Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
then open in external browser
and click "Open in External Browser" 
The reasons for why someone might disappear are many, including mental illness, miscommunication, misadventure, domestic violence, and being a victim of crime.
Interested in all of these cases, Reddit user Xenilovedon made a post on the platform, bluntly asking: "People who went missing, what happened?" And they replied.
As of this publication, there are over 5,700 comments under the question, many of which detail the funny, scary, and downright dangerous situations folks have found themselves in. Continue scrolling to check out some of the most memorable ones.
Discover more in 30 People Who Disappeared Share What Happened To Them
Click here & follow us for more lists, facts, and stories.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
When I was 4 I got lost in a city and was rescued by what my dad thought was a gang. We had dinner in Chinatown with another family. 5 kids in all. Crossing the street after dinner, we were holding hands in a big chain. My older sibling let go. When the light changed and everyone crossed I stayed on the sidewalk - I was looking through a window into a barber shop where some huge guy was having his head shaved - can still picture the scene. When I finally looked around everyone was gone. I started to cry. A group of teenagers approached and asked if I was lost. I said yes. A tall kid hoisted me into his shoulders and started down the block. Other kids split up and went in different directions. We rounded a corner and I saw my dad. He turned white and ran toward us. The kid lowered me to the ground. A few other kids were there. They stood around awkwardly while the tall kid explained what happened to my dad. My dad (not a demonstrative guy) flung himself at the kid and hugged him. My mom appeared and picked me up. Years later my dad told me he saw the same group of kids hanging around when he first parked in the city that evening and was suspicious that they were a gang. He was embarrassed and tried to be less judgmental after that. Wish I could thank those guys. This was a long time ago.
RELATED:
#2
So, back when I was in Boy Scouts, my troop lost me. Twice. In the same night. While I was still in my tent. This is not an exaggeration. The story is thus: we were at Camp Decorah, in Iowa. We had the idea to go and perform a raid on the counselor's tents/cabins. I, however, was feeling ill, so I specifically said "I'm not feeling well, I'm going to sleep." They acknowledged this, expressed regret that I was not coming along, and went to have their fun. They have their fun. They retreat into the woodline. Then they take a headcount. I am not in the headcount. They expect me to be in the headcount, because they forgot. So, now, there is a missing camper. The entire camp is set to searching for me. Some time during this, a guy from my troop decides to, get this, check the tents. I am in my tent, as I should be. So he goes to report that I am found. I go to the bathroom during this time. Someone comes back to the camp, and checks my tent. I am in the bathroom, so I am not in my tent. I am now missing again. I get found sooner this time.
#3
When I was a 1 or 2, my parents were hosting an annual party in the back yard for the Independence Day. It was warm and lots of family were there so why not have a small child out? Well while nobody was looking I made my way into the woods behind the house (around 50 acres of land at the time). I was gone for around an hour and at some point my parents noticed and began searching (even called the police). Well eventually I come out of the woods dangling by my clothes from our dogs mouth. My parents liked that dog :) TL;DR infant goes into woods, parents freak out, dogs saves the day
#4
I walked out of my life when I came home to find another man in my bed with my girlfriend. Spent a year hitch hiking. No missing persons report. No one looked for me. No one missed me.
#5
When I was a young lad, my brother and I used to go to this gymnastics play area. They had trampolines, those bars you swing around, and a tightrope over a pit full of pieces of foam. My brother and I decided to play hide and seek, I hid first. About an hour later, the place is closing. My mum asks my brother where I am, he says we're playing hide and seek and I've hidden really well. Three hours later, the staff have locked all of the doors and phoned the police, my mum was in a blind panic, my brother had given up on finding me and was bouncing on a trampoline, the staff were frantically tearing the place apart looking for me. My brother got bored of trampolining so decided to play in the foam pit. He jumped in and heard a loud "OUCH". I climbed out of the foam and said "did I win?" We never went back to that place.
#6
When I was 16, I got into a fight with my mother about how to properly load dishes into a dishwasher... She threw me out of the house. In typical teenage fashion, I told her if she threw me out, then I wasn't coming back. At that point, she had escalated to white-hot rage and said something like, "We don't want you here anyway." Well, that was all I needed, and really she should have been paying better attention to me. See, I had gotten a job as soon as I had turned 14, and I had purchased my own car. I had been buying my own clothes and things for years with money from that job. I left and could honestly say that I hadn't taken anything from the house that I hadn't personally paid for. To that end, I left my cell phone on the table. They had no way to get in contact. So hours later, when my mother's anger faded and she realized that she had just thrown her 16-year-old child into the streets over the dishes, she called the police. Well, the police showed up and heard her out. They put out the details on my car to try and find me, but they told her that since I had a car and clothes and had my own bank account and I had been gone for hours, there was no guarantee that I was even in the state anymore... After 48 hours, they had me declared missing, which apparently made my profile available to other states and such. And that was how they found me, two weeks later, 18 hours away. I was sitting on the hood of my car eating ice cream and filling out a job application. An officer noticed I was illegally parked and casually scanned my plates while he approached to ask me to move. I don't think he was going to give me a ticket; it was just a reflexive action. I came up as a missing kid, and he stopped mid-question and sort of stuttered, "You, uh, you should call your mother." I nodded agreeably and he gave me his cell phone... As soon as I identified myself, she turned into a screaming rage monster of hatred and insults. I casually put the phone on speaker for the officer to hear, and his eyes widened. She didn't stop to take a breath and let me get a word in, so I hung up on her. I told the officer that I was fine where I was, and since it had already escalated to this point, I was going to hold out for an apology or divine intervention. He sort of patted my shoulder and made sure I had someplace warm to sleep at night. Two days later, my dad showed up and got me. The officer had told him that if the situation was left to my mother to resolve, they would never see me again. I agree that it was for the best. I could have gotten my GED and a job, but I certainly wouldn't have been able to make my way through college and get my master's.
#7
Was about 5. Out of town with my family, staying at my aunts house. There was a giant country music festival going on. Me and my cousins were being babysat by some teenage girl while the adults went to the music festival. Babysitter was being a b***h and wouldn't let me in the house to use the bathroom. Only would let me use the bathroom outside. I told her I was going to run away if she didn't let me in. She didn't let me in. I ran away, barefoot in superman pj's... Was gone for about 8 hours. A car pulls up next to me, and three woman ask me if I needed help .....the three girls were the Dixie chicks....they found me and called the police.. There was a missing kid alert out for me.
#8
I was missing for eight hours after my very first day of first grade and mobilized the entire police force of the rural town where I grew up. Before I was old enough for school, my (single) mom used to drop me off at a daycare place every day and pick me up every evening. This was in 1986, so way before cell phones or pagers were common. When I got old enough for first grade, my mom took me out of daycare because it was expensive and school would be my daycare... My school was brand new, so my first day was also the first day the school was open. It was also the principal's first day as a principal and my teacher's first day as a full-time teacher... The first day at school was perfectly normal: I wrote ABCs, drew pictures with crayons, etc. Just like in daycare. My only specific memory was the cafeteria staff bringing our lunches to us in the classroom, because the construction in the cafeteria wasn't complete yet. School gets out, and I head to the buses, staring dutifully at the bus number my mom wrote on my hand... but the after-school pickup van from the daycare we used to attend was also there. The staffer from the daycare recognized me as I was walking by and called out, "Hey! We're over here. Come on, we're about to leave!" I guess she didn't know or didn't remember that my mom had taken me out of daycare. Anyhow, this lady was a known adult authority figure, so I assumed plans had changed, and I got on the bus. My mom gets off work and waits at my bus stop... I don't get off the bus. She calls the school, and they mobilize the whole staff to look for me... They don't find me. Hours have passed, and she's in full freak-out mode... She calls the police. The police start searching the fields and farms near the school, [but no luck]. They bring in more officers and more officers until pretty much the entire police force of this tiny town is looking for me. Meanwhile, my principal and my teacher are having the worst day of their lives... How could they lose a f*****g six-year-old on their very first day?! All the searching turns up nothing, and it's past midnight now, so some poor officer had to tell my mom, "Ma'am, you should go home. We'll keep looking all night, but we won't be able to find much until the morning." My mom goes home thinking her baby is probably [gone] and arrives home to find her answering machine full with messages from the daycare. So... yeah. I managed to upset an entire school system and traumatize my mom on my first day of school. I still refuse to accept responsibility. I was just doing what the grown-ups told me.
#9
When I was about 8, my parent sent 4 of my siblings and I to summer school. One day, I was waiting for my parents to pick me up outside by the schools playground as they do 5 days a week. Normally, my siblings would wait with me, but I couldn't find them anywhere so I just sat on the sidewalk and waited. After more than an hour of waiting, my parents pulled up with all 4 of my siblings and a station wagon full of new toys from Toys R Us. Only after my parents took my siblings on a shopping spree did they realize they were missing me. They pulled up and told me that they were sorry. Yet no one picked any toys for me... ...middle child syndrome.
#10
I went sleep walking one night when I was ten years old. Unlocked the front door and went for a stroll through the neighborhood. I woke up a few hours later in the middle of the street, barefooted, in a cul de sac I've never been in before. Scared the bejeezus out of me. Ended up running through the streets until I found my way back home. My parents had been s******g bricks looking all over for me. They put a lock on my door after that so I couldn't go for anymore midnight strolls.
#11
I was living with my new husband in a town about a thousand miles away from my mother, who has always been a world class worrier. This was in the days before everyone had a cel phone. His entire family was going to be invading us in a few days, so I was polishing up the apartment to look good, and in the process of wiping fingerprints off the phone, I turned the ringer off, and did not notice. We'd just moved in, so several days without any calls wasn't unusual. Fast forward. The in-laws have just arrived while I am lying down in the bedroom taking a nap because I have been spit shining everything in the place and making tasty baked goods all while coming down with a bad cold. There's a knock on the front door. My husband comes to the bedroom, and says there's someone who wants to talk to me. It's the police, and they insist on talking to me alone in the hallway to make sure everything is really, truly ok, then they tell me to call my mother. I come back in to see his parents, sister, brother-in-law, their seven kids, and a passel of assorted aunts, uncles, and cousins, all staring silently at me. But wait, there's more. Mom didn't have our address, all she had was a description of the building. The town was small enough that the police knew just where that was, but they didn't know what apartment, so they knocked on every other door in the building before getting to us on the top floor corner unit.
#12
I got lost for a few hours at a country show when I was very young, 3 or 4 years old. I had been doing that thing where you are following what you think is your parents legs but turns out it was someone else the whole time. Cause of the crowds I got completely lost, being so young I just started wandering around on my own. My parents started freaking out, mother was crying while my dad frantically got the organisers to start looking for me. Luckily after an hour or so I was noticed by a kindly group of older ladies who got hold of a steward to reunite me. This isn't remarkable in itself but fast forward 20 years later and by coincidence I was at the show ground with my parents for another reason. I had completely forgotten about being lost but it was obviously still engrained in my parents minds. As we drove around (there was no show on at the time) my dad points to a spot and goes out of nowhere 'thats exactly where you went missing', and then a few minutes later 'And thats where they found you' and both started yattering on about what happened that day. Amazing to think after all these years that incident was fresh in their minds and they could remember it like it was yesterday, they were sort of joking around about it but you could tell the emotions of almost losing me were still raw. They can't remember where they left the TV remote but can remember the day they almost lost their kid as clear as anything. I guess you never stop being a parent now matter how old your kids get.
#13
My high school (American) football team had an away game in a somewhat sketchy city, bus took the team back to high school afterwards. I was too young to drive and I was grounded and had my phone taken away. I waited at the school for an hour and a half but my parents never came to pick me up. So I started the 4-mile walk back to my house carrying all my pads and school books. While I was walking back my mom showed up and I wasn't there. She panicked and found the coach and told him. My coach sent a group text to the entire team asking if anyone knew where I was. Came to school the next day and everyone thought I had missed the bus and gotten lost. It ended up being a team joke for the rest of the year. Bonus: My parents never took my phone away again
#14
Got lost in an elevator in our apartment building when I was 5. I forgot what floor we lived on and what out apartment number was. I was and am still a very visual person. I spent 7 hours going up and down the elevator, and since we had just moved into the building, nobody recognized me. I was also too shy to ask anyone for help either, and didn't know they had a directory on the ground floor. At about 5 that night, a guy named Derrick got into the elevator. He was about 6'2 and had his little daughter trailing him. The daughter was like my age, and asked me my name and what I was doing in the elevator. I told her I had gotten lost in the elevator, and when Derrick heard this, he asked if we were the new people on the 7th floor. That was our floor number, and he had reminded me of it. He took us back to my apartment, and we walked in on a cop asking my crying mom for a description of me. Since it wasn't a good neighborhood and this was like 2000-2002 New York which was still pretty s****y at the time, the cop figured I had been kidnapped and would never be heard from again. The look on my mom's face was extreme happiness and relief, and I never forgot the floor number again. I also never saw Derrick or his daughter again, but I will never forget them.
#15
Memphis Tennessee, the summer of 1990. I was 5 years old, and my best friend was this little black girl in my apartment complex. Her parents invited me to her birthday party at McDonalds. We all lived in a very low-income housing/projects type of place, so this was basically the height of excess, and I was h******e excited. So they round up all of us kids and take us in a van to the local McD's. The party was pretty pimp, cake and stuff, and we were all playing in the little inside playground there. Long story short, I ultimately exit from the playground, and... no one was there. The little girl's parents f*****g forgot me, packed everyone up and left me there. I didn't realize it at the time, being distracted by food and seemingly awesome covered slides. I was just like, "Whoa, this is longest part ever!" The staff didn't even say anything or notice something was off about an unattended kid just hanging around. Nine hours later (my parents weren't exactly winning any awareness awards themselves), my mom and dad and 3 cop cars finally come to get me. I remember my mom being downright irate because, "You were the only little blond-haired white girl in a f*****g sea of black kids; not exactly unremarkable!"
#16
Once when my grandfather was watching my younger sister and I, I decided to take a shower and didn't think to tell anyone. I took my leisurely shower, and when I came out no one was in the house. I went outside to see if maybe they were out there (it was summer, so reasonable to spend the evening in the yard). It turned out, my grandfather and sister had alerted the neighbors that I had gone missing, and the entire neighborhood was out looking for me. It wasn't even that long of a shower.
#17
I had a 12-day period of dis-associative amnesia while I was in the USAF. I was doing laundry one Sunday night while waiting to start extra cleaning duty, I woke up 12 days later to my supervisor shaking me awake in my dorm room. No one saw me for those 12 days, no one heard from me. I was not a recluse, I was extremely outgoing and easily noticed. How I vanished for 12 days is amazing. **editing this to not have to reply to everyone: I was considered AWOL, got an Article 15 out of it. Was medically separated with a $25,000 severance and told by the USAF Psychiatrist that I was "useless to the USAF". I couldn't explain it, and through every pill I was prescribed and some therapy, they couldn't unlock my brain. It's said that it does not happen to people who are in their older 20's, but it did. It happened the once. My brain scan showed that "the hole every one has, is larger in yours" kind of thing. I never looked into it, as I really don't want to know if I went to France and killed people as a transvestite, or just f****d off for 2 weeks. I had no reason to desert. I was in for over 6 years at that point. I'd been to PSAB (Saudi), South Korea, France, Spain, and was in Germany at the time. I f*****g loved my time enlisted and would do it again.
#18
A few years ago, I was depressed and not really very social to begin with. At some point, my boyfriend at the time broke up with me and I just snapped. I booked a train ticket to him (around 10 h ride) and just left the next morning. Also basically stopped going to work at the same time, from one day to the next. I told no one about the trip and stayed away for about 10 days. When I came back, I had a not from the police on my door about being registered as a missing person. I lived in a student house, so at least everyone on my floor must have seen that note. Turn out my friends had filed a missing person report because I guess work had contacted them. I was angry at the time, because I felt like s**t and thought nobody cared about me anyway and shouldn't interfere with my life (ironically, they had just shown that they did, indeed, care). Now I'm grateful that they did it.
#19
I was about 6 years old, one day I was playing outside. There's a petting zoo about 4 km away from where we lived and I guess I decided to go there. So I did, by myself, barefooted, in my pyjamas. When I got there the manager found out I was alone and had reached my parents by phone. I don't actually remember much of it but it's pretty hilarious.
#20
When I was four I disappeared for several hours. My parents freaked out, went door to door asking the neighbors if they saw me. They ended up calling the police. I had thrown a temper tantrum before my disappearance and went to my room. I ended up falling asleep squeezed on the ground between my bed and the wall with pillows pulled over top of me. Had a stern talking to by the police officer. Parents were a little upset. Not my fault I'm a champion at hide and seek.
#21
When I was younger, there was this annoying kid that was our next door neighbor that liked to wander through our neighborhood and invite himself inside other peoples' homes in typical 90s fashion. One day Free-Spirit McGee came over unannounced as usual and wanted to play Star Fox 64, so my mom made me entertain him. About an hour later there was a patrol of police cars with their sirens on driving through the neighborhood. Turns out the little p***k never told his parents he was heading out (he was like 11 years old), so they called the cops and said he went missing. Anyway, he saw the police through the window and immediately blurted out, "not again..." before sighing and waddling back home. Never saw or heard from him again after that.
#22
I was 3 and was found outside the local shop in my underpants, vest and coat, asleep at 5am in the freezing cold rain with 2pence clutched in my hand. I was waiting for it to open to get sweets. I was also wearing shoes and no socks.
#23
I was about 10 or so and I was a member of a club where I learned to shoot air rifles. My parents would drop me off, then go and take off again. And pick me up when it was time. One day they didn't show up. I waited for an hour, called home, no answer. This was before cell phones so I was stuck. No idea what to do. Well I did have one idea. I knew how to get home. It would be about 6 kilometers walking but I had a good mental map of the way back and the weather was fine. So I left the club and began to walk home. I made it about halfway before my parents pulled over next to me and they were kinda angry with him. Also kinda apologetic because they'd forgotten about me. They told me not to wander off like that again. And I told them not to forget about me again. Didn't get any punishment.
#24
Was 2-3 years old. At the beach with dad and bro (on a camping trip). Just started walking around picking up bird feathers. My dad and bro and the rest of the people we were camping with went back to camp. I just kept picking up feathers. After a while my dad realized he forgot me and went back to the beach in a panic and found me with a large amount of feathers in my hands. I didn't so much go missing, as much as...got forgotten.
#25
I got lost at a music festival once. I went to sleep in a tent with my boyfriend and best friend and I guess they woke up around 7 and I wasn't around. They figured I went to the bathroom so they just waited. After some time they decided to go searching. It must have been not too long after they left that I woke up in the back seat of the car and crawled back into the tent. I must have slept walked. Anyway, they ask EMT and other festival goers and there's a ton of people looking for me. I had no idea. They were making announcements over the speakers and even sent out a text on the system. My boyfriend came back to get his shirt or something and I was all snuggled in. He was reasonably angry. I told him what happened and it was whatever. When my friend finally came back, I told her the same story at which point she reminded me that we didn't have a back seat because it was full of camping supplies. Still to this day I have no idea who's car I fell asleep in.
Add Your Answer! This post is a community curated
Add Your Answer!
Explore more of these tags
You May Like "Terrible Advice": People Urge Others To Stop Believing In These 40 Dangerous Survival Myths “Gray Hair Isn’t Caused By Age”: 50 Psychology Facts That Might Surprise You People Still Wonder What Happened To Owners Of These 47 Lost Things As They Never Came Back For Them
Viktorija Ošikaitė
Indrė Lukošiūtė
Indrė Lukošiūtė
Related on Bored Panda
