Part 1 Chronicles of the Missing-The Troy Taylor Chronicles-Strange Events at Vermont

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Courtesy of outsideonline.com

Strange Events at Vermont

Since 1945, Taylor says that there have been multiple disappearances from Long Trail at Green Mountains in the Vermont area. He points out that what makes the disappearances from this area even more eerie, is the small size of the state.  No one should be missing from Vermont. Furthermore, he says that people who shouldn’t have gone missing from this area, such as tour guides, have gone missing.  What could possible cause the disappearance of people who know every nook and cranny of the Long Trail? As you see below, all the victims were Vermont natives. 

An older man who worked as a hunting and fishing guide, was the first person to have been reported missing from this trail. He was leading a group of hunters, when he turned a corner, and was never seen again. Despite a massive search which began with the hunters then extended to the state police, the National Guard, the Boy Scouts, and local residents, the guide was never seen or heard of again. 

Courtesy of unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com

Just a year later, a beautiful young woman who was brimming with promise, vanished along that same trail. She was a college student at the local Bennington College, which is not far from the Long Trail.  She must have been either an ambitious athlete, or upset about something, because it was a very cold December day in 1946 when she decided to hike up the Long Trail. Her wealthy parents were prominent members of Vermont, so they were able to spend a lot of money on an investigation. However, their efforts produced just as much evidence as was produced with the hunting guide’s investigation. That is, none at all.

No one knows why any of these people have disappeared on the Long Trail. What type of motive would someone have to kidnap these people, if they were kidnapped?  And who kidnapped them? Big foot? Taylor feels a serial killer could be responsible. However, he also points out that no evidence has been found to corroborate that theory, or any theory for that matter. You will be pleased to know, that you can hike up the Long Trail now, without disappearing. 

Part 1 The Chronicles of the Missing-The Troy Taylor Chronicles-Fact and Fiction Blend-Ambriose Bierce

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Fact and Fiction Blend: Ambriose Bierce 

I mentioned that writer Ambrose Bierce disappeared while searching for Orion Williamson in another blog. The hilarious author, who is assumed to have died around December 26, 1913 while investigating Williamson’s disappearance, is often being quoted by people who bring up his stories when they talk about mysterious disappearances. Unwittingly being brought up by people who discuss the mysterious disappearances of fictious characters and plots Bierce created, assuming that they were real. Is it any wonder that Ambrose Bierce disappeared when searching for Orion Williamson? In the Oliver Larch story, for example, kids leave footprints as they trek towards a well and vanish into thin air. When people rushed to see what happened to the children, their footprints continue then come to an abrupt end. However, it was also based off a true story in 1854, so with the wave of a pen, he embellished a true story and people ate it up as fact. 

As for Orion Williamson, Troy Taylor has his own version of events. Taylor points out that Bierce’s account is highly improbable, so Sean Casteel gives us Taylor’s account. According to the instructions given by Casteel, Taylor gives us more of his account of what happened to Orion Williamson in chapter 9. Neat, so I guess you’ll have to look that up. Meanwhile I’ll give you Taylor’s account of Williamson’s disappearance according to what is presented in this chapter. In Bierce’s account, Orion Williamson disappears right in front of his wife, son, and two neighbors. In Taylor’s version, the family (Williamson, his wife, and child) were drinking lemonade on their porch when the carriage went by with two of his neighbors who waved. Ok, so far the same except for the lemonade and waving.  Williamson runs into the field and disappears in front of friends, his wife, and his son. Check-that version’s still the same. Then they gathered 300 hundred people, including geologists, to conduct an investigation-check, still the same. In fact it’s all the same until he mentions that his wife discovered an odd circular patch of dead grass in the field where he disappeared. I assume. You’ll have to read chapter 9 to find out where the story deviates further. 

Though as a disclaimer, I should mention that this has nothing to do with the veracity of other stories that I review. Bierce was simply one of the most intriguing storytellers, so I just had to review this story. The other stories were not retold by Bierce or anyone else. And there is truth to the Williamson case, after all, because we haven't heard from Ambrose Bierce since he went to investigate the Orion Williamson story. Did he discover a universal ether? Was he sucked into a time portal which caused him to go into another dimension? Did aliens abduct him? I guess we'll never know for sure. Perhaps he was raptured. No, I don't think so. 

Part 1 Chronicles of the Missing-The Troy Taylor Chronicles-The Beautiful Socialite

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The Beautiful Socialite

Before there was Paris Hilton, there was Dorothy Arnold. The beautiful young woman with everything going for her-money, society, and a degree from Bryn Mawr, went shopping in Manhattan in December 1910, when she disappeared. It wasn’t a case where she was acting peculiar, not talking to anybody, and fading into the background like a ghost. The socialite talked with a lot of people who knew her that day. Clerks had spoken with her throughout the day that she vanished.

Strangely enough, her own family didn’t feel the need to immediately report her disappearance. Her parents and family kept it a secret and pursued a low-key investigation with Pinkerton Detective Agency. After thousands of dollars spent on locating her, the quiet investigation proved fruitless.

As awkward, and guilt filled as that anemic attempt seems (they were a very private family), the lawyer who they hired funneled thousands of his own hard earned cash into the investigation. You’re probably thinking, “Well, that’s a lawyer who’s vested in his client’s interest!” But, as it so happens, he escorted her to many functions, so he was emotionally attached to the case. He searched everywhere for her too…in hospitals, morgues, jails, and throughout the East Coast hoping that she had, at best, amnesia. The police even dragged the river when her family finally decided to call them on a hunch that she could have been killed in Central Park, and thrown in the river.

There was one suspect in the case. A man with a crush on Miss Arnold had been stocking her for years. He, however, had an alibi. When the story hit newsstands, tips came in from all over the country. She, or her dead body, never resurfaced.

Part 1 Chronicles of the Missing -Glenn Miller

Courtesy of Tim Beckley

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Glenn Miller

Glenn Miller, the American national darling of the Glen Miller Orchestra which created 70 top ten records in four years, disappeared over the English Channel on December 15, 1944. His orchestra, which was stationed in England during World War II, was heading to Paris on December 16 with his manager, Don Haynes, to put on a show for the troops. However, a Lt. Norman B. Baessell was leaving the day before, so they hitched a ride with him. Things were strange from the beginning of the trip. There was no room for Haynes on the plane, so he was left behind, and the plane only had one engine and no parachutes, which frightened Miller. However, the determined musician wasn’t frightened enough to abandon their plans. As they boarded the plane, Haynes was the last person to see them alive.

That certainly incites suspicion, doesn’t it? The last person to see the orchestra alive would incite suspicion, but I find what Baessell said prior to their boarding to be even more suspicious.  “What’s the matter with you, Miller? Do you want to live forever?” was the peculiar, ominous question he asked him.  Maybe he did kill him, maybe he didn’t. There’s not enough proof to entertain that scenario.

Numerous theories have surfaced regarding his disappearance. One of the most credible theories is that that Baessell’s plane, a Norseman, crashed into the English Channel because of iced-wings or engine failure. A bazaar, unlikely claim was made by a German journalist. According to that journalist, Miller arrived in Paris safely, but died in the company of French prostitutes. However, that theory has holes because he claims that the U.S military planted a plane and bodies in the English Channel as a cover up and neither a plane nor bodies were found. Then there are the two version of him dying from drugs. Many musicians die from some sort of drug overdose, but that’s a faint possibility because there’s no proof. A letter to the famed Glenn Miller conspiracy theorist, Dr. Chris Valenti, alleges that Miller died from gunshot wounds in Ohio in 1945. There's no proof for that theory either. Miller’s younger brother, Herb,  after years of silence, claimed that Miller died of cancer. He was able to produce a letter written by his brother in which he complained about feeling ill around the time that he disappeared. However, Little Herb couldn’t produce any information about his resting place. Perhaps he wanted to profit from a book deal or wanted Miller’s death to appear less scandalous. Or maybe he just liked spreading rumors because...

The most likely version of events is that he died while his plane was caught in friendly fire. Navigator Fred Shaw saw a Norseman plane downed when he was in the air on December 15. Because the airplane had already been reported, he was not debriefed, and he didn’t try to find out what happened to the casualties. He didn’t even make the connection between Glenn Miller’s disappearance and what he witnessed until he saw the movie “The Glenn Miller Story” in 1956. And he didn’t check his old logbook to compare the downing of the Norseman with what had been reported about Glenn Miller's disappearance for 30 years. Interested much, Shaw? When the British Defense Ministry investigated his version of events, they found that it had merit.  Even if Glenn Millers remains still haven’t been recovered.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqP1MnY62PU

Part 1 Chronicles of the Missing -A Man Vanishes in Front of Family and Friends, Eskimo Inhabitants of a Fishing Village Vanish, An Australian Pilot Disappears

They Saw Him Disappear!

Modern science, specifically quantum physics, believes in parallel dimensions. For example, the ocean is separated from the world above. The fish cannot see us, though we can see them. If human beings were to enter that world, we would be the equivalent to extraterrestrials invading their terrestrial environment, if only for a brief second. In that light, quantum physics theorizes that there are alternative, phantom dimensions separated from our own by a thin veil. What is beyond that veil? Well, obviously spirits, angels, demons.  That veiled world is the reason that people sometimes feel dead loved ones around them. Or, perhaps, the reason why Orion Williamson’s family could not see him when he was crying for help, even though they heard his voice. That’s not a theory the book posits, but one that I posit, and can’t help positing when I read the story.

See, in July of 1854, Williamson’s wife, son, and two other witnesses who were staring at him saw him vanish. Puff…In front of them! A party of 300 men were sent to comb the area for Williamson and expert investigators, including geologists, were hired to dig up the field so they can find irregularities with the landscape and especially the soil. The search party couldn’t locate Williamson and the experts’ findings were inconclusive…or at least it showed no irregularities. The only clue to his whereabouts was the cry I mentioned before.  What I didn’t mention, was that it was coming from the region where he disappeared. Eventually, though, his cry for help waned, until it disappeared altogether. The search for the hapless farmer also came to a halt when the search for him became futile.

But the mystery didn’t end there. Writer Ambrose Bierce also disappeared while he was sleuthing the area for answers to Williamson’s whereabouts. Perhaps in a mixed state of fortune, he unfortunately found what he was looking for…what they were all looking for. Perhaps both Williamson and Bierce were killed in a “universal ether,” that German scientist Dr. Maximilian Hern believed existed in that area. According to Hern, the ether can destroyed anything or anyone in an instant. But that doesn’t explain why both Williamson’s son and wife heard his cry for help after he disappeared. I, myself, wonder if Williamson could have been stuck in another dimension.  Perhaps that portal which opened for the Englishman in Bristol Hotel, opened up for Williamson as well, but managed to swallow him.  Whatever the case may be, the story goes more in depth in “Unexplained Disappearances.”

Courtesy of ufosonearth.com

Eskimo Village in Canada Completely Gone

Can you imagine walking into a city and finding the entire population of 2000 inhabitants having disappeared off the face of the earth? Well, that’s what happened when Joe LaBelle walked into the normally bustling Lake Anjikuni finishing village in Canada in 1930. But he had a glimmer of hope when he saw a flickering fire in the distance, so he went to investigate it. What he discovered was a large pot of blackened stew, but what he didn’t discover were footprints leading away from the village to the pot of stew.

He summoned the help of the Royal Canadian Mountain Police, but their search results were almost inconclusive. So were the results of a huge search party. But they were inevitably successful in finding remains…that of sleigh dogs which were buried under 12 feet of snow. Even more eerie, were the empty Eskimo ancestral graves.  It was surmised that whoever or whatever took the villagers, also dug up the graves, which were surrounded in iron strong ice, and therefore impossible to break by natural means. Indeed, it would have taken superhuman strength or a really strong saw. Perhaps the blue flickering light on the horizon held all the answers for the onlooking Mounties.  

Courtesy of gizemliilimler.blogspot.com

An Australian Pilot Disappears

On October 21, 1978,  20 year old pilot Frederick Valentich planned to fly from Moorabbin Airport in Melbourne Australia to King Island. It is considered the most disturbing case in UFO history, though I bet they can find another one if they search real hard. His flight began at 6: 19 P.M. in good weather and perfect visibility. But by 7:06 P.M., he radioed Melbourne Flight Service because he was being harassed by an unknown craft with four lights and having engine trouble to boot. He asked if there were other planes in the vicinity, but Melbourne Flight Service responded in the negative.

Matters got worse, of course, as an unidentified flying cylindrical object, started to play a cat and mouse game with him.  After discussing his objective to go to King Island with Melbourne Flight Service, he stopped speaking, and no one heard from him again. Furthermore, his plane didn’t arrive at its destination at 7:28 P.M. When the Royal Air Force went looking for Valentich and his plane, they couldn’t find a sign of him or the plane anywhere.

Several explanations for his disappearance, some of them lame, were offered. A more rational, though not plausible, excuse was that he mistook Otway Lighthouse for a UFO (as if it could navigate above and below him like he described). Less likely was a sudden spurt of freak weather. And the most ludicrous explanation of them all, though a very popular explanation used by military officials when explaining UFOs, was that the plane was brought down by a balloon. The UFO was a balloon, more specifically, helium balloons with filled with drugs.  It’s worth noting that his disappearance coincides with the biggest UFO flap in Australian history. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYIlagD10no

Part 1 Chronicles of the Missing-Abduction by Teleportation, Vanished in an Instance, Snatched from the Jaws of Nothingness

  

Courtesy of Tim Beckley

Is the occult or poltergeist effective in this world? We’ve all heard of creeping doors, a mysterious cackling laugh; we’ve been haunted by dark shadows that escape our gaze so we shrug it off. But what about teleportation? Could these same etheric beings move people from one place to another without them knowing? With the advent of HD, we have an extra set of sensitive eyes, much more sensitive than our own, so we are able to capture these disappearances when they occur. But what about earlier periods? I discuss some of the news articles in Mysterious Disappearances.  Some of the stories are frightening, some of them frightening and manage to be funny at the same time. In all of them, none of people have been found. Except for the story below, but then no one knows who he was. 

Courtesy of Expatriates Blogspot

Abduction by Means of Teleportation

Nothing is worse than a child being kidnapped.  According to Charles Fort in the years from 1907 to 1913,  170, 472  people disappeared from London. This day and age, it’s doubled to 275, 000 Britons per year, according to The Independent online newspaper. Back in 1910, an anonymous boy happened to have been kidnapped from his home, school, playground, your guess is as good as anyone’s…somewhere. Since the kidnapper never mentioned the location from which he kidnapped him, nor the means he used to commit his crime, we’re left to draw our own conclusions from the evidence which was found. Which was nothing at all. Even the abductor’s reason for Kidnapping the poor English boy is mystery.

Sean Casteel, the author of this portion of the book, doesn’t specifically claim that the kidnapping is a child-slave kidnapping, but he alludes to, and I think it’s a huge possibility. See, when the boy was found, he was a grown man working at a railway workshop in Gorakapur, India.  The poor guy remembered little of his home in England and needed to relearn his mother tongue. 

As far as how he could have possibly gotten to India in the first place with scant evidence… How did that sneaky magician manage to pull off that disappearing act without one shred of evidence left behind? Casteel poses teleportation via occult means as the most likely possibility due to the lack of physical evidence. Furthermore, no one saw him leave, no one- neither law enforcement nor passengers on ships in England. And no one would have found the English boy, if the dying magician didn’t send a letter to a Christian organization in Nepal, confessing the abduction. Funny thing is, he actually cared enough for the boy to want his memory restored (which was erased either through hypnosis from the magician himself or amnesia from possible teleportation). Those are two kidnappings he’s guilty of-kidnapping the English boy’s physical body and kidnapping his true identity. So,  who was the boy? That will always be a mystery. 

Courtesy of NBC News

Vanished in an Instance

In 1985 painter John Osbourne had seen someone vanish right before his eyes. As he was walking down a road in Wolverton, England he heard hooves behind him, so he turned around. A man was having trouble controlling his horse so he scurried out of the way, but when he looked to see what was happening to the unhappy steed and his passenger, they had both vanished. A newspaper, as if they had something to hide, retracted his story after they published it. I guess they didn’t entertain hallucination or false testimony as possible scenarios. No, according to the rewritten historical narrative, the rider had been killed on the same road Osbourne witnessed the disappearance, and the steed had been shot. But then they felt the need to retract some more, so they claimed that the incident, rather than being days old, was years old, and it involved a farmer on a hay field.

Snatched from the Jaws of Nothingness

Could there be portals in time to explain these disappearances? A man who was staying at Bristol Hotel in England actually witnessed the floor open in front of him, and would have been dragged through the vortex, if he wasn't rescued by his wife. There were ominous signs that something was brewing that night, including some strange noise. It should be noted, that though the painter in Wolverton was not suspected of schizophrenia, the couple was.  “Collective hallucination” is what the police officially categorized it. Interesting that they didn’t dismiss their case altogether as a fabrication, but that misstep could indicate that they were aware something was going on. Perhaps even knew what it was, and chose to hide it from the public for whatever reason.