You’re out shopping with your five-year-old
brother. It’s been a long day and he’s getting
antsy. Thankfully, he’s distracted with a little
ball you got him from the vending machine. He’s happily bouncing away, so you turn
to the clothing rack and look at some shirts. You find one in the right size, and turn around
to take him to the cash register to pay. But he’s not there. You only turned your back for a second, but
he’s disappeared without a trace. Seconds feel like hours as you frantically
scan the area. Worst case scenarios run through your mind. Then you see a little ball roll out from under
a nearby clothes rack, followed by a little hand reaching for it. He was hiding, and all's right with the world
- save the scolding he’s about to get! It only takes seconds for someone to disappear,
and most of the time there’s a simple explanation. But that didn’t happen for the people in
this video. Some of them were young and anonymous. Others were old and had powerful enemies. One even disappeared twice. But they all have one thing in common - they
vanished, and were never seen again. 8. Owen Parfitt Owen Parfitt was a man who had lived an interesting
life, or at least he believed that and would be the first to tell you. He claimed to be a pirate, a ladies’ man,
and an adventurer. But in the 1760s, he was an old man who could
barely walk and lived with his sister in Shepton Mallet. This sleepy town in southwest England was
the last place you would expect a mystery to be found, but mystery found Owen Parfitt
one stormy day. Owen liked to spend his evenings sitting outside,
but needed the help of his sister and neighbor to get into his old chair on the front porch. After securing him in his chair for the evening,
his sister went inside. The only people around were some farm workers
down the road. As the sky darkened, Owen’s sister came
outside to bring him in away from the lightning. But Owen wasn’t in his chair. There had been no sign of a struggle outside,
and Owen hadn’t made any noise. But there was no sign, and a disabled man
certainly couldn’t disappear on his own. Owen’s sister approached the farm workers
and neighbors to search the neighborhood, but no trace of him was ever found. Many rumors circulated around Shepton Mallet
about where the old man had gone. Some said he had been taken by the devil,
to fulfill an old debt. Others said some old pirate enemies had kidnapped
him in revenge. In 1813 a skeleton was found nearby, making
many people sure the mystery would be solved. But medical experts identified it as a woman’s
skeleton, and Owen Parfitt’s last adventure remains unsolved to this day. 7. Barbara Newhall Follett One of the most famous people to ever disappear
without a trace, Barbara Newhall Follett became a household name when most of us were still
in middle school. The author of the novel The House Without
Windows, she burst onto the literary scene at only twelve years old. A home-schooled and reclusive young woman,
she had a troubled home life and felt that she had already reached her life’s peak
by her teens. When the Great Depression hit, she was forced
to move to New York and work as a secretary. There she met Nickerson Rogers, and was married
by eighteen years old. Their marriage soon hit rocky waters, as she
believed her husband was cheating on her. They fought, and on December 7th, 1939 she
stormed out of their apartment with only thirty dollars on her. Rogers assumed she would be home shortly and
waited for her, but he would be waiting a very long time. It was two weeks later when he finally reported
Follett’s disappearance to police, and four months before a missing persons notice was
issued. Because the bulletin used her married name,
Follett’s disappearance didn’t attract much attention. Follett was never found, but her mother Helen
never stopped searching. As years went on, she became more suspicious
of Rogers and accused him of being involved in her daughter’s disappearance. Although she demanded the police investigate
Rogers, no evidence of foul play was ever found. Barbara Follett’s disappearance remains
unsolved, and the girl who was thrust onto the national stage early had managed to disappear
into thin air. 6. Keith Reinhard Keith Reinhard was a sports reporter who was
tired of the daily grind. He had dreams of opening an antique shop,
and decided to move to the quiet town of Silver Plume, Colorado in 1988. His old friend Ted Parker lived there, and
he was looking forward to the proximity to another man who loved the outdoors. But tragedy and mystery would follow Reinhard
and Parker as they settled into their new life. Reinhard opened his antique shop and hoped
his wife would join him soon, but he soon learned that his building had a dark secret. The previous owner, Tom Young, had vanished
a year earlier with his body found ten months later along with his dog’s - both shot to
death. One day, not long after the gruesome discovery,
Keith decided he would climb to the top of nearby Pendleton Mountain, the site of the
bodies. He visited Ted, who assumed his friend would
back out when he saw how hard the climb was. But Keith Reinhard made his way up the mountain
regardless - and never came down. Those who saw him before he set out said he
carried no supplies. Helicopters searched the mountain for signs
of him for days, but no sign of Keith Reinhard was ever found. A search of his business found that he had
been collecting news reports of Tom Young’s disappearance, and had been writing morbid
poetry. Some locals suspect it was a suicide. Others say he planned his disappearance to
escape debts and a failing business. Others say that whoever killed Tom Young had
claimed another victim - but Keith Reinhard has never been found, dead or alive. 5. Ray Gricar Working in law enforcement will earn you powerful
enemies, and one Pennsylvania district attorney may have found that out the wrong way. Ray Gricar was a veteran lawman, serving as
Centre County District Attorney for twenty years. He was ready to retire in 2005, planning to
step down after the end of his term. But he never got to serve out that last turn,
and instead became the subject of one of the most mysterious disappearances of the 21st
century. On April 15th, 2005, Gricar called his girlfriend
Patty Fornicola to let her know he was coming home, only minutes away. But he never returned home, and she soon called
the police. Even though he was only missing for hours,
he was a prominent citizen, and the police sprung into action. The next morning, they found a disturbing
sight in a local parking lot - his red Mini Cooper, with no sign of Ray Gricar. There were no signs of foul play, but if Gricar
had left on his own, he had made sure he couldn’t be found. His cell phone was still in the car, but his
computer, keys, and wallet had been taken. There were no signs of foul play, and many
suspected suicide. Gricar’s older brother Roy had committed
suicide in 1996, and the car was found in a similar position to Roy’s on that fateful
day. His laptop was found at the bottom of the
Susquehanna River months later, missing its hard drive. A damaged hard drive was found months later,
but it was badly damaged and not giving up its secret. Gricar’s daughter petitioned the court to
declare him dead six years later, and his fate remains unsolved. A man resembling him was arrested in Utah,
but was eventually proven to not be Gricar. Wherever Ray Gricar went, he took his secrets
with him. 4. The Mystery of the Bennington Triangle Rural southwestern Vermont is one of the sleepiest
locations in the United States, but in the 1940s, it became a place of terror. The Bennington Triangle is an area of small
towns surrounding Glastenbury Mountain, now a popular hiking area. It was 1945 when the disappearances started
with 74-year-old Middie Rivers. A local hunter, he was with a group of four
on the mountain when he got separated from the group. Locals combed the area, but all they ever
found was one of his rifle shells. Rivers knew the area well and was an experienced
survivalist, but he was never seen again. He was followed just over a year later by
college student Paula Jean Welden, a sophomore at nearby Bennington College. She went for a hike on the nearby trail, seen
by many locals. An old couple hiking reported seeing her on
the trail ahead of them, but when they reached her location she had vanished without a trace. The FBI got involved in this case, and a reward
was offered, but much like Rivers, she had vanished into thin air. It was three years later when the mystery
of the Bennington Triangle struck again. Elderly veteran James Tedford was riding a
bus back to his home at the Bennington Soldiers’ Home, and was seen on the bus at the last
stop before Bennington. Somewhere between there and home, he vanished. His luggage was still on the rack, his bus
timetable was still on his seat, but James Tedford had inexplicably vanished. He was followed by eight-year-old Paul Jephson,
who disappeared from his mother’s truck while she got out to feed their pigs. She was gone for an hour, and when she returned
Paul was gone. No evidence of him was ever found. 53-year-old Frieda Langer was the last to
disappear, only a month after Paul, having disappeared after returning to her campsite
for a change of clothes. Her body was eventually found almost a year
later after an exhaustive search, the only victim to be found, but no cause of death
could be determined. The Bennington Triangle had claimed its last
victim, but its mysteries were never solved. 3. Joseph Force Crater A powerful judge facing a career-ending scandal
may have met an enemy he couldn’t outrun - or found an unconventional way out of his
troubles. Joseph Force Crater was already a household
name in New York before his disappearance in 1930, having risen to the rank of State
Supreme Court Justice. But he had a history of corruption, including
a mysterious withdrawal that many suspect was a payoff to the Tammany Hall political
machine. He used his position as a bankruptcy receiver
to get a huge profit, leading many to accuse him of money laundering. Was this what led to his disappearance? Crater and his wife Sheila were vacationing
in Maine when he received a mysterious call that led him to drive back to the city in
a hurry. He promised his wife that he would return
by her birthday, but his behavior in New York aroused suspicion. He combed his courthouse files, he carried
locked briefcases out of his office, and had his file clerk cash two massive checks - almost
$80,000 in today’s money. Crater had dinner with friends that night,
and planned to see a Broadway show. But afterwards, accounts differ. Some of his friends say he left in a Taxi. Others say he walked down the street. But no one thought anything of it until he
didn’t return to Maine. His wife frantically called his friends, but
got no answer. The police weren’t notified until almost
a month after he disappeared, and the disappearance of Judge Crater became national news. The police interrogated many women in Atlantic
City who Crater had been involved with, but none knew where he had gone. An investigation was inconclusive to declare
Crater alive or dead. Did an old enemy take revenge on Crater for
his corruption? Or did he escape and take on a new identity? A possible break in the case came eighty-five
years later, when a recently deceased woman left notes claiming that Crater had been killed
by a corrupt NYPD officer on the orders of Murder Inc. She gave directions to where he was buried
in Coney Island, but no remains were found. 2. Tara Calico The disappearance of Tara Calico is one of
the most haunting unexplained disappearances - not because of what we don’t know, but
because of what we do. Only nineteen years old, Calico was fond of
riding her bicycle along New Mexico State Road 47. She often rode with her mother Patty, but
Patty stopped riding because she thought a driver was stalking them. Patty warned Tara to be careful, but Tara
wasn’t worried. On Tuesday, September 20th, 1988, Tara didn’t
return from her ride. Patty went out searching for her and contacted
the police. They found pieces of her Sony Walkman, and
witnesses said that they saw her on her bike ride closely followed by an unknown driver
in a pickup truck. A chilling break in the case came almost a
year later, on June 15th 1989. Across the country in Port St. Joe, Florida,
a photograph was found in the parking lot of a convenience store. It showed a young woman, bound and gagged
in the trunk of a car next to a young boy. The woman who found the photo of the two kidnapping
victims said she saw a windowless van driven by a man with a moustache. Police were unable to chase the van down. Patty identified the woman in the picture
as Tara based on a scar on her leg, and the boy was initially identified as the missing
Michael Henley. But the New Mexico boy’s body was found
a year later near where he disappeared, having died from exposure after getting lost. The boy in the picture has never been identified,
and Tara Calico was never seen again. Solomon Northup One of the most famous missing person stories
in history, Solomon Northup’s tale became a best-selling memoir and an Oscar-winning
biopic. But what happened to him after remains a mystery. Northup was a free-born black man living in
New York in the early 1800s, but the southern states didn’t care about that. When Northup, a traveling musician, went to
Washington DC to perform in 1841, he was drugged and kidnapped. He was sent to New Orleans, where he was sold
as a slave. For twelve years he was sent from one owner
to another and treated brutally, until he met a Canadian worker who heard his story
and got him legal help in New York. Upon his return to New York in 1853, he published
his memoir, ``Twelve Years a Slave”. But the years of hard labor and beatings had
taken their toll on Northup, and he was reported to be a drunken and depressed man. Although he found a second career as a speaker
on the brutality of slavery, he often faced violent crowds opposed to his message. By 1858, he had disappeared off the map and
not even his wife or children knew where he was. Many speculated he had been killed by his
enemies who wanted to silence him, or had been kidnapped again and sold into slavery
despite being an older man who would be of little use on a farm. A more optimistic rumor is that he couldn’t
stand doing nothing while others were in slavery, and he left to join the Underground Railroad. Or maybe, while drinking to escape his horrible
memories, he simply met his end by falling into a nearby lake. Solomon Northup’s words impacted the world
long after he was gone, but the man disappeared without a trace. Ready to make the rest of your evening disappear
mysteriously? Why not watch some more videos like “These
Missing People Were Mysteriously Found Alive”, or this one. Thanks for watching, and don’t forget to
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