6 Famous People Who Went Missing And Were Never Found
From Amelia Earhart to "Dr. Gonzo" -- it seems nobody will ever really know what happened.
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1.
The trailblazing pilot and author went missing in 1937, while trying to fly nonstop around the equator, along with navigator Fred Noonan. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly across the Atlantic Ocean all by herself.
Radio transmissions were heard from her plane before it went missing. In one recording, Earhart said she was running low on gas. Metal was found on a Pacific Island, and some experts believe that could be part of her plane. Others have speculated that she and Noonan were captured by the Japanese. Their bodies and the plane were never found.
[Photo: Public Domain]
- OSCAR ZETA ACOSTA
He is probably best known as journalist Hunter S. Thompson’s sidekick and attorney Dr. Gonzo in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” At age 39, he went missing while traveling off the coast in Mexico. Acosta called his son before he boarded a boat in 1974. He was never seen or heard from again.
Thompson had speculated he was either murdered by drug dealers or was the victim of a political assassination. In 1998, Benicio del Toro played him in the film adaptation of "Fear and Loathing.”
[Photo: Getty Images]
- RICHEY EDWARDS
The guitarist and lyricist was a popular member of the Welsh band The Manic Street Preachers -- perhaps the group’s most popular member. Just as the group was gearing up to tour the United States in 1995, Edwards disappeared. Because much of the band’s lyrics focused on self-harm, pain and depression many assumed Edwards committed suicide. Edwards was last seen asking a taxi driver to take him to a bridge. He was legally presumed dead in 2008.
[Photo: Fair Use]
- DOROTHY ARNOLD
The socialite and daughter of a wealthy perfume importer vanished in 1910 after shopping on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. She was looking for a dress to wear to her sister’s debutante party. She was last seen when she waved goodbye to a friend before walking through Central Park. She did not come home for dinner. A friend stated that when she called the home asking to speak to Arnold, her mother claimed that the socialite had gone to bed early with a headache. She's never been heard from again.
[Photo: Public Domain]
- BISON DELE
He played as a center for the Chicago Bulls. He and his team won the NBA championship in 1997. He later played with the Detroit Pistons. In 2002, he went missing while sailing on the South Pacific on his boat with his brother, skipper and girlfriend. Only his brother Miles Dabord returned to land. The FBI suspected that Dabord killed the three and threw them overboard. Likely nobody will ever know exactly what happened because Dabord committed suicide later that year.
[Photo: Getty Images]
- MICHAEL ROCKEFELLER
He was the son of Nelson Rockefeller, who served as Governor of New York and as Vice President under President Gerald Ford. Michael Rockefeller vanished in 1961 while collecting artifacts in what was then New Guinea. His boat was found 12 miles from the shore. Rumors circulated that he was eaten by cannibals. In 2014, Carl Hoffman published a book called, "Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art," in which villagers and tribal elders admitted to killing him after he swam to shore.