The Strangest Disappearances That Were Never Solved

People vanish, and some cases never close. Here are two real ones we have researched in depth, and a note on the stories that only look like case files.

Two open cases

Maura Murray (2004). On February 9, 2004, Maura Murray, a 21-year-old nursing student, crashed her car on a New Hampshire road, spoke to a passing driver, declined help and was gone by the time police arrived. She has not been found, and the case remains officially unsolved. Our case file keeps what is confirmed apart from what is only reported, theorized or myth, and lists its sources.

D.B. Cooper (1971). On November 24, 1971, a man who bought his ticket as "Dan Cooper" hijacked a commercial flight from Portland to Seattle, collected a ransom and parachuted out. He was never found, and it remains the only unsolved commercial aircraft hijacking in United States history. Our case file does the same. Both sit in the Vanished Without a Trace collection.

What "unsolved" means

Neither case has a confirmed resolution. The theories around them, including more recent claims, are discussed in the case files, each marked as reported or unproven.

Not every mystery here is a case file

Stories such as The Last Train File and The Letter That Was Never Finished are published as unverified accounts: they have no checkable source, so please do not read them as real case files. Their labels say what they are, and how we tell a true story from a legend explains how the labels work.

We write about real disappearances carefully for a simple reason: behind each is a person, and often a family still waiting. The facts above are summarized from the two case files, each of which lists its own sources, including materials from the New Hampshire Department of Justice and the FBI.