Tell us about actual mysterious people you know.

[jjimm]

I looked at a house to buy a few years ago. Amazing specs, great price - and it was indeed a beautiful house.

The agent was a bit cagey about it, and when we got there for a viewing, we discovered why: it is a terraced house, and the neighbour that shares one wall with the property has been walled in for 20 years. Nobody has seen him or her for all that time - but s/he is definitely in there.

The doors and windows are nailed shut from the inside. The local social services post food through a big vertical letterbox on the front door. Not sure how waste was disposed of, or whether it just gathered inside.

My then-wife and I had the notion that one night an ax would come through the shared wall and a dusty maniacal face would appear, cackling madly - so to counter this, we conceived of a Scooby Doo scenario where we dressed up as ghosts to make them drop dead, then buy the house cheap and knock through…

In the end it was just a little too expensive for us, and had failed two surveys, so we didn’t go for it. Shame. It would have been quite cool to live next door to a crazy recluse.

[GuanoLad]

In the apartment block I lived in before this place, my immediate downstairs neighbour had an air of mystery around him.

He lived alone, and had two yappy dogs, but would be gone for extended lengths of time, sometimes 3 or 4 months, and the dogs always went with him (or to a kennels or whatever).

I barely saw him, and maybe said Hello to him twice, but he was otherwise completely quiet. I barely knew he was even home, until the dogs barked (which they did for about 30 seconds each day, so it wasn’t a bother). Judging by the people who moved in after him, I should’ve heard the occasional average domestic noises, but never heard a thing, not even an alarm clock radio.

However, three times I heard a shouting match going on between him and some woman, and twice I saw the woman storm out, and she was drop-dead photo-model gorgeous. He seemed like a gentle affable nice guy who never said boo to a ghost, but she seemed to get really viciously angry at him, infrequently.

And then he just vanished, never to return. Though he left every personal item behind, which I saw because the landlord had to clean it out for the new tenants. It was most odd.

I tried to assemble a story that made sense of what I had witnessed:

He was a fashion photographer, and got to travel around the world to wherever Summer was to take pictures of beautiful women. One of the models became his girlfriend, but she was paranoid and accused him of cheating on her. Eventually he left her, and decided to stay behind in one of the fancy countries he often worked in, like Italy or Greece.

(Or perhaps he died, though I never saw the Police visit the empty apartment so I discount that theory)

Whatever really happened, he intrigued me. And I wish I had gotten to see his girlfriend closer up.

[elninost0rm]

@Chimera

I still have your ball.

Thanks for that.

[Sidewise]

@AClockworkMelon

I know you don’t think he’s dead but that’s what I’d put my money on.

I’m sure you’re probably right, it just freaks me out a little bit to think a young-ish (late 20’s, early-30’s), friendly guy living in a populous area could die or disappear without having anyone at all who cares enough to come looking for him or come get his stuff. I know worse things happen all the time, and there are many folks who have no one, but still it bugs me.

[Stormcrow]

@Saintly_Loser

I know a guy. Outwardly quite normal. Married, kids, etc. Is ostensibly a freelance journalist. And yet, despite not seeming to have all that much work, he moves his family every so often to a different part of the world, where he continues his purported work as a journalist. Nice guy. Nice kids. Nice wife.

I and several of my friends are pretty sure he’s a spy. Not kidding.

Reminds of the dad of a kid I knew when I was living in France. Worked for the FBI. Think about that for a second.

It was generally assumed he was a spy. At least amongst the 10-year old set I hung with.

[Zeriel]

One of my college buddies is retired army and a DoD employee of the “hey, I’ll catch you in two weeks, I’m going on a trip” with no further details kind of guy. Probably he’s just a military attache or advisor or something, but given he was a pretty stellar rifle team guy I’m just assuming he’s actually Jason Bourne.

[jjimm]

I knew a real-life genuine spy and asshole. I’ve mentioned bits about him before. From an earlier thread

@Me

I knew a spook when I lived in Hong Kong. He seemed to be a freelance intel guy, investigating seedy goings-on on behalf of the police by integrating himself into the expatriate community.

He didn’t do a very good job of things - made a big show of himself, got drunk and told everyone he was ex-SAS, and asked very obviously probing questions. He ended up getting lots of people busted for drugs, but tipped his girlfriend off and allowed her to escape.

Because of all of the above, it became totally obvious he’d set the bust up, and he got attacked a few weeks later and got stabbed in the arm. He broke his two attackers’ arms, one arm each. According to him, anyway. Then he left and I never saw him again.

[Swallowed_My_Cellphone]

@GuanoLad

(Or perhaps he died, though I never saw the Police visit the empty apartment so I discount that theory).

Why would you expect to see the police if some neighbor died? If there’s no foul play, it’s not like the cops wrap your building in police tape. A little old man in my building died in the hospital and none of the neighbors knew anything about it until we saw the superindendent putting some nasty furniture on the curb.

The guy died in the hospital, his next of kin were notified. They took a box or two of of important stuff out, and left everything else. No police involvement. Why would there be?

[Arnold_Winkelried]

@Sidewise

Anyone want to suggest any interesting theories?

Turn around slowly - is he standing right behind you while you’re reading my post?

[tdn]

@Saintly_Loser

I and several of my friends are pretty sure he’s a spy. Not kidding.

When I was in 8th grade I made a new friend. After a month or two of hanging out my family started asking questions about him. One was what his father did for a living. I said I didn’t know. They asked again. Once again I said I didn’t know. Some family members, mostly my sister, started giving me a hard time about it. “He’s your best friend! How can you not know what his father does?” Finally my mother stopped the silliness by speculating that maybe his job was confidential, like maybe he was in the CIA. After some discussion it was decided that he was, in fact, a high level spy in the CIA.

The truth was that he had been unemployed for quite some time, and my friend made me promise not to tell that to anyone.

[wonky]

I had an uncle–married to my dad’s sister–who disappeared one day. My aunt must have known he wasn’t dead because she divorced him. A few years passed, then the phone calls started, desperate phone calls from South America. He was in hiding. They were coming to kill him.

A few years later, I learned he was dead. Did they get him? I don’t know. I don’t know who knows.

[Clothahump]

Actually, yeah. I mean, I don’t know him personally, I just know of him. People talk about him constantly, like he’s their uncle or something.

He’s supposed to be real smart and he writes a newspaper column and runs a message board on Teh Interwebz. But no one has ever seen him.

Weird…

[UncleBill]

I knew a few. My Dad, as a Marine Officer, ran the security force at the NSA in the mid 50’s. He met my mom because he walked past her desk a few times a month. She worked at the CIA when they were still in an old skating rink in DC. My high school history teacher had worked for the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency), and would wander into stories that he wasn’t quite sure were declassified yet. My Church League Basketball coach was an FBI agent, and would go on “Business trips to Chicago” every so often. And a buddy from college was awarded Intelligence Officer of the Year (not Mark Kirk), as a Marine Corps Intel Officer.

Plus a former member here was a secret squirrel guy with the gubmint, a guy I know. He’s not mysterious, just a bit goofy.

OK, maybe none are mysterious. Just know a lot of secrets.

[Freudian_Slit]

@tdn

Not sure if this counts, but I have a couple of neighbors whose situation I can’t figure out. The woman owns a dog. The man owns a dog. I often see the man going into or coming out of the woman’s apartment. I sometimes see her walking towards his apartment. I’ll sometimes see either one of them outside, walking – get this – three dogs, all the same breed. Sometimes I’ll see them out together walking the dogs. And lately I’ll see either both of them or just the guy, With all three dogs – and a baby. But the woman, as far as I know, was never pregnant.

Whoa. When you say three dogs, are these three different dogs that are in addition to the one dog that each man and woman owns, or are you talking about the man’s dog, the woman’s dog, and then…one other dog?

You have to ask them, man! Or at least say something like, “What a beautiful baby, you and his dad must be really proud” and then wait for her to clarify…something.

[GuanoLad]

@Swallowed_My_Cellphone

@GuanoLad

(Or perhaps he died, though I never saw the Police visit the empty apartment so I discount that theory).

Why would you expect to see the police if some neighbor died?

Because if he had died in the apartment, the Police would automatically have checked it out, and if he had died elsewhere, in an accident most likely, he was only in his late 30s, his home would have been visited by the Police. Not an investigation, but as a matter of course. No next-of-kin visited the apartment either, as far as I had noticed.

Having said that, I didn’t have a 24 hour vigil, these things may have happened when I was out.

[Winnie]

I own a pet sitting business so I get to see a lot of how people live. One particular client is a bit mysterious.

He is single and lives alone, probably in his mid- to late thirties. He takes in male foreign exchange students every year, usually from Asia. He is a bit of a hoarder, there are stacks of unread newspapers in corners, plastic bags stuffed in containers, empty boxes stacked in the basement, tons of UPC labels cut out and stacked in heaps in the kitchen. The house isn’t really clean but there are towels and blankets covering his couches and chairs. He has religious items in the house like a calendar from a Catholic church, a few crucifixes, etc. He also has hoop earrings running up the length of both ears. He shaves his head completely just for the look of it, but it doesn’t “suit” him, he’s tall and lanky but not in an athletic way, in the skinny/dorky way. He went to clown college and has an “identity” as a local clown and rides his unicycle to the mailbox most days. His blog is sooo random and dull it goes something like this “It was party sunny today. They were calling for rain but it didn’t happen. Maybe it will be like this again tomorrow”. Seriously.

He doesn’t appear to have many, if any friends. When he blogs about a trip he takes it’s a day trip to Six Flags that he does by himself or a cruise to Alaska with his parents and brother. His sexual orientation is mystifying, whenever I get a “vibe” one way something else points to the other.

Now a few of these qualities together aren’t odd at all, even several of them. All of them together are VERY odd and his personality combined with everything make it even more mysterious. He’s sort of friendly but slightly standoffish, not “jokey” at all despite my best attempts which usually breaks the ice with clients and gets a smile. Phone calls end oddly because he simply stops talking, something like “Okay… I’ll just see Pepper next week, right?” “Yup”. Crickets.

[Freudian_Slit]

Winnie, is Pepper a dog or a cat? Or some other bizarre pet? (Just curious, and wondering what kind of pet this guy would own. I’m thinking cat but is it something really out there?)

[Rigamarole]

@AClockworkMelon

@Sidewise

Not sure if this is “a mysterious person” or just “a mystery that happened to a person”. Several years ago I lived in Phoenix and moved into a new apartment complex. There was a guy that I would see all the time riding his bike around the area, then also started running into with increasing frequency around the complex. We started chatting a couple of times a week when ran into each other at the mailboxes. He seemed like a decent enough person, nothing that really stood out as being terribly strange or unusual about him. Eventually we decided that we should get together for dinner some time.

But, he said he was leaving the next day for 3 weeks to do a job in another state. Don’t remember now what he claimed his work was, although we must’ve talked about it. So I gave him my number and waited to hear from him.

After a few weeks went by without hearing from him, I decided he must’ve changed his mind and I should just let it go. But as time went on, I realized that I also never again saw him around the apartment complex or riding his bike around the neighborhood.

Maybe 4 or 6 months went by and I still had never seen him again. Refusing to believe someone would completely change their schedule and habits just to avoid me, I found some pretext to go into the rental office and talk to one of the girls who worked there that I had become somewhat friendly with. Trying to be all casual, I asked “So, what ever happened to Dave in Apt. XXX, haven’t seen him around in a while?” I expected to hear that he moved out. Maybe the out of state job turned into a full-time gig and he ended up moving or something like that.

Turns out that he just never showed up again after his trip. No rent payments, no contact from anyone about him, etc. They said he had always been a good tenant and had been there for a year or so before this happened, so it was very odd. They told me the landlords eventually had been forced to enter his apartment, where they found what looked to be all of his stuff, undisturbed, except obviously not used in a while (rotting food in the fridge, huge layer of dust on everything, etc.) They put his stuff in storage.

A few months after I first asked about him, they ended up selling it to some place that auctioned off unclaimed property (after whatever the legal time requirement was for holding his stuff). They had never heard anything from anyone about him. No one but me ever asked about him or called about him, and they didn’t have any valid emergency contact or work information for him.

I always wondered what happened to the guy and what his story was. At first I thought maybe something happened and he died or got killed on his trip. But then, wouldn’t someone (police, hospital) try to get in touch to try to locate next of kin? Or wouldn’t family get in touch to get his stuff? Or friends or his work try call to try to find out about him? Was I the only person in town he had talked to? And surely he wouldn’t just up and move without taking any of his stuff without there being some very strange situation going on.

Was he a spy? On the lam from the law? Inherited a billion dollars and decided to just leave his cheap crappy stuff in his cheap crappy apartment and move to an island kingdom he purchased? Probably something much more mundane, but since I’ll never know I choose to imagine something interesting. Or maybe, perish the thought, I’m so scary he figured he had to sneak out of town permanently to avoid me after standing me up on the dinner invite?

Kind of bugs me not knowing, as I don’t like anything I don’t understand and tend to dig in to such things until I do understand something about them. So there aren’t too many unsolved mysteries in my life.

Anyone want to suggest any interesting theories?

I know you don’t think he’s dead but that’s what I’d put my money on.

Aye, sadly. Yes, it’s weird, but he could have very well just been an estranged loner (which would explain nobody trying to find him) whose “job in another state” turned out to be a rather risky venture that he didn’t make it back from. Big drug deal gone awry? Maybe it wasn’t a job in another state at all, but a trip to some seedy foreign country where any number of unspeakable things occurred.

[Koxinga]

Or he could be in prison, either within the US or down in Mexico or Thailand or somewhere.

[Starving_Artist]

@sidewise

…they didn’t have any valid emergency contact or work information for him.

This seems telling. I don’t know whether they meant he gave them bogus information or just no information, but this may very well explain why no one came looking for him: he either didn’t want to be found, or no one existed who might want to find him. FWIW, I’m thinking either he died, is in prison, or fell in love with some hottie from another country and ran off to start life afresh.