Lists of people who disappeared include those whose current whereabouts are unknown, or whose deaths are unsubstantiated:
Many people who disappear are eventually declared dead in absentia. Some of these people were possibly subjected to enforced disappearance, but there is insufficient information on their subsequent fates.
The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a loosely defined region between Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico in the North Atlantic Ocean. Since the mid-20th century, the area has been the subject of an urban legend, which claims that many aircraft and ships have disappeared there under mysterious circumstances. However, reputable sources dismiss the idea that there is any mystery.
Joseph Force Crater was an American lawyer who served as a New York State Supreme Court Justice and mysteriously vanished shortly after the state began an investigation into corruption in New York City. Despite massive publicity, the missing persons case was never solved and was officially closed forty years after Crater was declared dead.
An enforced disappearance is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person with the support or acquiescence of a state followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate or whereabouts with the intent of placing the victim outside the protection of the law. Often, forced disappearance implies murder whereby a victim is abducted, may be illegally detained, and is often tortured during interrogation, ultimately killed, and the body disposed of secretly. The party committing the murder has plausible deniability as there is no evidence of the victim's death.
Philip Taylor Kramer was an American bass guitar player for the rock group Iron Butterfly and associated groups between 1974 and 1980. He later became a computer engineering executive and inventor. He disappeared in February 1995 and was found dead in May 1999.
A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, or death in a location where they cannot be found, or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. Criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases.
John David Gosch was a paperboy in West Des Moines, Iowa, who disappeared between 6 and 7 a.m. on September 5, 1982. He is presumed to have been kidnapped. Gosch's picture was among the first to be featured on milk cartons as part of a campaign to find missing children. As of 2024, there have been no arrests made and the case is now considered cold, but remains open.
A presumption of death occurs when an individual is believed to be dead, despite the absence of direct proof of the person's death, such as the finding of remains attributable to that person. Such a presumption is typically made by an individual when a person has been missing for an extended period and in the absence of any evidence that person is still alive—or after a shorter period, but where the circumstances surrounding a person's disappearance overwhelmingly support the belief that the person is dead. The presumption becomes certainty if the person has not been located for a period of time that has exceeded their probable life span, such as in the case of Amelia Earhart or Jack the Ripper.
Mirella Gregori mysteriously disappeared from Rome on 7 May 1983, about forty days before the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, a citizen of Vatican City. Both vanishings are unsolved as of today.
Mansour Rashid Kikhia was the Libyan Minister of Foreign Affairs (1972–1973), Libyan Ambassador to the United Nations, Permanent Libyan Representative to the United Nations (1975–1980), and later an opposition figure to Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi, and human rights activist.
James Harrison Wilson Thompson, an American businessman who helped revitalise the Thai silk industry in the 1950s and 1960s, vanished in Malaysia's Cameron Highlands on March 26, 1967. The mysterious circumstances surrounding the case created a significant amount of media coverage. Over the years, many theories have been advanced to explain his disappearance.
Marvin Alvin Clark was an American man who disappeared under mysterious circumstances while en route to visit his daughter in Portland, Oregon during the Halloween weekend, 1926. Clark's case has the distinction of being the oldest active missing person case in the United States.
Etta H. Riel was an American woman who disappeared from Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1934. Her missing person case remains unsolved.
Margaret Ellen (Maggie) Fox was a 14-year-old American girl who vanished under suspicious circumstances in Burlington, New Jersey, in 1974.
Marion Barter was an Australian missing person, teacher and mother-of-two, who disappeared on Sunday 22 June 1997 from Southport, Queensland. She was dropped off at a bus stop in Southport, Queensland to go to the airport for a planned, long-term vacation in England. She has not been seen since.
Lists of solved missing person cases include: