Unfortunately, many people go missing almost every day. Some cases of disappearance are not just made public, but are actively discussed all over the world. In today's article, we will tell you about the disappearance of people whose cases are well known to many.

April Fabb
The disappearance of a 13-year-old Norfolk schoolgirl has become one of the most notorious cases in British history. It happened on a quiet and calm April day in 1969. April decided to visit her sister, who lived in a nearby village. The girl rode a bicycle, because the weather favored this type of transport. April, 13, was last seen by a truck driver. According to the driver, he saw a girl driving along a country road at about 2:06 pm. Based on the investigation data, already at 14:12 April's bicycle was found several hundred yards from the same country road in the middle of the field, but there were no traces, any physical evidence or biological material the girl was not there.
The investigation revealed the cards, telling the public that the alleged kidnappers had only 6 minutes to grab the girl and escape from the scene of the crime unnoticed. All searches for April were unsuccessful. The investigators did not understand how the kidnappers could do their job in just 6 minutes without any traces or evidence. Theodosia Barr Alston

Theodosia Barr

Alston was the oldest child in the family of disgraced US Vice President Aaron Burr. She later successfully married South Carolina Governor Joseph Alstor. Fate was not kind to this woman. Five years later, after her father was accused of treason, her beloved son dies. She was so blinded by grief that she could not get out of bed. Theodosia could not eat or drink anything for days, she did not communicate with anyone, but only occasionally allowed her husband into her room. A breath of fresh air for her was the news that her father was returning home from exile. This gave strength to the young woman, because she understood that she would meet a person dear to her.


On New Year's Eve 1812, Theodosia boarded a schooner called the Patriot, which was supposed to take her to New York to her father. Her husband, who had recently assumed the office of governor, was unable to accompany her because of his duties in connection with the war of 1812, which broke out at about the same time that Theodosia's son died. The schooner never reached its destination. Some have suggested that the ship was taken over by pirates, but most historians seem to believe that the Patriot sank in a major storm that was reported in the region at the time.

Glenn Miller

Glenn Miller is a famous American arranger, trombonist and leader of one of the largest swing orchestras of those times. From the late 1930s to the early 1940s, he was the most sought-after artist in America. After the United States of America entered the Second world war, Henry decided to join the US Navy, but was rejected, and instead decided to do everything in his power to help the army. In late 1944, Miller and two other military men boarded a plane bound for France, where he was going to organize a concert for the American military. But suddenly the plane disappeared from the radar somewhere over the English Channel. Search crews never found either the plane or the passengers. He just disappeared.

Amelia Earhart

The story of Amelia Earhart is probably the most famous missing person incident. Her exploits as a pilot made her a worldwide celebrity. In 1937, Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan embarked on a planned flight around the world. On July 2, Earhart began sending out radio messages indicating that they were low on fuel and were desperately looking for help. The US Coast Guard patrol vessel Itasca moved to the rescue. But the Itasca never found Earhart and Noonan's plane, so an attempt was made to set off smoke signals, in the hope that the pilots would be able to see the smoke, but all was in vain. After an official search by the US Navy and Coast Guard, as well as a private search funded by Amelia's husband, no serious results were found. Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were declared dead in 1939.

Sergei Bodrov

Much is known today about how Sergei Bodrov died, but the very moment of his death can only be reconstructed according to the circumstances clarified during the investigation. In the early autumn morning of September 20, 2002, the group, having gathered in the lobby of the hotel, went to the mountains for location shooting. The day did not start right away, there was a rise ahead, and we had to wait a long time vehicles, in connection with which the start of work, planned for 9:00, was delayed until one in the afternoon. Then, as it turned out later, the shooting nevertheless began and continued until about seven in the evening, when it began to get dark. The film crew of Sergei Bodrov loaded the equipment and set off on the return journey. At a quarter past eight, a mudflow covered a huge area, its mass was several million tons of stones, mud, sand and ice, and the speed exceeded 100 km / h. The layer was thick and reached 300 meters.

In some cases, people are killed or they accidentally die, and there are no witnesses at the place of their death. But still, in most of these cases, it is almost impossible to find a logical explanation.

Here are 20 of the most famous and mysterious disappearances in human history.

1 Flight MH370

One of the most the greatest mysteries 21st century - The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 en route from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Beijing International Airport in China on March 8, 2014. Despite the most diverse versions and theories of what happened, this mystery still remains unsolved and what happened defies any logical explanation.

2 Lost Eskimo Village

One cold November night in 1930, a tired Canadian hunter, Joe Labelle, who was looking for shelter from the cold, accidentally stumbled upon one of the most mysterious places in the history of mankind. The once prosperous Inuit village on the shores of Lake Angikuni, passed by Labelle repeatedly on his travels, has vanished without a trace. All the inhabitants, as if in a hurry, suddenly left the village, leaving their affairs unfinished - somewhere on the hearth food was still being prepared, and in some houses the hunter found unfinished clothes with protruding needles. The Eskimos simply disappeared from this place in the most inexplicable way.

3 Springfield Trinity

The Missing Springfield Three - Three girls are still considered missing. Cheryl Levitt (47), her daughter Susie Streeter (19) and Susie's friend Stacey McCall (18) disappeared from the Levitt home in Springfield, Missouri. Susie and Stacey celebrated the end the day before high school and arrived at Cheryl Levitt's house around 2:00 am after the party. The police were unable to solve the mystery of the disappearance of the girls and the investigation is still ongoing.

4 The Missing Girls In Dunes Park

Forty-nine years ago, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, three girls left their belongings on a crowded beach and, in their swimsuits, went for a walk on Lake Michigan, an hour southeast of Chicago. It happened on the afternoon of July 2, 1966 at national park Dunes of Indiana. From that day on, they are considered missing - no trace of the girls has ever been found.

5. Spartacus

Despite numerous scientific hypotheses that this warrior was killed in battle during the Spartacus Rebellion, the body of one of the most famous slaves of antiquity, who led the uprising, has never been found, and his fate remains unknown.

6. Tara Grinstead

Tara was a high school history teacher in Oquilla, Georgia, USA. She went missing under mysterious circumstances on October 22, 2005. In February 2009, a video of the serial killer appeared on the Internet. In the video, accompanied by the caption "Catch me killer", a man tells the details of the murder of sixteen women, including Tara Grinstead, according to local authorities. However, the video was later determined to be fake, and neither police nor the Georgia FBI found any suspects in the Grinstead disappearance.

7. Richie Edwards

Rock music fans have probably heard of Richie Edwards, a Welsh musician and rhythm guitarist for the alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers, popular in the 1990s. It is known that Edwards liked to deliberately injure himself, suffered from depression, alcoholism and anorexia. In 1995, his car was found abandoned in a place known as "suicide's last resort."

8. Harold Holt

Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared without a trace on December 17, 1967. Despite being regarded as one of Australia's top labor ministers, Holt has gained widespread notoriety due to his mysterious disappearance. Harold Holt went missing while swimming in Cheviot Beach, Victoria on December 17, 1967, but his body was never found. Many believe that he was probably killed because of his support for the US involvement in the Vietnam War, however this version remains unconfirmed.

9. James Thetforth

Ex-serviceman James Tetforth disappeared on December 1, 1949 from an overcrowded bus. Thetford, along with fourteen other passengers, was on his way to his home in Bennington, Vermont. He was last seen dozing in his seat. When the bus arrived at its destination, Thetford had evaporated, although all his belongings were left in the trunk, and the bus schedule lay on an empty seat. Since then, Thetford has never been seen again.

10 Martha Wright

In 1975, American Jackson Wright was driving with his wife from New Jersey to New York. After passing the Lincoln Tunnel, Wright stopped the car to wipe the fogged windows. His wife Martha got out of the car to wipe the rear window. When Wright turned around, he did not see his wife. According to the man, he did not hear or see anything unusual, and the subsequent investigation did not reveal any evidence of a violent death. Martha Wright simply disappeared.

11. Connie Converse

Connie Converse was a talented songwriter and performer of her generation, and she performed on the New York music scene in the late 50s. However, the singer never received wide public recognition. In 1974, when she was about fifty years old, a crisis came in her personal and professional life, and Connie fell into depression. One day, Connie wrote farewell letters and, having sent them along with lyrics and other records to all her friends and relatives, left in an unknown direction. She was never seen again.

12. Caesarion

Caesarion was the eldest son of Cleopatra and probably the only son of Julius Caesar. He was also the last king of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, who ruled the country for eleven days before being assassinated on the orders of Octavian, who later became the Roman Emperor Augustus. However, the exact circumstances and place of his death remain unknown to this day. According to the Greek historian Plutarch, he was not killed, but was sent to India by his mother.

13. Constance Manziarli

Adolf Hitler's personal chef and nutritionist, who went missing while fleeing Berlin after the Soviet invasion and fall Nazi Germany. Despite speculation that she was shot by Soviet soldiers in the Berlin Underground, or that she committed suicide with cyanide, some conspiracy theorists believe that she is still alive, as Constance's body has never been found.

14. Amelia Earhart

The famous American pilot was the first woman in the world to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, but her airplane went missing during a round-the-world flight near Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean in 1937. Her disappearance is still fraught with many mysteries that none of the historians have been able to solve.

15. Adolf Hitler

The death of one of the most famous madmen of the 20th century, Adolf Hitler, is still shrouded in mystery. According to the generally accepted version, on April 30, 1945, after active street fighting, when Soviet troops were on the way to the Reich Chancellery, Hitler shot himself, and his wife Eva Braun swallowed a capsule of cyanide. Their corpses were burned, and the remains were never found, and this fact gave rise to many theories about the subsequent fate of Hitler and his wife.

16. D. B. Cooper

The legendary hijacker D. B. Cooper became famous as the mastermind of the most unusual robbery in the history of mankind. After receiving a $200,000 ransom, he parachuted out of a Boeing 727 flying at an altitude of 4 kilometers in the Oregon area on November 24, 1974. After extensive searches, the police found neither Cooper himself nor any trace of him.

17. Lieutenant Felix Moncla

On the evening of November 23, 1953, the most mysterious event in UFO surveillance occurred - Air Force radars near Lake Michigan, Wisconsin in the United States spotted an unidentified flying object. The F-89C Scorpio fighter was immediately raised to intercept it from Kingross Air Force Base. The aircraft was flown by First Lieutenant Felix Monkla, and Lieutenant Robert Wilson was the fighter's radar operator at the time. As ground operators subsequently claimed, the fighter approached unidentified object, and then both of them, merging together, disappeared from the radar screens. A search and rescue operation was organized, but the wreckage of the aircraft could not be found.

18. Ghost ship "Joyta"

The merchant ship Joyta, carrying twenty-five passengers and crew members, mysteriously disappeared in the southern part of Pacific Ocean in 1955. The drifting ship was soon discovered in very poor condition, with rusted pipes and a working radio, which, due to damaged wiring, could only send distress signals within a radius of three kilometers. So far, nothing is known about the whereabouts of the passengers of this ship.

19. Ninth Legion "Hispan"

The Ninth Legion mysteriously disappeared into foggy Britain during a military campaign. No traces of weapons indicating that the legionnaires could have been destroyed in battle were found - the five thousandth army seemed to be swallowed up by the earth.

20. Disappearance of Valentich

"The Disappearance of Valentich" in 1978 is one of the most unusual events in the history of ufology. The mysterious case of Friedrich Valentich is considered one of the most famous mysteries in Australian aviation - before the plane disappeared into the sky, the pilot managed to report on the radio that he had seen a UFO. Many representatives of the UFO subculture, as well as Valentich's father, believe that the man was abducted by aliens and may even be still alive.

Around the world, thousands of people go missing every year. In some cases, official investigations do not yield any results, it can be said that people literally disappear into thin air - no reasonable explanations or reliable facts can be found. Here are ten people over whose disappearance researchers and enthusiasts are still struggling.

Maura Murray

On May 14, 2008, 19-year-old Brandon Swenson was driving his own car in native city Marshall, Minnesota. It so happened that his car took off from a rural road and ended up in a ditch. The young man called his parents and asked them to pick him up from the scene of the accident, but the relatives who arrived at the scene could not find him. Answering his father's call, Brandon said that he was moving in the direction of the neighboring town of Linda, and then cursed, and the connection was interrupted.

Several attempts to get through to the young man did not give absolutely nothing. Later, the police found Svenson's wrecked car, but neither the mobile phone nor the guy himself could be found. According to one version, he could drown in a nearby river, but careful combing of the channel did not help - the young man disappeared without a trace.

Louis Le Prince

The French inventor Louis Le Prince is considered by many to be the true creator of cinema - it was he who came up with a movie camera with a single lens, capable of capturing moving objects on film.

However, he is known not only for his merits in the creation of cinema - humanity is still haunted by his strange disappearance.

On September 16, 1890, Le Prince visited his brother in the French city of Dijon, and then went to railway to Paris, but when the train arrived in the capital, it turned out that Le Prince had inexplicably disappeared.

IN last time he was seen when he got into his car, the train made several stops along the way, but no one saw Louis get off it. In addition, the inventor was carrying a lot of luggage with him, but numerous drawings and equipment also disappeared without a trace.

The most interesting thing is that the student, apparently, left barefoot - his shoes were in place. Police officers with dogs combed all the nearby neighborhoods, but found no trace of the barefoot freshman. A survey of local residents showed that at 4:35 in the morning an unidentified passerby was seen near the scene, but whether it was Michael or a person somehow connected with his disappearance is still unknown.

Barbara Bolik

On July 18, 2007, a 55-year-old resident of the town of Corvallis in Montana, USA, went on a hike to the rocky Bitterroot ridge with a friend Jim Ramaker, who came to Barbara from California to stay and admire the local nature.

When the tourists were near Bear Creek (in the lane with English. "Bear Creek"), Jim stopped, considering the wonderful scenic view. According to him, he lost sight of Barbara for no more than a minute, while she was about 6-9 meters from the place from which he admired the landscape. When he looked back, he found that the elderly friend had sunk into the ground. The massive search that followed failed to find any trace of Barbara.

Of course, the first thing the policemen involved in the disappearance case carefully checked all the testimony of Jim Ramaker, suspecting that he might be involved in her disappearance, but not the slightest evidence of a kidnapping or murder was found. In addition, if Jim was guilty of anything, he would try to come up with a more convincing version for the investigation than an inexplicable disappearance out of the blue.

Michael Chiron

On August 23, 2008, Michael Chiron went to his farm in Happy Valley, Tennessee to mow the lawn. That morning, acquaintances noticed how Michael left the farm on his ATV - it was then that the 51-year-old pensioner was last seen.

The next day, neighbors found on his property Michael's truck with a trailer, which flaunted a lawn mower, although the grass on the lawn was untouched. When a day later all of Michael's equipment was found in the same place abandoned on the side of the road, friends sounded the alarm. Keys, a wallet and a mobile phone were found inside the truck, but the man himself was nowhere to be seen.

Three days later, the police found an ATV, which, according to the friends of the missing man, belonged to him, one and a half km from the farm, but this find could not shed light on the strange incident. The American did not have any secret ill-wishers who could have a hand in his disappearance, just as there was no reason to go on the run, so the disappearance of the farmer remains a mystery to this day.

April Fabb

One of the most mysterious disappearances in British history happened on April 8, 1969 in Norfolk. April Fabb, a 13-year-old schoolgirl from a small town called Matton, went to visit her sister in the nearby village of Roughton. The girl set off on her bike, and the last person to see her was a truck driver who, at 2:06 p.m., noticed a girl matching April's description on a country road.

Already at 2:12 p.m., her bicycle was found in the middle of a field several hundred meters from the place where the driver had seen April, and no trace of the girl was found nearby.

The main version of the investigation considered the abduction, but it seemed incredible that an unknown criminal in just six minutes could stealthily kidnap April, without leaving a single clue for the investigation.

April Fabb's disappearance is reminiscent of the mysterious disappearance of a young girl named Genette Tate in 1978. At that time, serial killer and rapist Robert Black was considered the main suspect, but there is no evidence that Black was involved in the disappearance of April, so one can only guess at this point.

Brian Shaffer

On the evening of April 1, 2006, a 27-year-old Ohio State University medical student named Brian Shaffer went out for a drink at a bar called the Ugly Tuna Saloona.

Between half past two and two in the morning, Brian inexplicably disappeared: according to eyewitnesses, the student was very drunk and talking on the phone with his girlfriend, and then he was noticed in the company of two other young women. After that, none of the patrons of the bar saw him.

The most curious thing is that many noticed how Shaffer entered the bar, but no one remembers how he left it - leaving young man not even CCTV cameras recorded, although they clearly show how a student enters the pub.

Although Brian had told his mother three weeks earlier that he planned to go on vacation with his girlfriend, friends and family are convinced that he could not have taken the trip so suddenly. One of the versions says that Shaffer could have been kidnapped, but how the attacker managed to get him out of the institution, bypassing video cameras and numerous witnesses, this question puzzles investigators.

Jason Yolkowsky

In the early morning of June 13, 2001, 19-year-old Jason Yolkowski went to work in the small town of Omaha, Nebraska, USA. He agreed with his friend that he would pick him up at a nearby school, but Jason never showed up there, and the neighbor last saw him half an hour before the appointed time of the meeting: Jason, according to a valuable witness, brought garbage cans into his garage.

From the records taken by investigators from school security cameras, it was clear that Jason was really not there, while friends and family cannot give any reasons that could force the young man to hide.

In 2003, the young man's parents Jim and Kelly Jolkowski, in memory of their son, founded the Jason Project, a non-profit organization that searches for the missing, but the fate of Jason himself still remains a mystery.

Nicole Morin

Eight-year-old Nicole Maureen disappeared on July 30, 1985 from a penthouse in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where the girl lived with her mother.

That morning, Nicole and her friend were going to swim in the pool located in one of the parts of the huge building, and at half past ten the girl said goodbye to her mother and left the apartment, and 15 minutes later her friend knocked on the door to find out when Nicole would finally get ready.

After this incident, one of the largest police investigations in the history of Toronto was held, but no threads could be found that could lead to the girl's trail.

The version of the abduction was considered the most likely, but the investigators did not find any evidence of this in the entire 20-story building of the residential complex, so the mystery of the disappearance of Nicole Morin has been haunting the locals for almost three decades.

Throughout human history, numerous cases are known when people simply disappeared forever without explanation. It's really scary when one person disappears, but it becomes even scarier when large groups of people suddenly and forever disappear. In fact, there are some of the most mysterious disappearances in history of hundreds or even thousands of people, and in some cases entire cities, whose inhabitants have gone somewhere, leaving behind only minor clues about what happened to them. Apparently, they simply ceased to exist. What is hidden behind these stories, and what forces could make crowds of people disappear? Here we take a look at some of the most famous mysterious mass disappearances in history, in which a large number of people, apparently, almost dissipated in the air, and who left behind unsolved mysteries.

Perhaps one of the most talked about mass disappearances of people took place in the cold north. In northern Canada, amid relentless icy and piercing winds, on the rocky shores of distant Lake Angikuni, was once an Inuit village. It was quite successful at the time. fishing village with a population of up to 2,500 who made their living on the fringes of civilization. It was here in November 1930 that a fur hunter named Joe LaBelle came across the snow and ice. He wanted to seek refuge after a difficult snowshoe journey. Labelle must have been in the village before, since he relied on a warm welcome.

However, in the village of Labelle, no one welcomed, as it used to be. It was rather strange, because it was a bustling developing village. Only the howl of the wind answered his cries. Labelle carefully made his way into the village, which met him with deathly silence. He passed emaciated sled dogs frozen in the snow, looking like they were starving to death. I looked into several snow-filled shacks in which the locals lived, and saw that personal belongings and weapons remained intact. There were bowls of food on the tables, and pots of charred food hung over the smoldering embers in the hearths. There was no sign of a struggle or anything out of the ordinary, except that there was not a soul in the whole village. It seemed that they should have returned at any moment. However, all the villagers simply disappeared.

When Labelle returned to civilization, he immediately reported the matter to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who launched an investigation into the matter. They found this abandoned village, where even the warehouses remained intact. Police also found frozen sled dogs tied to a tree, as well as devastated sacred graves. There were no footprints in the snow that could tell where the people had gone. Mounted police confirmed Labelle's report that all the villagers had disappeared, taking only their coats with them. Residents of nearby settlements reported to the police that they had observed strange lights in the sky above this village in the days preceding Labelle's arrival there. Although it is highly likely that these creepy details could have been added later.

The story of the disappeared Inuit village has the status of a legend in the world of the inexplicable, especially in cases of strange disappearances. The problem is that it is not known how much of this story is true, and how much has been embellished or fabricated over time. There seems to be very little truly reliable data or information that could shed light on this strange story. In the absence of any concrete information, the disappeared village will remain just a horror story, surrounded by questions, the answers to which we will most likely never know.

The village on Lake Angikuni is not the only settlement that has mysteriously gone missing. There is another mysterious story disappearances of people in the colony on the island of Roanoke. In 1587, the first permanent residence was established on the island. English colony in the New World. A strip of land 12 km long and 3 km wide was located off the coast of the current US state of North Carolina among the barrier islands, which were called the Outer Banks. About 120 settlers led by John White, including men, women and children, despite the difficulties and the long sea voyage, landed here to start a new life.

The settlers faced unpredictable weather, lack of food supplies, and hostility from the indigenous tribes. In the end, White was forced to return to England to load the ship with the things necessary for the colony. According to him, he said goodbye to friends and relatives who remained on the island and sailed over the horizon. White originally planned to return to the colony after three months, but met with unforeseen difficulties. There was a war between England and Spain. Each ship was involved in military battles and White's own ship was confiscated. White was able to return to the island only three years later.

When White finally arrived in Roanoke, no one greeted him. When he landed with his crew, he found no settlement. The houses were dismantled and demolished, and there was no trace of the settlers. It looked like the village had been wiped off the face of the earth. The search turned up several odd clues and the word "Croatoan" hastily carved into one tree and the letters "CRO" into another. There were no signs of a struggle. They just disappeared.

White suggested that the carved words meant that the settlers could have moved to the southern island of Hatteras, which at that time was inhabited by a tribe of friendly Croatoan natives. Indeed, prior to his departure three years ago, he instructed the settlers that if they were ever forced to leave the island due to an attack by hostile natives or natural disaster, they will have to carve the name of the new place on the tree, along with a Maltese cross. There was no cross next to the found words, and this remained a mystery to White. He decided to go to the island to the Croatoans, but refused this because of bad weather and a rebellion of the crew. As a result, White was forced to return to England, never to return. The fate of the settlers, among whom was his daughter and granddaughter, remained unknown.

There have been many theories as to what happened to the vanished colony on Roanoke Island. Some believe that the settlers were killed by aggressive natives. Others believe that they were crippled by a mysterious disease, but not a single body or grave was found. Someone believes that they died during a hurricane or while trying to return to England and died at sea. And it is quite possible that the settlers actually moved to Hatteras Island and assimilated with the locals. In the following centuries, random clues arose that could explain what happened to the colonists, but no answer was ever found.

Another curious story about the disappeared village of Hoer Verde in Brazil. On February 5, 1923, a group of people who arrived in this small village of 600 people found that there was not a soul in it, all houses, personal belongings and food were left in a big hurry. Authorities launched an investigation but could not find any trace. The only evidence was a gun that had been fired recently and the words "No Escape" scrawled on the board. It has been speculated that 600 Hoer Verde residents left the village due to attacks by guerrillas or drug dealers, or were abducted by aliens, but unfortunately there is very little evidence for this and the case of the disappearance of the village in Brazil remains an unsolved mystery.

The mysterious disappearance of the Roman Ninth Legion can also be attributed to the category of the strangest mass disappearances. Formed in 65 BC, the Ninth Legion was the most ruthless military unit of the Roman Empire, consisting of about 5,000 of the most experienced and well-trained fighters from the most different countries. By the 2nd century AD, the well-armed, well-trained army of the Ninth Legion was pushing the enemy in the most remote areas, including Africa, Germany, Spain, the Balkans and Britain, and played an important role in maintaining the iron power of Rome throughout its vast empire. Indeed, at that time, in the 2nd century AD, the Ninth Legion was sent to England to suppress the rebellion of the wild militant barbarian tribes. He could have asserted the power of Rome, which had suffered huge losses in battles with the barbarian hordes and was struggling to keep England under its control. In particular, during the reign of Emperor Hadrian (117-138 AD), the Romans lost large numbers of soldiers in bloody battles in Britain. This worried the Roman authorities so much that they even built a huge wall, called Hadrian's Wall, to contain the enemy.

In 109 AD The Ninth Legion fell into precisely this maelstrom of warfare and upheaval, coming face to face in Scotland with an enemy that terrified most soldiers, with their painted faces, mutilated faces, tattered clothes of bear and wolf skins, naked bodies even in the middle of winter, intimidating tattoos, booming drums and mystical shamans howling prayers to the ancient Celtic gods in the midst of battle. These barbarians were ruthless enemies no one had ever met before, but the Ninth Legion marched boldly forward to push them north. A huge force of soldiers in heavy armor moved forward and no one else saw it. Thousands of people disappeared without a trace.

The mystery of the missing Roman Ninth Legion has become a legend and a historical mystery that has not yet been solved to this day. Of course, there are many theories as to what happened to the Ninth Legion. The most likely assumption put forward by historians is that nothing mysterious happened, the legion was simply sent to other battlefields in Britain or the Middle East, or it was disbanded altogether. Scottish legend tells that the formidable Roman army was slaughtered in daring guerrilla attacks. According to some rumors that leaked from the battlefield at that time, it was believed that as a result of the battle between the legion and the Celtic tribes, everyone died. However, all of these theories lack any archaeological evidence to settle this issue once and for all. All we know is that, for some reason, all records of this battle disappeared, which has since passed into the category of secrets and legends.

The same strange disappearance of soldiers occurred in China in 1937. This was during the Second Sino-Japanese War, when as a result of the invasion of Japanese troops into the then capital of China, the city of Nanjing, 300,000 civilians were mercilessly exterminated in 6 weeks. A few days before this tragic event, Chinese Colonel Li Fu Xing desperately tried to stop the Japanese invasion by deploying 3,000 heavily armed soldiers at an important strategic bridge over the Yangtze River. Heavy weapons and artillery were placed on the defensive line, and the colonel himself was waiting for the attack at his headquarters.

The next morning, the Colonel was awakened by an assistant who said that contact with the defensive line had been lost. Frustrated, Li Fu Xing sent a group of soldiers to clear up the situation. When the investigation team arrived at the scene, it became apparent that more than 3,000 soldiers had completely disappeared. Heavy weapons and artillery remained in their firing positions. There was no sign of blood or struggle, nothing at all. Where they all went was unclear. The two sentries at the far end of the bridge were still on guard, claiming that no one had passed by them. In fact, several outposts were set up in the area, but no one saw the movement of so many soldiers. How could they move quietly and unnoticed without reporting to their superiors and without notifying these outposts? After the war, some efforts were made to investigate the disappearance of 3,000 armed men, but in the Japanese archives there was not the slightest hint of their fate. This mass disappearance remains a mystery to this day. Given that the Japanese went to great lengths to cover up their crimes in China during the war, it is very likely that we will never know what happened to these soldiers.

Another strange event occurred in China in the years that followed, when in 1945 a train carrying several hundred passengers from Guangdong to Shanghai never arrived at its destination, and an intensive search was unsuccessful. The only thing that was found during the search for the train was a strange lake, which had not been here before. In November of the same year, 100 Soviet soldiers were on their way to the railway station and inexplicably disappeared along the way. The investigation found a half-way parking lot and an extinguished fire, but there was no trace of where the soldiers had gone.

What is behind these mass disappearances? Is there any rational explanation, or is there something far stranger than we can imagine? There are many theories that try to explain these mysterious disappearances, ranging from meteorite impacts, UFOs, black holes that suddenly appear, or dimensional portals that trap large numbers of people. Will these mysteries ever be solved? Perhaps no one will ever be able to find the answers to these questions.

Thousands of people go missing every year, and the cases of these disappearances become truly discouraging, when investigators have virtually nothing to work with - situations in which no one has seen anything, and there are no reasonable explanations. It's almost the same as if these people literally vanished into thin air.

1 Maura Murray

On February 9, 2004, 21-year-old University of Massachusetts student Maura Murray reported on e-mail to her teachers and employers, who is forced to leave due to the death of a (fictitious) member of her family. She had an accident that evening, crashing her car into a tree near Woodsville, New Hampshire. By a strange coincidence, a couple of days earlier, Maura also had an accident and crashed another car.

The driver of a passing bus approached and asked Maura if the police should be called. The girl said no, but the driver still made the call as soon as he got to the nearest phone. When the police arrived ten minutes later, Maura was gone.
No signs of a struggle were found at the scene, so Maura may have asked someone to give her a ride. The next day, Maura's fiancé from Oklahoma received a voice message, presumably from her, but heard only sobs on the other end of the line. Although Maura is last days acted a little strange before disappearing, her family does not believe that she disappeared of her own free will.

Nine years have passed, but it has not been possible to find out what happened to the girl.

2. Brandon Swenson

On the evening of May 14, 2008, as 19-year-old Brandon Swanson was driving back to his hometown of Marshall, Minnesota on a rural gravel road, his car went into a ditch. Brandon called his parents and asked them to come pick him up. They immediately went in search of the vyn, but could not find him. His father called him back, Brandon picked up the phone and said that he was trying to get to the nearest town of Lead. And in the middle of the conversation, Brandon suddenly cursed, and the connection abruptly ended.

Brandon's father tried to call back several more times, but received no answer and could not find his son. Later, the police found Brandon's car, but could not find either the guy himself or his cell phone. According to one version, he could accidentally drown in a nearby river, but no traces of the body were found in it. No one knows what prompted Brandon to swear during the ringing, but it was the last thing they heard from him.

3. Louis Le Prince

Louis Le Prince is a famous French inventor who was the first to capture moving images on film. Oddly enough, the "father of cinema" is also remembered as the subject of one of the strangest disappearances in history. On September 16, 1890, Le Prince was visiting his brother in Dijon and then went by train to Paris. When the train arrived at its destination, it turned out that Le Prince had disappeared.

Le Prince was last seen entering his carriage after checking his luggage. There were no signs of violence or anything suspicious during the trip, no one could remember seeing Le Prince outside his carriage. The windows were tightly closed, so it would have been rather difficult to jump off the train, but suicide seemed unlikely at all, since Le Prince was going to go to America to get a patent for his new invention.

As a result of this disappearance, the patent for the kinetoscope (an apparatus for showing successive photographs of movement) went to Thomas Edison. As for Le Prince, his further fate still remains a mystery.

At 4:00 am on December 10, 1999, an 18-year-old UCLA freshman named Michael Negrete turned off his computer, playing video games with friends all night long. At nine in the morning, his roommate woke up and noticed that Michael had left, but left all his belongings, including keys and wallet. He was never seen again.

The most curious thing about Michael's disappearance is that the guy even left his shoes. Investigators used search dogs to try to track Michael to a bus stop a couple of miles from the dorm, but how could he have gotten this far without shoes? Only one person was seen near the scene at 4:35 am, but no one knows if he is connected to Michael's disappearance. There is no reason to believe that Michael disappeared of his own accord, but there has been no news of Michael's fate for more than a decade.

5. Barbara Bolick

On July 18, 2007, Barbara Bolik, a 55-year-old woman from Corvallis, Montana, went hiking in the mountains with her friend Jim Ramaker, who was visiting from California. When Jim stopped to take in the scenery, Barbara was 6-9 meters behind him, but turning back less than a minute later, he found that the woman had disappeared. The police joined the search, but the woman could not be found.

At first glance, Jim Ramaker's story sounds absolutely incredible. However, he cooperated with the authorities, and since there was no evidence of his involvement in Barbara's disappearance, he was no longer considered a suspect. The culprit would certainly have tried to come up with a better story, rather than claiming that his victim simply vanished into thin air. Six years have passed, but no traces of a violent death have been found, as well as any hints of what could happen to Barbara.

On August 23, 2008, 51-year-old Michael Heron went to his farm in Happy Valley, Tennessee, planning to cut the grass on the lawn. That morning, neighbors saw Michael leave the farm in his all-terrain vehicle - and that was the last time he was seen. The next day, Michael's friends visited the farm and saw his truck parked on the road. A trailer was attached to it, in which a lawn mower was found, but the grass on the lawn remained untouched. His friends returned the next day and were worried when they saw the truck parked in the same place, which still had the keys, cell phone and wallet.

Three days after Michael's disappearance, investigators found the only clue: an all-terrain vehicle on a steep hill, located one and a half kilometers from his house. However, it was not clear why he needed to go there. In addition, no traces of violence were found. Michael had no enemies and no other reason to hide, so he became a truly incomprehensible mystery.

7. April Fubb

One of the most famous disappearances in British history took place in Norfolk on April 8, 1969. A 13-year-old schoolgirl named April Fabb left the house and went to her sister in a nearby village. She rode her bike there and was last seen by a truck driver. At 2:06 p.m., he noticed the girl driving along a country road. And at 2:12 p.m., her bike was found in the middle of a field a few hundred yards from where she was seen, but there was no sign of April.

Kidnapping seemed like the most likely scenario for April's disappearance, but the attacker would only have six minutes to kidnap the girl and leave the crime scene without anyone noticing. April's extensive search turned up no leads.

This case has much in common with the disappearance of another young girl, Janet Tate, in 1978, so Robert Black, a notorious child killer, was considered as a possible suspect. However, there is no evidence to definitively determine his involvement in April's disappearance, so this mystery remains unresolved as well.

8. Brian Shaffer

A 27-year-old medical student from the University of Ohio went to the bar on the evening of April 1, 2006. Sometime between 1:30 and 2:00 he mysteriously disappeared. He drank a lot that night and, after talking to his girlfriend on his cell phone, he was last seen in the company of two young women. However, no one in the bar could remember if he had been seen after that.

The most difficult question in this story, which remains unanswered, is how Brian got out of the bar. CCTV footage clearly shows him entering the bar, but none of the footage shows him leaving! Neither Brian's friends nor his family believe he went into hiding on purpose. Three weeks earlier, he had been studying well and was planning to go on vacation with his girlfriend. But if Brian was kidnapped or the victim of another crime, then how did the attacker get him out of the bar without being seen by any witnesses or security cameras?

9. Jason Yolkowsky

On the morning of June 13, 2001, 19-year-old Jason Yolkowski was called to work. He asked his friend to pick him up at a nearby high school, but he never showed up.

The last time Jason was seen by his neighbor was about half an hour before the appointment, when the guy was carrying garbage cans into his garage. High school security cameras show he didn't show up there. Jason had no personal problems or any other reason to disappear, nor is there any evidence that anything could have happened to him. His fate remains a mystery even twelve years later.

In 2003, Jim and Kelly Jolkowski immortalized their son's name by founding their project, a non-profit organization that has become one of the most famous foundations for the families of the missing.

10. Nicole Maureen

On July 30, 1985, eight-year-old Nicole Maureen left her mother's penthouse in Toronto. That morning, Nicole was going to swim in the pool with her friend. She said goodbye to her mother and left the apartment, but 15 minutes later her friend came to find out why Nicole hadn't left yet.

Nicole's disappearance led to one of the largest police investigations in Toronto's history, but no trace of the girl has ever been found. The most plausible assumption was that someone could have kidnapped Nicole right after she left the apartment, but the building had twenty floors, so it would be quite difficult to get her out of there unnoticed. One of the tenants said that he saw Nicole approaching the elevator, but no one else saw or heard anything. Nearly thirty years later, authorities still haven't collected enough data to establish what happened to Nicole Maureen.