Stories from the edge of explanation.
About 4 min readOn 25 November 1809 a young British diplomat stopped at an inn in Perleberg, Prussia, stepped out to look at his carriage — and was never seen again. The famous story of his vanishing is far stranger than the evidence supports.
About 4 min readIn November 1961, 23-year-old Michael Rockefeller set out to swim for shore after his boat capsized off New Guinea — and was never seen again. No body was ever found, and what happened to him remains disputed.
About 4 min readIn 1925, Colonel Percy Fawcett walked into the Amazon searching for a lost city he called Z — and was never seen again. A century later, his fate is still unknown.
About 4 min readBetween 1945 and 1950, five people vanished without a trace in the wilderness around Glastenbury Mountain, Vermont. Only one body was ever found. The most famous was Paula Welden, an 18-year-old college student who went for a hike on 1 December 1946 — and whose case created the Vermont State Police.
About 4 min readOn 3 December 1926, Agatha Christie drove away from her home in Berkshire — and vanished. Her car was found abandoned above a chalk quarry. Eleven days later she was found in a Harrogate hotel, registered under her husband’s mistress’s name, with no memory of how she got there.
About 4 min readIn October 1888, Louis Le Prince shot the earliest surviving motion picture. Two years later, on 16 September 1890, he boarded a train from Dijon to Paris — and was never seen again. His body and his luggage were never found.