What's interesting is that with the development of the internet, social media, state surveillance, private business surveillance and so on, and so on, people still disappear.
The UK isn't so big as there's wilderness as such, but there's moors, waste ground (remaining undeveloped for years), property that has been long abandoned. When you hear of bodies being discovered - most commonly by dog walkers - they're in relatively populated areas. Victims of murder tend to be buried in very remote places, thus are most likely to remain 'vanished'.
The idea of dropping out and living off-grid as a tramp is most common. Just taking up a new life is possible, but usually for the wealthy who can afford to pre-create an alternative life - after all, to live an 'ordinary' life we require ample identification and a heck of a paper-trail. It's not so simple as most action/thriller films portray.
I suppose what interests me is that with the modern world's coverage of surveillance and administrative bureaucracy, combined with the UK's geography, it's increasingly unusual for people to 'permanently' vanish without trace. Thus, perhaps, this caused the media frenzy among the media and public.
