Tales of Mysterious Vanishings and Disappearances, Part 1

Lately, I have become fascinated by stories of vanishings. That is – people who simply disappeared from the face of the Earth (often times in plain sight), never to be seen or heard from again.

Were these people abducted by aliens? Pulled into another dimension by demons? Perhaps we will never know for certain – but they make great chilling tales for a stormy night. After all, one of the greatest human fears is the fear of the unknown and those little things that go bump in the night.

There seems to be a plethora of these vanshing stories available ranging from all dates and times in history. I have a compiled a list of what I find to be the best.

On with the stories…

OLIVER LARCH

The tale of Oliver Larch takes place in the 1893 and is a dreaful example of a vanishing. He was merely a boy sent out to collect water from his family’s well one cold winter’s night. Grabbing a bucket, he hurried off into the yard.

After a few minutes, the boy never returned so the family went searching for him. They heard him crying “Help, they’ve got me! Somebody help me!” over and over. His pleading voice was coming from the sky. Despite his desperate cries for help, he was unable to be located. His cries became quieter and quieter until they eventually faded out.

Despite a thorough search of the property, the boy was never found. No clue that would explain anything of this mysterious disappearance was left behind either.

Oliver was simply gone, stolen from this very realm of existence.

ORION WILLIAMSON

Orion Williamson was a farmer from Alabama who had quite an unfortunate experience one hot July day in 1854. You see, Mr. Williamson simply disappeared from plain sight right in front of his wife and son.

He was walking across his property and simply disappeared into thin air. His wife and son ran to the spot they saw him vanish, but couldn’t find a trace of him anywhere.

For all intents and purposes, Orion simply vanished. And never came back. The local newspapers ran stories about the event, but nobody ever came forth with a good explanation. There is still no explanation to this day.

JAMES BURNE WORSON

James Burne Worson was a shoemaker who lived in Warwickshire, England. He was known for always bragging about his ability as a long distance runner.

One Autumn day in 1873, Worson was challenged by two friends (Barham Wise and Hamerson Burns) to run a 40 mile distance that spanned from Leamington to Coventry.

The 2 friends followed Worson in a horse cart as he set out to run the race. Several miles into the run, Worson stumbled and let out an agonizing scream. He fell forward… and disappeared forever. He was in full view of his friends the entire time and simply vanished right before their eyes.

Despite a search by Wise and Burns (and later by authorities), Worson was never found.

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Do you have any theories regarding the strange disappeance of these three people? Leave them in the comments below.

Stay tuned for Part 2, in which I will tell several more of these strange vanishing stories.