10. Harold Holt, 1967
Prime Minister Mysteriously Disappears
It’s not every day that an active head of state—in this case the
Prime Minister of Australia—goes disappearing, but that’s precisely what
happened one Sunday morning in December of 1967 when the Prime Minister
went for a swim and was never seen again. Of course, a massive hunt was
undertaken, but despite one of the largest search-and-rescue operations
ever mounted in Australia, his body was never found. There were many
rumors surrounding Holt’s death and mysterious disappearance, including
claims that he had committed suicide or faked his own death in order to
run away with his mistress. His death even became the subject of
numerous urban myths in Australia, including outlandish but persistent
stories that he had been kidnapped by a Chinese submarine, or that he
had been abducted by a UFO. Most likely, however, the 59-year-old Prime
Minister—not in the best of health at the time anyway—was simply swept
away at a beach notorious for its strong and dangerous rip currents and
the rest is, as they say, history.
9. John Cabot, 1499
Mysterious Disappearance of Italian Explorer
It’s not really that big a mystery what happened to famed Italian
explorer, John Cabot—the second European to step foot on North America
in 1497—who disappeared along with his five ship fleet during an
expedition to find a western route from Europe to Asia. This was, after
all, 1499, when things like the Coast Guard and GPS was not yet around
to help someone out of such situations. Still, it is unusual that
nothing was heard again from at least one of the ships from the
ill-fated cruise, but such was the case with Mister Cabot’s fleet. In
fact, considering that his ships were primitive wooden vessels that
averaged less than 100-foot in length, the prospect that they were all
destroyed in a storm or became entangled in an ice flow—or even that the
crew succumbed to disease—must be considered not only possible, but
considering the era, practically inevitable.
8. Raoul Wallenberg, 1945
Hero Disappears Mysteriously
Never heard of Raoul Wallenberg? It’s not surprising, as few people
outside of Sweden have heard of the courageous Swedish diplomat who was
credited with saving the lives of at least 20,000 Hungarian Jews during
the Holocaust (ten times more than Oskar Schindler, by the way). Such,
however, are the vagaries of fame. Arrested on espionage charges in
Budapest following the arrival of the Soviet army, his subsequent fate
remains a mystery despite hundreds of purported sightings in Soviet
prisons, some as recent as the 1980s. In 2001, after 10 years of
research, a Swedish-Russian panel concluded that Wallenberg probably
died (most likely executed by the Russians) in July of 1947, but to date
no hard evidence has been found to confirm this. In any case, he
rightfully remains a genuine hero for his actions, however, especially
in his home country of Sweden and to thousands of Jews around the world.
7. Judge Joseph Force Crater, 1930
Unexplained disappearance of a possibly corrupt judge
Though not well known today, at the time the disappearance of Judge
Crater—an associate justice for the Supreme Court for the State of New
York—along with his “girlfriend” Sally Lou Ritz, was quite a sensation
that prompted one of the biggest manhunts of the 20th century. Some
speculated the judge ran afoul of the mafia, which is not all that
outlandish a prospect, considering that there were any number of judges
during that era known to have connections with organized crime. Others,
however, believe the judge and his mistress planned their own
disappearance and probably skipped town with bags of loot in an effort
to start a new life elsewhere—like, say, Rio de Janeiro. In any case,
whatever became of the good judge and his mistress has remained a
well-kept secret for eighty years and one that isn’t likely to be solved
anytime soon. One legacy he did leave behind, however, was that for
many years the term “pulling a Crater” was used as slang for a person
who mysteriously disappeared under suspicious circumstances.
6. Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli, 1927
Mysterious Disappearances of Two Aviators
1927 was a big year in aviation, and nothing was bigger than the race
to be the first to make the Paris to New York Atlantic crossing. At one
point, as many as a half dozen aviators were vying for the honor of
being the first, but most dropped out due to mechanical or funding
problems, leaving only a few genuine contenders. Of course, we know
today that Charles Lindbergh was the one who eventually pulled it off,
but it was a close call as just days before he made his flight, a
well-known French aviator named Charles Nungesser attempted to take the
prize by flying from Paris to New York. Unfortunately—or perhaps
fortuitously from Lindbergh’s standpoint—the man, along with his
navigator, François Coli, disappeared somewhere over the Atlantic
and were never heard from again. They are presumed to have crashed into
the sea, of course, though some maintain they made it to Newfoundland
or Maine and went down in the vast forests of those sparsely populated
regions, though no wreckage that could be confirmed to be from their
biplane, The White Bird, has ever been found.
5. Glenn Miller, 1944
Famous Band Leader and Plan Mysteriously Disappear Without a Trace
When the popular American jazz
musician and bandleader vanished enroute from England to France to play
for troops in recently liberated Paris, few people knew about it at the
time. This is because it happened the same day the Germans launched
their last major offensive against the allies in what would be known as
the Battle of the Bulge, pushing such news to the back page. What
happened to the single-engine Norseman he was riding in over the English
Channel some 10 days before Christmas has never been explained, and no
trace of Miller or the plane has ever been found. There is speculation a
German fighter got it, or that the plane got hit by ordnance being
dropped by British bombers on their way back from a canceled bombing
mission. (Bombers couldn’t land with unexploded ordnance on board and
had to jettison their bomb loads—preferably over the ocean—before they
could land.) Whatever the case, Miller’s death was a huge loss to the
American musical scene and one that it never quite recovered from.
4. D.B. Cooper, 1971
In what has to be considered one of the most bizarre events in
aviation and criminal history, a man calling himself D.B. Cooper
skyjacked a Boeing 727 over Washington State and, after collectinga
ransom of $200,000 dollars from authorities, jumped from the rear stairs
of the plane from an altitude of 10,000 feet, never to be seen again.
Of course, such a feat is made to order for conspiracy buffs, who came
up with all sorts of scenarios—not to mention alleged suspects—about who
the mysterious man was and what became of him. The mystery appeared
destined to remain unsolved, however, until a boy playing on the banks
of the Columbia River in 1980 found a stack of decaying bills later
confirmed to have been part of Cooper’s ransom, suggesting that the man
probably didn’t survive the plunge after all. However, it was only a
small part of the ransom (about $5,000 dollars), forcing one to ask what became of the rest of it—or of the man who almost got away with the perfect crime.
3. Percy Fawcett, 1925
When British archaeologist and explorer, Percy Fawcett, together with
his eldest son, Jack, and friend Raleigh Rimmell, set out for the
jungles of Brazil in search for a hidden “city of gold”, who could have
imagined that something could possibly go wrong? As was wont to happen
when people set off on adventures of this nature, they were never heard
from again and their fate remains unknown to this day. Several
unconfirmed sightings and many conflicting reports and theories
explaining their disappearance followed, but despite the loss of over
100 lives in more than a dozen follow-up expeditions, and the recovery
of some of Fawcett’s belongings, their fate remains a mystery. Probably
ended up as shrunken heads on some witch doctor’s coffee table, but who
knows? Sounds a little like an Indiana Jones movie to me.
2. Jimmy Hoffa, 1975
The Not-so-mysterious Disappearance of a Teamster
So what’s the payoff for being one of the most obnoxious—if
successful—union leader ever to put on a tirade? A cement overcoat,
which is probably what Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa got when his organized
crime chums decided he was more trouble than he was worth. In any case,
when he went missing sometime after, 2:45 pm on July 30, 1975, from the
parking lot of the Machus Red Fox Restaurant near Detroit, nobody was
really that surprised. Of course, what do you expect when you’re meeting
with a pair of Mafiosos
with fun-loving names like“Tony Jack” Giacolone and“Tony Pro”
Provenzano. While it’s pretty apparent he was “offed” by some mob hit
man, the real mystery remains as to where they buried the body. One of
the more popular suggestions is the fifty-yard line at Giant’s Stadium
in New Jersey, which would seem a fitting final resting place for
arguably one of the most corrupt—though effective—union leaders in
American history.
1. Amelia Earhart, 1937
Easily one of the most, if not the most, famous mysterious disappearances
in history, what happened to the 39-year-old aviatrix and her
navigator, Fred Noonan, has remained a source for speculation to this
day. On one of the last legs of a circumnavigation of the globe, the
pair left Lae, New Guinea en route to a tiny speck of land known as
Howland Island, never to be seen or heard of again. Of course, the most
likely explanation is they simply got lost and ran out of fuel, forcing
her to ditch in the sea—a precarious and probably fatal prospect in the
heavy, two-engine Lockheed Electra she was flying. Conspiracy theorists
had had a field day ever since, claiming that she was captured by the
Japanese when she flew too near the Marshal Islands on a secret spying
mission for President Roosevelt, while others think she set down on some
other deserted island and played Gilligan’s Island
with Fred for awhile. Even as late as 1970 there were those who claimed
she was still alive, having somehow survived to make her way to America
to live under an assumed name. Gotta love those conspiracy theorists.
source : http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-most-mysterious-disappearances-in-history.php
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