Six of the Most Bizarre Disappearances

Every year, there are millions of people who go missing, many of them are found, and many are not. Some of these disappearances are explainable, evidence to back up the claims, but other cases remain mysteries. We will cover six of the most famous disappearances that remain mysteries.

Number One: Virginia Dare and the Lost Colony.

Virginia Dare was born on August 18th, 1587 in the fledgling Roanoke Island colony, now present day North Carolina. Virginia was the first English child to be born in the New World. Nine days following her birth, her grandfather, John White, departed the colony to go on a supply run to England. John White returned three years after his departure to discover all of the settlers had seemingly disappeared.

He could find nothing that pointed to were the 100 or so men, women, and children had gone, or even what could have happened to them. All that was left behind was the words 'Croatoan' carved on a stockade and 'Cro' cut into a tree. Bad weather had prevented John White from performing an extensive search of the area, and he ended up returning home to England after the discovery.

Many point fingers towards disease, starvation, or even an attack y indigenous people; a previous group who settled before were driven out by local tribes in 1586. But, others suggest that these settlers moved, living with or near a friendly indigenous tribe near by.

In 2012, experts discovered a hidden image of a fort on a map of the area that was made by John White, this could have been a secret outpost that these colonists decided to relocate to. But, if this were the case, they would have contacted other settlers to make them aware of this sudden departure, surely.

Number Two: Benjamin Bathurst.

One particular gloomy night in November 1809, a young man who was travelling under the name 'Baron de Koch' stood in the deserted streets of the town of Perleberg, Germany, he was waiting to board his coach and leave.

The man's secretary stood in the doorway of the inn that they had stayed in, paying the innkeeper their dues. The valet was at the back of the coach, and the young man walked around the other side of the horse, and was never seen again.

This disappearing traveller was posed as a wealthy merchant and was actually named Benjamin Bathurst, he was a distinguished British diplomat a nd 25-years of age. He was on his way home from Vienna back to England.

His mission was to persuade the Austrians to ally with Britain against France during the ongoing wars that were tearing apart the continent.

A witness who was in the inn described Bathurst as being very nervous, he was also said to have asked a local official in Perleberg for armed protection. After an extensive search, it was concluded that he was dead.

Though the usual theory is that he was murdered by robbers, this has never been substantiated.

A skull was discovered in 1852 at a house that used t0 belong to a man who was a waiter at the White Swan in 1809, this was were Bathurst was staying. This skull showed signs of violence, but the identity of the remains were never discovered.

Number Three: The Mary Celeste.

The crew of the Canadian ship, Dei Gratia, noticed something very strange when they came across an American Vessel in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on December 4th, 1872, nobody was aboard the ship.

They decided to search the ship, discovering that none of the ten passengers were on board, yet the cargo was complete and most of the passengers' personal possessions were still present on the ship. And contrary to popular belief, the crew of the Canadian ship did not enter the cabin to discover steaming cups of tea and plates of untouched food.

There were no signs of disturbance, but the ship's boat was gone and one of the sails was missing, and the most recent entry for the log was dated on November 25th.

So, what happened to the crew? At an initial hearing in Gibraltar, the explanation they pinned first was that the crew got drunk on the cargo of commercial alcohol, decided to kill the captain and his family, then escaped by lifeboat. But, this was shown to be baseless, the alcohol was undrinkable.

But, this did not prevent many from suspecting that foul play still took place upon the ship. Many believed that either the captains of the two ships decided to cook up a get-rich scheme together or that pirates had attacked their ship.

But, then again, if it was piracy, why was the cargo left untouched? And if the crew abandoned the ship, what was their reasoning? The ship was not unseaworthy or in danger of sinking.

It could have been that a waterspout hit the ship and caused the captain to believe the boat was taking on more water than it was and a temporary evacuation to the lifeboat ended up in an accidental separation from the ship. After extensive research into the mystery, it still remains unknown to what had happened to the passengers of the Mary Celeste.

Number Four: Louis Le Prince.

49-year-old French inventor and artist Louis Le Prince was climbing closer and closer to international stardom in 1890, he even had a planned tour to the US to showcase his pioneering new motion-picture camera.

He boarded a train in Dijon, bound for Paris, on September 16th, 1890 and was never seen again.

Is has been rumored that he had committed suicide, after a body of a drowned man who resembled Louis was pulled from the Seine in 1890, but the person was never formally identified as Louis Le Prince.

Many others suspect foul play, considering he would have been a major rival to Thomas Edison. Even Le Prince's widow cried foul play after his disappearance, but no evidence of this had ever been substantiated.

Other theories pointed towards his vanishing of him running from debts.

Number Five: The Flannan Isles Lighthouse.

On December 26th, 1900, the lighthouse tender vessel Hesperus arrived at the tiny island of Eilean Mor to investigate a reported problem at the lighthouse.

On approaching this island, the lighthouse was unresponsive to the ship's calls and signals. And Relief keeper Joseph Moor went on a boat alone to investigate this.

There was zero sign of any of the three lighthouse keepers in the lighthouse or in the lighthouse. And contrary to the legends, there was no half-eaten meals on the table or a chair on the floor. Although, one of the men may have left in a hurry, leaving behind his oilskins.

From the very beginning, there has been wild speculation about what may have happened. Some believed that the lighthouse keepers were suffering from cabin fever, causing them to turn on one another, the three of them fighting on a fatal clifftop brawl. Others speculate that a giant sea monster had leapt out of the water, snatching the men from the edge of the cliff.

But, the most likely explanation was the original one. The initial investigation concluded that the men were working on something near the cliff during a severe storm, and they were swept away.

Number 6: Amelia Earhart.

One of the most famous disappearances in history, Amelia Earhart and her co-pilot, Fred Noonan took off from California in a Lockheed Electra 10E to circumnavigate the globe on May 21st, 1937. On July 2nd, they left Lae, New Guinea for Howland Island, which was 2,500 miles away. After their departure from Lae, neither the pair or their plane were ever seen again.

It is suspected that Noonan and Earhart's plane ran into difficulties and they crashed into the Pacific Ocean. And an initial search in 1937 had reason to believe that Earhart may have ended up on Gardner Island, which is now Nikumaroro, Kiribati. And subsequent investigations of the island have been performed, the most recent being in 2019, have all come up inconclusive.

And an Australian solider claimed to have seen some plan wreckage on the island of New Britain in 1945, the wreckage being similar to Earhart's plane. And searches failed to turn up this wreck in 1990, however.

Other theories say that Earhart was carrying out secret aerial reconnaissance for the government, leading her to either be imprisoned or executed by the Japanese. Witnesses have stated to have seen Earhart on Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands in 1937.

And in 1965, at a dinner, a retired pilot was introduced to a banker and former flier Irene Craigmile Bolam, this man claimed that he immediately recognized her as Amelia Earhart. But, this was quickly proven to be untrue.