List of people who have disappeared without a trace

The list of people who have disappeared without a trace contains encyclopaedically relevant people who have disappeared without a trace outside of warlike events, that is, for whom no remains or other legacies have so far emerged that would suggest their fate.

list

year	People)	Kind of disappearance
29 BC Chr.	Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphos	The fate of the two sons of Cleopatra VII and Marcus Antonius after 29 BC. Is unknown.
773 or 774	Gerperga with her son Pippin and one other child	After the death of the husband Karlmann I in 771, the family fled to the Longobard Empire . However, they disappeared from the sources after 773 or 774 after they fell into the hands of Charlemagne's followers . Historians assume they were either killed or locked away to give Karl sole rule.
1203	Arthur I.	The designated heir to the English throne disappeared in April 1203 during his transfer as a prisoner to Rouen .
1463	François Villon	The French poet was banished from Paris on January 8, 1463 , from which point nothing further is known about his life.
around 1483	Prince in the Tower	Edward V of England and his brother Richard of Shrewsbury were last seen in the Tower in the summer of 1483. After that, their trail is lost and it is widely believed that they were murdered.
around 1498	Giovanni Caboto	The Italian navigator set out on a sea voyage westwards in 1498 in order to reach Asia. Nothing is known about the further fate of Caboto and the course of his journey.
1501	Gaspar Corte-Real	The Portuguese navigator disappeared with his ship without a trace on a sea voyage. A year later, his brother Miguel Corte-Real , who had set out to find him , also disappeared .
1525	Ottilie Müntzer	The life of the former nun is lost in the dark shortly after the execution of her husband Thomas Müntzer .
1526	Francisco de Hoces	The Spanish navigator and alleged discoverer of the Drake Passage has been missing in the Pacific since May 1526.
1546	Francisco de Orellana	The Spanish explorer and conqueror disappeared in an unexplained way in the Amazon region.
1694	Philipp Christoph von Königsmarck	The German-Swedish count had a relationship with the wife of Duke Georg Ludwig von Braunschweig-Lüneburg and disappeared without a trace in the Leineschloss on July 11, 1694 , according to the general opinion by murder on the orders of the Duke. In the case of bone finds in the castle area, a connection with the count has often been suspected since then, including in 2016, but this has not been confirmed in any case.
after October 1696	Henry Every	The English pirate disappeared without a trace after arriving in Ireland.
1792	James Harrod	The pioneer of American colonization of the US state of Kentucky went on a lengthy hunting tour into the wild in 1792 and was never seen again.
1803	George Bass	The English explorer set sail on February 5, 1803 on his last expedition to Peru. What exactly happened to him there is unknown. Rumors ranged from an accident on the high seas to an assassination attempt by Spaniards.
1809	Benjamin Bathurst	The English diplomat disappeared in Perleberg on November 25, 1809 and was never seen again.
1829	John Lansing	The American politician mysteriously disappeared in New York City on December 12, 1829 . He left his hotel and wanted to post a letter. After that he was never seen again.
1848	Khachatur Abovyan	The Armenian writer disappeared under mysterious circumstances on April 2, 1848 in Yerevan, Armenia.
1848	Ludwig Leichhardt	The German explorer disappeared with his expedition in the Australian outback.
1857	Solomon Northup	The African American slave became known as the author of the book Twelve Years a Slave . His fate after 1857 is largely in the dark, neither his whereabouts nor the circumstances or cause of his life or death are known.
1861	Johann Heinrich Fischer	The leader of the Freiämtersturm of 1830 left his place of residence without giving a destination and was never seen again.
1886	Adolf Lüderitz	On October 23, 1886, boarded a folding boat with a companion to explore the Orange Estuary and has since disappeared without a trace.
1890	Johann Salvator of Austria-Tuscany	The former Austrian Archduke , who renounced his title and took the name Johann Orth , disappeared on a trip from London to South America. It is believed that his ship sank in violent storms near Cape Horn .
1890	Louis Le Prince	The French chemist, inventor and film pioneer wanted to travel from Bourges to Dijon to visit his brother there. According to this, Le Prince is said to have boarded a train to Paris on the 16th. But he never got there and despite an intensive search by his family and the police, he disappeared without a trace. What exactly happened is still unclear today.
1892	Hermann Fol	The Swiss zoologist cast his yacht in Bénodet (Brittany) on March 13, 1892. He or his two-man crew were never heard from again.
1896	Albert Jennings Fountain	The American politician and his son who accompanied him disappeared on February 1, 1896 on their way home from a court hearing in Lincoln to Mesilla in what is now New Mexico . A trace of the two was never found again.
1907	Walther von Knebel	The German geologist disappeared on July 10, 1907 with his companion, the painter Max Rudloff, while investigating the crater lake Öskjuvatn in the highlands of Iceland .
1909	Joshua Slocum	The Canadian-American navigator disappeared with his boat on an expedition to South America.
1913/14	Ambrose Bierce	The trail of the American writer and journalist was lost around the turn of the year in the turmoil of the Mexican Civil War , in the wake of the revolutionary Pancho Villa .
1916	Béla Kiss	The Hungarian serial killer disappeared without a trace, probably to avoid his arrest.
1916	Aeneas Mackintosh	As head of the Ross Sea Party , Mackintosh and Viktor Hayward set out on foot on May 8, 1916 to get help for the stranded expedition members. Since then, her whereabouts have remained unsolved.
1916	Frederick Mors	The whereabouts of the Austrian serial killer have been unsolved since his escape from a hospital in Poughkeepsie .
1918	Arthur Cravan	The British poet and amateur boxer disappeared in Mexico without a trace.
1924	Andrew Irvine	Killed while climbing Mount Everest. The body has not yet been found. It is unknown whether he reached the summit before his death.
1925	Percy Fawcett	The British archaeologist and researcher disappeared in the Brazilian jungle.
1927	Charles Nungesser	The French aviation pioneer disappeared on an Atlantic flight from Paris to New York City.
1928	Roald Amundsen	The Norwegian polar explorer disappeared in his plane in the Arctic.
1928	Franz Romer	Disappeared while trying to be the first to cross the Atlantic in a folding boat.
1930	Rasmus Villumsen	Greenlandic explorer and last companion of the Arctic explorer Alfred Wegener .
1934	Wallace Fard Muhammad	Founder of the Nation of Islam , lived and worked in Detroit until June 30, 1934.
1935 or 1936	Bob Lymburne	The Canadian ski jumper disappeared while hiking in late 1935 or 1936.
1937	Amelia Earhart	The American aviation pioneer and women's rights activist disappeared over the Pacific in her plane.
1938	Ettore Majorana	The Italian physicist disappeared on a boat trip from Naples to Palermo.
1941	Thomas C. Latimore	The American naval officer and former governor of American Samoa mysteriously disappeared in Hawaii in the summer of 1941.
1941	Fania Lewando	The Polish Jew fled Vilnius from the German occupiers, was arrested by Soviet soldiers and then disappeared without a trace.
1944	Glenn Miller	The American musician, composer and leader of an army band disappeared in December 1944 while flying over the English Channel.
1945	Heinrich Muller	Hitler's Gestapo boss has been considered missing since May 1945.
1945	Heinrich XLV. Prince Reuss younger line	The head of the Thuringian noble family Reuss was arrested by the Soviet military in August and has been missing since then. It is believed that he was killed in special camp No. 2 Buchenwald .
1945	Alfred Particle	The German landscape painter disappeared on October 20 while looking for mushrooms near Ahrenshoop .
1947 or later	Raoul Wallenberg	He became known as the savior of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust . His fate after 1947 is in the dark.
1948	Arthur Coningham	On January 28, 1948, the officer of the Royal Air Force boarded an Avro Tudor aircraft operated by British South American Airways in Lisbon on a business trip to South America . On January 30, the machine disappeared near the Bermuda Islands , the accident has not yet been resolved.
1956	Lionel Crabb	The British combat diver disappeared on April 19 while diving in Portsmouth docks . The case attracted international attention due to its circumstances.
1957	Maurice Audin	The mathematician and activist against the French colonial government in Algeria was arrested on June 11, 1957 and presumably murdered shortly afterwards. An Algerian court officially declared him dead in 1963, but the case has never been resolved beyond doubt.
1959	Camilo Cienfuegos	The Cuban revolutionary was killed in a plane crash. His machine disappeared on October 28, 1959 on a domestic flight from Camagüey to Havana without a trace over the Atlantic. It is still unclear whether it was an accident or an assassination attempt.
1961	Michael Rockefeller	Nelson Rockefeller's son disappeared during an expedition to the Asmat region in southwest New Guinea.
1961	David Kenyon Webster	The American writer, journalist and soldier drove off the coast of Santa Monica (California) on September 9, 1961 and disappeared.
1965	Mehdi Ben Barka	The Moroccan opposition politician disappeared in Paris on October 29, 1965. Presumably he was abducted and murdered by the secret service; however, the exact circumstances were never clarified and the perpetrators were never identified.
1967	Jim Thompson	The American entrepreneur and former secret service employee disappeared without a trace in Malaysia.
1967	Harold Holt	The then incumbent Prime Minister of Australia disappeared without a trace while bathing on a beach near Melbourne.
1970	Sean Flynn	The American photographer and actor, son of Errol Flynn , fell into the hands of the Viet Cong during the war in Cambodia and has been considered missing ever since.
1972	Ingeborg Barz	The RAF terrorist has been missing since 1972. There are contradicting statements that assume a murder, natural death or an escape abroad.
1972	Hale Boggs and Nick Begich	The American Congressmen disappeared on a flight over Alaska. Neither of them nor of the plane was ever seen. Among the missing are the pilot of the plane and two campaign workers.
1974	Oscar Zeta Acosta	The American politician, writer and activist of the Chicano civil rights movement disappeared on a trip to Mexico. According to his son, he likely got into a fight and was killed in the process.
1974	John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan	The British nobleman disappeared after an alleged murder of a nanny, for which he was convicted in absentia in 1975. In 1999 he was declared dead.
1974	Guðmundur Einarsson and Geirfinnur Einarsson	The unexplained disappearance of these two men and the legal disputes over them are regarded as the most spectacular criminal case and legal scandal in Iceland.
1975	Bas Jan Ader	The Dutch performance artist disappeared in July 1975 with his sailing boat Ocean Wave while attempting an artistically motivated crossing of the Atlantic . His boat was washed ashore on the Irish coast about 10 months later, but he or any evidence of his fate was never found.
1975	Jimmy Hoffa	The American union leader, who was also in contact with the Mafia, disappeared without a trace on July 30th.
1975	Mick Burke	The British mountaineer disappeared while attempting a solo ascent in the immediate vicinity of the summit of Mt. Everest. A weakened colleague was waiting for him 100 meters below the summit. It is believed that Burke crashed into the inaccessible Kangshung Wall . It is unknown whether he reached the summit before.
1978	Eddie Aikau	The Hawaiian lifeguard and surfer has been believed to have been lost at sea since March 17th. He was a crew member of the research vessel Hōkūleʻa, which capsized that day. Aikau tried to get help and paddled without a life jacket with his surfboard towards Lānaʻi. He was never seen again. The rest of the crew was saved.
1979	Agamemnon Despopoulos	The American physiologist set sail on November 2nd in Bizerta (Tunisia) on his sailing yacht Cybele to cross the Atlantic with his wife Sarah Jones-Despopoulos. The couple has been missing since then.
1981	Udo Albrecht	The right-wing extremist wanted in West Germany was given a new identity by the Ministry for State Security and traveled to the Middle East. According to official information, there has been no trace of Albrecht since then.
1982	Joe Tasker	Together with Peter Boardman, the British climber tried to climb the extremely dangerous and rarely used route of the Three Pinnacles on Mt. Everest. Boardman's body was found years later at the second Pinnacle at an altitude of 8,100 meters, but Joe Tasker remained missing. It is believed that he fell in the eastern Kangshung Valley.
1983	Mirella Gregori	The daughter of a bar owner disappeared without a trace in Rome after leaving the house on the way to a meeting with a school friend.
1983	Emanuela Orlandi	The daughter of a papal servant disappeared 40 days after Mirella Gregori without a trace in Rome . The investigation was resumed in May 2012 and suspended in October 2015 due to unsuccessfulness.
1985	Vladimir Valentinovich Alexandrov	The Soviet physicist and climatologist disappeared in Córdoba in March 1985 after giving a lecture on the nuclear winter in Madrid . He may have been kidnapped and murdered by the Soviet secret service.
1985	Sarah Oberson	The five-year-old Swiss girl disappeared in Saxon VS in September 1985 on the way to her grandmother. Only his bike was found.
1986	Ingrid superstar	The American actress and an Andy Warhol "superstar" disappeared in December 1986 without a trace from her apartment in Kingston, New York City.
1994	Ylenia Carrisi	The Italian TV star, daughter of Al Bano and Romina Power , disappeared in New Orleans .
1995	Richey James Edwards	The Welsh musician, best known as the guitarist for the Manic Street Preachers , has not been confirmed sightings since checking out of a hotel in London on February 1 . His car was found a few days later near the Severn Bridge , which is often used for suicides. His further fate remains unexplained. He was pronounced dead in November 2008.
1995	Larry Hillblom	The American co-founder of the logistics group DHL probably died on May 21 in a plane crash with a seaplane off the Mariana Island of Saipan ; In contrast to the two other occupants of the plane, his body was never found.
1999	Sacharanka jury	The Belarusian opposition politician disappeared without a trace.
1999	Viktor Hanjar	The Belarusian opposition politician was kidnapped in Minsk and has been missing since then.
2000	Bruno Manser	The Swiss ethnologist and environmental activist stayed in the Malaysian state of Sarawak and has been missing since then. He was officially declared missing in 2005.
2000	Dmitri Savadsky	The Belarusian journalist disappeared in Minsk without a trace.
2002	Bison Dele	The US basketball player disappeared under mysterious circumstances from his yacht in the Pacific with two other people in July 2002.
2002	Marco Siffredi	The 23-year-old Frenchman, who became famous for his first snowboard descent from the summit of Mount Everest , disappeared a year later while attempting a new route on the north side of the same mountain. Whether he was hit by an avalanche or fell into the bergschrund could not be determined. His body has not yet been found.
2003	Ben Charles Padilla	The aircraft mechanic was the only known occupant to disappear together with a stolen Boeing 727 passenger plane that suddenly took off from Luanda Airport without any clearance and has not been seen since.
2006	Joe Pichler	The American actor disappeared on January 5th and has been missing since then.
2006	Walentyna Kowpan	The former Soviet silver medalist at the 1976 Summer Olympics disappeared without a trace on May 12, 2006. The police are assuming a failed kidnapping.
2006	Jean-Christophe Lafaille	The French high-altitude climber disappeared on January 26th while attempting a solo winter ascent of Makalu
2007	Jim Gray	The computer scientist and his boat disappeared in January near San Francisco in the Pacific Ocean.
2007	Andrew McAuley	The Australian disappeared while trying to become the first person to paddle a sea ​​kayak from Tasmania to New Zealand . On February 9, he sent an emergency call that he had gone overboard and capsized his boat. The boat was found by the sea ​​rescue service , but he himself remained missing.
2007	Madeleine McCann	The three-year-old British girl disappeared from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal , on May 3, 2007 and has been missing ever since. The Portuguese police stopped the investigation after 14 months, but resumed it five years later. The British police opened their own investigation in 2011. Despite extensive international investigations, no concrete trace has been found to date.
2007	Aeryn Gillern	The UNIDO employee has been missing since October 29, 2007. He was last seen in the Kaiserbründl sauna that evening . Allegedly he ran naked from the sauna.
2010	Georg Siegel	The German chess player was last in Freiburg i. Br. Seen cycling during a flood of the Dreisam .
2011	Daniel Lind Lagerlöf	The Swedish director disappeared without a trace in a stormy wind on the Swedish Skagerrak coast when he wanted to prepare for filming of the detective novel Strandritter by Camilla Läckberg in the Tjurpannan nature reserve (near Tanumshede , Bohuslän ) .
2012	Vadim Michailowitsch Pappé	The Russian art historian has not been seen since leaving his place of work in Moscow on June 28, 2012 .
2013	Gregorios Johanna Ibrahim and Bulos Jasidschi	The Syrian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox Archbishops of Aleppo were kidnapped either by Islamists or by henchmen of the Assad regime.
2013	Evi Nemeth	The American mathematician and computer scientist disappeared in July 2013 when she wanted to cross the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand with other people on the historic schooner The Niña . The ship got caught in a storm on July 4th; since then there has been no sign of life, and a search by the coast guard was unsuccessful.
2014	Lars Mittank	The then 28-year-old German was on vacation in Bulgaria, where he was last seen on July 8th at Varna airport . He left the airport with no luggage or papers in a panic and fled over a fence into a nearby field. Since then there has been no trace of him.
2018	Karl-Erivan Haub	The German entrepreneur and head of the Tengelmann Group undertook a ski tour on the Matterhorn alone on April 7 and never returned. In October 2018, the search was stopped due to a lack of prospects of success.
2018	Daniel Küblböck	The German pop singer went overboard on the cruise ship AIDAluna off the coast of Newfoundland during a trip from Hamburg to New York City and was not found despite an intensive search.
2018	Surachai Danwattananusorn	The Thai political activist disappeared in Laos in December 2018. Presumably he was abducted and murdered by the Thai military junta.

See also : List of missing commercial aircraft

Individual evidence

1. ^ Carl Fischer in: François Villon. Complete Works, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-423-12944-2 , p. 279
2. ↑ http://frauen-und-reformation.de/?s=bio&id=78 , accessed on October 25, 2019
3. ↑ https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/ly/bob-lymburne-1.html , accessed on September 8, 2019
4. ^ Ofer Aderet: Veggie Burgers in 1930s Vilna - a Jewish Chef Ahead of Her Time , Haaretz, May 26, 2015
5. ↑ Crabb on the torso . In: Der Spiegel . No. 21 , 1956, pp. 40 ( Online - May 23, 1956 ).
6. ↑ Insight from calculation. In: Junge Welt , October 18, 2018, p. 12