Every year, thousands of people go missing, with some of them going unnoticed, which is a tragic fact. When a celebrity goes missing, though, everybody pays attention. Often they’ve been discovered alive, other times they’ve met a tragic end, and other times they’ve never been discovered at all. However, there have been a few instances where celebrities have gone missing and never been identified. Was it all a ruse? Were they unable to handle the demands of celebrity life? Is there a new name for them now? Many people make guesses, but the responses are often outdated.
Unexpected Disappearances Of These Celebrities Are Still A Mystery To This Day
Theodosia Burr Alston
In Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr sing “Dear Theodosia,” a duet lullaby to their respective newborn children. After spreading rumors about an incestuous relationship she had with her boyfriend, Hamilton was slandered. Her reputation suffered even more damage when she aided her father’s effort to secede to the West and then fled the country when he attempted treason. She boarded a small boat at Georgetown’s port after her son died in 1813 and was never seen again.
Theodosia Burr Alston
Richey Edwards
Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers was a rock singer, guitarist, and lyricist who wasn’t afraid to try new things in order to show his sincerity. In a 1991 interview, he was asked about the credibility of his grim character, so he took a razor blade and carved the phrase “4 True” into his arm right there and then. Suicide was “never a choice for him,” according to his relatives, but his car was found abandoned near a bridge where suicide jumps were common, so that seemed to be the most plausible conclusion.
Richey Edwards
Harold Holt
Harold Holt, Australia’s 17th Prime Minister, went missing in December 1967. According to witnesses, he most likely drowned, and his body was never found because he decided to go swimming at an otherwise abandoned beach on a day when the sea was especially rough. Some say he was assassinated by the CIA because he wanted Australia to leave Vietnam, while others say he was a Chinese agent who faked his death so he could return home. Ironically, Australia wanted to build a swimming pool in his name.
Harold Holt
Connie Converse
In the 1950s, Connie Converse was a relatively unknown and unsuccessful singer. She gave up music in 1961, feeling like a loser, and settled into a more peaceful existence. In 1974, she packed her car, told her friends she was beginning a new life, and disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again, her regrets still weighing heavily on her shoulders. It’s possible she killed herself or died in some other way, but it’s also possible she was a huge success in her new venture and lived to see herself get the recognition she deserved.
Connie Converse
Jim Sullivan
Jim Sullivan was a cult folk-rocker who disappeared just days before his big break in the 1960s and 1970s. This was a guy with all the talents, contacts, and a job offer in Nashville, Tennessee, which would have been his big break… if he’d ever made it there. Outside of Santa Rosa, New Mexico, his car was discovered abandoned. His possessions, including his guitar, were later found in a nearby hotel, but the man had disappeared. Some believe he wanted to disappear, but none of his friends believe he would abandon his guitar.
Jim Sullivan
Barbara Newhall Follett
Barbara Newhall Follett was a bit of a prodigy when it came to writing during the Jazz Era. Everyone predicted she’d be the next great American author, and she would have been if her father hadn’t stepped in. Instead, at the age of 16, she went to work as a typist and never published again. Follett had an altercation with her husband, left her home, and disappeared ten years later in 1939. It’s possible she died, but it’s also possible she made a successful disappearance.
Barbara Newhall Follett
Fan Bingbing
Fan Bingbing became one of China’s most successful actresses after her appearance in X-Men: Days of Future Past — and one of the few to gain international success. She disappeared on July 1, 2018, after the Chinese government learned she had been evading taxes. Artists have been found to be “disappeared” by the Chinese government; artist Ai Weiwei was once gone for three months. She apologized on social media in October, but she hasn’t been seen since.
Fan Bingbing
Rico Harris
In the year 2000, Rico Harris was a promising basketball player who played for the famous Harlem Globetrotters. He hit rock bottom when he was fired from his job as a security guard in LA for being intoxicated at work. His car was found outside of Sacramento with all of his belongings still inside. For days afterward, witnesses reported seeing a tall man walking along the side of the highway, and human footprints matching his height were found, but they suddenly stopped. Many say he was picked up as a hitchhiker, but little is clear about what happened after that.
Rico Harris
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the prolific author of Le Petit Prince, one of the world’s most well-known children’s books, was also a professional aviator who relished the challenge of performing dangerous stunts. Later in life, he was determined to fight for his homeland of France in World War II. Unfortunately, he was seen as a liability, and he made a number of mistakes during his aviation career, the most expensive of which occurred on July 31, 1944. His plane went down while taking off for a mission over the Mediterranean, and the wreckage wasn’t found until 2000.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
Jim Thompson
A businessman named Jim Thompson is credited with making Thai silk a global commodity. He was a former OSS agent who relocated to Thailand and founded one of the world’s most prosperous business ventures, eventually becoming a wealthy socialite in 1967. In that year, he went on a Malaysian biking tour. He never returned. Other Bangkok businesspeople, the Thai government, the Asian anti-CIA group, or even the CIA may have assassinated him. But, since he had undergone survival training, he didn’t simply die in the jungle.
Jim Thompson
John Bingham, 17th Earl of Lucan
Lord Lucan was so fed up with fighting his wife for custody of their three children, as well as listening in on and recording their phone calls, that in 1974 he decided to bludgeon her to death in a darkened den. He killed Sandra Rivett, his children’s beloved nanny, instead of his despised wife. After the murder, he disappeared and was never identified. Some say he went missing in Africa and was eaten by tigers at a private zoo, while others say he jumped into a river and was eaten by tigers.
John Bingham, 17th Earl Of Lucan
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart, one of history’s greatest aviators, is well-known for going missing in 1937 while trying to travel around the world. Her plane didn’t simply disappear, as many people thought for years; naval ships received radio messages from her for days after she landed on a remote, uninhabited island in the Pacific, running out of fuel and unable to proceed. They didn’t send someone down to the island to double-check anything, which was unfortunate. Since the island is home to coconut crabs, massive predators are known to eat entire animals and cart away their bones, it’s unlikely that a body was ever found.
Amelia Earhart
Glenn Miller
Despite being well past the draft age, Glenn Miller, a well-known musician, enlisted in the Army during WWII. In December 1944, Miller’s plane disappeared over the English Channel while on his way to France for one of these performances. For years, it was widely assumed that Allied planes had mistakenly bombed him, but new research recently discovered indicates that the fuel intake froze up, causing the plane’s engine to shut down and crash into the sea.
Glenn Miller
Dorothy Arnold
In Manhattan in 1910, Dorothy Arnold’s disappearance was the most talked-about scandal. The wealthy socialite, a 25-year-old aspiring writer, went out one day and told her mother she was going to buy a new evening gown. She instead met up with a friend and told her she was going to Central Park for a stroll. She hadn’t been seen since then. Some believe that she committed suicide or died as a result of a botched abortion as a result of a rejected novel, but those who saw her that day said she was in good spirits, so it seems impossible.
Dorothy Arnold
Bison Dele
Bison Dele, also known as Brian Williams, was known for his eccentricities. In 2007, he purchased the boat Hakuna Matata and declared that he would sail from Tahiti to Hawaii with a captain, his mother, and his brother. Miles Dabord, Dele’s brother, was the only member of the group who was ever heard from again after the boat never arrived in Hawaii. Two months later, he was arrested in Phoenix for trying to purchase gold using one of his brother’s checks.
Bison Dele
Joe Pichler
Joe Pichler had a promising acting career ahead of him, having appeared in the Beethoven films, Varsity Blues, and a few other films. He had just taken off his braces and intended to return to Los Angeles to resume his acting career when he went missing. His car was found near a bridge, and his apartment contained a suicide note in which he expressed remorse for not being a “stronger brother” and left all of his belongings to his younger brother. Despite the fact that all signs pointed to a suicide attempt, his body was never found.
Joe Pichler
Jean Spangler
In the 1940s, Jean Spangler was a rising star in Hollywood. Her purse was found with the straps torn in a park. Inside was a note that said, “Can’t wait any longer.” I’ll be seeing Dr. Scott. When Mother is gone, it will work better this way.” The note was addressed to Kirk. Kirk Douglas, a well-known star, called the police to inform them that it was not him. Later, Spangler’s friend admitted that she was on her way to have an abortion, which was illegal at the time and was normally done in a risky manner.
Jean Spangler
Sean Flynn
Sean Flynn grew up in the shadow of his famous father, Errol Flynn, in Hollywood. For a while, he tried acting, but it didn’t work out because the majority of his films were flops. However, it was the Vietnam War, not a film, that gave him his big break. He enlisted as a photojournalist and was sent to Vietnam, where he returned with terrifying photos of the war, fueling the anti-war movement. He and journalist Dana Stone went to photograph a Viet Cong checkpoint and were never seen or heard from again.
Sean Flynn
Michael Rockefeller
Nelson Rockefeller worked as governor of New York and vice president under Gerald Ford, but his son was assassinated. Carl Hoffman claimed to have immersed himself in the history of the land’s native Asmat peoples, immersing himself in a warring culture that often engages in ritualistic cannibalism, in his 2014 book Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller’s Tragic Search for Primitive Art. This case, however, remains officially “unsolved” due to a lack of actual evidence.
Michael Rockefeller
Ylenia Maria Sole Carrisi
Ylenia Maria Sole Carrisi, the daughter of two well-known Italian stars, was the Italian version of Vanna White in the early 1990s, turning the letters on their version of Wheel of Fortune. Carrisi went missing in 1994 while backpacking through Central America near New Orleans. A security guard said he saw someone who looked slightly like her leap into the Mississippi River, shouting “I belong in the water,” before swimming around and being pulled under by a barge’s undertow when questioned about the situation. There’s no way of knowing for sure whether or not this was her.
Ylenia Maria Sole Carrisi
Daniel Lind Lagerlöf
Sweden’s Daniel Lind Lagerlöf works as a screenwriter, director, and producer. In October 2011, Lagerlöf was scouting locations for Camilla Läckberg’s Fjällbackamorden – Strandridaren. He was near the cliffs in the Tjurpannan nature reserve near Tanumshede, Bohuslän. Large waves crashed into the shoreline where Lagerlöf was scouting, knocking him to the ground. Owing to the slippery rocks around him, Lagerlöf was unable to recover his feet and was likely swept out to sea. There were no other people in the area who may have seen the incident. He’s thought to be deceased.
Daniel Lind Lagerlöf
Scott Smith
Loverboy, a Canadian rock band, was one of the most popular in the early 1980s, with hits like “Hot Girls in Love” and “Working for the Weekend” that are still popular today. Scott Smith joined the band as a founding member and stayed with them until his mysterious disappearance at sea on November 30, 2000.
Scott Smith
“Sweet Jimmy” Robinson
Jimmy Robinson battled Muhammad Ali in Miami Beach on February 7th, 1961. Reporters did everything they could to learn what happened to one of the fortunate men who happened to cross paths with the great one, but their investigation came to a halt. He didn’t have a known date of birth, full name, family, or public records that could connect him to a particular time or place. It was almost as though he hadn’t ever existed.
“Sweet Jimmy” Robinson
Oscar Zeta Acosta
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas starred Benicio Del Toro as him. Oscar Zeta Acosta was a Las Vegas-based Mexican-American lawyer and activist. Acosta disappeared in 1974 while traveling through Mexico at the age of 39, despite leading a strange lifestyle as portrayed in the cult classic film.
Oscar Zeta Acosta