Thousands of people go missing each year, some of whom go unnoticed, which is a sad reality. When a celebrity vanishes, however, everyone takes notice. Sometimes they’ve been found alive, sometimes they’ve met a terrible fate, and sometimes they’ve never been found at all. However, there are a few rare cases of celebrities who go missing and are never found. Was it a set-up? Were they unable to cope with the pressures of celebrity life? Do they still go by a different name? Many people speculate, but the answers are frequently rendered obsolete.
Celebrities Who Have Disappeared With No Clue As To How Or Why
Theodosia Burr Alston
Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr sing a duet lullaby to their respective newborn children, “Dear Theodosia,” in Hamilton. Hamilton was slandered after spreading rumors about an incestuous relationship she had with her father. Her reputation was harmed further when she aided her father’s attempt to secede to the West and then fled the country when he tried treason. Following her son’s death in 1813, she boarded a small boat at Georgetown’s port and was never seen again.
Theodosia Burr Alston
Richey Edwards
Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers was a punk musician, guitarist, and lyricist who wasn’t afraid to pull the odd stunt to prove how genuine he was. When asked about the authenticity of his grim persona in an interview in 1991, he grabbed a razor blade and carved the phrase “4 REAL” into his arm right then and there. His family claimed that suicide was “never an option for him,” but his car was discovered abandoned near a bridge where suicide jumps were common, so that seemed to be the most likely 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 chose to go swimming at an otherwise deserted beach on a day when the surf was particularly rough. Some claim the CIA assassinated him because he wanted Australia to leave Vietnam, while others claim he was a Chinese spy who faked his death to return to China. Australia, ironically, decided to erect a swimming pool in his honor.
Harold Holt
Connie Converse
Connie Converse was a relatively unknown and unsuccessful musician in the 1950s. She quit music in 1961, feeling like a failure, and settled down into a quieter life. She loaded her car in 1974, told her friends she was starting a new life, and vanished, never to be seen or heard from again, still carrying the heavy burden of regret on her shoulders. It’s possible she committed suicide or died in some other way, but it’s also possible she was wildly successful in her new endeavor and lived to see herself receive the credit she deserved.
Connie Converse
Jim Sullivan
Jim Sullivan was a cult folk-rocker in the 1960s and 1970s who vanished just days before his big break. This was a man with all the skills, connections, and a gig in Nashville, Tennessee; that would have been his big break… if he’d ever gotten there. His car was discovered abandoned outside of Santa Rosa, New Mexico. His belongings, including his guitar, were later discovered in a nearby motel, but the man himself had vanished. Some speculate that he chose to vanish, but none of his friends believe he would leave his guitar behind.
Jim Sullivan
Barbara Newhall Follett
In the Jazz Age, Barbara Newhall Follett was a bit of a prodigy when writing. Everyone predicted she would be the next great American author, and she most likely would have been if her father hadn’t intervened. Instead, she began working as a typist at the age of 16 and never wrote again. Follett had an argument with her husband, left her house, and vanished in 1939, after ten years of this. It’s possible she died, but it’s also possible she vanished with great success.
Barbara Newhall Follett
Fan Bingbing
After her role in X-Men: Days of Future Past, Fan Bingbing became one of China’s most popular actresses — and one of the few to achieve international success. However, the Chinese government discovered that she had been evading taxes, and she vanished on July 1, 2018. The Chinese government has been known to “disappear” artists; artist Ai Weiwei was once missing for three months. She issued an apology statement on social media in October, but she has yet to be seen.
Fan Bingbing
Rico Harris
Rico Harris was a promising basketball player and a member of the legendary Harlem Globetrotters in 2000. However, when he was fired from his job as a security guard in LA for being drunk at work, he hit rock bottom. Outside of Sacramento, his car was discovered with all of his belongings still inside. People reported seeing a tall man wandering the side of the highway for days afterward, and human footprints matching his approximate size were discovered, but they abruptly stopped. Many believe he was picked up as a hitchhiker, but what happened after that is unknown.
Rico Harris
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the famous author of Le Petit Prince, one of the world’s most well-known children’s books, was also an aviator who enjoyed performing complex and life-threatening stunts. Later in life, he was determined to fight in World War II for his homeland of France. Unfortunately, he was viewed as a liability, and he made several errors during his aviation career, none more costly than the one on July 31, 1944. His plane crashed while taking off for a mission over the Mediterranean, and the wreckage was not discovered until the year 2000.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
Jim Thompson
Jim Thompson, a businessman, is credited with making Thai silk a global commodity. He was a former OSS agent who moved to Thailand and launched one of the world’s most successful business ventures, becoming a wealthy socialite by 1967. That was the year he embarked on a Malaysian biking trip. He never came back. Other Bangkok business people could have assassinated him, the Thai government, the Asian anti-CIA faction, or even the CIA. He didn’t just die in the woods, though, because he had received survival training.
Jim Thompson
John Bingham, 17th Earl of Lucan
Lord Lucan became so fed up with battling his wife for custody of their three children, as well as spying on and recording their phone conversations, that he decided to bludgeon her to death in a darkened room in 1974. But, instead of killing his hated wife, he killed Sandra Rivett, his children’s beloved nanny. He vanished after the murder and was never found. Some say he went missing in Africa and died in the wilderness, while others say he jumped into a river and was eaten by tigers at a private zoo.
John Bingham, 17th Earl Of Lucan
Amelia Earhart
The story of Amelia Earhart, one of history’s greatest aviators, who went missing in 1937 while attempting to fly around the world, is well-known. Her plane didn’t simply vanish, as everyone assumed for years; naval ships received radio transmissions from her for days after she landed on a small, uninhabited island in the Pacific, too low on fuel to continue. Unfortunately, they didn’t send anyone down to the island to double-check anything. It’s unlikely that a body was ever discovered because the island is home to coconut crabs, large creatures known to eat whole animals and carry away their bones.
Amelia Earhart
Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller, a well-known musician, enlisted in the Army during WWII despite being well past the draft age. Miller was on his way to France for one of these performances in December 1944 when his plane vanished over the English Channel. For years, the popular belief was that he was accidentally bombed by Allied planes, but new evidence recently discovered suggests that the fuel intake froze up, causing the plane’s engine to shut down and the plane to crash into the water.
Glenn Miller
Dorothy Arnold
Dorothy Arnold’s disappearance was the most talked-about scandal in Manhattan in 1910. The 25-year-old aspiring writer, a wealthy socialite, went out one day and told her mother she would buy a new evening gown. Instead, she met up with a friend and told her she would walk in Central Park. That was the last time she was seen. Some speculate that she killed herself or died due to a botched abortion because of a rejected manuscript, but those who saw her that day said she was in good spirits, so that seems unlikely.
Dorothy Arnold
Bison Dele
Brian Williams, also known as Bison Dele, was known for being eccentric. He bought a boat, Hakuna Matata, in 2007 and announced that he would be sailing from Tahiti to Hawaii with a captain, his girlfriend, and his brother. The boat never arrived in Hawaii, and Miles Dabord, Dele’s brother, was the only member of the group who was ever heard from again. He was arrested in Phoenix two months later for attempting to buy gold with one of his brother’s checks.
Bison Dele
Joe Pichler
Joe Pichler, who starred in the Beethoven films, Varsity Blues, and a few other films, had a promising acting career ahead of him. When he went missing, he had just removed his braces and planned to return to LA to resume his acting career. His car was later discovered near a bridge, and a suicide note was discovered in his apartment, in which he expressed regret for not being a “stronger brother” and left all of his belongings to his younger brother. All signs pointed to a suicide attempt, but his body was never discovered.
Joe Pichler
Jean Spangler
Jean Spangler was a rising star in Hollywood in the 1940s. Her purse was discovered in a park with the straps ripped. There was a note inside that read: “Can’t wait any longer. Going to see Dr. Scott. It will work best this way while mother is away.”Kirk was the recipient of the note. Kirk Douglas, a well-known actor, called the cops to say it wasn’t him. Spangler’s friend later revealed that she was on her way to have an abortion, which was illegal at the time and usually performed dangerously.
Jean Spangler
Sean Flynn
Sean Flynn spent years in the shadow of his legendary Hollywood father, Errol Flynn. He tried acting for a while, but it didn’t work out because most of his films were flops. However, it was the Vietnam War that gave him his big break, not a film. He enlisted as a photojournalist and was dispatched to Vietnam, where he sent back chilling images of the war that fueled the anti-war movement. He and journalist Dana Stone went to a Viet Cong checkpoint to take photographs and were never seen or heard again.
Sean Flynn
Michael Rockefeller
Nelson Rockefeller served as governor of New York and vice president under Gerald Ford, but his son died in suspicious circumstances. Carl Hoffman wrote Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller’s Tragic Quest for Primitive Art in 2014 claiming to have immersed himself in the culture of the land’s native Asmat tribes, immersing himself in a warring culture that frequently engages in ritualistic cannibalism. However, due to a lack of actual evidence, this case remains officially “unsolved.”
Michael Rockefeller
Ylenia Maria Sole Carrisi
In the early 1990s, Ylenia Maria Sole Carrisi, the daughter of two well-known Italian actors, was essentially the Italian Vanna White, turning the letters on their version of Wheel of Fortune. Carrisi went missing near New Orleans in 1994 while on a backpacking trip through Central America. When questioned about the case, a security guard said he saw someone who looked vaguely like her jump into the Mississippi River, shouting “I belong in the water,” before swimming around and being dragged under by a barge’s undertow. However, there is no way of knowing for sure that this was her.
Ylenia Maria Sole Carrisi
Daniel Lind Lagerlöf
Daniel Lind Lagerlöf is a screenwriter, director, and producer from Sweden. Lagerlöf was scouting locations for Camilla Läckbergs Fjällbackamorden – Strandridaren in October 2011. He was in the Tjurpannan nature reserve near Tanumshede, Bohuslän, near the cliffs. Large waves are thought to have slammed into the shoreline where Lagerlöf was scouting, knocking him off his feet. Lagerlöf was unlikely to regain his footing due to the slick rocks around him and was likely swept out to sea. There were no other witnesses in the vicinity. He’s presumed to be dead.
Daniel Lind Lagerlöf
Scott Smith
Loverboy, a Canadian rock band, was one of the biggest in the early 1980s, with hits like “Hot Girls in Love” and “Working for the Weekend” that are still well-known and played worldwide. Scott Smith was a founding member of the band and remained with them until his mysterious disappearance at sea on November 30, 2000.
Scott Smith
“Sweet Jimmy” Robinson
On February 7th, 1961, Jimmy Robinson fought Muhammad Ali in Miami Beach. Reporters tried everything they could to find out what happened to one of the lucky men who happened to cross paths with the great one, but their search came to a halt. In fact, he had no known date of birth, full name, family, or public records that could link him to a specific time or location. It was almost as if he didn’t exist at all.
“Sweet Jimmy” Robinson
Oscar Zeta Acosta
Benicio Del Toro portrayed him in the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Oscar Zeta Acosta was a Mexican-American lawyer and activist in Las Vegas. Despite leading a bizarre lifestyle as depicted in the cult classic film, Acosta vanished in 1974 while traveling through Mexico at 39.
Oscar Zeta Acosta
D.B. Cooper
He may not have been famous before his disappearance, but he sure is now. D.B. Cooper isn’t even his real name – it’s a version of his fake name, Dan Cooper. He used the name when he bought a plane ticket. The media reported his name as D.B. Cooper and it stuck. Anyways, on November 24th, 1971, Cooper was on a plane traveling from Portland to Seattle. He showed a flight attendant a note and a bomb. He demanded the plane land and he get $200,000 and some parachutes. The plane landed, the money was collected along with the parachutes, and the passengers were let off. Then, the plane took off again, and Cooper strapped on a parachute, took his money, and jumped. Investigators have said he was unlikely to survive the jump since he was inexperienced and the conditions were poor that day. All the same, neither his body nor the money have ever been found.
D.B. Cooper
Roald Amundsen
Ronald Amundsen is one of the most famous explorers in history. He was the first recorded man who reached the South Pole and was the leader of the first expedition to the North Pole. He also was the first to record a successful journey through the Northwest Passage. While on a rescue mission in the Arctic, he and his crew went missing. Some wreckage was found, but no bodies or major plane wreckage were ever found.
Roald Amundsen
Jimmy Hoffa
Between 1958 and 1971, Jimmy Hoffa was the President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) union. The union grew a lot during that period of time, but Hoffa got involved in some unpleasant things. He was invloved with the mafia and even convicted of several crimes. In late July 1975, he told his family and some friends that he was meeting known mobsters – Anthony Giacalone and Anthony Provenzano. Later that same night, Hoffa called his wife, saying the men were late but he’d wait for them. He never returned home.
Jimmy Hoffa
Patrick McDermott
It’s possible that Patrick is more famous for his alleged death as well as his relationship with Olivia Newton-John than anything he’d actually done on his own. In 2005, Patrick disappeared from a fishing boat off the coast of Los Angeles. It wasn’t till a week later that he was reported as missing. All 20-plus passengers who were on the boat gave conflicting reports. In 2008, he was declared “most likely drowned”. However, a suggestion came out saying he might have faked his own death in order to cash in on life insurance and move to Mexico.
Patrick McDermott
Slim Wintermute
Slim Wintermute was a famous basketball player who was famous for being part of the first-ever NCAA Tournament championship teams. He played for the Oregon Ducks and went on to have his number retired by the University. He played basketball in the National Basketball League for a while before the NBA came to be. In 1977, he was boating with a friend when he went missing. Foul play was never suspected, but the scenario was strange. The boat set out at 7 am in Lake Union. At 2 pm, the boat was found in neutral, the other passenger asleep on board. He said that Wintermute was on board when he fell asleep. A lot of people believe that Wintermute’s known heart condition led him to have a heart attack and fall overboard. His body was never found, however.
Slim Wintermute
Hale Boggs
Around the time he went missing, Hale Boggs was one of the most famous politicians in America. He sat on the Warren Commission investigating JFK’s assassination before he became a House majority leader during the Nixon years. However, his personality became the star of the show after he verbally attacked J. Edgar Hoover in congress and doubted the lone gunman theory of the JFK shooting. On October 16th, 1972, he was in Alaska with a fellow congressman. The two got on a light aircraft headed for Juneau. They were never seen again. The weather was awful that day, so when he didn’t show up in Juneau, people guessed what probably happened. The biggest search operation in U.S. history took off. 90 planes searched 325,000 square miles of Alaska, but not a trace was found.
Hale Boggs
Ambrose Bierce
Seeing as he vanished in 1914, we think it’s safe to say that by now, Ambrose Bierce is dead. The writer disappeared at age 71. But the mystery remains: how and where did he die? Ambrose was said to have ridden off into the carnage of the Mexican revolution, despite not speaking a word of Spanish or having a clear plan. But that isn’t certain. Others wonder what the circumstances of his fate in Mexico, which are also unknown.
Ambrose Bierce
Weldon Kees
Weldon Kees was a poet who attempted to bridge the divide between Jazz Age experimentation and New Age madness. He was constantly on the verge of making it big. The saddest part about his story is that he disappeared before he became famous. In 1955, he was struggling with his mental health after spending the previous two decades failing to break into the literary scene. He would talk about vanishing off to Mexico and never returning. One day that July, he told his friend “things are pretty bad” and mentioned leaving. After that, he got up and disappeared. The next day, his car was found by the Golden Gate Bridge. He most likely jumped, but others are convinced he went to Mexico since his wallet, sleeping bag, and account savings book went missing along with him. Still, no money was ever withdrawn from the latter, so who knows.
Weldon Kees
Zahir Raihan
There was a point in time when Zahir Raihan was known to millions. A novelist from what then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), he became internationally famous in 1971 with his 20-minute documentary, “Stop Genocide”. Just a month after he rose to fame, Zahir went missing. It’s speculated that he was taken by Pakistani security forces. The most tragic part of his story is that he was only in a position to be kidnapped because he was searching for his missing brother, another famous intellectual.
Zahir Raihan
Art Scholl
Art Scholl had a career as an air show stunt pilot and as an aeronautics instructor. He then became one of Hollywood’s most in-demand and reliable flyers. In 1985, he was filming a scene for a blockbuster that led to his disappearance. He had been performing a scripted upside-down spin maneuver when he apparently lost control of his plane at an altitude of about 4,000 feet. He radioed, “I’ve got a problem here” before his plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean five miles off the coast of Encinitas. A day later, the search and rescue mission was called off. The Coast Guard stated he most likely didn’t survive the accident. Neither his remains nor his plane was ever found.
Art Scholl
Licorice Mckechnie
The Incredible String Band was iconic in the late ’60s. Founded by Robin Williamson and Mike Heron, they added their girlfriends, Christina “Licorice” McKechnie and Rose Simpson to the group. Licorice was a big part of the band’s moderate success in the 1970s thanks to her vocal and songwriting contributions. The Scotland native returned to the area in 1986 to visit family. Soon after, she disappeared. Her sister dais she was in Sacramento recovering from surgery in 1990, while Mojo reported that her last known sighting was in 1987.
Licorice Mckechnie
Hart Crane
A modernist poet, Hart Crane became a leading figure in early 20th-century American poetry. His father was a wealthy chocolatier and candy maker. While the poet had a tumultuous relationship with his father, he became depressed when he had passed away. After Hart won a prestigious Guggenheim fellowship, he relocated to Mexico to write an epic poem. He boarded an ocean liner, headed back to New York. Around noon one day, he either jumped into the Atlantic Ocean or fell. He left no note and his body was never found.
Hart Crane
Ian MacKintosh
The writer, less than a month before his 39th birthday, was on his way to Alaska, flying along with his partner and his friend. Just before 6 pm on July 7th, 1979, the pilot sent a distress signal. An air traffic control officer sent in the Coast Giard to help the approaching plane. When representatives arrived at the last reported position, there was no sign of a crash. The plane never landed, and the days-long search turned up nothing. The plane, along with its passengers, disappeared.
Ian MacKintosh
Pierre Bianconi
Pierre Bianconi played for a few high-level pro soccer teams in France in the 1980s and early 1990s. He was famous, not for his goals, but for his aggressive and unruly behavior. He routinely racked up yellow and red penalty cards. One incident in 1985 involved him slapping an opposing player, taking the red card held up by the official, and ripping it up before head-butting the referee, giving him a bloody nose. That earned him a six-month ban from competitive soccer. In December 1993, the ex-player was seen in Bastia before he disappeared. While his car was found, he was never seen or heard from again.
Pierre Bianconi
Forrest Schab
The Vancouver-based musician, Forrest Schab, performed under his stage name, DY. The stage name was an abbreviation of his morbid nickname, ‘Die Young’. He broke out in 2009 and 2010 and toured Canada as an opening act for Akon. He was preparing to release his second single in August 2010 when he flew from Toronto to Mexico. Several weeks later, he wished a friend happy birthday on social media before disappearing. His family spoke to the police, but the search got no results. He’s still missing today.
Forrest Schab
Zelim Bakaev
A rising pop star in his country, Zelim Bakaev released songs that became popular. In 2017, he was set to compete on the Russian version of ‘Star Academy’. The 25-year-old traveled to his hometown in August 2017. Just after he arrived, local LGBT community advocates say he was arrested on suspicions of being homosexual and was sent to a government facility. The President has publicly denied that his government had anything to do with the pop star’s disappearance (and possible death).
Zelim Bakaev
John Brisker
He played in Pittsburgh for three years at the start of ABA in the early ’70s. In 1972, John Brisker signed with the Seattle SuperSonics, but he was cut from the team in 1975. After several business ideas didn’t work out, he went to Africa to start up an import-export venture. On April 11, 1978, he called his girlfriend. That was the last time anyone’s heard from him. It’s possible he met his end in the violent coup that took place that year.
John Brisker
Natalee Holloway
Unfortunately, it was her disappearance that made Natalee Holloway famous in the first place. She was on vacation in Aruba with her class when she went out for the evening. No one knows what happened next. She wasn’t alone as she was with three guys. The boys claim they’d dropped Natalee back at her hotel. Later, they changed their story when they confessed one of them went up with Natalee to her room.
Natalee Holloway
Philip Taylor Kramer
Philip Taylor Kramer played bass for his band, Iron Butterfly. The band was up and coming. Philip was meant to meet some friends at the airport but later called them saying they had to come to his hotel instead. For some reason, however, Philip spent an hour at the airport and no one knows why. He then called his wife, telling her he planned on ending his own life. The police arrived and searched the area but never found him or any evidence.
Philip Taylor Kramer
Frank Morris
Over the 29 years it existed, Alcatraz saw 36 inmates try to escape. Five of them are still officially missing. They are assumed to have lost their lives to the water surrounding the prison. Frank Morris is the only one who is confusing people to this day. It’s thought he and two other inmates succeeded in their escape. Evidence points to the fact that they made it to land. Frank’s brother claims he knows Frank got away. A mysterious letter sent to Sand Francisco’s police claimed he lost his life in 2008.
Frank Morris