How does one vanish from society?

It's not that hard to disappear. It's probably much harder to stay disappeared - because it's not east to cut yourself off from everything you know. It can very much be like the movies.

Most of us aren't tracked by authorities, and there are millions (yes, MILLIONS) of missing people who are actively searched for by family, investigators, the FBI, and a litany of other agencies.

We used to put their pictures on milk cartons. the young ones at least. Estimates are anywhere from 2-4k missing PER DAY.

But I must defer to the exspherts.
 
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SC Maintenance said:
I had a friend I worked with years ago. When I left that company we stayed in touch - would talk maybe once a month, etc, see each other a few times a year when I was in his city, etc. He was a very likeable guy, we had lots of mutual friends.

He left and went to work for a customer of mine, and we had several mutual acquaintances at that place. One day he called to tell me he was quitting that place, said he had some personal things to deal with but was living same place and we should get together my next trip there. A month later he wouldn't respond to my emails and his phone was disconnected.

A number of mutual friends have called me over the years to see if I have ever heard from him - so obviously he wasn't just avoiding me. He has a unique name, I have tried google and all his info for places he lived to that point are still there, but nothing after that point.

So I wonder how someone disappears in todays society by choice or other. I can think of a few.

1) Death, although I think an obituary would end up on the web?
2) long term illness - end up on disability - obviously never have a residence in your name.
3) incarceration or commitment to some sort of institution? Not sure how that ends up working but I assume they would suppress that information?
4) Leave the country for whatever reason?

Thoughts? I am not really looking to reach him - my number and email have not changed and I am easy to find if he wanted although I hope he is OK. I just find it odd. Many others who ask me about him do as well.

I hope he is serving cocktails on a tropical beach somewhere, but unfortunately I doubt that is true.
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Buy access to LexisNexis and if you can't find him there then he has disappeared.

It's incredibly difficult to just disappear unless you leave the country and say moved to Switzerland with access to million cash.
 
Slab City gets Police and Fire (rescue) visiting there on a semi frequent basis......
Donald said:
There is a place in Calif called "slab city". People go there to live off the grid and our out view of normal society. It's a bunch of old cement slab that all that is left from old army barracks (I think). No water or power. People camp there for months or years. I think there is cell phone service from a cell tower somewhere. They can go into a town to buy necessities. But I'll bet if one has a heart attack they rejoin society and go to an ER.

There was an episode of Seinfeld where Kramer went to the post office and said he wanted to give up his mailing address since with fax and email he no longer needed to get mail. They brought him in the back and grilled him that you cannot give up your mailing address and they did not want anyone telling people that mail was no longer needed.
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CKN said:
Slab City gets Police and Fire (rescue) visiting there on a semi frequent basis......
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Not a good hiding place. I stopped there last year and there were only a couple of RVs in Slab City It's a painted hillside in the desert with a parking lot and one rather strange attended with an even stranger cat. Any person sticks out like a sunburnt thum from a mile away. You can go fishing in the Salton Sea but how much toxic tilapia can you catch and eat? Gross. You'd have to go to town for water when you run out of urine.. Will you ride your motorized cooler through the desert? Only a few hundred people are living. if you go north along the Salton Sea shoreline you have to pass a border patrol checkpoint because of all the human trafficking in the area. Two out of ten vehicles I encountered were Five-0. People who want to disappear do so in the anonymity of large cities or in an absolutely remote pit where they can be somehow self-sufficient.
 
vavavroom said:
Not a good hiding place. I stopped there last year and there were only a couple of RVs in Slab City It's a painted hillside in the desert with a parking lot and one rather strange attended with an even stranger cat. Any person sticks out like a sunburnt thum from a mile away. You can go fishing in the Salton Sea but how much toxic tilapia can you catch and eat? Gross. You'd have to go to town for water when you run out of urine.. Will you ride your motorized cooler through the desert? Only a few hundred people are living. if you go north along the Salton Sea shoreline you have to pass a border patrol checkpoint because of all the human trafficking in the area. Two out of ten vehicles I encountered were Five-0. People who want to disappear do so in the anonymity of large cities or in an absolutely remote pit where they can be somehow self-sufficient.
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Theft is reported by those foolish enough to have a one night stopover there. And yes-zero drinkable water.
 
At my age, within the past few years I have had several personal friends that seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth, not because of anything nefarious, but because they passed away and either they or their family opted for a simple direct cremation without a funeral. In these cases there won't be an obituary unless someone pays to have one published and no amount of Google searching will turn-up where they are or what happened to them. In a couple of these cases I only found out about their passing because I ran into or contacted a close relative that gave me the information.
Where I live the price for a direct cremation through a crematorium is under $1000 without a service while a full funeral through a funeral home can be $10000 to $12000. I have opted for a direct cremation through a crematorium when I go because IMO the funeral home industry is a racket. My family needs the $9000+ more than a funeral home does.
 
wag123 said:
At my age, within the past few years I have had several personal friends that seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth, not because of anything nefarious, but because they passed away and either they or their family opted for a simple direct cremation without a funeral. In these cases there won't be an obituary unless someone pays to have one published and no amount of Google searching will turn-up where they are or what happened to them. In a couple of these cases I only found out about their passing because I ran into or contacted a close relative that gave me the information.
Where I live the price for a direct cremation through a crematorium is under $1000 without a service while a full funeral through a funeral home can be $10000 to $12000. I have opted for a direct cremation through a crematorium when I go because IMO the funeral home industry is a racket. My family needs the $9000+ more than a funeral home does.
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Some states now offer mulching as an alternative to burial or cremation. DE just approved it.
 
There was a guy on another forum I’m active on that completely disappeared as well. His company website was even bought and moved to another company. No record of his demise or a move exists.

Odd he just disappeared without any comment unless something g really bad happened.
 
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