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People Who Are Discovered Or Re-Surface After Long Disappearances

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Anonymous

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Here’s an old Worcestershire story about an alleged re-appearance (this is the short York-notes style version).

Sir John Attwood, a 14th century knight, was captured during the Crusades and imprisoned. Back at home, his wife waited. And waited. And waited. One morning, shortly after she’d given him up for dead, one of the family dogs started barking wildly and ran to what looked like a bundle of rags in a field. On closer inspection it was a dishevelled man in manacles. Turned out it was Sir John. He told them he had indeed been thrown into a Saracen dungeon far far away, where he had prayed for deliverance. An angel came to him and as he slipped in and out of consciousness, he had a strange sensation of moving through space and feeling soft feathers around him. The next thing he knew he woke up in his own meadow, still in his chains. With no clear idea how he’d actually got there.:eek!!!!:
 
Australian 'murder victim' alive

An Australian teenager who disappeared four years ago has turned up alive, living in the same town as her family home.

It has thrown into chaos the trial of a man accused of killing her and three other teenage girls.

Natasha Ryan disappeared on her way to school some years ago, but was not murdered as her family believed- she was living with a boyfriend across town.

Very strange.

For archival purposes, here's the full text of the 2003 news story ...
Australian 'murder victim' alive

An Australian teenager who disappeared four years ago has turned up alive, living in the same town as her family home.

It has thrown into chaos the trial of a man accused of killing her and three other teenage girls.

Natasha Ryan is back from the dead.

Four years and eight months after she disappeared, the 18-year-old has been found hiding in a wardrobe.

Police in the northern state of Queensland are interviewing Natasha to find out why she stayed hidden in her hometown of Rockhampton for so long.

She went missing on her way to school in August 1998. Her family was convinced she was murdered and held a memorial service on her 17th birthday.

But a tip-off led Queensland police to a suburban home in Rockhampton, north of Brisbane.

Detectives have said Natasha did not want to be found. They are trying to piece together exactly how she could live so secretly in such a small town for so long.

It appears she rarely went outside and was harboured by her boyfriend, a 27-year-old milkman. Family friends have described Natasha's reunion with her mother as somewhat reserved.

Detectives believed she was another victim of a suspected serial killer who has been standing trial accused of murdering a number of young girls.

In court, prosecutors claimed the 51-year-old man had confessed to killing Natasha Ryan. In view of recent events, defence counsel have insisted police evidence is unreliable and want the trial aborted.

To learn what happened after Ms. Ryan was re-discovered, see the Wikipedia article about her case:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natasha_Ryan
 
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Blimey! I like to think she dramatically staggered into the courtroom, swinging both doors open wide to the gasps of shock from those in attendance!

Anyone know of any similar stories to this?
 
The whole thing is very strange. It reminds me of those Japanses youths who shut themselves in their bedrooms and refuse to come out, sometimes for years at a stretch.

We've all had the urge to run away from time to time. I know when I was depressed I occasionally wanted to change my name and cut myself off from my family entirely - to become a different person by rejecting where I had come from. But hiding in a wardrobe for 4 years is going a bit far.

You've got to wonder what was going on in her realationship with her family that she would let them think she'd been murdered?

Cujo
 
I heard a tale when i was a wee man about a fellow that went to the shop for some cigarettes then reappeared a year later in an orange suit and happy as a lark after finding himself in india.I booked a ticket on the strength of that story.
i suspect it is the area i live just now but there seem to be a few tales of fellas 'still' out getting 20 benson and a meat pie after a good few years
 
One thing that has struck me is that there appear to be many more reports of strange disappearances than strange appearances. I can think of Kaspar Hauser and the Green Children, but after those I am struggling. If there was a paranormal explanation to strange disappearances, then I would expect a rough parity with the number of appearances. Perhaps the lack of parity is an indication that most, if not all, disappearances have a mundane explanation.
 
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I'm sure there is a thread for this sort of thing somewhere.

Japanese WWII soldier found alive
An ex-Japanese soldier who disappeared after World War II and was officially declared dead in 2000 has turned up alive in Ukraine, officials say.
Ishinosuke Uwano was serving with the Japanese Imperial Army in Russia's Sakhalin Island when the war ended. He lost contact with his family in 1958.

The 83-year-old has now reappeared, in Ukraine, where he is married and has a family, Japanese officials say.

He is due to visit Japan for the first time in six decades on Wednesday.

Just six years ago, his family officially registered him as having been killed in the war - and his details were removed from the official family registry.

Because of this, Mr Uwano must "return to Japan technically as a Ukrainian citizen with a Ukraine passport," a government official said.

Mr Uwano is due to visit family members and friends in Iwate, northern Japan, with his son before returning to Ukraine on 28 April, the AFP news agency reports.

The Japanese authorities are now restoring him to the family registry.

Strong interest

Mr Uwano's existence came to light last year after he asked friends in Ukraine to help him contact the Japanese government, which then sent officials to interview him in Kiev.

He was one of thousands of Japanese soldiers and civilians who were left stranded across the Pacific and in parts of China and Russia after the war ended.

Some were kept as prisoners and forced to work as slave labourers, others chose to remain of their own accord.

Why Mr Uwano remained in Russia, and how he ended up in Ukraine, has not been disclosed.

There is still much interest in Japan in the plight of former soldiers who never made it home, the BBC's Chris Hogg in Tokyo says.

Last year, Japanese officials returned empty-handed after going to a remote Philippine village to investigate reports that two former Imperial Army members were hiding there.





Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/w ... 916294.stm

Published: 2006/04/17 15:40:21 GMT

© BBC MMVI
 
"He lost contact with his family in 1958....Just six years ago, his family officially registered him as having been killed in the war."

Does....not....compute.
 
Quite Old-time.

Why Mr Uwano remained in Russia, and how he ended up in Ukraine, has not been disclosed.

This seems overly mysterious too...
 
OldTimeRadio said:
"He lost contact with his family in 1958....Just six years ago, his family officially registered him as having been killed in the war."

Does....not....compute.

Though, perhaps - thinking aloud - an elderly relative or similar died 6yrs ago. You know: the type who refuses to give up hope of him returning and the rest of the family can't or won't overule her...

Just guessin'
 
One possibility is that he was thrown into a gulag following the War, developed a liason with a woman he met during those concentration camp years and remained with her when and after countless thousands of prisoners were released after Josef Stalin's death in 1953. Perhaps Ukraine was HER home.
 
Missing WWII vet returns to Japan
An 83-year-old ex-Japanese soldier lost since 1958 has returned to Japan from Ukraine, where he has lived since 1965.
Ishinosuke Uwano muttered a few words in halting Japanese as he flew into Tokyo for a 10-day visit.

"I have never spoken Japanese for 60 years, and first of all I would like to say 'konnichiwa' [hello]," he said.

Mr Uwano was on military service on Russia's Sakhalin Island at the end of WWII but lost contact with his family in 1958, and was declared dead in 2000.

However, unknown to Japanese authorities - or his family - Mr Uwano married a Ukrainian woman and set up home in a town west of the country's capital, Kiev.

He has three children and holds Ukrainian nationality.

Family reunion

Walking into Tokyo's Narita airport accompanied by his Ukrainian son, Mr Uwano smiled and told waiting reporters of his joy at being back in Japan.


I had not dreamed about going to Japan. I remember the cherry blossoms
Ishinosuke Uwano

He said that the government of the former Soviet Union had prevented him contacting his family, who live north-east of Tokyo, once he moved to Ukraine.
"I'm looking forward to seeing and talking with my brothers and cousins," he said.

Earlier, before leaving Ukraine, Mr Uwano described how his memories of Japan had faded.

"I had not dreamed about going to Japan. I remember the 'sakura' [cherry blossoms]," he told Ukrainian TV.

Soldiers' plight

Japanese officials, who arranged the trip after locating Mr Uwano in Ukraine last year, said he was visiting as a tourist on this occasion, but they hoped to arrange to restore his Japanese citizenship.


He was one of thousands of Japanese soldiers and civilians who were left stranded across the Pacific and in parts of China and Russia after the war ended.
Some were kept as prisoners and forced to work as slave labourers, others chose to remain of their own accord.

Why Mr Uwano remained in Russia, and how he ended up in Ukraine, has not been disclosed.

There is still much interest in Japan in the plight of former soldiers who never made it home, the BBC's Chris Hogg in Tokyo says.



Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/w ... 921396.stm

Published: 2006/04/19 07:11:33 GMT

© BBC MMVI
 
theyithian said:
OldTimeRadio said:
"He lost contact with his family in 1958....Just six years ago, his family officially registered him as having been killed in the war."

Does....not....compute.

Though, perhaps - thinking aloud - an elderly relative or similar died 6yrs ago. You know: the type who refuses to give up hope of him returning and the rest of the family can't or won't overule her...

Just guessin'

But how could he have been killed in the war 13 years after it ended?
 
Maybe they made a simple commitement that in the year 2000 they'd give up if he couldn't be found. Its a good marking point for anything.
 
I think fluffle's point is that if his family were in contact with him as late as 1958, they could hardly believe that he died in WWII. Makes you wonder, though, how many displaced war veterans there may be around the world, living out lives totally unknown to their former friends and neighbours back home.
 
Perhaps registering him as dead permitted them to collect some sort of pension?
 
Peripart said:
"I think fluffle's point is that if his family were in contact with him as late as 1958, they could hardly believe that he died in WWII."

Exactly - that's the point I was also attempting to make.
 
Missing man returns home after 67 years

Monday July 3, 2006

A Japanese man missing since the second world war who recently surfaced in Russia was reunited with relatives yesterday on his first visit home since he left in 1939.

Yoshiteru Nakagawa, 79, who went missing on the Russian island of Sakhalin in 1945, arrived at New Chitose airport on the northern island of Hokkaido. "Little did I dream of being able to come back," he said. "I'm so overwhelmed with joy I don't even know how to express it."

Details of his life in Russia and family background are not known, but it is thought he was mistaken for a Japanese soldier and detained in Siberian camps.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
 
Missing US teens discovered alive

Shawn Hornbeck had not been seen since October 2002
Two missing US teenage boys, one of whom was last seen in 2002, have been found at the home of a 41-year-old man.
Michael Devlin, 41, was charged with kidnapping after Ben Ownby, 13, who vanished earlier this week, and Shawn Hornbeck, now 15, were discovered.

His flat near St Louis was searched after police noticed Mr Devlin's white van matched the description of one seen when Ben vanished near his school bus.

Shawn Hornbeck went missing from a rural part of Missouri in October 2002.

A police sheriff in the Kirkwood, a city near St Louis, said both boys appeared unharmed.

Mr Devlin - manager of a pizza shop and a part-time funeral home worker - was initially charged with one count of kidnapping, but more charges were possible, the sheriff added.

In the St Louis area, there has been unreserved joy at the news that both boys had been found safe.

Search over

Ben Ownby's disappearance on Tuesday had sparked a major hunt in the area around his home.


Further charges are expected against suspect Michael Devlin

Prayer vigils were held and "missing" posters were fixed to walls around town.

But police out hunting for Ben Ownby were not expecting to find Shawn Hornbeck alongside him.

Shawn was just 11 when he failed to return home after going for a bike ride near his home in Washington County, some 60 miles (100km) from St Louis.

His parents, dozens of volunteers and sniffer dogs searched for weeks to no avail.

In the years after their son went missing, Shawn's parents, Pam and Craig Akers, devoted themselves to missing child cases.

Craig Akers left his job to devote his time to a foundation bearing his son's name.

They used up their savings, borrowed money and talked to psychics, until the financial strain forced them back to work, the Associated Press reported.

On the anniversary of the disappearance in October, Pam Akers said: "It's been four years. But for me, it's just been one long continuous day."

'Unbelievable feeling'

Gary Toelke, a local sheriff said officers had been "just on cloud nine" since the discovery of the boys.


Police found the boys in an appartment block

"The last four days the things that we've gone through... you know you have to face the family everyday, tell them what we have if we've had any luck yet, you know that wears on you and to have something like this happen there's nothing to describe it.

"But you know the main thing is what the family has gone through. I know how we felt, I can image how they felt. That's their child and it's got to be an unbelievable feeling for them too."

The St Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper reported that when the manager of a St Charles supermarket announced over the store's PA system that the boys had been found, shoppers stopped in the aisles, clapped each other on the back, hooted and applauded.

Lisa Williams, who leads Ben Ownby's Boy Scout troop, told the paper: "We were all excited and amazed. It's unbelievable. We are so glad to have Ben back."

The authorities say they are still investigating the motive behind the abductions and have released no information on the conditions in which the boys were held.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6254223.stm

For more on this story see:
Missing US Teens Discovered Alive ('Missouri Miracle'; 2007)
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...discovered-alive-missouri-miracle-2007.28761/
 
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A 31-year-long murder mystery has been solved in Germany after the alleged victim turned up alive and well.

Petra Pazsitka, then a 24-year-old computer science student, disappeared from her home in Braunschweig without a trace in 1984 and was officially declared dead five years later.

Although her body was never found, suspicion fell on a man who had previously raped and murdered a 14-year-old girl in the area, who confessed to her murder before later withdrawing the statement.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ve-31-years-after-disappearance-a6668201.html

Could have led to a miscarriage of justice.
 
Thought dead by police 42 years ago, woman turns up alive.

http://www.readingeagle.com/news/article/mystery-persists-in-40-year-old-death

Bit more, but not too much more, at link.

"Betsy Langjahr is not Jane Doe.

State police reported Tuesday that Langjahr, long believed to potentially be the unidentified victim in a four-decade-old death, has been found alive and well. She was located through tips that police received as part of a recent media blitz.State police did not say where Langjahr is currently residing. "
 
On Radio four this week (Monday) 'Digital human' was on the topic of 'Detection'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06gqjpt

It touched on databases formed to collate details of the bodies with no identity to aid those looking for a missing loved one. Fascinating stuff, well worth a listen.
 
Hermit's 20 years in a forest: Spanish doctor who was declared dead in 2010 is found living in Tuscan nature reserve
A hermit, who was presumed dead after disappearing 20 years ago, has been found alive and living in a forest in Tuscany.

Carlos Sanchez Ortiz De Salazar, a doctor from Seville, abandoned civilisation in 1995, at the age of 26. He had suffered from severe depression. His was eventually declared dead in 2010.

Now two mushroom pickers say they came across his camp on the Cala Violina promontory in a nature reserve on the Maremma coast in northern Tuscany.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...d-dead-2010-living-Tuscan-nature-reserve.html
 
Hermit's 20 years in a forest: Spanish doctor who was declared dead in 2010 is found living in Tuscan nature reserve
A hermit, who was presumed dead after disappearing 20 years ago, has been found alive and living in a forest in Tuscany.

Carlos Sanchez Ortiz De Salazar, a doctor from Seville, abandoned civilisation in 1995, at the age of 26. He had suffered from severe depression. His was eventually declared dead in 2010.

Now two mushroom pickers say they came across his camp on the Cala Violina promontory in a nature reserve on the Maremma coast in northern Tuscany.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...d-dead-2010-living-Tuscan-nature-reserve.html

Interfering busybodies - the world is full of them.
 
Dunno if this fits here as nobody really 'disappeared' and the person who 're-appeared' was an impersonator.
Do we have an impersonation thread?


The strange case of “Sergeant Dandy”
*

(This is out there on the 'net. I came across a reprint of the original Times report a few weeks ago and kept it because it has all the things I like. Crime, sex, mystery, self-delusion - it's like the story of my life. :( )

Long story short, Sergeant Dandy went off to war and in 1915 came back to his wife and family. However, it wasn't really Sergeant Dandy; it was an imposter, who was eventually arrested and charged with false representation.

(There was also a further charge of 'an offence against Mrs Dandy by falsely personating her husband'. This would be a sexual offence, i.e. rape or sexual assault, as when a man pretends to be a woman's husband in order to have sex with her. I was taught about this in a Law class decades ago and this is probably the exact case!)

The impersonator's real name was Hall and his wife stood by him, saying to Mrs Dandy 'It's a caution people don't know their own husbands. You are as bad as he is. I should know my own husband in a hundred.'

At least Mrs Hall's husband did come home when so many did not. Dunno what happened to the real Sergeant Dandy. One imagines a Mad Men sort of scenario.


*You need a Times subscription to read the full article but I have the clipping. ;)
 
Dunno if this fits here as nobody really 'disappeared' and the person who 're-appeared' was an impersonator.
Do we have an impersonation thread?


The strange case of “Sergeant Dandy”
*

(This is out there on the 'net. I came across a reprint of the original Times report a few weeks ago and kept it because it has all the things I like. Crime, sex, mystery, self-delusion - it's like the story of my life. :( )

Long story short, Sergeant Dandy went off to war and in 1915 came back to his wife and family. However, it wasn't really Sergeant Dandy; it was an imposter, who was eventually arrested and charged with false representation.

(There was also a further charge of 'an offence against Mrs Dandy by falsely personating her husband'. This would be a sexual offence, i.e. rape or sexual assault, as when a man pretends to be a woman's husband in order to have sex with her. I was taught about this in a Law class decades ago and this is probably the exact case!)

The impersonator's real name was Hall and his wife stood by him, saying to Mrs Dandy 'It's a caution people don't know their own husbands. You are as bad as he is. I should know my own husband in a hundred.'

At least Mrs Hall's husband did come home when so many did not. Dunno what happened to the real Sergeant Dandy. One imagines a Mad Men sort of scenario.


*You need a Times subscription to read the full article but I have the clipping. ;)

I don't watch Mad Men, can you elaborate Scarg?
I too would know my wife, it's an odd case alright.
 

It's also similar to the case of Martin Guerre in 16th-century France. That case was made into a movie in 1982, Le Retour de Martin Guerre, with Gérard Depardieu. The 1993 Hollywood film Sommersby was an adaptation of that story, with the action taking place in the post-civil war US.
 
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