Over the past few centuries, there are twelve infamous places on Earth where humans have disappeared unexplainably. Probably no navigation system was able to handle it, and those unfortunate people stayed here forever, having failed to find a way out.
1 | The Bermuda Triangle
The famous Bermuda Triangle, stretching from South Florida to Puerto Rico and Bermuda, has become the site of numerous strange disappearances. In 1918, the American ship Cyclops, built for the US Navy several years before the outbreak of World War I, mysteriously vanished here. Onboard there were more than three hundred people. No traces, no debris, no bodies have been found so far. There are hundreds of genuine reports where people, ships, boats and even aircraft have gone missing within the limits of the Bermuda Triangle. It’s often referred to as the “Devil’s Triangle.” Read More
2 | The Michigan Triangle
Researchers often call this place the brother of the Bermuda Triangle. The Michigan Triangle is located between Michigan and Wisconsin. Here, in June 1950, a Northwest Airlines plane with 58 passengers on board disappeared.
Rescuers found only an oil stain on the water in the Benton Harbor area. Neither the wreckage of the liner nor the remains of passengers were ever found. Experts are sure that the plane crashed, and all passengers and crew died. However, there is no evidence of this. Throughout the years, many ships, boats and yachts have vanished from the Michigan Triangle. Read More
3 | The Bennington Triangle
The Bennington Triangle is located in Southwestern Vermont, US. Since the 1940s, a number of people have been reported to disappear here mysteriously. In November 1945, a 74-year-old man who led a group of hunters disappeared. He simply stepped forward and was not seen again. The man was perfectly guided by the terrain, so the rescuers could not understand how he disappeared. The only thing left from him was a cartridge that fell out of his pocket into the stream.
In December 1946, during the campaign, an 18-year-old girl student of Bennington College Paul Gene Welden disappeared without any trace. She led a whole group of people with her. When she went a few tens of meters forward to check the path, within a fraction of time, she disappeared. They didn’t see the girl again.
FBI officers combed all the neighbourhoods and many eyewitnesses kept saying that they saw a similar girl at that time. According to one version, the same evening, she was seen with a man who was much older. Allegedly, they drove away by car ― they later found a burnt car with a body in the vicinity of New York. But experts did not confirm that she was in the car.
Three years later, James E. Tedford, a veteran, had also disappeared within the same area. He rode the bus home from relatives. Witnesses claimed that they had seen him at the last stop. However, when the bus was at its destination, this passenger was not in the cabin. No traces were ever found.
In October 1950, eight-year-old Paul Jepson disappeared around Bennington. The boy was driving with his mother in a truck. At the next stop, the woman moved away from the child for several minutes, and returning to the car, only to find Paul was not there. Law enforcement officers with dogs searched all the neighbourhoods, but the trace of the child led only to the place where Gene Welden disappeared four years ago.
4 | Colony Of Roanoke
Also known under the name of “Lost Colony,” the Colony of Roanoke is located in the US state of North Carolina. It was founded by English colonists in the mid-1580s. There were several attempts to found this colony. However, the first group left the island, being sure that it is simply impossible to live here due to its adverse natural conditions. The second time 400 people went to the land, but when they saw an abandoned village, they went back to England. Only 15 volunteers remained who chose John White as the head of their colony.
A few months later, he went to England for help, but having arrived back in 1590 with a hundred people, he did not find anyone. On the pillar of the picket fence, he saw the inscription CROATOAN ― the name of an Indian tribe that lived nearby region. Without this, they didn’t find any clue about what happened to them. Therefore, the most common interpretation is that the people were abducted and killed. But, by whom? And why?
6 | The Sargasso Sea
The Sargasso Sea is located in the Atlantic Ocean and is part of the path of one of the most famous ghost ships in history ― “Mary Celeste.” In 1872, the crew of the brigantine “Dei Gratia” noticed that a certain ship was drifting aimlessly for several kilometres. The captain of the ship, David Morehouse, gave a signal according to which the crew of the noticed vessel had to answer the sailors. But there was no reply or reaction.
David Morehouse decided to approach the ship when he read the name ‘Mary Celeste’. Strangely, the two ships departed from New York with one week apart, and the captains knew each other. Morehouse, with several members of his ship’s crew, boarded the Mary Celeste when he realized that there wasn’t a soul on her. At the same time, the cargo transported on the ship (alcohol in barrels) was untouched.
However, the sails of the ship were torn to shreds, the ship’s compass was broken, and on one of the sides, someone made danger sign with an axe. While there were no signs of robbery on the ship, the cabins were not turned upside down. The wardroom and in the galley were orderly decorated. Only in the cabin of the navigator, there were no documents other than the ship’s log diary, in which, the entries ended on November 24, 1872. The crew of the ship were never found and what really happened in the ship that remains an unsolved mystery to this day. Read More
7 | National Parks Of America
For the past 150 years, more than 1,100 tourists have gone missing within the 84-million-acres land of America’s National Parks. Many of these people were experienced travellers, but mysteriously went missing here to be never found again.
David Paulides, a former American policeman, after completing his career in 2008, began to study the mysterious disappearances in the United States, Canada and Europe. In particular, he was engaged in mysterious disappearances in the National Parks of America.
David Paulides wrote in his project Missing 411, a series of self-published books, how he repeatedly tried to get missing lists from the US National Park Service. However, he was told that such lists did not exist. Unofficial sources demanded a huge lump sum money from the former policeman.
According to him, even those who were found in the parks did not remember the details of their disappearance. The policeman assures that mostly the children disappeared in the area. They seemed to dissolve in the air, as soon as their parents turned away for a couple of minutes. He further noted in his research that many people disappeared just before hurricanes began.
8 | Highway Of Tears
Highway 16 in the Canadian province of British Columbia is called the “Highway of Tears” after more than 15 girls and women have disappeared without a trace since 1975. In most of the cases, investigators were totally clueless and unable to find any leads.
These unfortunate girls are mostly between 14 and 15 years old, but there are also some victims older than this age. A 22-year-old lady by the name of Tamara Chipman was last seen when she was thumbing a car on the ill-fated highway in September 2001. She was an unmarried single mother who loved her son very much.
Chipman’s parents rushed to the police as soon as they suspected something was wrong ― the girl did not come home in the evening and did not contact them since. The police went in search of her, but they found nothing. Even her body remains have never been found.
Another case is of a 15-year-old girl named Ramona Wilson, who disappeared on June 11, 1994. She caught a car to hitchhike to her friends. The girl lived with her family, studied at school and planned to go to the university.
She called to her parents and informed that she would return home around 3:30 PM. Her remains were discovered almost one year later, in April 1995, near Smithers Airport. She was strangled, and police told the family that the killing was sexually motivated. The killer was never identified.
8 | Lake Anjikuni
In 1930, hunter Joe Labelle stumbled upon a small village by the Lake Anjikuni located in Nunavut, Canada. He found that there was not a single soul in the village. Oddly enough, in many homes there were pots of prepared and unprepared foods, still burning bonfires. There were no signs of escalations, loot or anything like that. It seemed that the village was just abandoned and they fled. Joe also found some dead dogs that were on a leash and died of starvation. However, he did not find a single trail of footprints on the snow-covered village. There was no indication as to where the villagers had gone or why. It was as if they just vanished into the thin air. Read More
9 | Flannan Isles Lighthouse
In 1900, the captain of the Archer steamboat, passing the Flannan Islands, discovered that the fire of the Eilean Mor lighthouse had disappeared. He reported this to the Scottish Coast Guard. But because of the storm, it was impossible to find out the cause of what happened. By that time, Thomas Marshall, James Ducat and Donald MacArthur were on duty at the lighthouse. They all were experienced rangers who faithfully performed their duties. Investigators suspected that some kind of a disaster had occurred.
However, Joseph Moore, the main lighthouse keeper, managed to get to the island only 11 days after the tragic event took place on December 26th. He stumbled upon the tightly locked door of the tower, and there was a dinner left untouched in the kitchen. All things were intact in their conditions except for an upturned chair. It was as if they were running from the table.
After conducting a more detailed examination, it became clear that some tools had disappeared, and there were not enough jackets in the wardrobe. When studying the log-diary, it turned out that a storm was raging in the vicinity of the islands. However, there was no evidential report of such strong storms in the region that night. Since the employees were gone, Moore himself kept a watch for about a month. After that, he regularly kept talking about the voices calling him.
According to the official version, the storm rose, two employees rushed to strengthen the fencing, but the water level rose sharply to unprecedented proportions, and they were washed away into the water. The third one hastened to help, but he suffered the same fate. But legends of unknown power still shroud the islands.
10 | The Devil’s Sea – A Mysterious Pacific Zone
In the Pacific Ocean south of Tokyo, Japan, lies a treacherous stretch of water that has been nicknamed “The Devil’s Sea” and many also call it “The Dragon’s Triangle.” Due to a string of vessels and fishing boats that have disappeared, many compare it to the Bermuda Triangle. This is a notorious Pacific site which is filled with mysterious disappearances and sea monster sightings since the late 13th century, when it sank a fleet of 900 Mongol ships carrying 40,000 soldiers.
In modern history, the most famous disappearance took place in 1953 when a research fishery ship called the Kaiyo Maru 5, which consisted of 31 crew members and scientists combined, sailed into the area to investigate a recently formed volcanic island. Unfortunately, the vessel never returned from its voyage with no traces left of it, or the crew for that matter. Read More
11 | The Superstition Mountains
Out in the desert wilderness of Arizona near the city of Phoenix reside the Superstition Mountains. Though when the Spanish originally came through, they called them the Sierra de la Espuma which means “Mountain Range of the Foam.”
These particular mountains are not only known for their legends among the Apache people, who believe the entrance to the underworld lies somewhere in them, but also for the numerous disappearances that have occurred over the years. Though some of these are attributed to those who’ve tried to seek out the Lost Dutchman’s Mine full of gold. Read More
12 | The Hoia Baciu Forest
The Hoia Baciu Forest of Romania is considered to be the most haunted forest on Earth. Over the years, hundreds of people have gone missing here. Many have seen UFOs, strange lights, mists, heard women’s voice, whispers and eerie laughters. Once a shepherd and his flock of sheep disappeared together in the forest to never return again.
There are reports of people being scratched unexplainably, or going through a short time memory loss. In the center of the forest, lies a circle where plant life doesn’t grow. This spot is believed to be a portal to another world. However, skeptics believe that the depth of the forest and the lack of knowledge of the enthusiasts are the actual reasons behind these disappearances. Read More
