Posted 14 October 2008 - 11:49 PM
The most famous case is of course the Roanoke one:
Written By: Shaman Cougar
The Roanoke Colony
The Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island in Dare County in present-day North Carolina was an enterprise financed and organized by Sir Walter Raleigh in the late 16th century to establish a permanent English settlement in the Virginia Colony. Between 1585 and 1587, groups of colonists were left to make the attempt. The final group disappeared after a period of three years elapsed without supplies from England, leading to the continuing mystery known as "The Lost Colony."
As the ships anchored at Hatoraske, smoke was seen rising on Roanoke Island, giving hope that the colonists were still alive. On the morning of the 16th, Governor White, Captain Cooke, Captain Spicer, and a small company set forth in two boats for Roanoke Island. En route they saw another column of smoke rising southwest of "Kindrikers mountes." There are no mountains on this coast, except the great sand dunes. Perhaps the smoke was coming from the general area occupied today by the Nags Head dunes. They decided to investigate this latter smoke column first. It was a wearisome task that consumed the whole day and led to nothing, since no human beings were at the scene of the woods fire.
The next day, August 17, they prepared to go to Roanoke Island. Captain Spicer and six other men were drowned in the treacherous inlet when their boat capsized. Despite this unfortunate occurrence, White was able to proceed with the search. They put off again in two boats, but before they could reach the place of settlement it was so dark that they overshot their mark by a quarter of a mile. On the north end of the island they saw a light and rowed toward it. Anchoring opposite it in the darkness, they blew a trumpet and sang familiar English tunes and songs, but received no answer. In the morning they landed on the north end of the island and found only the grass and sundry rotten trees burning. From this point they went through the woods to that part of the island directly opposite Dasamonquepeuc on the mainland, west of the north end of Roanoke Island, and from there they returned by the water’s edge round about the north point of the island until they came to the place where the colony had been left by Governor White. From the description just given of White’s itinerary, this place must have been near the shore on the north end of the island on the east side, i. e., at or near the present Fort Raleigh National Historic Site. In the course of the long walk along the shore, nothing of interest was seen except footprints, which two or three natives had made in the sand during the night.
As they climbed the sandy bank toward the settlement area, they found CRO carved in Roman letters on a tree at the brow of the hill. Going from there to the site of the dwelling houses, they found all of the houses taken down and the area strongly enclosed with a palisade of tree trunks, with curtains and flankers "very Fort-like." One of the chief trees, or posts, had the bark peeled off, and carved on it in capital letters was the word CROATOAN, but without the maltese cross or sign of distress that White had asked the settlers to use in such messages in the event of enforced departure from Roanoke Island. On entering the palisade, they found iron and other heavy objects thrown about and almost overgrown with grass, signifying that the place had been abandoned for some time.
From the fort and settlement area, White proceeded again along the shore southward to the "point of the creek" (i. e., the point of Shallow Bag Bay or, as it was called in 1716, "Town Creek"), which had been fortified with "Falkons and small Ordinance" and where the small boats of the colony were habitually kept, but could find no sign of any of these things. Then, on returning to the fort and settlement area, White searched for certain chests and personal effects, which he had secretly buried in 1587. The Indians had discovered the hiding place, had rifled the chests, torn the covers off the books, and left the pictures and maps to be spoiled by rain. Considering that Gov. John White was probably John White the artist and illustrator of the expedition of 1585-86, one can imagine his feelings on seeing his maps and pictures irretrievably ruined. However, according to his own words he was cheered at the thought that, as indicated by the word CROATOAN on the palisade post, "a certain token," his daughter, granddaughter Virginia Dare, and the colonists would be found at Croatoan Island, where Manteo was born and where the Indians had been friendly to the English.
As stormy weather was brewing, White and his little group returned in haste to the harbor where their ships were at anchor. Next day they agreed to go to Croatoan Island to look for the colonists but the weather would not permit. They planned to go to the West Indies instead, where they would have taken on fresh water and ultimately have returned to Croatoan. However, the elements willed otherwise and they were blown toward the Azores. From Flores in this group, they made their way to England.
Governor White could not finance another expedition to America himself, and Raleigh, although enjoying a large income at times, spent lavishly. As late as 1602, Raleigh was still seeking in vain for his lost colony. In that year he sent out an expedition under Samuel Mace, who reached land some "40 leagues to the so-westward of Hatarask," presumably at or near Croatoan Island. Here they engaged in trading with the Indians along the coast. They probably did not look as diligently as they should have for the lost colonists, because they alleged that the weather made their intended search unsafe. On August 21, 1602, in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil, Raleigh expressed his undying faith in the overseas English Empire which he had attempted to establish, saying, “. . . I shall yet live to see it an English Nation." The memory of the Lost Roanoke Colony by that time had become an imperishable English tradition. After the establishment of the Jamestown settlement in Virginia in 1607, the Virginia colonists evidenced an almost constant interest in trying to learn from the Indians the whereabouts of the Roanoke settlers. However, the hearsay data they collected were never sufficiently concrete to be of any real assistance in locating Raleigh’s men, and the answer remains a mystery to this day.
Link to full article here
and that article contains a few more.
Any mundane theories? Any paranormal theories? aliens? mass suicides? Time warps or small black holes maybe?
Does anyone know of any other stories about mass disappearances of people, places, or things?
Posted 15 October 2008 - 05:32 AM
But mass dissapearances... definately aliens... anyone who goes missing its aliens. j/k
I doubt mass dissapearances are caused by mass suicides, because of the lack of bodies and stuff. More than likely while they were travelling they got lost and fell down a hole or something.
Or maybe the people had had enough of the man who was in charge rulings and took themselves someplace where the Govener couldnt find them.
Posted 15 October 2008 - 07:42 AM
Movies made, school assignments and programs touching on the subject. To my recollection none mentions the fact the letters carved into the tree could have been referring to Croatoan Island. There fleeing to another location makes allot more scene than being spirited off by forces un-known.
The lack of bodies seems to eliminate there having committed mas suicide or murder.
I would guess that it was allot easier to loose large groups of people back then. The recourses just weren't there to spend on long drawn out search parties.
Thanks for posting that article, I thought it was very interesting.
Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead.*-- Scottish Proverb
Posted 15 October 2008 - 09:44 AM
I've always wondered about "Black Holes" in googling it I found this article about it "devouring" 150 people...
A group of 150 people disappeared within one minute
Witnesses clearly saw that a glimmering cloud shrouded the people who entered a small valley. Then the foggy mass lifted off and disappeared in the blue carrying along the first battalion of the 5th Norfolk regiment of the British army - all soldiers to a man were gone...
Vanished in a cloud
The event which occurred on August 21, 1915, when an entire battalion was gone in the presence of other people, had been an official secret for over fifty years. Only in 1967 the documents containing the testimonies of twenty witnesses to this incident, which happened in the Southern Europe near Dardanelles, were made public. A long search for the vanished soldiers was mounted. But none of them had been found neither among the dead, nor among the POWs released by Turks after the war.
Mass disappearances of people are among the mysteries in the world history which are most hard to explain. So far scientists cannot offer a lucid explanation for such strange things, as the disappearance in 1590 of about a hundred men, women and children, who lived in an American colony on Roanoke Island. When the soldiers marched in the village, they saw burning candles and tables set for meal in the huts, but with no settlers around. The first idea was that Indians had killed them, but no drop of blood or dead body could be found anywhere. Only a few words were left carved seemingly in great haste on a tree near the priest's house reading "it doesn't look like... ".
The search for six hundred inhabitants of the settlement Hoer-Verde in Brazil, who disappeared on February 5, 1923, was given up a long time ago. The police thoroughly examined the vacated small town. At school, they noticed a gun, which was apparently used the day before, lying on the floor and words "there is no salvation” written on a blackboard.
“We can only guess why such mysteries happen, but so far we have failed to find any scientific explanation for them,” said Zong Li, Doctor of History from Harbin, who had been investigating cases of mass disappearances in China for many years. “Well, how can the disappearance of 3, 000 Chinese soldiers near Nanking, where they held their positions on a December night in 1937, be explained? Next morning, radio communication with this unit was suddenly lost, and a reconnaissance group dispatched quickly did not find any trace of the people. It appeared as if they had deserted, but around there were posts of armed guard and the soldiers could not escape unnoticed. Recently, an investigation in the city archive produced evidence of the 12th company 100 strong of the Soviet NKVD forces disappeared in November 1945. The group was heading for the railway station and did not come back. A search yielded only slight traces like tents put up for a halt, or an extinguished fire. That same year, a train carrying hundreds of passengers traveling from Guandun to Shanghai was lost halfway to its destination, leaving not a single nut. Where might all the passengers have gone?
Or do things worth the writing.
Posted 15 October 2008 - 11:46 AM
Posted 15 October 2008 - 03:23 PM
Posted 19 October 2008 - 07:43 AM
that was the one where the colony "disappeared" and when people went to check it out they found blue-eyed white native Americans on Croatan Island which was nearby.
Roanoke is #5 on the list.
Also, on the black hole disappearances. It sucks and is oddly hilarious that a good majority of the mass disappearance sightings stopped around the time video cameras came about.
Edited by Señor Hugo, 19 October 2008 - 07:45 AM.
Posted 21 October 2008 - 11:17 AM
I'd always suspected that the "search party" wasn't really searching for the Roanoke settlers, so much as scouting for another location for a new settlement. For all the "catastrophes" to have worked to keep the "search party" from looking for answers on Croatoan (in a timely manner) seems to be so mind-boggling, it seems almost unreal.
Unfortunately, this does seem to be one of those mysteries that will always be such: a mystery.
It is a great story, though...if anybody really likes that sort of thing. Thanks Shawn, for writing about it (and reminding me about it)!
Edited by meanderer, 21 October 2008 - 11:19 AM.
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