30 Celebrities Who Vanished Without A Trace And Remain Missing Today

The son of Hollywood legend Errol Flynn, Sean was also a photojournalist, adventurer, and actor.

His fearless pursuit of dangerous assignments during the Vietnam War eventually led to his disappearance on April 6, 1970, while covering the conflict in Cambodia.

Due to the influence of his father, Sean was given ample opportunities to develop an acting career, having made his debut at the age of fifteen on an episode of Errol’s television show The Errol Flynn Theatre.

Sean’s pivot to journalism was a result of him becoming disillusioned with acting, searching for a more meaningful and adventurous career of his own. He eventually formed part of a group of high-risk photographers who would regularly go into combat areas to get the best pictures possible.

Sean and his partner Dana Stone, who was reporting on behalf of CBS, were seized by members of the Viet Cong while heading to a press conference in Saigon on a motorcycle. Their bodies were never found.

Elizabeth Eaton Converse, most commonly known by her stage name Connie, is often hailed as one of the first modern singer-songwriters and a talented composer, poet, and writer.

She disappeared on August 10, 1974. According to Howard Fishman, who wrote her biography, a combination of personal setbacks devastated her mental health, plunging her into a deep depression that led her to pack her belongings into her Volkswagen Beetle and drive away, never to be seen again.

Testimony of friends and family point to Connie being a lesbian, and feeling rejected in both personal and professional life by her religious parents. She found solace in writing for the Journal of Conflict Resolution, but she lost her job after its offices moved to Yale in 1972.

While her family tried to locate her, the private investigator, who they had hired ultimately told them that he couldn’t bring her back and that they should respect her decision to disappear.

By the early 1940s, Glenn Miller was America’s biggest music star. With hits like In the Mood and Chattanooga Choo Choo, his orchestra dominated the airwaves.

At the height of his fame, Miller walked away from civilian success to serve in the US Army Air Forces, leading a 50-piece military band that boosted morale for thousands of troops across Europe.

On December 15, 1944, Miller boarded a small military plane bound for Paris, where he was set to perform for Allied soldiers. Bad weather had delayed his trip for days, and anxious to get moving, he hitched a last-minute ride without official authorization.

He never arrived.

No wreckage was found. No bodies recovered.

Miller was just 40 years old and was officially declared lifeless a year later.

Touted as a child prodigy novelist, Barbara Newhall Follet, published her first novel, The House Without Windows, when she was just 12 years old. She followed her first publication with another, The Voyage of the Norman D. in 1928, when she was 14 years old.

Described as a “child of nature” by historians, Barbara often expressed fondness for the wilderness in her stories and poems. Deeply sensitive, her heart was shattered when her father left her mother for another woman, which also had the side-effect of damaging her family’s finances.

She continued writing while working as a secretary in New York City in the middle of the Great Depression, but her novels Lost Island and Travels Without a Donkey, failed to reach the acclaim of her previous work.

Barbara met Nickerson Rogers in 1931 and spent the summer walking the Appalachian Trail to the Massachusetts border. The couple then traveled to Spain and Switzerland, exploring the Alps and other natural wonders.

They married in July 1934, and while their union was initially happy, Barbara expressed dissatisfaction with her life in letters to close friends. Four years later, in 1938, Follet started suspecting her husband of being unfaithful, and she fled her home one year later, never to be seen again.

Known for being the 17th Prime Minister of Australia, Holt vanished without a trace on December 17, 1967, while swimming at Cheviot Beach, Victoria, sparking one of the largest search efforts in the country’s history.

With his body unable to be found, many conspiracy theories surfaced in the aftermath of the event. Among the most outlandish was the idea of Holt being a spy from China, who had his body seized by a submarine of the Asian nation.

Tony Eggleton, a political consultant and friend of Holt’s, said that he tried to confront him about the dangers of his hobby, but that the Prime Minister dismissed him, saying, "Look Tony, what are the odds of a prime minister being drowned or taken by a shark?"

Holt’s passing has been attributed to drowning, and he was later commemorated with the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre.

Amelia Earhart made history by becoming the first female aviator to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. A female icon and celebrated author, she promoted commercial air travel and wrote many best-selling books about her adventures in the sky.

With a passion for pushing the envelope and shattering records, she embarked on what would be her last flight on July 2, 1937. Her goal was ambitious: to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the world.

Earhart boarded a Lockheed Model 10-E Electra airplane alongside her navigator, Fred Noonan. The pair were last seen in Law, New Guinea, where they made their last stop before the incident.

Investigators believe the plane ran out of fuel somewhere over the central Pacific Ocean and crashed near Howland Island. Earhart was pronounced lifeless one year and six months after hers and Noonan’s disappearance.

A legendary labor leader, Hoffa rose from teenage warehouse worker to president of the powerful Teamsters Union, championing higher wages and better working conditions for millions.

However, his close ties to organized crime and conflicts with the US government made him both revered and feared.

On July 30, 1975, Hoffa drove to the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, for a meeting with two reputed mob figures.

At 2:15 pm, he phoned his wife to say no one had shown up. That was the last confirmed contact anyone had with him.

For decades, the FBI chased several leads, but no body, weapon, or definitive evidence ever emerged. Suspects passed away, theories multiplied, and Hoffa was declared lifeless in 1982.

Whether buried under a stadium, dissolved in acid, or lost to the waters of the Great Lakes, his fate intrigues people to this day.

Richard John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, most commonly known as “Lord Lucan,” disappeared after supposedly failing to take his wife's life on November 7, 1974.

The 39-year-old had been embroiled in a bitter custody battle with his wife, Veronica Duncan, following the breakdown of their marriage. Lucan had a dependence on gambling and was a heavy drinker, which ultimately resulted in him having to move out of their family home.

The night of the incident, Veronica and his kids were having dinner while their nanny, Sandra Rivett, was preparing tea in the basement kitchen. Lady Duncan grew suspicious as she did not come back for a while.

When she went down to see what had happened to Sandra, she found the kitchen in total darkness and was hit in the head by a blunt object. “Be quiet!” she heard, in what she would later reveal to be his husband’s voice.

Scared, Veronica took to the streets to ask for help, shouting, “I've just escaped from being m*rdered! He’s in the house! He’s attacked the nanny!”

When police arrived, they found the nanny’s body in a sack alongside a blood-covered lead pipe. Reports say Lord Lucan fled from London to Sussex and was never seen again.

The actress, famous for her roles in Designated Survivor and NCIS, was accused by her ex-husband, J.P. Gillain, of disappearing with their child.

An arrest warrant was issued in Los Angeles County against McLellan for charges of child custody deprivation, kidnapping, and child stealing in May 2021. The incident happened in the middle of an ongoing custody dispute dating back to 2017.

According to Gillain, the actress took their then 4-year-old son, Sebastian, to Toronto without his consent. McLellan has been missing since April 2019, not appearing in any productions and presumably living under a different identity.

Fans have tossed around conflicting narratives about her disappearance, with one side believing she acted in an attempt to protect her son from harm, and the other that McLellan acted maliciously, and that she will be arrested as soon as authorities find her.

The eldest daughter of celebrated Italian artists Albano Carrisi and Romina Power, Ylenia had it all: beauty, talent, and a pedigree that could have set her on the path to stardom.

Still, she was determined to pursue her own passion: writing.

After appearing alongside her parents in the film Champagne in Paradiso, Ylenia enrolled at King’s College London to study literature, earning the highest marks in her year.

During her studies, she began dreaming of traveling the world solo, armed with nothing but a backpack and her journal.

She returned to Italy, sold all her belongings to fund the trip, and set off for Latin America. After months in Belize, she left the day after Christmas 1993 for New Orleans, Louisiana.

By early January 1994, Ylenia was staying at the LeDale Hotel in New Orleans with Alexander Masakela, a street musician twenty years her senior. Around January 6, she was last seen in the French Quarter.

A security guard testified, saying that he had seen a woman matching her description jump into the Mississippi River.

Her final words: "I belong in water."

The Mexican-American attorney made a name for himself by being an activist in the Chicano Movement, as well as for his novels, 1972’s Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo and 1973’s The Revolt of the Cockroach People.

He disappeared on May 27, 1974, aged 39, while traveling in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico. His son, Marco Acosta, would later state that while the body was never found, his father “got into a fight, and got fatally wounded.”

Zeta was a close friend of author Hunter S. Thompson, who immortalized him by recounting their adventures traveling to Las Vegas in the autobiographical novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, published on November 11, 1971.

The 23-year-old son of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and great-grandson of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, Michael was born into a life of riches.

However, in 1961, he set out for the remote Asmat region of Dutch New Guinea to collect tribal art and study the culture.

On November 17, while traveling with Dutch anthropologist René Wassing in a small canoe, rough seas overturned their craft miles from shore.

After two days adrift, Rockefeller told Wassing, “I think I can make it,” strapped gasoline cans to himself for buoyancy, and valiantly swam toward land.

He was never seen again.

Officially, the prevailing theory is that Rockefeller drowned before reaching shore. But local accounts by missionaries, journalists, and later author Carl Hoffman claim he made it to land, only to lose his life in revenge for a prior Dutch-led attack on the villagers.

Among the most chilling of theories is one that claims his body was ritually consumed, a remnant of the Asmat’s headhunting traditions.

Lynn was a successful actress, model, and beauty queen before her disappearance on July 6, 1983. She was 18 years old.

Lynn rose to fame in the beauty pageant world, winning over 280 crowns from nearly 300 contests. She quickly transitioned into a modeling career that had her posing for CoverGirl Magazine in October 1978

The model appeared in various films, but her most famous role was her participation in Scarface in 1983.

After the shooting of the movie Spring Break had finished, the model went unaccompanied to a party one weekend and returned “a different person,” according to Wing Flannagan, one of her closest friends.

Months before her vanishing, Tammy reportedly started showing signs of mental distress, including a fear of being attacked. She was evaluated at a medical center and cleared of illegal substance use, but her behavior persisted.

The model was last seen in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Her mother struggled for years trying to find a culprit, with people such as serial criminal Christopher Wilder and kidnapper John Crutchley being considered suspects.

Harold Lewis, a Cocoa Beach Detective, said in 1985 that he received two telephone calls from an anonymous woman claiming that Tammy was alive and pursuing a career as a nurse.

Bierce was a celebrated writer and editor who mysteriously vanished after traveling to Mexico in October 1913.

The 71-year-old departed from Washington presumably in an effort to immerse himself in the revolutionary conflict of the Latin American country. Reports state that he successfully passed through Louisiana and Texas, crossing through El Paso into Mexico.

Bierce is said to have joined revolutionary leader Pancho Villa’s army as an observer, witnessing key historical moments like the Battle of Tierra Blanca.

His last known communication was a letter he wrote to Blanche Partington, a close friend, on December 26, 1913. “I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination," it read.

Bierce disappeared without a trace, with numerous theories emerging soon after about his whereabouts.

The guitarist for the Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers disappeared on February 1, 1995.

Edwards became the band’s main lyricist and openly discussed his battles with depression in interviews, using his art as an outlet for his inner turmoil.

The day of his disappearance, the songwriter was set to travel to the U.S. with the band, but his abandoned car was found instead near the Severn Bridge, a site that had become infamous for people losing their lives.

Edward’s body was never found, and some of his fans have claimed to have seen him in India and the Canary Islands.

The former child actor, best known for his roles in Varsity Blues and the 2000s Beethoven 3rd and 4th movies, disappeared at just 18 years old, on January 5, 2006.

Pichler had relocated to Los Angeles as a child to pursue his acting career, which had a promising start, with appearances in at least 14 movies and television shows as a supporting actor.

At the insistence of his parents, he paused his acting career in 2003 to finish high school in his hometown of Bremerton, Washington.

Pichler’s car, a silver Toyota Corolla, was found four days after his disappearance. Inside the vehicle, there was a note where he expressed the wish to be “stronger” and a desire for his possessions to be handed to his younger brother.

While the lead detective on the case suspects the incident to be self-harm, Pichler’s body was never found, making it impossible to conclusively state what happened to him.

Spangler was a promising American actress and dancer born in Seattle, Washington. She disappeared on October 7, 1946, and was 26 years old. 

She was just starting to make her way in show business by working as an extra on productions such as 1948’s When My Baby Smiles at Me, and the 1949 comedy Chicken Every Sunday.

On the evening of her disappearance, Spangler told her sister-in-law that she was going to meet her ex-husband to discuss child support payments and then head to a late-night film shoot.

She was last seen at a grocery store. Two days later, her purse was found in Griffith Park with a torn strap and a cryptic note addressed to a man named “Kirk,” mentioning a visit to a “Dr. Scott.”

Speculation at the time claimed that Spangler had been involved in a botched abortion, a common practice in post-war Los Angeles. Other theories were considered, including connections to the mafia and actor Kirk Douglas, with no substantial evidence to back them.

Loverboy’s bassist, Scott Smith, disappeared on November 30, 2000, during a sailing trip.

The 45-year-old musician was piloting his sailboat, the Sea Major, en route to Los Angeles with his friend Bill Eliis and girlfriend Yvonne Mayotte, when a 25-foot wave struck them, immediately sweeping Smith overboard.

The Coast Guard mobilized quickly, but the rescue operation was unable to find the bassist’s body after an entire day of relentless search.

“One minute he was there and the next he was gone,” Ellis shared in an interview with the Montreal Gazette. “It happened very, very quickly.”

The band paid tribute to Smith with the song Stranded, which was included in their next studio album, Just Getting Started, released in 2007.

The former NBA player disappeared on July 7, 2002, during a sailing trip in the South Pacific.

The 33-year-old took a trip from Tahiti aboard his catamaran, the Hakuna Matata, accompanied by his girlfriend, Serena Karlan, as well as his brother, Miles Dabord, and the ship’s captain, Bertrand Saldo.

Out of the four, Dabord was the only person who returned to Tahiti almost two weeks later on July 20. The police launched a sting operation in September, discovering that Dabord had forged Dele’s signature to open mailboxes in his name and to buy $152,000 worth of gold.

The police found that Dabord had fled to Mexico and that the Hakuna Matata had been left in Tahiti under a different name, with its name removed and bullet holes patched.

Dabord took his own life on September 27 of that year. The FBI discovered that he had bought $200 in weights in order to sink the bodies of his victims to the bottom of the sea.

Theodosia was the daughter of the third US Vice President, Aaron Burr. The 29-year-old was heading to New York to reunite with her father after the passing of her 10-year-old son to malaria.

She disappeared while sailing aboard the Patriot on December 31, 1812, a fast ship that served as a privateer during the war. The vessel’s weaponry was dismantled and hidden below decks, and the ship was said to have been laden with valuable cargo.

The Patriot never reached its destination, and its crew was never found. Speculation at the time pointed towards piracy as the culprit, as well as a storm off the Carolina coast that ultimately sank the ship.