The strangest unsolved disappearances associated with supposedly haunted places
Joseph Moore climbed the path alone.
It was December 26, 1900, and he was the relief keeper for a lighthouse on Eilean Mòr, a Scottish island off Lewis. The gate and door were shut. The beds were unmade, the clock stopped. One account says three men were gone.
The ghost story grew fast. But some of the eeriest details were added later.
Six disappearances follow, each tied to a place with a haunted reputation. We note what the records support and what grew in the telling.
More than a hundred colonists were gone by 1590
John White returned on August 18, 1590, on his granddaughter Virginia Dare’s third birthday. The colony on Roanoke Island was empty.
One word was carved into a post: “CROATOAN.” The letters “CRO” were on a tree. White and the colonists had agreed to carve a Maltese cross if they left under duress. The state archives note there was no cross.
No one has proven what happened, the National Park Service says. One account says the ghost story became a white doe said to be Virginia Dare.
Ten people left a ship that stayed afloat
In early December 1872, the crew of the Dei Gratia found the Mary Celeste drifting 400 miles east of the Azores, per Britannica. Captain Benjamin Briggs, his wife Sarah, their two-year-old daughter Sophia, and seven crew were gone.
The cargo, 1,701 barrels of industrial alcohol, was largely intact. Missing: the lifeboat, the sextant, the chronometer, and the ship’s papers, one account lists.
Gibraltar’s attorney general suspected foul play but could prove nothing, History Hit notes.
The keepers’ table was never set
The famous details were invented. An overturned chair and an uneaten meal come from a 1912 ballad, and Moore said the kitchen utensils were all clean, according to Boing Boing.
Fortean Times researcher Mike Dash found the eerie log entries were invented later. What’s documented: the light was dark on December 15. A steamer saw it. Storms kept the relief boat away until the 26th.
According to Wikipedia, the Northern Lighthouse Board decided a huge sea swept the men away as they secured gear. A rock over a ton had moved. No bodies were found.
Every sail was set
January 31, 1921. A Coast Guard lookout at Cape Hatteras saw a five-masted schooner, the Carroll A. Deering, aground on Diamond Shoals. Every sail was set. The lifeboats were gone, and the crew of 11 with them, the Library of Congress writes.
Navigation instruments and the logbooks were missing. Five federal departments investigated, per one account. Theories of Bermuda Triangle effects, Bolshevik pirates, and mutiny were all discredited, but the cause remains a mystery.
She went for a hike on Sunday
Paula Welden, 18, a Bennington College sophomore, walked into the Vermont woods on December 1, 1946. She wasn’t seen again.
Searchers went out. A $5,000 reward went up. The FBI helped. At the time, Vermont had no state police, and her case led directly to the force’s creation in 1947.
Author Joseph Citro coined the name “Bennington Triangle” in 1992. Between 1945 and 1950, four others vanished nearby, and only one body was ever found.
The dummy heads had real hair
June 11, 1962. Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin slipped out of Alcatraz through ventilation openings. Guards found plaster dummy heads in their beds the next morning, CBS News reported.
The FBI closed its case in 1979 and concluded the men drowned. The Marshals Service took over. A 2013 letter claimed all three survived. Sources say the Marshals planned to keep the case open until September 2026, when Morris would have turned 100. We couldn’t confirm its current status.
Alcatraz’s ghost stories are reports and folklore, not verified events, and the park runs history tours.
The bottom line
Paula Welden’s case led to the Vermont State Police. The Carroll A. Deering’s logbooks were never found.
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