This Is the Most Mysterious Disappearance in History

Don't you just love Christmas? It's my favorite time of the year with all the decorations, songs, eggnog, and delicious food. But for one family in West Virginia, Christmas Eve turned into a nightmare. Instead of cozy moments by the fire, they faced a catastrophe that tore their lives apart and left behind a mystery that still baffles us to this day.

Let's travel back to December 24, 1945. The Sodder family, living in Fayetteville, West Virginia, was getting ready for Christmas. George Sodder, a successful businessman, and his wife Jenny had ten children. Yes, you heard that right, ten kids! On this fateful evening, nine of them were at home, with 21-year-old Joseph serving in the army.

As Christmas Eve unfolded, the three younger children, Martha (12), Jenny (8), and Betty (5), were playing with their gifts. Their older sister Marion, who was 17, had given them these presents. George and his two older sons, John (23) and George Jr. (16), had already gone to bed by 10 p.m. after a long day of work.

The young girls wanted to stay up later to play with their new toys, and their mom Jenny agreed, but only if their brothers, Maurice (14) and Louis (9), finished their chores first. After wishing the kids goodnight, Jenny put her youngest, Sylvia, to bed. It was a typical, heartwarming family scene.

But at around 12:30 a.m., the phone rang, and Jenny went downstairs to answer. On the call, she heard laughter and clinking glasses in the background, and a woman she didn't know asked for someone she'd never heard of. Jenny thought it was a wrong number, and the woman laughed strangely before hanging up. On her way back upstairs, she noticed some strange things - the lights were on, the door was unlocked, and the curtains were open. This was unusual because when the kids stayed up late, they took care of these things themselves before going to bed in the attic.

Just half an hour later, Jenny was woken by something hitting the roof. It sounded like a heavy rubber ball rolling off the roof and hitting the ground. She listened for more noise but went back to sleep as the night remained quiet. However, another half hour later, she woke up to the smell of smoke. She discovered the room George used as an office was on fire.

A panic ensued. George woke up, and the two older sons, John and George Jr., tried to help. Jenny woke Marion and told her to get baby Sylvia out of the house. They yelled for the children in the attic, but there was no response. The fire was spreading fast, and the staircase to the attic was on fire, so they couldn't reach the five kids sleeping up there.

George tried to use trucks to climb up to the attic window, but both trucks mysteriously failed to start. They attempted to use frozen water from an outdoor barrel to extinguish the flames, but it was too late. Within 45 minutes, the house had burned to the ground.

The fire department was understaffed, and it took hours for firefighters to arrive on Christmas Day. They couldn't find any remains of the children in the ashes. A coroner's inquest declared an electrical fault as the cause of the fire, and death certificates were issued.

However, as George and Jenny started piecing together the events, they became skeptical that their children had perished in the fire. Many things didn't add up. For example, the ladder used to reach the attic had been mysteriously moved. The phone lines were cut, and their trucks wouldn't start. They also discovered a hand grenade in their yard, which might explain the loud thump on the roof.

The Sodders believed their children might have been taken, possibly as a punishment for George's criticism of Mussolini or due to his past. Various sightings and tips from across the country kept their hope alive, and they even reached out to the FBI. But local authorities were uncooperative.

Despite years of searching, the Sodder family never found out what truly happened to their children. The mystery remains unsolved, leaving them with a heart-wrenching and unresolved tragedy. The Sodder children never gave up hope, except for John, who refused to discuss the events of that night. Sylvia Sodder, the youngest, passed away without knowing the fate of her siblings. The case is filled with oddities, coincidences, and unanswered questions, making it one of the most perplexing mysteries in history.