Back in the 1970s, the journal Nauka i Zhizn took the risk of publishing statistics on the disappearance of people without a trace, albeit based on foreign data. The figures were quite frightening: in countries such as England, France, Italy, the number of citizens who disappeared without a trace ranged from 5,000 to 20,000 people a year! With the onset of glasnost, we also published similar data. In the territory former USSR there were 85,000 missing people a year, and the cause of the disappearance could only be identified in about 60,000 cases.

Once, guests came to a Muscovite. The conversation dragged on, the cigarettes ran out, and the owner, apologizing, threw on his jacket and, in slippers, went down to the grocery store located in the next entrance. But he did not appear in the grocery store, just as he did not return home. No traces of the missing owner of the apartment could be found.

In the summer of 1973, three Leningrad students went to the Crimea. On the train, we met two girls who were on their way there. In Simferopol, getting off the train, they agreed that they would meet at the trolleybus stop in order to go to Yalta together. But the girls waited for them in vain - the guys never showed up. And only after returning to Leningrad, one of them learned from her friend that three students who had also gone to the Crimea had disappeared from her at the institute. The signs matched, and the girl herself turned to the police. The young men were a very memorable group in cowboy hats, with a guitar, noisy and broken. Two guys were athletes, engaged in Japanese martial arts.

Another incident that occurred in the United States in the last century attracted the attention of the creator of the immortal image of Sherlock Holmes, the writer Conan Doyle. A certain family left the house, going for a walk, but the father of the family, remembering that he had forgotten his umbrella, returned to the house. Nobody ever saw him again. In 1936, a group of geologists settled in the village of Elizavetino near Krasnoyarsk. A few days later, returning home from the next route, the geologists saw a completely extinct village! Things in the houses remained intact, two bicycles lay on the main village street. One of the geologists, now a professor, doctor of geological and mineralogical sciences Barsukov, still remembers with a shudder the horror they experienced when they tried to enter a house whose door was closed from the inside! I had to break the glass, and then it turned out that the door was barricaded from the inside with household utensils. A large family of four adults and three children lived in the house. Geologists reported the incident to the local department of the NKVD, and a car with employees quickly arrived from there. However, the search was unsuccessful, and the geologists took a non-disclosure agreement about this case. As Barsukov said, after some time he was summoned to Moscow, to the NKVD, where he again testified on this case.

In 1987, our press reported on the disappearance of a small amateur expedition from Tomsk, which set off in search of a mysterious "devil's lair" - a clearing with bare earth where all living things die. However true story the missing expedition was found out quite recently. There was one girl in the group. Two guys were from Novosibirsk. It was assumed that at the final point of the route, where the group got off the train, two local enthusiasts would join it. All the guys were experienced tourists, they walked through the Siberian taiga more than once, they had firearms and signal equipment with them. In Tomsk, they boarded a train and, according to the testimony of the train crew, all got off the train safely at the designated place. And then oddities began: two local enthusiasts who were supposed to join the expedition were told that the train from Tomsk was three hours late, and they went home to wait out this time. But the engineer reduced the delay to two hours, and when the enthusiasts came to the station again, the train had already left. No one saw the guys who arrived from Tomsk. The station attendant was saying something unintelligible: it seems that some guys got off the train, but where they went is unknown. A day later, a telegram sent to Tomsk received an answer that the group had left at the appointed time.

Unfortunately, the police joined the search only three days later, when the people who could see the guys had already left. Nobody saw them anywhere else, it seemed that the group disappeared immediately after leaving the train.

In 1947, a C-46 passenger plane with 32 people on board crashed in the Rocky Mountains in the United States. Rescuers arrived at the accident site relatively quickly, but found only a mangled fuselage and no traces of passengers or crew. That's when one of the rescuers had a crazy idea that people disappeared from the plane in the air!

And here is a recent case with a Brazilian businessman. His plane "Cessna" fell into shallow water literally a hundred meters from the shore in front of many people. The rescuers hardly opened the doors, which jammed when they hit the water, but there was no one to save - the cabin was empty! The police put forward the traditional version: a businessman who was flying with his wife to friends for a holiday, for some reason threw his young wife overboard and threw himself. But this version had to be discarded: the doors of the plane were locked from the inside!

Let us pay attention to the fact that rare cases of such disappearances, confirmed by witnesses, occur almost instantly, without any sound or light effects. But is such a “miracle” possible in principle in nature? Let us turn to the monograph by L. E. Gurevich and E. B. Gliner “ General theory relativity after Einstein” (Znanie publishing house, 1972). Its authors argue that in reality there are "theoretically inevitable" special points at which bodies either appear or disappear from the world around us.

That's a memory! As for the patronymic of my third mother-in-law, I forgot, but I remember a man named Ockham. I also remember his razor-blade (in different interpretations in different ways). This English monk in a black robe, as soon as he saw a tired traveler on the horizon, immediately ran up to the stranger, grabbed his hand and soulfully, looking into his eyes, repeated: "For God's sake, do not multiply the essence of phenomena." As a result, the principle was called "Occam's razor". Translated from English into Russian, this wisdom sounds like this: "If there is a simple explanation for what happened, there is no need to look for complex ones." Let's explain with an example: if you overlooked the child, and a plate suddenly broke in the kitchen, then most likely your curious baby did it. It can be assumed that the brownie misbehaved or the mouse fled, waving its tail (namely, the delinquent will insist on this), but the first explanation will still remain the most correct. Although it happens that William of Ockham nervously smokes on the sidelines and looks suspiciously at his compatriot Arthur Conan Doyle. The latter, twisting his mustache, says through the mouth of his favorite literary hero Sherlock Holmes: "Discard all the impossible, what remains will be the answer, no matter how incredible it may turn out to be." It is this phrase that applies to cases of strange disappearances of people around the world.

Cases of people disappearing without a trace

About aliens, transition to Parallel Worlds, time travel and other esoteric stuff everyone heard and read.

Many then twist their fingers at their temples, others fervently prove that it is impossible not to believe this, since they themselves were repeatedly abducted by aliens.

Where do people disappear to in Russia?

In Moscow, a young mother left a sleeping baby for ten minutes while running to the store. When she returned, the baby was not in the crib. She opened the door with a key, no signs of forced entry. In a panic, I called my husband and mother at work, I thought, maybe they took the baby away for some reason? They called the police. Four years have passed since then.

A young couple. On their honeymoon, the newlyweds were going to take a boat ride down the Volga to Astrakhan. In the morning we packed our bags, ordered a taxi for 15.00. The girl went out to put money on the phone, returned half an hour later. The young man has disappeared. At first I thought - a prank, after all the deadlines had passed, the trip broke down, I called my relatives. They called all the police departments, hospitals, morgues, the next day they wrote a statement. The case was filed in 2009.

The man went on a business trip to another city. I got a job at a hotel, from there I called home. I spoke with my daughter. Nobody saw him again. Presumably, he did not leave the hotel, because his boots (it was winter), a suit, a warm jacket and a hat were gathering dust in the closet. Another hangover from 2011.

The system administrator of a large firm left at the appointed time for lunch. I didn’t return to work from lunch, I didn’t come home in the evening. The family left a wife with two children. There were no scandals with his wife on the eve of the disappearance. There were no debts, no mortgages. There were no enemies. Everyone loved the guy, and for loved ones this incident became real. The statement to the police was written in August 2014.

Where do people go - statistics

There are tens of thousands of such examples in our country over many years, and millions in the world. I tried to figure out the statistics, but they are very contradictory, so I am not responsible for them, I am not the Levada Center.

Now, according to statistics, in the United States, over a million people go missing every year. 65 percent are within a week. Another 20-25 percent of the missing are found within a month to ten years. In total, about 90 percent.

The remaining 10 percent disappear without a trace forever. And this is about a hundred thousand people.

I read that, according to Russian statistics, there are twice as many missing people. Maybe. But 50,000 is also a huge figure.

Here is a list of the main causes of people disappearing:

1. Homeless. Among this category, the most disappeared without a trace. This is not surprising
2. Mentally ill people, drug addicts, alcoholics. These people leave home, run away from hospitals without documents, without phones. Not everyone is found and often they end up in the crematorium as unidentified corpses.
3. Fishermen, hunters, tourists, mushroom pickers and other nature lovers
4. Fugitive orphans
5. Exalted spouses who spat with their other half and "gone into the night"
6. Lost in a disaster or combat zone
7. Those who ran away from loans, from the impending deadline, from debts, alimony, bandits
8. Children and adolescents victims of domestic violence

These 8 points include 90 percent of the disappeared. But in the police reports there is one more item: "They disappeared suddenly and for no apparent reason." These are the same 50 thousand that have never been found.

Yes, among them there may be people who were kidnapped into slavery, for forced prostitution, killed, who were destroyed, who died an absurd death (for example, hit by a car in a foreign city).

Everything is so, but there are cases that do not fit into these schemes, and which we talked about above. Even stranger disappearances are known.

Disappearances - real cases

USA

The American criminologist T. Bell, who interviewed many relatives of the missing, knows many such stories.

Los Angeles. City of Angels. . In a small, empty car park, a woman was putting groceries in the trunk. Her eleven-year-old daughter was here, there were no strangers nearby. Her mother lost sight of her for a few seconds. The search has been going on for many years.

San Francisco. A forty-eight-year-old man entered the house where he rented an apartment. Evan Jacobi. This moment was recorded by a video camera at the entrance. Evan didn't come back. Recordings on the camera confirm everything. Detectives combed the building several times. To no avail. Jacobi

World history knows many cases when people in whole groups went missing. And sometimes these disappearances cannot be explained. Several such cases will be discussed in our article.

Steamboat "Varata"

In the summer of 1909, the steamer "Warata", on board of which there were about 200 people, was heading from Melbourne, Australia to Cape Town, South Africa. En route, he made a scheduled stop in Durban. Here one of the passengers got off the ship, who was concerned about the behavior of the steamer during the voyage.

"Warata" left the port of Durban on July 26 and continued her journey. The next day he met with another ship - "Clan Macintyre". It was then that the ship was seen for the last time, because it never arrived in Cape Town or another port. Later, there were eyewitnesses claiming to have seen debris and bodies in the water, but there was no reliable evidence of the crash.

In the 1980s, unsuccessful attempts were made to find a steamboat. The fate of "Warata" remains a mystery to this day.

Inhabitants of Aztalan

On the territory of the US state of Wisconsin are the remains of the Indian city of Aztalan. This settlement was first discovered by settlers in 1836.

The city had stepped pyramids and cone-shaped burial mounds. Found household items testified that the locals were engaged in agriculture and fishing. According to the legends, these people built great pyramids in the valley of Mills Lake. Later this place was flooded, so it is very difficult to verify the authenticity of this story.

Approximately 7-10 centuries ago, the population of Atztalan reached 500 people. But at the beginning of the 14th century, for unknown reasons, the city was empty. There are several explanations, among which - a lack of resources or aggression from neighboring settlements.

9th Roman legion

The ninth legion of the Roman Empire is military education, in which about 5 thousand soldiers and officers served. It was stationed in the north of England during the British occupation. The purpose of the unit was to deter attacks from the indigenous inhabitants of the island. In 108, the legion settled in the city of York. This was the last mention of him.

No one can say for sure what happened to the ninth legion. It is known that 14 years later, when the Sixth Legion entered York, the city was empty. Perhaps all the Roman soldiers were destroyed by the rebellious mountaineers. There is also a version that the detachment was sent to another place, but there is no evidence for this.

The disappearance of the L-1049 airliner over the Pacific Ocean

On March 16, 1962, a Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation was on Flight 739. On board the plane were 96 US troops bound for Vietnam. On the way there were several stops for refueling, and at first everything went according to plan. However, after taking off from Guam, the plane never landed for a final refueling in the Philippines.

During this flight, the crew reported on all their actions in a timely manner, and then a strange request was received to change the altitude from 10 to 16 thousand feet. After another two hours, communication with the aircraft was interrupted, and he himself disappeared from all radars.

The most likely cause of Flight 739's disappearance was a mid-air explosion. However, none of the nearby control towers received a distress signal. In addition, absolutely no debris was found during the search and rescue operation.

Since this type of airliner was considered very reliable, it was hard to believe in a mechanical failure. Representatives of the airline suggested that the plane could have been hijacked, but it was never found anywhere. The fate of flight number 739 and its passengers remained unknown.

Population of Great Zimbabwe

Name African country Zimbabwe, meaning "stone houses", was taken from the name of the mysterious city - Great Zimbabwe. It was a large settlement - approximately 18 thousand inhabitants. This civilization was quite advanced: people were able to build stone walls to a height of up to three floors. All the more strange seems their disappearance about 400 years ago.

Now Great Zimbabwe is a completely abandoned city. His buildings are built of granite slabs, fastened together using a method that can do without mortar. A large number of things were found here, according to which scientists were able to study the culture and life of the local population. As it turned out, the townspeople knew how to make metal things, were actively engaged in trade, and were also religious.

Despite the many finds, there is no single theory that could shed light on the fate of the inhabitants of the city. When asked what happened several centuries ago with big city, it is unlikely that an exact answer will ever be given.

Ship "Poet"

During the Second World War, this ship served as transport ship. After the end of hostilities, "Poet" was mothballed and stood idle for more than 20 years. Later it was bought out and again began to be used for its intended purpose, until in October 1980 the ship, along with the captain and an experienced crew of 33 people, mysteriously disappeared.

October 24 "Poet" headed from Philadelphia to Egypt with a cargo of corn. The next day, a storm raged in the northern part of the Atlantic, but he did not represent great danger for a ship of this class. When the hurricane ended, the ship disappeared without a trace without any distress signal.

There were several versions of the disappearance - from flooding as a result of a hole to the criminal negligence of the owner of the ship, who was silent about the loss of contacts with the Poet. Only one thing is clear: such ships do not sink without a reason, but it will be very difficult to recognize it.

Link 19

Shortly after the end of World War II, another strange disappearance occurred. In December 1945, five American bombers made a training flight in the Bahamas. After completing the task, the link returned to the base, but for some reason flew in a completely different direction. In addition, the weather was rapidly deteriorating, and soon the planes disappeared from the radar.

A large-scale rescue operation was immediately organized, in which hundreds of aircraft and dozens of ships were used. However, no signs of the missing link were found.

As it turned out, that day the victims bermuda triangle were not only these aircraft. Two hydroplanes that flew to look for the missing bombers also disappeared without a trace. Until a rational explanation for these losses has been found, the version about the fault of the mystical Bermuda Triangle seems to be true.

Moche civilization

This South American culture existed in what is now Peru between the first and ninth centuries. According to archaeological research, these people knew how to process metals well, they even mastered gilding and soldering. They had a field irrigation system capable of feeding up to 25,000 inhabitants. However, at a certain period of history, they disappeared without a trace.

According to one version, the El Niño storm that raged in the 6th-7th century could be to blame. After 30 years of heavy rains, a thirty-year drought set in, with which the inhabitants could not cope. There were also versions according to which civilization was exterminated by neighboring tribes, but no traces of hostilities were found. Unfortunately, the trace of this mysterious culture is lost forever.

5th Battalion, Norfolk Regiment

This British detachment, which took part in the First World War, was formed mainly from volunteers. After training, the battalion landed on the Gallipoli peninsula in 1915, where it faced the task of leading Turkey out of the war. The detachment arrived at the place on August 10, and two days later the soldiers went into their first battle, which was also their last.

The Allied attack was very poorly thought out. Without accurate maps in a battle against a well-trained enemy, the regiment was doomed to defeat.

During the attack, the 5th battalion pursued the enemy in the burning forest and never returned from there. At first there were versions that the soldiers were ambushed and captured. However, there was not a single mention of such prisoners of war in the records of the Turkish government. Later, there were eyewitnesses who claim that they saw a cloud enveloping the soldiers, who then simply disappeared. True or not, the fate of the 5th Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment has remained an unsolved mystery.