Wallace Fard was the founder of the Nation of Islam.
Here is some info on him:
Even better, the municipal swimming pool in Glen Iris is named after him.
one johnny carson hosted “the tonight show” for 30 years and disapeared one night in may 1992, leaving us with a lame stand up comedian with absolutely no ad libbing or interviewing skills. carson has not been seen or heard from since, an extremely rare occurance in show biz.
Mmm, not quite. Richey James Edwards was the guitarist from the Manic Street Preachers who vanished. Nicky Wire is the bassist,and he’s still in sight. Every so often there are “sightings” of Richey, but they’re always in popular British college student hangouts such as Goa and Tenerife. How convenient.
What about the crew of the Carol M. (or sometimes A. depending on the account) Deering? Found run aground on Diamond Shoals on the Outer Banks of NC in February 1921, the brand-new Maine-based schooner was in full sail but completely abandoned by her crew. Upon boarding the ship, salvage crews found uneaten food on plates, very tidy living quarters and something most odd - the rudder had been disabled and there were hatchet marks on one of the rails. Because the ship was engaged in international commerce, government agencies got involved and the captain’s daughter even moved to NC to be closer to the investigation. However, no trace of the captain or crew was ever found, not even telltale lifeboat wreckage. Eventually the ship was stripped of anything of value and was broken apart in a storm shortly before it was due to be demolished by explosion, as the hulk had become a noisy refuge for seagulls.
This is sort of a hijack, but it’s related to the OP, in a way.
I seem to recall reading (in The Book Of Lists, IIRC) about a mysterious appearance of a person.
I’m doing this from memory, so the details are sketchy, but I recall that the case was referred to as “Little Miss Nobody”. Circa 1930s, the body of a young girl was found in the aftermath of a circus fire (in the NYC area, I believe) and nobody could identify her. Her features were not mutilated by the fire or the resultant stampede. Many inquiries were made, and the girl’s picture was published and circulated, but no one came forward to identify her or claim her remains.
The account I read went into a little detail concerning the possible explanations (her parents died in the fire, etc.), but IIRC, the really strange thing is that her photo was distributed nationwide and apparently nobody; next of kin, neighbor, teacher, nobody could tell who she was. Very strange.
For all the mysterious disappearances of people, this is even curioser: a mysterious and unexplained appearance.
That would be Little Miss 1565, named for her morgue identification number that was put on her gravestone. She was trampled by the crowd escaping from the fire at the Ringling Brothers Circus Tent in Hartford, Connecticut on July 6, 1944.
The official identification was finally made in 1991, when Donald Cook came forward and identified her as his sister Eleanor. Their father was one of 167 people who died, and their mother was hospitalized for 6 months. She believed her daughter had died and was too traumatized to look. Apparently Donald Cook’s reason for not coming forward, even after reaching adulthood, is not fully understood, and the identification is not universally accepted.
Thanks for the more detailed report, ElvisL1ves. Much of the details came back to me as I read your post (specifically the location, which, while close to NYC, wasn’t. I now remember that it was Hartford, CT).
I had never heard the update, either, and I agree with the assessment that it’s pretty fishy for nearly half a century to pass before someone piped up. As I noted in my post, no neighbors or teachers or anybody stepped forward to identify the girl, which I find passing strange.
Two words—Long Pork. 
Sorry I can’t remember any details, but there was some civilazation on a Greek island many many years ago. The island was destroyed by a volcano (I believe) and preserved everything perfectly, but no bodies were ever found.
Indeed, there seems to be a number of reasons why it’s suspect. I just finished the excellent book The Circus Fire by Stewart O’Nan, and he casts strong doubt on whether Little Miss 1565 was Eleanor Cook:[ul]
[li]1565 had two permanent teeth; Cook had eight[/li][li]Cook was 8 and tall for her age, but the height/weight of 1565 are off the bottom end of development scales for an 8-year-old (they’re more appropriate for a child of about 6)[/li][li]The clothing of 1565 doesn’t match what Cook was wearing the day of the fire[/li][/ul]Interestingly, the arson invesigator who made the identfication of Little Miss 1565 now refuses to discuss the case. Over 20 girls aged 4-9 died in the fire, many both trampled and burned to the point of charring. It seems likely that between the primitive state of forensics at the time and the gut-wrenching task of having to identify a dead child from among dozens of blackened corpses, one or more of those 20 families simply claimed and buried the wrong body - and even one mistake would throw the whole thing into chaos.
TYG, you might be thinking of the Minoan civilization on Crete, and mixing in a little of the eruption of Vesuvius.
The island of Thera near Crete blew up about (IIRC) 1600BC, and the Minoan culture collapsed shortly after. I think the general opinion among archaeologists is that the first eruption and a few following ones contributed but didn’t destroy them outright.
The preservation you’re thinking of might refer to Pompeii, which was buried in ash when Vesuvius erupted in 79AD.
I’m sure many people disappeared in both events, but we don’t have much detail.
rjk, maybe he is mixing also Herculaneum, another of the cities destroyed by the Vesuvius. Early excavations didn’t find enough corpses or trace of something. Later excavations found a shed near the sea full of human remains (I do not know if it also had the casts). Apparently, many of the citizens went to the shed to escape, but were killed by the eruption anyways.
Thanks for the link to the David Lang story. My adolescent reading was full of books like “Stranger Than Fiction” and “This Baffling World,” UFO books and Popular Science magazine (featuring articles like “The Russians Faked The Space Walk,” “The Sirocco, New Mexico Saucer Flap”)
But the Lang story really creeped me out, especially the fading voice of Dad heard in the middle of the circle. Frank’s book also had a “buried alive” story, about a girl in Italy who died and was buried. The mother had weird dreams about her, so caused the coffin to be disinterred and opened. Inside, well, you can imagine the rest. 
For strange appearances, “Baffling World” told the story of Caspar Hauser. A child appeared in a town in Germany sometime during the 1800s. No one knew where he came from, and he could supply no information on his life. He was taken in by a family and he grew up, only to die under mysterious circumstances, stabbed in a cemetery (IIRR). I can still remember that the book reprinted a poem about CH, showing him standing in a cemetery, one arm raised to the heavens in the Classical style, with the dagger still protruding from his abodmen.
For a seven-year-old, this was the stuff of nightmares.
The eruption on Thera was enormous and must have been preceded by a lot of rumbling, smoke, and small eruptions. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the neighborhood was becoming dangerous. The people were all evacuated before the big one. That’s why no bodies found there.
Interesting that Dijon Warlock’s link debunks the David Lang/“man who walked around the horses” vanishing by revealing it as a fabrication cribbed from a story by Ambrose Bierce…someone who vanished himself!
I know the best guess is that Bierce went to Mexico to join Pancho Villa, but was that ever verified? My understanding was the last documented knowledge of Bierce was of him riding south toward Mexico…nothing further.
Those of you enjoying this thread should rent the 1988 French movie The Vanishing[super]1[/super]. Unlike most of these stories, the vanishing in the movie becomes even creepier once it’s explained.
[super]1[/super] Do not rent the U.S. remake of the movie starring Kiefer Sutherland…it’s the quintessential Hollywood bankrupting of the source material.
Allow me to save you from the wrath of Coldfire lest he see this thread. The Vanishing was a dutch movie.
Funny, Arnold, that you called it a Dutch movie, but provided a link to the IMDB, which confirms it’s a French movie.
Albeit with Dutch distribution.
To read about what happened in Herculaneum and Pompeii. The link below is the script of a Nova program called “Deadly Shadow of Vesuvius”:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2515vesuvius.html
Sorry for the late link. I tried posting it before, but connection problems prevented me.