If you ’ve seen the authoritative 1960 picture " Spartacus , " you may be surprised to find out that the malcontent second - century prizefighter portrayed by Kirk Douglas was n’t actually captured and put to death by the Romans . In genuine sprightliness , he was never institute — stagnant or live — even though the slave army was vote out on the battlefield [ source : Appian ] . Spartacus seems to have slipped off into the umbrageous netherworld occupied by the likes of 17th - one C British pirate"Long Ben " Averyor 1970s airline hijackerD.B. Cooper , who evade pursuer and never resurface again .
As you could see , people have been disappearing without a hint for C . There ’s New York Supreme Court JudgeJoseph Force Crater , who provide his dinner companions and walk down a Manhattan street one eve in 1930 to wait on a looseness and was never discover again . Then you haveJane , Arnna and Grant Beaumont , three Australian nipper who disappeared from a beach in 1966 and were never located , despite an thorough search .
We often become fixated on these types of type . That ’s because , one of the human mind ’s inbuilt characteristics is what psychologists callclosure — our desire to find definite , clear resolution to questions , and our comparable soreness with the unsung and the equivocal [ germ : Konnikova ] .
Not to bring up , the circumstances fence these disappearances fire our love of a good mystery . Here ’s a look at 10 of the most puzzling disappearance ever .
Solomon Northup was born a free pitch-black valet in Minerva , New York , in 1808 . In 1841 when he was 33 , he was wed with three small fry and agreed to join a trip music show because the pay was good . But before long after , the two men who offered him the job , kidnapped and sold him into thraldom in Louisiana where he spent year in bondage trying to win over those around him that he was in fact a free man . His story became well known after the 2013 motion-picture show , " 12 year a Slave , " succeed the best impression Oscar at the 86th Academy Awards . It was based on his memoirs . But most of those who were moved by Northup ’s successful struggle to regain his exemption plausibly are unaware that his life took a second troubling turning .
After he finally regained his freedom and returned home to New York in 1853 , he release his book about his experience . Then Northup began a speaking duty tour as an antislavery militant and became necessitate in theUnderground Railroadthat helped those who were enslaved retrieve refuge in Canada . But around 1863 , Northrup enigmatically drop out of heap , and no records of his fate exist . Some consider he may have been captured and vote out while service as a Union undercover agent , while others fear he was kidnapped and again sold into thrall , though that seems unlikely [ source : Carola ] . It is know that he have fiscal difficulty and lost his attribute , and some speculate he might have disappeared to start life over away from his creditors [ origin : Robichaux ] . Although his last whereabouts is nameless , in 2014 five generations of descendants place for photographs inThe Hollywood Reporter .
9: Jimmy Hoffa
The brash , hard - nosed and crooked drawing card of the Teamsters matrimony spent four class in prison for charge that let in panel - tampering , mail fraud and bribery , before being pardoned by President Richard Nixon in 1971 [ source : clip ] . Four years later , July 30 , 1975,Hoffadisappeared outside a Detroit - area restaurant where he had gone for a group meeting . He was attempting to regain exponent in the Teamsters , and the most popular theory is that he was kill by mobster who coveted the union ’s flush pension fund . Two weeks before his disappearance , Union investigators line up out that trillion had been stolen from the pension fund [ source : Candiotti ] .
Despite decennary of FBI probing , Hoffa ’s remains have never turned up . Some rumors say that he was sink under the old Giants Stadium in New Jersey , while other stories say his body was fed to alligators in the Everglades or else shipped to Japan inside a compacted junked car . In 2013 , FBI agents — following a backsheesh from the supposed former underboss of a Detroit criminal offence mob — spent several day excavating a suburban Detroit orbit , but become up nothing [ source : Santia ] .
8: The Lost Colony of Roanoke
This one is a riddle that ’s stupefy historians for centuries . In July 1587 , a group of 117 English settlerslanded on Roanoke Island , off the coast of what is now North Carolina . The following month , John White , the colony ’s regulator , voyage back across the Atlantic to beak up a lading of supplies , pledging to render in three months . When he arrived in England , however , war broke out with Spain , and with all the usable ships adjure into armed service against the Spanish Armada , Smith was stranded . He was n’t able-bodied to sweep back to Roanoke Island until August 1590 [ sources : Ewen and Shields ] .
When White arrived , he was shocked to discover that the fort he ’d erect had been partially tear down , and the colonists he ’d left behind hadvanished — as had their house , weapons and other belonging . There was also no Maltese cross carve anywhere , the agree - upon signal that the colony had left under duress .
The only apparent clew , carved into a wooden mail , was " CROATOAN , " the name of both a nearby island and a Native American kindred . It could be that the settlers were killed or abduct by Native Americans , with whom the English had tense relations , or fallen victim to Spaniards who came up from Florida . They might have suffered a devastating epidemic or perhaps they separate up and intermarried with some of the aboriginal American kinship group . It ’s also been hypothesized that they may have tried to sail back to England themselves , only to be misplace at sea [ source : Ewen and Shields ] .
7: Three Alcatraz Escapees
The federal prison onAlcatraz Islandwas once home to the most incorrigible criminals , because even if they pull off to get past their cells , the cold , swift electric current of the San Francisco Bay on the face of it made the placeescape - proof[source : Federal Bureau of Prisons ] . But that did n’t stop convict from trying .
In 1962 , Frank Morris and the Anglin crony — John and Clarence — used spoons to apprehend holes in the walls of their prison cell , go away behind papier - mache heads propped on their pillows to fool the guards into thinking they were still asleep . Then theyclimbed up a utility ventand down a drainpipe and headed for the piss , where they dabble away , using a boat and life vests that they had improvised from raincoats they glued together .
The prisoners were never caught , though a few pieces of their cogwheel and possession were found be adrift in the true laurel and a body — too drop to be identifiable — was establish a short distance up the coast several weeks later . These determination take prison authorities to sort the escapee as presumed drowned . However , it ’s worth note that up until 50 years later , the U.S. Marshals Service still had the three men on their list of wanted fugitives [ source : Sullivan ] .
6: Richard Serra’s “Equal-Parallel: Guernica-Bengasi”
You ’d think that a 42 - ton ( 38 - metric ton ) sculpture would be pretty difficult to lose . After all , it was n’t a painting or even a picture . This carving was massive . It consisted of four steel slabs in two different sizes and was commissioned by Madrid ’s Reina Sofia Contemporary Art Museum for its grand opening . The carving was on display at Reina Sofia for four old age after its opening , but in 1990 , the museum undergo a renovation and fix the piece was too big . It was ship off to a secret reposition facility . But 15 years after , " adequate - Parallel : Guernica - Bengasi , " by sculptorRichard Serrawas nowhere to be encounter .
In 2005 , the museum ’s recently installed director , Ana Martinez de Aguilar , decided to retrieve " Equal - Parallel : Guernica - Bengasi " to march it once again . She discovered that the depot ship’s company had perish into receivership and that the sculpture — whose newspaper track ended in 1992 — was embarrassingly missing . So what could have befall to Equal - Pararell / Guernica - Bengasi ? Writer Juan Tallón shed new light on the investigation in his 2022 Holy Writ " Obra maestra , " in which he says everything intimate the sculpture was melt down . Serra , to his credit , agree to make a new , monovular copy of his sculpture for the museum , which has been on permanent display since 2009 .
5: Helen Brach
Helen Vorhees Brach , the widow of candy caller executive director Frank Brach , disappeared after purportedly being dropped off at Chicago ’s O’Hare International Airport in February 1977 . For years , rumors whirl around the destiny of the eccentric heiress , who had already built a $ 500,000 marble monument in an Ohio cemetery , where she had planned to be buried alongside her husband , parents and two dogs .
It did n’t help that the number one wood who ’d dropped her off at the airport , Jack Matlick , submit two weeks to report her disappearance and was later find to have cashed $ 13,000 in checks with Brach ’s forged signature . The only home member of Brach ’s Matlick separate she was miss was her brother Charles Vorhees . When Charles Vorhees finally made the trip-up to Chicago , he and Matlick burned his sister ’s personal papers before they charge a schematic missing person story [ source : Garvey ] .
But in 1994 , Union authorities instead arrested Richard Bailey , a former vacuum cleaner - carpet sweeper salesman - turned - swindler whose game was to woo honest-to-goodness char ( such as Brach ) and convince them to invest in racehorses of dubious value . Nathaniel Bailey pled shamed to charges that included dupery and racketeering , and the judge who sentenced him to 30 years in prison determine that Bailey had probably played a role in Brach ’s disappearance , though Bailey refuse that [ origin : Garvey ] . Matlick died in 2011 .
4: George Washington’s False Teeth
It ’d be embarrassing enough to misplace your own dental plate , so think how red - faced you ’d be if you could n’t notice a historic distich that belong toGeorge Washington . But that ’s exactly what happened in 1981 , when the Smithsonian Institution ’s National Museum of American History discovered that one pair of Washington ’s chompers , which had been loaned to the Smithsonian in 1965 by the University of Maryland Dental School , had fly from a locked storage way where they ’d been kept . A search of the facility failed to make any sign of the teeth [ germ : Molotsky ] .
The next year a museum employee revealed that Washington ’s lower shell had turn up in an area of the museum approachable only to Smithsonian employee , but the top one-half was still missing . Though popular myth limn Washington as break wooden tooth , his plate in reality contained ivory and gold , and it ’s possible the thief destroyed the souvenir in ordering to melt down the gold and betray it .
3: Flight 19
Dec. 5 , 1945 , a team of five TBM Avengers — prop - driven torpedo bombers — took off from a naval base in Fort Lauderdale , Florida . The escape was the first leg of a quotidian two - hour preparation exercise that was supposed to take the planes no more than 150 mi ( 241 kilometer ) away from the airstrip .
About an hr - and - a - one-half after pasquinade , the mastery tower in Fort Lauderdale received a strange substance from the squad ’s escape drawing card , who sounded confused and distressed : " Both my grasp are out and I am seek to encounter Fort Lauderdale , Florida . " More give-and-take pursue between the column , the steer pilot program and the scholarly person pilots of the other planes as he tried to determine where they were .
When the planes did n’t devolve , a PBM Mariner aircraft with a 13 - man crew was dispatched to search for them . That plane never came back , either . The U.S. armed forces then set in motion one of thelargest searches in history , with C of ships and aircraft scrutinizing more than 200,000 square miles ( 517,998 straight kilometers ) of the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico , but no suggestion of the planes was ever found .
Since then , the whodunit of Flight 19 remain one of the most puzzling in the history of aviation , providing more cannon fodder for extrasensory partisan who believe in theBermuda Triangle . The reality is simpler , if more tragic . The teacher - pilot remember he was over the Florida Keys , when he was in fact over the Bahamas . He changed of course several times , and the planes ran out of fuel and crashed [ source : Witzenburg ] .
2: The Crew of the Mary Celeste
The Mary Celeste is sort of the 19th - 100 maritime interpretation of Flight 19 , except that the ship itself actually was recover . In December 1872 , the British vessel Dei Gratia was about 400 miles ( 644 kilometers ) E of the Azores islands , which are 1,000 mile ( 1,609 kilometers ) Occident of Portugal , when its crew spotted another ship range in the length . That ship turned out to be the Mary Celeste , which had take off from New York City eight days earlier on a tripper to Genoa , Italy .
When the British Panama hat boarded the Mary Celeste , they were puzzled . The crew member ’s belongings were still in their quarters and the cargo of 1,701 barrel of industrial alcohol was intact . The ship had enough food for thought and water to last six months at sea . So where were the masses ? The Mary Celeste crew , consisting of Capt . Benjamin Spooner Briggs , his wife and 2 - year - honest-to-god daughter , plus seven sailor , was gone , as was the ship ’s alone lifeboat . The last logarithm ingress was from 11 days before the ship was found empty .
There was only one clue to what might have happened : One of the ship ’s two pump had been partially disassembled , and there was water sloshing inside the ship ’s bottom , evoke that the Mary Celeste had stick out a mechanical malfunction . Even so , the Mary Celeste was still sailable . One possibility is that the headwaiter mistakenly thought it was about to bury , so they abandon ship for a lifeboat and drowned at sea . There are also wilder explanation , tramp from a mutiny to an attack by asea monster , but more than 140 years later , nobody really knows [ source : Blumberg ] .
1: Pro Basketball Star John Brisker
In the former seventies , Brisker was an all - mavin forward for the Pittsburgh Condors of the now - defunct American Basketball Association averaging 26 points a secret plan . But his soft shooting touch and quickness were overshadowed by his reputation as a menacing and hot - tempered brawler . It once took four law officers to subdue him in an off - court of justice tussle . After finishing his career in 1975 with the NBA ’s Seattle SuperSonics , Brisker tried his hand at operating a eating house , but it eventually failed . In February 1978 , Brisker travel to Africa with a friend , purportedly to lay the groundwork for an moment - export business that he hope would raise his fortune and help to compensate off his creditor .
About six week by and by , Brisker made a call from Kampala , Uganda , to his fellow , Melvis Diane Williamson , tell her that he would soon send for her and their immature girl . That was the last anyone heard from him . Over the age , rumors have persisted that Brisker was kill while agitate as a mercenary for Idi Amin , or that he was murdered after run afoul of the Ugandan dictator , who had an even worsened mean streak than Brisker .
Other stories have him drifting to Guyana and dying in theJonestown massacrein November 1978 . Or mayhap he took on a new identity and is alive somewhere today . As a Seattle sport author put it , " All anyone acknowledge is the ungentle giant shone shortly for the SuperSonics and veered out of heap " [ rootage : Jamieson , Halvonik ] .
