Celebs Who Went Missing And Have Never Been Found

The following article includes references to mental health issues and suicide.

Though the paparazzi basically act as celebrity GPS locators, there are a few occasions in which famous people actually go missing. They're just usually found, emerging carefully when they've got something new to promote. More recently, Melania Trump disappeared after a short hospital stay, nearly triggering a milk carton campaign across Washington. As we know, the former first lady has since retired to Florida and all is well (at least as much as it can be when her husband is facing a myriad of legal problems). Similarly, there was a weird moment in Hollywood history where '90s icon Pauly Shore was reportedly lost in a rainforest in the Congo (an internet story that was almost certainly untrue, but bizarre enough to spawn a parody Twitter account). That's also the same guy who faked his own death and was, essentially, hiding in plain sight while filming his 2003 mockumentary "Pauly Shore Is Dead."

The truth is that most celebrities disappear because they want to disappear. They're tired of the constant public scrutiny. They just want to be able to walk barefoot into a gas station bathroom like an early-aughts Britney Spears without a flurry of negative headlines. Everyone deserves that right, but most celebs don't go missing forever. These famous people all disappeared and were never heard from again — and some of it reeks of foul play. Let the conspiracy theories fly!

Amelia Earhart has staked claim to the most famous disappearance in history. In 1932, the aviator rose to fame as the first female pilot to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlantic. As TIME reports, the monumental achievement launched her career, and she made money "as a writer and lecturer, and even designed her own woman's clothing line." Even her publicity stunts were solid gold, with her earning the modern equivalent of $185,000 "to become the first person to fly from Hawaii to the mainland U.S." It all went awry when she attempted her biggest stunt yet: becoming the first person to fly around the globe. Unfortunately, she never returned.

Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, began the journey on June 1, 1937, and by the following day, they were nowhere to be found. According to ABC News, the last anyone heard was that she was running low on fuel and couldn't see her landing strip. As TIME reports, a "chaotic search-and-rescue mission" ensued, with the U.S. Navy racking up $250,000 in costs by the end of the search. Earhart was never located, and in January 1939, she was declared dead. 

To this day, Earhart's disappearance has become host to a number of conspiracy theories, a list that includes the belief that she was abducted by aliens. 

As the conspiracy theory goes, the 1967 disappearance of Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt was not an accident. Some say he purposely faked his own death to start a new life with a mistress (just like British MP John Stonehouse had done years later). Others claim he was kidnapped by foreign adversaries or swept away in a Chinese submarine and interrogated for political secrets. All we know is that body was never found, and the reality is a lot less exciting and far more tragic.

According to Smithsonian Magazine, on that day in 1967, Holt went swimming at Cheviot Beach in Melbourne. As the outlet reports, the surf was particularly high and there was a "fairly strong undercurrent." Holt swam right out, away from the beach, as his companions stopped where they could stand, fearing that the water was too dangerous. They weren't wrong. Holt never emerged from the surf, and two days later, he was declared drowned. The extensive search mission failed to uncover his body.

According to the Independent, Holt's friends admitted that while he happened to be "an excellent snorkeller who used to practise holding his breath for up to two minutes,"  the prime minister "was not a particularly powerful swimmer." What's more, he had a shoulder injury at the time of his disappearance. The widely accepted theory as to why his body was never uncovered is that after drowning, it was eaten by sea lice, which "can strip a corpse of flesh in 24 hours." Gross.

Connie Converse is widely regarded as the purveyor of modern singer-songwriting, paving the way for acts like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. Unfortunately, she didn't get any recognition before her mysterious disappearance in the summer of 1974. 

According to BBC News, Converse disappeared days after celebrating her 50th birthday. She was "disillusioned with how her life had turned out," spending her earlier years playing unconventional gigs around Greenwich Village, watching peers find mainstream success but always landing on the edge. The year Bob Dylan moved to the city — five years after Converse recorded her album in a kitchen with producer and animator Gene Deitch — she "turned her back on her music career and left New York for a job at the University of Michigan," the outlet recounts. Then, Converse "fell into depression and heavy drinking."

In 1974, though, she was looking for a change. Per the BBC, she sent "fond letters to family and close friends telling them she wanted to make a new start." She packed up her car, left her place in Michigan, and was never heard from again. Her family believes that she died by suicide, but no evidence has ever been found. According to her Spotify biography, the singer finally got her big break in 2004, when Deitch played one of her songs for "Spinning on Air," a radio show hosted by music historian David Garland. In 2009, a label released "How Sad, How Lovely," a collection of Converse's music.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.

Canadian rock band Loverboy was one of the biggest acts of the '80s, penning the iconic hit "Working for the Weekend." That song was so popular that decades later, it still haunts the corridors of shopping malls across the country, along with the frightening disappearance of bassist Scott Smith. In 2000, the rock outfit's founding member vanished at sea. According to Rolling Stone, Smith — joined by two friends and his girlfriend — was sailing his sailboat from Vancouver, British Columbia to Mexico. He made it just off the coast of San Francisco before being "swept off his thirty-seven-foot sailboat by a twenty-five-foot wave." His girlfriend suffered from hypothermia, but his two friends emerged unscathed.

"I went down below to change into my foul weather gear so I could relieve Scott and then the wave hit and the boat went over on its side," friend Bill Ellis told the Ottawa Citizen (via Rolling Stone). "Within seconds, I went back up and Scott was gone and he took the wheel with him. We turned back around but couldn't find any of the debris or cushions or the man-overboard pole."

After a 133-square-mile coastguard search, which was "hampered by massive waves and fog," and private search and rescue, Smith was presumed dead. His body was never found.

Jim Sullivan isn't a household name, but he did have a cult following. The folk singer was part of the Hollywood scene in the '60s and '70s, releasing two albums and teetering on the brink of success as he made celebrity friends like Dennis Hopper, who he appeared alongside in an uncredited role in "Easy Rider." On the precipice of his big break — literally, on the way there — he mysteriously disappeared.

According to The New York Times, Sullivan left L.A. for Nashville, where he planned to pursue songwriting and migrate his children and wife, Barbara Sullivan, once he was established. A day later, he mysteriously called Barbara "telling her he was all right" — without sharing the details of what, if anything, had happened to prompt the call. In notes shared with The New York Times, she wrote, "I said, 'Jim, what's the matter, is anything wrong?' And he said, 'Forget it. Just forget I said anything. I'll call you from Nashville.'"

After reporting him missing, The New York Times recounted that his family was informed that he "had been pulled over on suspicion of driving under the influence" and "passed a sobriety test" before going to a motel in Santa Rosa, where he vanished. His car was found abandoned 24 miles away with his guitar in the front seat. Barbara lived the rest of her life convinced Jim — whose debut album was called "U.F.O." — had been abducted by aliens.

It's not every day a genuine Rockefeller goes missing. Michael Rockefeller's disappearance rocked the world of New York socialites, and likely would've landed the largest headline in Page Six, had it been a thing in 1961. As the son of New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, Michael lived a privileged life, where he did what all rich New York 20-somethings do: he traveled. In modern times, that'd probably have equated to him snapping a shirtless photo at Machu Picchu for his Hinge profile, but back then, it led to his probable death.

According to Smithsonian Magazine, Michael was seven months into a trip across the Asmat region of New Guinea when his boat overturned after being hit by a wave. He swam to shore, where he disappeared without a trace. A "two-week search involving ships, airplanes, helicopters, and thousands of locals prowling the coats and jungle" turned up nothing. His death was ruled a drowning, but questions about what did or did not happen lingered. Conspiracy theories raged to the point that they spawned an off-Broadway play, a novel, a rock song, and a 1980s TV series.

Years later, Michael's disappearance finally did make it to Page Six. The publication previewed the 2014 Netflix documentary "The Search for Michael Rockefeller," which they claimed confirms the New York Post's original 1968 report: Michael was eaten by cannibals.