Tag: mysterious disappearances

Mystery ship that vanished with 32 crew members finally found after 120 years

A 120-year-old mystery of a missing ship that vanished without a trace off the coast of Australia has finally been solved — thanks to undersea explorers who stumbled on it by luck.

The SS Nemesis was transporting coal to Melbourne, Australia, in July 1904 when it got caught in a powerful storm off New South Wales and vanished along with its 32 crew members.

In the weeks after the storm, bodies of crew members and fragments of the ship’s wreckage washed ashore at Cronulla Beach about 18 miles south of Sydney.

The SS Nemesis was found accidentally, after it vanished off the coast of Australia in 1904.

The loss generated a media storm and intense public interest, but wreckage of the 240-foot vessel was never found and its final resting place remained a mystery.

Subsea Professional Marine Services, a remote sensing company searching the ocean floor off the coast of Sydney for lost cargo in 2022, accidentally stumbled upon the missing shipwreck.

The wreck was found completely untouched, about 16 miles offshore under nearly 525 feet of water.

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Madeline McCann disappearance: Bombshell claim about chief suspect Christopher Brueckner

The prime suspect in the disappearance of Maddie McCann allegedly confessed to a friend and petty criminal the British toddler ‘didn’t scream’ after she was ripped from her parent’s holiday home, never to be seen again.

Madeleine McCann was just three years old when she vanished from her bed at her parent’s holiday home in the coastal town of Praia da Luz, Portugal on May 3, 2007, sparking one of the world’s most enduring cold cases.

While no one has ever been charged with the toddler’s disappearance, German authorities in June 2020 revealed convicted rapist Christian Brueckner was their prime suspect. This week, he faces trial in Germany on unrelated charges.

Mr Brueckner, who is known under German privacy laws as Christian B, stands accused of raping a 14-year-old and two other women, as well as sexually assaulting other children, and is currently in jail convicted of rape.

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States with the largest numbers of missing persons revealed – and why Ohio is NOT among them

Oklahoma has the highest rate of missing persons in the US, with Arizona and the rest of the South not far behind.

About 2,300 Americans are reported missing every day, and though the vast majority of them are found within a few days, others are still vanished.

California, Texas, and Florida have the most active cases, according to federal statistics, but aren’t even in the top 10 when accounting for population.

Oklahoma has 16 missing persons per 100,000 residents, Arizona in second with 14.2 and Oregon with 12.5, according to the National US Missing Persons Database.

They are followed by Southern states like Louisiana with 12, Arkansas with 11.6, and New Mexico with 11.5. Texas has 8.5, California 8.6, and New York just 5.5.

Lowest in the nation are Massachusetts with 2.7, followed by states around the Great Lakes like Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana at 3.3 each.

Ohio has only 3.5 missing persons for 100,000 residents, despite misleading reports last year that 1,072 children were reported missing in Cleveland alone.

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Breakthrough in search for Amelia Earhart’s plane after ‘wreckage found on seabed’

The mystery around what happened to Amelia Earhart – the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean – may be finally solved.

Divers believe they have finally discovered her plane lying on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean near where the American aviator vanished in 1937.

Since her disappearance – during her most ambitious journey – millions of dollars have been spent on finding the wreckage.

Experts have long wondered where the missing adventurer lies – and this may be a huge breakthrough in he case.

After scanning 5,200 miles of seabed near Earhart’s last known position, surveyors Deep Sea Vision believe they may have located her Lockheed 10-E Electra.

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Daughter of D.B. Cooper Suspect Calls on FBI to Release Necktie to Clear His Name

The daughter of a man suspected of being D.B. Cooper has called upon the FBI to provide access to the skyjacker’s necktie in the hopes that new DNA analysis of the evidence will clear her father’s name. The surprising development reportedly came about after researcher Eric Ulis made headlines earlier this month with his theory that microscopic metallic particles found on the object could help identify the mysterious individual behind the legendary cold case. He specifically pointed the finger at an individual named Vince Petersen, who worked as an engineer at the only facility that produced the alloy at the time of the skyjacking. As one might imagine, the man’s daughter was not too thrilled when she saw the news that her late father had somehow become a suspect in the Cooper case.

Explaining that she was surprised and dismayed by Ulis’ bold assertion, Julie Dunbar reached out to the researcher to express her considerable skepticism over his hypothesis. “I spoke to Eric about this clip-on tie,” she recalled, “as far as I know, my dad didn’t have one in his wardrobe.” While Dunbar conceded that “anything is possible” and that perhaps “it was something that he kept at work” that was subsequently borrowed by the skyjacker, she flatly dismissed the possibility that her father had anything to do with the 1971 caper. “As far as my dad being DB Cooper himself,” she declared, definitely not.”

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6 People Vanished from a Home Near St. Louis in August. Police Suspect They’re Involved in an Online Cult

Authorities are befuddled by the disappearance of six people — one man, three women and two young children — from a St. Louis-area home in August, which police believe to be related to the existence of a cult.

It’s been months since Naaman Williams, 29, Gerielle German, 26, her 3-year-old son Ashton Mitchell, Mikayla Thompson, 23, Ma’Kayla Wickerson, 25, and her 3-year daughter Malaiyah were last seen. The group had been living in a rented home in Berkeley, Mo., near St. Louis Lambert International airport.

Berkeley police Major Steve Runge tells PEOPLE that the four missing adults are believed to be part of a cult allegedly revolving around Rashad Jamal, who was convicted of child molestation charges in 2023 and is currently serving a prison sentence in Georgia.

Over the past few years, Jamal has amassed thousands of followers on social media with his spiritual teachings, operating what he calls the University of Cosmic Intelligence, which according to its website is “geared toward enlightening and illuminating minds” of Black and Latino people.

Speaking to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from prison, Jamal denies being a cult leader and maintained his innocence in his child molestation case. 

Runge says some of Jamal’s followers, which he says includes three of the missing adults, have changed their names in honor of those they believe to be spiritual gods or goddesses. Williams is also known as Anubis Aramean, Thompson goes by Antu Anum Ahmat, while Wickerson is Intuahma Aquama Auntil, according to Berkeley police. 

According to police, the Berkeley quartet has now allegedly exhibited some of the other followers’ behaviors: total disconnection from family and loved ones, a desire to go off the grid, quitting their jobs and embracing sovereign citizenship, among other behaviors.

“It’s confusing, the internet is [the cult’s] home,” Runge says. “It’s not like ‘OK, we’re going to go to St. Louis.’ No, the internet is its home. [Jamal] has 90,000 followers.”

On Aug. 12, Runge says Wickerson’s mother, Cartisha Morgan, called police and said she was worried about her daughter, who she hadn’t heard from. Days later, detectives began investigating and searched the Berkeley home and found no signs of foul play. Runge says they discovered the group’s Facebook profiles, which contained references to Jamal and were once extremely active and public before the activity abruptly stopped.

Through further investigation, Runge says the group was last seen at a hotel on Aug. 13, in Florissant, Mo. No one has heard from them since. 

While Wickerson, who according to her LinkedIn profile once worked for JP Morgan & Chase, and Thompson are both from St. Louis, Williams is from Washington D.C., while German is originally from Lake Horn, Miss., near Memphis.

Thompson, like the other two women, is also the mother of a young child whom she left behind with her mother, according to Runge.

Runge believes the missing group will resurface eventually, most likely when they run out of money.

“I know we’re going to find them,” Runge says. “It’s just a matter of going through the motions … we are going to put in the work.”

Morgan spoke to PEOPLE and says she is worried about both her daughter and granddaughter, whom she hasn’t seen in months. She believes Wickerson had been suffering from depression following the birth of her daughter, and that she was preyed upon as a result.

“I’m not doing so well, but I’m just holding on by my faith,” Morgan tells PEOPLE. “I just wish that people are made aware of this.”

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The Dramatic Life and Mysterious Death of Theodosia Burr

IN 1869, A VACATIONING DOCTOR named William Gaskins Pool was called to help an ill old woman named Polly Mann, who lived in a shack near Nags Head, North Carolina. When he and his daughter, Anna, gingerly entered the dark, cobweb-covered home, they were drawn to a picture on the wall, Anna remembered, “of a beautiful young woman about twenty-five years of age.” After extensively questioning Polly about the painting, Dr. Pool believed his initial hunch was correct. He was staring at a portrait of the long vanished Theodosia Burr Alston, a portrait which may hold the key to her long-debated fate at sea.Today, if people know anything about Theodosia, it is because of the lovely lullaby “Dear Theodosia,” sung by the character of Aaron Burr in the sensational musical Hamilton. But the real-life Theodosia grew from a beloved child into a highly intelligent, complex adult, whose fascinating story is largely unknown and worthy of its very own Broadway smash.

Theodosia Bartow Burr was born in Albany, New York, on June 21, 1783. Her mother, also called Theodosia, was a brilliant, cultured woman. She had scandalized New England society, when as a married mother of five, she fell in love with an equally brilliant and much younger blue-blooded lawyer and Revolutionary War soldier—Aaron Burr. After her first husband’s death, the two were married, and little Theodosia, the couple’s only child to survive, became the center of her parents’—particularly her father’s—world.

“Your dear little Theodosia cannot hear you spoken of without an apparent melancholy,” the elder Theodosia wrote to a traveling Aaron in 1785, “insomuch that her nurse is obliged to exert her invention to divert her, and myself avoid to mention you in her presence. She was one whole day indifferent to everything but your name. Her attachment is not of a common nature.”

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Florida dive team claims it’s finally solved mystery of Orlando woman, 47, who vanished 11 YEARS AGO while driving home from McDonald’s date with a man she met on SpeedDate.com – as they discover van at the bottom of a pond near Disney World

A Florida-based search team claims to have found the body of a mother of three who went missing over a decade years ago after meeting up with a man she met online.

Sunshine State Sonar announced the discovery of Sandra Lemire’s remains in a van that sunken into a pond near Disney World.

In a Facebook post, the group claimed to have found the 47-year-old’s body as well as her personal belongings.

Lemire was last seen in May 2012. She hailed from Michigan but moved to Florida to care for her grandmother, Pauline Varner.

‘If she said she was going shopping and would be back in an hour, she would be back in an hour,’ Varner told the Orlando Sentinel after Lemire’s disappearance.

Police said the mother of three was heading to Kissimmee to link up with a man she met on a now-defunct dating website, SpeedDate.com.

Lemire’s son, Tim Lemire, Jr. told WXYZ that he had discouraged her from meeting up with strangers.

‘I told her from day one just quit it, just meet the guy the old-fashioned way, not online,’ he said.

Lemire’s loved ones feared the worst when she did not return home, not even to pick up insulin for her diabetes.

Video surveillance showed that Lemire did meet with the man, a manager at a local McDonald’s, for about two hours. Police ultimately ruled out the man as a suspect.

The 47-year-old was last seen driving her grandmother’s 2004 red Ford Freestyle van.

Sunshine State Sonar claimed the car was a match to the one they found in the lake, including the license plate.

They revealed that the search had taken place across 17 months as they combed 63 bodies of water with detectives from the Orlando Police Department.

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Oscar Zeta Acosta: The Wild Life and Strange End of Dr Gonzo

In the annals of counterculture history, certain figures emerge as both mysterious and iconic, leaving an indelible mark on the zeitgeist of their time. Oscar Zeta Acosta, an attorney, politician, and writer, is one such figure.

Best known as Hunter S. Thompson’s larger-than-life companion, Acosta’s life is a tapestry woven with activism, literature, all leading to a mysterious disappearance. There are numerous theories as to what happened with Acosta but with a figure so controversial in his own time it can be hard to separate fact from fiction.

What happened to Oscar Acosta? Was it an accident, a drug deal gone wrong or something even more sinister?

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Major claim missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 could be found in ‘a matter of days’ finally bringing an end to the nine year mystery

The mystery of missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 could be solved in a matter of ‘days’ if there was a new search, experts have revealed.

Flight MH370 disappeared about 38 minutes after leaving Kuala Lumpur airport in southern Malaysia en route to Beijing, China, on March 8, 2014.

Despite a frantic search by governments and private companies, the plane was never found and the fate of its 237 passengers remains unknown.

In September, aerospace expert Jean-Luc Marchand and pilot Patrick Blelly called for a new search based on revelations about the fate of the flight.

During a lecture before the Royal Aeronautical Society, the pair said the new search area could be canvassed in just 10 days in an open call for help.

‘We have done our homework. We have a proposal … the area is small and considering new capabilities it will take 10 days,’ Mr Marchand said.

‘It could be a quick thing. Until the wreck of MH370 is found, nobody knows (what happened). But, this is a plausible trajectory.’

The pair called on the Australian Transport Safety Authority, Malaysian government, and exploration company Ocean Infinity to begin a new search.

Last year, Ocean Infinity revealed it was interested in a restarting its search having canvassed swathes of Indian Ocean on a ‘no find, no fee’ basis.

Mr Marchand said the ‘swift’ search could be a good proving ground for the company’s new unmanned sub-nautical search technology.

Importantly, the pair told the RAS the new search area was based on the belief the plane was purposefully hijacked and downed in deep ocean.

Mr Marchad described it as an ‘atrocious one-way journey’, which he believed was likely carried out by an experienced aeroplane pilot.

‘We think, and the study that we’ve done has shown us, that the hijacking was probably performed by an experienced pilot,’ Mr Marchad said.

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