Pulling off a successful vanishing act is
an unusual and difficult task - especially if you’re a public figure of any variety. You’d think it would be impossible for a
noteworthy celebrity to seemingly disappear into thin air -- but, as these missing celebrities
have proven, anything can happen. If there’s one thing to be learned from
these missing celebs, it’s that no one is too talented, popular, or successful to completely
fall off the grid. Here’s a look at some of the most mysterious
cases of missing celebrities. Richey Edwards If Lord Byron, Sid Vicious, and a moody teenager
procreated, their spawn would probably look and act a whole lot Manic Street Preachers'
rhythm guitarist and lyricist Richey Edwards - a mid-1990s British rock idol. Edwards was handsome, moody, and dreamy, with
a talent for writing lyrics about depression, and an even bigger talent for disturbing publicity
stunts. When a journalist with a music magazine implied
his band's posturing was insincere, Edwards grabbed a razor blade and carved "4 REAL"
into his own arm. When he first went missing, in February 1995,
it could've just been another chapter in his twin stories of self-destruction and self-promotion. However, things took a turn for the worse
when it quickly became apparent that the young poet was gone for good. After he disappeared from his hotel room,
Edwards’ car was later found abandoned near the Severn Bridge. Edwards was legally declared dead in 2008,
but his body has never been found. Connie Converse A 1950s musician, Connie Converse is now considered
the first modern singer-songwriter, crooning intimate, lyrical ballads suffused with melancholy
at a time well before Bob Dylan had made his mark. However, her contemporaries were not aware
of how groundbreaking Connie was, and in 1961, she quit music altogether - virtually unknown
and convinced she was a failure. In 1974, Converse wrote to her friends that
she was going to make a fresh start, loaded up her car, and drove off into the sunset,
never to be heard from again. No trace of her has ever surfaced, and it’s
generally thought Converse fell victim to harm. Even sadder? Converse rose to popularity in 2009 when a
handful of her songs were released on an album called How Sad, How Lovely. Unfortunately, Converse saw none of this success. Jim Sullivan If Jim Sullivan's name isn't ringing any bells,
that's because he's the definition of a cult artist. A folk-rocker who was part of the LA scene
in the '60s and early '70s, Sullivan cut just two records before disappearing. In March 1975, Sullivan was heading to Nashville
for what was meant to be his big break. His car was found abandoned in the desert
outside Santa Rosa, New Mexico. His wallet, clothes, and guitar were all found
in a nearby motel, but there was no trace of Sullivan himself. According to a friend, Sullivan would've never
left his guitar behind if he planned to vanish. Appropriately for a dude who released a record
called UFO - which featured lyrics about driving into the desert and being abducted by aliens
- one of the more prominent theories is that he was - you guessed it - abducted by aliens. Rico Harris In the year 2000, Rico Harris was on top of
the world. He was playing basketball for the world-famous
Harlem Globetrotters, and before that, he'd been a Top 100 college basketball recruit. But drinking kept him from reaching his potential,
and he wound up out of basketball and began working as a security guard in LA. The final blow came in 2014 when he was fired
for drunkenness. He left his mom's Los Angeles home to drive
to Seattle and stay with his girlfriend, but his car was later found abandoned outside
Sacramento. Sources close to Harris confirmed he was known
for disappearing for days on end, but this time he was in a weird mental state. A backpack and phone were found on the roadside,
but Rico Harris was nowhere to be found. Days after Harris vanished, people were phoning
in sightings of a giant person walking alongside State Route 16. Footprints were found in sand - but there
was no sign of Harris. The LA Times suggests he was probably picked
up as a hitchhiker. After that… who knows? Jim Thompson Jim Thompson is arguably the most famous American
to have ever lived in Thailand. A former agent in the Office for Strategic
Services, Thompson moved to Thailand at the end of World War II. He set up a silk business, single-handedly
turning Thai silk into a global commodity, and he was known to be a socialite, throwing
huge parties for Bangkok's rich. In 1967, Thompson left Bangkok for a hiking
trip in Malaysia. He set up camp in a bungalow, went on an afternoon
walk, and never came back. Though Thompson was a soldier with field experience
and the wherewithal to survive in the wilderness, he’d also made many enemies throughout his
illustrious career, from competing businesses to the CIA, any one of whom would benefit
from his disappearing. It’s almost like a real-life game of Clue. Scott Smith Canadian band Loverboy was one of the biggest
rock bands of the early '80s with hard-charging hits like "Hot Girls in Love" and "Working
for the Weekend.” Scott Smith was a founding member, staying
with the group all the way until his mysterious and frightening disappearance at sea on November
30th, 2000. After playing with his band in Vancouver,
Smith and his friends set out for Mexico on a 37-foot sailboat. As they sailed down the coast and neared San
Francisco, the weather got rough. A 20-foot wave knocked Smith off the deck
of the vessel and into the water. Coast Guard helicopters arrived within 20
minutes and dispatched two search boats, which scoured a 133-square-mile area, to no avail. Smith’s remains have never surfaced. Barbara Newhall Follett Prepare to feel like an underachiever. Barbara Newhall Follett was a Jazz Age writing
prodigy who published her first novel at age 12. That novel was The House Without Windows - a
mega-complex work that won rave reviews in the New York Times. Everyone who read the book agreed Follett
was going to be the next great American writer. But after putting out just two novels, Follet
was forced to give up writing when her father suddenly ran off with a younger woman, leaving
Follett and her mother penniless. By age 16, Follett was working as a typist
and fending for herself. She never wrote again. In 1939, at just 26 years old, Follet had
an argument with her husband and left the house. She never returned, and no trace of her was
ever found. Her husband barely bothered to look for her,
and her mother reportedly didn't discover her daughter was missing until 1952. Even stranger is the fact that the press wasn't
alerted until 1966. By then, they were probably asking, "Barbara
who?"
