There’s something uniquely disturbing about people vanishing into thin air. Read about these incredibly strange, unsolved cases.
Virginia Dare
On August 18, 1587, Virginia Dare was born in Roanoke Colony, making her the first English child born in the Americas. Her grandfather was John White, who earlier that year had helped found Roanoke, but White never saw Virginia grow up because by the time he returned to Roanoke from an extended trip to retrieve supplies, the entire colony had vanished—not just the people, but every structure. No one knows what happened to Virginia or the rest of the Roanoke colonists.
Owen Parfitt
The disappearance of old Owen Parfitt from his sister’s front porch in the English countryside isn’t nearly as famous as, say, the disappearance of Amelia Earhart in 1937, but it’s even more mysterious. In the summer of 1763 (or therebouts—accounts differ on the exact year), while living with his sister in the town of Shepton Mallet, the paralyzed 60-year-old Parfitt simply disappeared. He couldn’t have walked off, but even the farm workers in the field across the road from the porch where Parfitt was sitting didn’t see anyone come or go. One moment he was there, the next, poof.
Ambrose Bierce
The stories of American author, Ambrose Bierce, were part of the inspiration behind the first season of HBO’s True Detective. Bierce himself is the subject of a real-life mystery that will likely never be solved. One day in 1913, when Bierce was in his 70s, he told his friends and family he was going to Mexico to join Pancho Villa’s revolution. After sending a few letters from Mexico, Bierce was never seen or heard from again. Some speculate he was killed in action, while others believe that he may have committed suicide. Here are more of the strangest unsolved mysteries of all time.
Paula Jean Welden
Paula Jean Welden was a sophomore at Bennington College on the day in December 1946 that she disappeared without a trace after telling her roommate she was taking a long walk. At one point, Paula’s father was suspected in her disappearance; he was later cleared. Over the next 10 years, a local Bennington man bragged to friends that he knew where Paula’s body was buried, but he couldn’t lead police to the gravesite. No one knows what really happened to Paula, but her disappearance ranks as one of history’s strangest unsolved mysteries.
James Tetford
Strangely enough, Bennington was the site of several unsolved disappearances that took place in the 1940s, including that of the wife of James Tetford, whom Tetford claimed went to the market and never returned. Just a few years later, in 1949, Tetford himself disappeared without a trace. He was last seen on a crowded bus, sleeping in his seat. Yet when the bus reached Bennington, Tetford had gone, all of his belongings left behind. He was never seen or heard from again.
