List of people who have disappeared

The following is a compilation of people who have mysteriously disappeared, whose death is not substantiated, whose remains have not been recovered, whose current whereabouts are unknown, and (except for the most recent cases) people who may be presumed deceased.

711

K'inich K'an Joy Chitam - king of Palenque - 711. Ruled until August 30, then disappeared from history. Probably taken prisoner by Tonina.

900s

Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl, Toltec leader.

1174

Madoc - semi-mythological Welsh prince.

1463

François Villon - French poet and criminal - whereabouts unknown after banishment from the city of Paris.

1483

Princes in the Tower sons of King Edward IV of England.

1499

John Cabot - Italian explorer. Disappeared, along with four other ships, during a voyage to find a western route from Europe to Asia.

1501

Gaspar Corte-Real - Portuguese explorer - Disappeared on an expedition to discover the Northwest Passage from Europe to Asia.

1502

Miguel Corte-Real - Portuguese explorer. Disappeared while searching for his brother Gaspar.

1611

Henry Hudson - English explorer. Disappeared after a mutiny by his crew while exploring the Hudson Bay region.

1694

Philip Christoph von Königsmarck, Swedish count, lover of Sophia, Princess of Zelle (who was the wife of His Majesty King George I of Great Britain).

1788

La Pérouse and his scientific expedition (two ships, La Boussole and l'Astrolabe, 220 crew members including 40 scientists) vanished near the island of Vanikoro in the Pacific Ocean.

1809

Benjamin Bathurst a British diplomat vanished mysteriously at an inn in Perleberg [1]

1826

William Morgan of rural New York disappeared around the time his book critical of Freemasonry was published.

1872

Crew of the Mary Celeste.

1888

Charles E. Bolles a.k.a. "Black Bart" - Old West outlaw. Disappeared shortly after his release from San Quentin State Prison in January 1888.

1890 and 1891

Ottie Cline Powell disappeared from his schoolhouse and was found seven miles away the following spring; no explanation has been given as to how or why this happened.

1894

Boston Corbett- Army sergeant who fatally shot the escaping John Wilkes Booth. Believed to have perished in a forest fire, although his remains were never found.

1896

Albert Jennings Fountain - and his eight-year-old son Henry disappeared near Las Cruces, New Mexico.

1900

In December, three lighthouse keepers working on the Flannan Isles (off the northwestern coast of Scotland) disappeared without any explanation.

1909

Etta Place - associate of Butch Cassidy and the girlfriend to the Sundance Kid.

1910

Dorothy Arnold - Manhattan socialite and perfume heiress, last seen in New York City on December 12, 1910.

1913

Ambrose Bierce - American author and journalist, disappeared without a trace during travels in Mexico. Last confirmed alive December 26, 1913 in Chihuahua.

1914

F. Lewis Clark Idaho businessman.

1917

Georges Guynemer - French combat aviator.

1918

Crew of USS Cyclops.
Jüri Vilms, Estonian statesman.
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia and her family. Her identity was claimed by Anna Anderson.

1924

George Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine disappeared during a two-man climb toward the summit of Mount Everest. After missing for 75 years, Mallory's body was later found in 1999.

1925

Percy Fawcett - British archaeologist and explorer. Disappeared with his son Jack while searching for a lost city believed to exist in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil

1927

Charles Nungesser - French aviator who disappeared on May 8,1927 while attempting an east-to-west flight to North America, only two weeks before Lindbergh's successful flight from New York to Paris

1928

Roald Amundsen - Norwegian explorer - In 1928, his plane crashed in the Arctic Ocean and his body was never found.
Glen and Bessie Hyde - Grand Canyon rafters.

1930

Joseph F. Crater - Associate Justice of the New York Supreme Court, last seen August 6, 1930, entering a New York City taxi cab. His disappearance became the subject of widespread media attention and a grand jury investigation.

1934

Wallace D. Fard, founder of the Nation of Islam. In 1934, after conferring leadership of the Nation of Islam to his protegé Elijah Muhammad, he left Detroit, where he had been living, and disappeared without a trace while in the custody of the Chicago police department. The Nation of Islam maintained that he had returned to Mecca, but rumors persisted that he had been murdered by the Chicago police or by Elijah Muhammad.

1936

Joseph Rodriguez - 4-year-old child and resident of Spanish Harlem, New York City who disappeared in 1936 while playing with friends. Although Rodriguez' aunt received a telegram informing her that her nephew had been injured and would return home shortly, Joseph never appeared. There was never any further communication from the writer and to this day there was no trace of him nor his body.

1937

Amelia Earhart - Famous American aviator; disappeared in the South Pacific (along with her navigator) while attempting to circumnavigate the globe. The theories, rumors, and legends regarding her disappearance are voluminous (to say the least).

1938

Ettore Majorana, Italian physicist. Disappeared during a boat trip from Naples to Palermo.
Andrew Carnegie Whitfield - nephew of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, disappeared while piloting a small airplane over Long Island, New York.

1939

Richard Halliburton, author and adventurer. On March 3, 1939, Halliburton set off from Hong Kong aboard a custom-built Chinese junk, intending to sail to San Francisco in time for the World's Fair. On March 24, a typhoon overtook the ship, and neither the ship nor Halliburton were ever recovered.

1944

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French author and aviator. Apparently died when his Lockheed P-38 Lightning crashed off the coast of Marseille. Though the aircraft was recovered in 2003, his body was never found.
Glenn Miller - popular American jazz musician and bandleader. Disappeared on December 15, 1944, en route from England to Paris to play for troops in the recently liberated city. Neither his remains nor the aircraft in which he was riding were ever recovered.

1945

Charles Carroll Taylor - leader of Flight 19.
Raoul Wallenberg - Anti-Nazi activist.
Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose - one of the most prominent leaders of the Indian Independence Movement.

1948

The 29 passengers and three crew of the Airborne Transport DC-3 airliner, known as NC16002, which vanished on December 28, 1948 near the end of a scheduled flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Miami, Florida.

1950

Richard Colvin Cox - United States Military Academy, West Point cadet.

1953

Felix Moncla disappeared while hunting an unidentified flying object

1955

Curtis Chillingworth was a Florida state judge who (together with his wife, Marjorie Chillingworth) disappeared from his Manapalan, Florida home in June 1955. Later it came to be believed that they were the victims of a Murder-for-hire plot.

The crew and passengers of the MV Joyita, which disappeared in the South Pacific ocean, but then re-appeared five weeks later with no one on board.

1956

Lionel "Buster" Crabb - British frogman who disappeared during an MI6 mission investigating the Soviet cruiser Orkhonikidze in Portsmouth Harbour.
Jesús María de Galíndez - Colombian scholar and activist, taught at Columbia University.

1959

Camilo Cienfuegos was a Cuban revolutionary born in Calabazar de Sagua, Las Villas Cuba. He disappeared and presumably died on October 28, 1959, in a Cessna accident due to bad weather while flying over the sea. However, neither his plane nor his body were ever recovered despite the Cuban government efforts.

1960s

Emile Desportes - composer, inventor, painter and explorer - 1960s?

1961

Michael Rockefeller - son of Nelson Rockefeller.

1966

The Beaumont children - Jane (9), Arnna (7) and Grant (4), all disappeared from an Adelaide beach

1967

Harold Holt - Australian Prime Minister - 1967
Jim Thompson - designer famous for Thai silks.

1970

William "Billy Batts" Devino - An American mafia member

1971

D. B. Cooper - skyjacker, true identity unknown - Jumped from a hijacked Boeing 727 over the Pacific Northwest on November 21, 1971.

1972

Nicholas Begich - American Congressman who disappeared October 16, 1972 when the Cessna 310 he was riding in went missing en route to Juneau, Alaska from Anchorage. Hale Boggs also disappeared in the incident.
Hale Boggs - American Congressman who disappeared October 16, 1972 when the Cessna 310 he was riding in went missing en route to Juneau, Alaska from Anchorage. Nick Begich also disappeared in the incident.
Roberto Clemente - Puerto Rican baseball player who died in a plane crash off the coast of Puerto Rico. Body was never found.

1974

Oscar Zeta Acosta - American attorney and Chicano activist - 1974. Most famous for portrayal as "Dr. Gonzo" in Hunter S. Thompson's book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Lord Lucan (Richard John Bingham) - British high-society figure and murder suspect.

1975

Jimmy Hoffa - Union leader.

1976

Bradford Bishop - bludgeoned his spouse, three children and mother to death in 1976. He was indicted for the murders and is still at large.

1978

John Brisker - former ABA and NBA player, disappeared after flying to Uganda.
Mel Lyman - cult leader - 1978. Claimed to have died 1978 by cult members, but no body, death certificate, or other proof ever produced, date of death and burial place unknown ouside the "Lyman Family".
Frederick Valentich disappeared after a mutual UFO-encounter

1979

Etan Patz - schoolboy, disappeared while walking to New York City bus stop.
Tommy Anthony DeSimone- A New York mobster
Louis Cafora- An armed robber from New York
Joanna Cafora- The wife of armed robber Louis Cafora

1980

Rosemary Tonks - poet, about 1980.

1982

Paul America - actor. After a failed attempt to reach Andy Warhol by telephone, he disappeared without a trace.

1983

Emanuela Orlandi - a citizen of Vatican City.

1985

Andrew Fluegelman - programmer, considered the father of shareware business.

1987

Licorice McKechnie, a.k.a. 'Likky Lambert', singer-songwriter from the Incredible String Band, disappeared from L.A..

1989

Jacob Wetterling, kidnapped on October 22 in St. Joseph, Minnesota. Was never found.

1991

Sarah MacDiarmid - young female, disappeared from Kananook station in Melbourne, Australia.

1993

George Berdynski (Burdynski?) - disappeared while walking through his neighborhood of Brentwood, Maryland.

1994

Michael Anthony Hughes has been missing since his abduction from Indian Meridian Elementary School in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by Franklin Delano Floyd (who claimed to be his father) on September 12th of that year. Floyd has claimed that Hughes is still alive somewhere in the U.S., but has not disclosed his location.

1995

Whitey Bulger - leader of the Winter Hill Gang organised crime group. Fled FBI prosecution in 1995, included in the Ten Most Wanted list.
Richey James Edwards - member of Welsh rock band the Manic Street Preachers.

1998

Mikelle Biggs - child from Mesa, Arizona.
Arlene Fraser - Scottish woman whose body was never found but is suspected to have been murdered by her husband Nat Fraser. The story has been covered extensively in the Scottish press since her disappearance.

1999

Elisabeth (Elizabeth?) Chou - student in Ealing, west London.

2000

Trevor Deely - bank official who disappeared in Dublin, Ireland. After his disappearance he became a household name following a blanket poster campaign.

2001

Peter Falconio.
Persons missing after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Niqui McCown disappeared after telling her mother she was going to do her laundry on July 22.

2002

Bison Dele - former NBA player, thought to have been murdered in the Pacific Ocean by his brother, body never found.

2004

Tooker Gomberg - Canadian politician and activist.

2005

Natalee Holloway - U.S. teenager, disappeared in Aruba.
Ray Gricar - District Attorney in Bellefonte, PA
Charles Rutherford Jr. - Attorney who disappeared with his girlfriend in Lake Huron, her body was later found.

No year stated

Subhash Chandra Bose - Indian freedom fighter. The circumstances of his death are being investigated by the one-man Mukherjee Commission.
Michael J. (Amico) Wallace - Harvard graduate, former Sun employee.