Troy Taylor - Without a Trace. Unsolved Dissapearances and Mysterious Vanishings (Dead Men Do Tell Tales)

INTRODUCTION

A problem without a solution may interest the student but can hardly fail to annoy the casual reader. Among these unfinished tales is that of Mr. James Phillimore, who, stepping back into his own house to get his umbrella, was never seen again in this world.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Ive had the file cabinet for years. Its an old, beat-up thing that has moved from place to place so many times that Ive lost count of everywhere its been with me. Im not even sure where I got it, but I know that Ive had it for more than two decades now. As for its contents, well, theyre a little strange. Theyd even be considered by most people to be disturbing if they didnt know what I do for a living.

The cabinet contains records and remnants of the vanished people who walked away one day, or were taken, and never returned. They just disappeared, without a trace.

I have been fascinated perhaps even obsessed by unsolved disappearances for as long as I can remember. Like many other people, I have always been intrigued by the idea of a puzzle that cannot be solved. Perhaps for this reason, I have voraciously read, collected, and written murder mysteries, stories of unsolved murders, and tales of ghosts and the supernatural. In the course of my collecting and writing, I have learned that real life is not like the stuff of fiction. In a fictional mystery, the detective always solves the case in the final pages of the book or the last reel of the film. Real life, however, is not so simple. There are far too many mysteries that simply cannot be solved especially when it comes to those who disappear without a trace.

History is filled with mysterious vanishings, which is why I filled my cabinet with such accounts. Its been said that in the United States alone, as many as 10 million people are reported missing each year. The majority of them return home within hours or days but there is a small percentage of them that go missing forever. It seems like this would not be an easy thing to do in this modern age, but it occurs more often than youd like to think. The accounts of those vanishings have all the ingredients of a mystery story, except for the ending, of course. It is these stories, that we are left to speculate, wonder, and lose sleep over.

Many of the circumstances around unsolved disappearances are often bizarre, sometimes ridiculous, but in the end, always inexplicable even when it seems that the event should be impossible.

How does a person, a plane, or a ship disappear without a trace? In some cases, people vanished into the uncharted wilderness, a victim of the elements and of a place for which no map existed. Or perhaps the weather played a crucial role, washing over ships at sea and snatching airplanes out of the sky. Many disappearances can be blamed on man. Brutal murders have occurred for which no clues have been found and the bodies of the dead have never been discovered.

But what if, sometimes, things are even weirder?

There are some who believe there are holes in the fabric of time and space into which people, animals, and objects have involuntarily and unexpectedly slipped. Many of them are unable to return to the world from which they came, creating mysteries that can never be solved. The American writer and researcher Charles Fort, who spent years in libraries collecting accounts of oddities and bizarre happenings and who compiled several books of such things, concluded that these mysterious portals were not only possible, but that they actually exist. As strange as this might sound, Fort was not alone in this idea. There are a number of scientists and researchers who theorize that such doorways just might explain the mysterious disappearances of people in cases where no normal explanation can be found.

But can we relegate all unexplained vanishings to the world of the supernatural? Of course not, for there have been thousands of disappearances that are undoubtedly linked to historical mysteries, the wrath of the elements, and the bloodthirsty nature of man. In the pages ahead, we will explore scores of intriguing mysteries, from both centuries past and modern times. You will find accounts of lost explorers, kidnap victims who were never returned, missing ships and an uncomfortable number of cases for which no logical explanation exists.

As I sorted through the piles of papers, books and materials in my cabinet, I found cases that involved every type of disappearance.

* During the Spanish War of Succession, from 1701 to 1714, an army of 4,000 trained and fully-equipped troops marched into the Pyrenees mountains that form the border between France and Spain and were never heard from again. Despite numerous searches, no trace of them was ever found. They had camped one night by a small stream and the next morning, they broke camp and set off into the foothills of the mountains. They marched into oblivion.

* In 1858, 650 French soldiers vanished during a march on Saigon, in what is now Vietnam. There had been rioting in the city and 500 well-trained French Legionnaires, along with 150 Spanish recruits, were dispatched to restore order. They were last seen marching across open country about 15 miles from Saigon, but they never reached the city and they never returned to their base. A search was conducted but the soldiers had simply disappeared.

* In 1915, three soldiers claimed to be witnesses to the bizarre disappearance of an entire battalion during the infamous Gallipoli campaign of World War I. The three men, from a New Zealand field company, said they watched as a battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment marched up a hillside in Suvla Bay, Turkey. The hill was shrouded in a low-lying cloud, into which the English soldiers marched without hesitation. They never came out. The cloud burned away in the sunshine and was gone apparently taking the soldiers with it. After the war ended, assuming that the battalion had been captured and held prisoner, the British government demanded that Turkey return them. The Turks insisted, however, that their army had neither captured nor contacted the English soldiers. The battalion was never heard from again.

* In June 1874, a stern-wheeler called the Iron Mountain vanished on the Mississippi River. The massive riverboat was more than 180-feet long and had five huge boilers to provide steam enough for her giant paddles. The vessel, which sailed from Vicksburg, Mississippi, was loaded with cotton and molasses from New Orleans and carried 57 passengers. The steamboat was bound for Pittsburgh, via the Ohio River, when it sailed, towing a string of barges behind it. As she reached midstream, the pilot gave a couple of long blasts on the whistle to warn small boats out of the way and then she rounded a bend and was never seen again. The Iron Mountains barges were later found adrift on the river, their towing ropes cut cleanly through. No trace of wreckage from the steamer, nor bodies of passengers and crew, were ever found. Hundreds of miles of river bottom were dragged, but without success. Other riverboats should have seen the Iron Mountain , but none of them had. No adequate explanation for the disappearance of the ship has ever been found.

* On October 13, 1913, early American aviator Albert Jewell disappeared off Long Island, New York. No trace of him was ever found. Jewell was on his way to Staten Island, where he planned to take part in the New York Times American Aerial Derby. The race had been organized to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Orville Wrights first flight on December 17, 1903. The race was a series of timed flights over a 60-mile course, starting and ending in Oakwood on Staten Island.

Jewell held a pilot's license issued by the Aero Club of America and at the time of his disappearance, he had been flying for six months (which made him a veteran aviator in those days). He was also an instructor at the Moisant Aviation School, though he had little experience of flights of the distance he was attempting.