrilling, does it not? Well, that was precisely the story of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, two university students from the Netherlands, except… the girls never returned home. It’s not that they like Panama so much that they decided to stay. The pair simply… disappeared.
On 1 April 2014, the two girls made up their minds to take a breather from the volunteer work and go for a hike in the nearby mountains. That was the last anyone saw or heard from them. At first, it may appear that Kris and Lisanne simply got lost in the dense and perilous mountain forest. The evidence found during the investigation, however, points to a potentially more… sinister explanation. One of the first items the investigators found were the girls’ mobile phones. As it turned out, Kris and Lisanne had tried to contact emergency services dozens of times, but the mountains of Panama did not provide them the luxury of mobile phone reception.
What’s more, dozens of photos were taken by both phones. At first, these photos seemed benign. The girls posed with the natural landscapes of Panama as their backdrop, enjoying their trip to the fullest. However, as time went by, the photos became more and more… disconcerting. They stopped showing the girls and would instead randomly focus on rocks or trees. Clearly the photos weren’t taken as souvenirs. If you’d like to check out the photos for yourself, check out this Reddit thread.
After months of fruitless investigation, a most gruesome discovery was made. Investigators found some of Kris Kramer’s bones. To add insult to injury, these bones were laced with traces of potential foul play. Beyond that, the investigation did not find anything else. They did not find the complete bodies of the girls nor any potential culprit. Nothing.
