40 Eerie Mysteries: Unexplained and Unsettling Disappearances

In 1900, three lighthouse keepers mysteriously disappeared from the lighthouse on Eilean Mor, an island north of Scotland. The door of the lighthouse was unlocked, coats were missing and half-eaten food was left behind. The last entries on the log described a storm on December 12th with severe winds, but all other reports in the area stated the weather was clear that day. A prevailing hypothesis is that there was very rough weather and they were swept to sea while trying to secure some equipment.

Charles Rogers was an American seismologist, US Navy pilot, and murder suspect who went missing in June 1965 after police discovered his elderly parents' mutilated remains in the refrigerator of the Houston house the three shared. On all the shelves and in the freezer compartment were the dismembered bodies of his parents, cut in unwrapped, washed-off pieces smaller than individual joints. There was little food in the house. The house had been carefully cleaned and the only blood discovered was on the keyhole of a bedroom door. The bedroom belonged to the couple's 43-year-old son Charles Rogers. 9 years before these events, Charles inexplicably quit his job as a seismologist with Shell without explanation and moved in with his parents. He turned into a loner and recluse living in the attic bedroom. He only communicated with his parents via notes slipped under his bedroom door and was rarely seen by neighbors. Despite a nationwide manhunt, he was never seen or heard from again.

In August 2013, a man named Brandon Lawson ran out of gas on a Texas highway in the middle of the night and called his brother to come help him. Shortly after he called 911 and reported that someone was chasing him into the woods and that he needed the police. Eventually, his brother and one police officer arrived at the scene to find his truck abandoned but no sign of Brandon. Brandon called his brother one last time to say he was bleeding and is 10 minutes away from his truck. That was the last anyone ever heard from him and searches of the area turned up empty. In February 2022, a search party successfully located Lawson's clothing near his last known location and the Texas Rangers also found human remains on further search. DNA tests were not complete as of October 2022, but the remains are expected to belong to Lawson.

The Jamison family (2 adults, and 1 young daughter) was interested in purchasing a plot of land in Oklahoma. In 2009, they drove out to the plot in their pickup truck to check it out. Their truck was later found abandoned with $32,000 cash found in the truck, along with their IDs, wallets, mobile phones, and a GPS. The family dog was also left in the truck, and was extremely malnourished. A camera was also discovered and the final picture it photographed was of their 6-year-old daughter Madyson, who looked somewhat distressed in the picture. Years later, in 2013, the skeletal remains of two adults and a child were discovered not far from where their pickup truck was abandoned. They were later identified to be the Jamisons. They were found lying side by side in the woods with no signs of any struggle.

Josh Powell and Susan Powell had 2 young sons and were going through a bad marriage. Josh was abusive and controlling, and at one point they had to move because Josh’s father Steve developed an obsessive infatuation with Susan. Things got so bad she started fearing for her life. Then one night in 2009 the whole family disappeared, only to have the husband come back a few days later saying that he and the boys went camping and he had no idea where his wife was.

As the investigation into what happened to the wife went on, Josh started acting more and more suspiciously, eventually moving back in with his father. He then lost custody of his kids after his father Steve was caught with child porn along with hundreds of creep shots of Susan. Finally, during a supervised visit, Josh grabbed his son from the social worker, holed himself up inside his house, and then blew it up, killing himself and both his kids. All the while, Susan’s whereabouts remain unsolved and she is still listed as missing (although presumed to be murdered and dumped somewhere by her husband).

Dorothy Jane Scott was a young divorced mom working at a head shop that sold hippie items. In 1980, she disappeared from a hospital parking lot after taking one of her coworkers to the hospital due to a spider bite. When her co-workers came out of the hospital, they saw Dorothy's car speeding toward them. She didn’t stop and that was the last time anyone saw her. The next day her car is found torched but she is nowhere to be found. Over the next few years, her parents started receiving taunting phone calls. The caller asked if Dorothy was home and claimed to know where she was. 4 years later her charred remains were found next to a highway buried underneath a dog, possibly because the killer thought that it would fool cadaver dogs that happened to hit on that spot.

In 1991, 20-year-old Angela Hammond, who was then four months pregnant, stopped at a phone booth while driving home, to call her fiancé Rob. She described to him a creepy-looking man in a pickup truck in the parking lot. Her fiancé suddenly heard Angela scream. He bolted for his car and raced down the road to the payphone booth, which was only a few minutes away. As he barreled down the road, Rob spotted a pickup truck matching Angela’s description going in the opposite direction. He noticed a man driving and saw what appeared to be Angela in the passenger’s seat crying out his name. After attempting a pursuit, the transmission on his truck gave out and this is the last anyone ever saw of Angela. She still hasn't been found.

In March 1998, 23-year-old Amy Bradley was on a cruise with her family. She was last seen asleep on the balcony of her cabin and was seen earlier in the night with a band member of the cruise. She was reported missing shortly after the cruise docked. There were no further signs of her on the ship or in the ocean. There were possible sightings of Bradley in Curaçao in 1998 and 1999. Two Canadian tourists reported seeing a woman resembling Amy on a beach in Curaçao in August 1998. The woman's tattoos were reportedly identical to Bradley's. Bradley's tattoos included a Tasmanian Devil spinning a basketball located on her shoulder, the sun placed on her lower back, a Chinese symbol located on her right ankle, and a gecko lizard on her navel. She also had a navel ring.

A member of the Navy stated that he saw Bradley in a brothel in 1999. He claimed she told him that "her name was Amy Bradley and [she] begged him for help," explaining that she was not allowed to leave. Since the brothel was off-limits to Navy personnel, the officer waited until he was out of the Navy before reporting the sighting by which time the brothel had gone and there was no trail to follow.

Rico Harris was a massive 6'9" former Harlem Globetrotter basketball player who had drug issues earlier in his life, but had made a full recovery and was getting his life back on track. He was driving along California's Interstate I-5, from his home in Southern California to Seattle, to live with his girlfriend. He was somewhere just north of Sacramento, exhausted, and told his girlfriend over the phone that he wanted to check out the mountains. All calls stopped since then. His car was found a couple of days later by a patrolman near a rest stop in the mountains. A massive search was launched and there was no sign of him. A week later, a driver later reported seeing a massive 6'9" individual wandering down the highway, just a mile from where the car was found. A search was re-launched and massive size 17 footprints were found on the grounds which were not there before. They were getting very close, and then they found nothing.

In 1912, Bobby Dunbar’s parents took him fishing on a lake in Louisiana and he went missing. Police searched for him for 8 months and finally found a man named William Cantwell Walters who was traveling with a boy that resembled Bobby Dunbar. Walters claimed the boy was the son of a friend who had given him custody, and that the child's name was Bruce Anderson, not Bobby Dunbar. Investigators and positive ID from the parents determined this was Dunbar's child and gave custody over to them. The town had a parade for Bobby Dunbar's return. During the trial with the Dunbar and Walters, a woman named Julia Anderson came to defend Walters, asserting this was her son Bruce and she had given Walters custody. The courts dismissed her because she had three children out of wedlock and two were already deceased. The trial was being held in Mississippi, and her being a very poor woman from North Carolina, she gave up on fighting the case. In 2008 one of "Bobby Dunbar's" granddaughters had a DNA test done. She compared her grandfather’s DNA to his brothers. They were not related.