Some of the most mysterious stories about historical figures include them taking one last trip before completely vanishing, never to be found again.
A line in the dust
Ambrose Bierce was an American writer who practically walked straight into a revolution in Mexico. In 1913, he headed down south to a place where Pancho Villa’s forces were fighting, with some reports claiming he was around during the Battle of Tierra Blanca.
Hardly the most relaxing place for writing. He wrote several letters, and his last one was dated December 26, 1913, and was sent from Chihuahua. Nobody knows what happened to him after that because Bierce disappeared completely.
The ticket that stalled
A train ride. That’s all it took for French motion-picture maker Louis Le Prince to disappear on September 16, 1890. He was planning to take some of his work to the United States, and he went to visit his brother in Dijon, France, before going to America. He never made it.
No luggage, no body, no evidence, the police found absolutely nothing and actually declared him dead seven years later. It’s unclear what exactly happened to him, though some people believe he might’ve drowned or been assassinated.
North into white air
Polar exploration was kind of normal for Roald Amundsen, especially since he’d already made a name for himself in the field. That is, until June 18, 1928, when he took off from Tromsø, Norway, in a French Latham 47 flying boat, and was never found again.
He was trying to find survivors from Umberto Nobile’s airship Italia, though Amundsen himself was the one who vanished. Most historians believe that his plane probably went down in the Barents Sea, but we just don’t know.
A profit left hanging
By 1803, George Bass had already helped to map huge parts of Australia’s coast and even had a strait named after him. That apparently wasn’t enough, however, as he started chasing trade money shortly after, leading to him sailing from Sydney on February 5, 1803.
He was on the Venus and might’ve been aiming for South America so he could sell some goods, but he never actually made it there. It’s generally believed that Bass died at sea, although nothing has actually been proven.
Three ships, then two
Time for another explorer. This time, it’s Gaspar Corte-Real, a man whose final voyage was so dramatic that it sounds made-up, but it’s not. He left Portugal in 1501 and crossed the North Atlantic to reach either Newfoundland or Labrador.
He left with three ships. But only two came back to Lisbon, and the third, the one with Corte-Real on it, never returned. Bizarrely enough, Gaspar’s brother went looking for him a year later and disappeared as well. Talk about bad luck.
A note left behind
Ettore Majorana was an Italian physicist who left Naples in 1938 and appeared to be heading toward Palermo, although he ended up vanishing on the way. His colleagues believed he had committed suicide, but others had some more interesting theories.
They said he could’ve emigrated to Venezuela or Argentina, perhaps he even became a monk in a monastery. Some historians believe that he was kidnapped or murdered, too, to stop him from helping build an atomic weapon. Who knows?
Bright sails, rough water
The Sea Dragon was a Chinese junk ship that was supposed to go from Hong Kong to San Francisco for the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939. Explorer Richard Halliburton was one of the people on board, but he didn’t reach his destination.
A little after the boat left, a typhoon struck the Pacific, and the ship lost radio contact. The U.S. Navy did go looking for the boat, yes, but they never found a wreck or any bodies, either.
Clouds over the estuary
Amy Johnson wasn’t trying to make her January 5, 1941, flight legendary or anything, but that’s exactly what happened. She took what was meant to be a delivery job from Blackpool, England, to Kidlington, although bad weather made the whole thing more difficult.
Sailors on the HMS Haslemere claimed they saw a parachutist and heard a woman calling for help, so they tried to assist, yet they sadly couldn’t. Johnson disappeared, and her remains were never found.
Tea waiting on the table
On March 26, 1967, Jim Thompson was staying at the Moonlight bungalow in the Cameron Highlands, Malaysia, and he was relaxing with his friends. Everything seemed great. He was so calm, in fact, that he decided to go for an afternoon walk, nothing major or anything.
Thompson never came back. Searchers checked roads and jungle paths, yes, but they never managed to find Jim or work out where he vanished to. The only things they found were his jacket and bed, back at the bungalow.
A walk after shopping
Dorothy Arnold was a socialite who, on December 12, 1910, left her home in Manhattan to go shopping for a dress. She bought some chocolates and picked up a book before talking to a friend near 27th Street. Apparently, she was going to walk home through Central Park.
What happened next is uncertain, but what we do know is that Dorothy didn’t come back by dinnertime, or ever. Was she killed? Did she have an accident? We just don’t know.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.