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Going Off the Grid: How to Disappear and Not Be Found

Photo Credit: GettyImages

You often hear people saying they are going to “disappear,” “lay low,” or even “fall off the grid” so that no one will be able to find them. Believe me, as a retired special forces soldier I know I have made my fair share of enemies around the world, and because of that I have spent more than just a little time thinking of ways to stay off the radar. I can tell you that if someone is determined to find you in today’s technologically advanced world, and they have the tools and knowledge to back them up, staying “unfound” is no easy feat. That said, it is not impossible. If you have the discipline and resources to do it the way I tell you to, you just might pull it off!

If your reason for bugging out is more complex than a SHTF scenario and your intent is to basically disappear and not be found in order to assure your personal survival, then you should try to buy yourself some time and stack the deck in your favor. If, for instance, you are running from an individual, group, or organization, then I will start by saying that to do it right, disappearing off the grid will take time and extreme discipline. If possible, you would need to slowly distance yourself from everyone in your life—friends, associates, family, even pets—until there is no expectation on anyone’s part that you are going to try to contact them any time soon; this will help mitigate the chances of anyone coming to look for you or to contact you through the people in your life. Now if I were bugging out because some person or people were looking for me, then there are certainly some additional actions I would take. The first thing I would do is pull the proverbial plug. What do I mean by that? I would close all of my social media accounts and disconnect every single piece of electronics that I owned to remove any source of power to those items. Generally speaking, on the higher end of the spectrum only the government, the military, law enforcement, and foreign government agencies or entities will have access to the technology to find you from any sort of electrical or electronic signature that you may be unknowingly emitting. That said, on the lower end of the spectrum, anyone can get onto Facebook or check to see where a phone call originated from. As a rule of thumb, the more you are “linked in,” the more chances there are that you will be found through the use of technology.

If you think someone may be trying to actively find you and you don’t want them to, then you will need to take a few other things into consideration. If you have a later model vehicle, then you may not even know that it has certain theft and or emergency alert hardware that allows it to send a signal out, giving your exact location and in some cases even the ability to talk or listen to you theoretically without your even knowing about it. If you don’t know how to disable or remove that hardware and you know or suspect that the person or people looking for you have the resources to tap into this type of technology, then I would suggest you leave the 2018 loaded SUV behind and get used to cranking down your window with a handle. One other caveat would be to make sure your vehicle is in good running condition, all the lights and other things that make it street legal are 100 percent and, if practical, travel with enough fuel to get you to where you are going so as to minimize stops and to mitigate the risk of being pulled over. Also remember to use back roads, as main roads often have cameras at toll stops and overpasses that will record your license plate number. Another thing to remember if you’re trying to bug out and don’t want to be found is public transportation. When it comes to choosing to use public transportation when you bug out, it really depends on why you are bugging out and who is looking for you. If you are bugging out because you are trying to get away from an abusive ex or something like that, and as long as the government is not actively looking for you, then I highly suggest you use public transportation. It is much harder to leave a trail for the average person to follow when traveling on a bus. The situation and the advice would be different in other cases and it all depends on the level of technological capabilities and assets possessed by the person or people who are trying to find you.

Now if you think someone is looking for you and your desire is to not be found, then the location you choose to bug out to can’t belong to you or be associated with your. Avoid using a friend’s property, since anyone who is aggressively trying to find you would surely follow that rabbit trail. I would suggest state or government forest/protected land, as it is the best way to hide right underneath someone’s nose, but you have to go deep in and leave a low signature. Beware of park rangers and making any contact with anyone, as human contact outside of the person or group you are with (if you’re not alone) is your weak link when it comes to not being found. The bottom line is that if you own an off-grid location or if someone you know owns the property, then it can lead a persistent pursuer to find you. All of that being said, not everyone is skilled enough or even willing to live alone in the wilderness, so if you plan to travel to an undisclosed location and continue to live within the confines of some sort of community or society, then you will at a minimum want to do the best job you can at disguising your appearance. Stay away from anything that requires you to use your real name. I would also suggest you stay away from credit cards and stick to cash to make your purchases. In addition to all of that, you can use prepaid cell phones, but remember that someone could still trace you back to the closest cell tower from where you made your calls. You may want to use a trusted intermediary to be the go-between to transmit and receive information so that nobody ever has a direct link to your location; particularly if those looking for you are persistent and savvy in their search for your whereabouts. I’m not going to go into any more detail on changing your identity in this book, but if you want to learn more you can read the work that I and others have written on the topic in other books, as well as online.

OTHER DO’S AND DON’TS WHEN YOU WANT TO DISAPPEAR AND NOT BE FOUND

Keep your mouth shut! Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead, so try to limit who knows where you are going to the absolute minimum. Even then, unless they are actually to meet with you there, don’t tell anybody where you are going or what’s your plan is.

Cash is King! Slowly withdraw all of your bank accounts until they are empty and then close them one by one. You need to understand that part of not being found is that it is safest to be a cash-only type of person from that day forward. That means that if you are retired and receive a pension, if you get settlement money, child support, or an inheritance, none of those funds can be withdrawn if it is your intent not to be found, especially if the person looking for you has the knowledge and placement to access your financial transaction information. If you have no choice but to get money from your bank, then, in order to minimize the chance of future sightings, you should attempt to take out as much money as you are able to get in small bills. This is one of the reasons that going off the grid and disappearing is so difficult to do these days and why making such a decision is such a catastrophic event. In many cases the amount of time a person is capable of staying off the grid is directly proportional to the amount of cash he is able to get in his possession.

Drones like this Raven-B that is being flown by one of the author’s teammates after a firefight were often used by SF soldiers to get a Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) during lulls in fighting.

Stay away from debit and credit cards. Every time you use an ATM machine or you go into a store and buy something, you leave a video and electronic signature that you were there, allowing whomever may be searching for you with a virtual road map of your direction of travel and your last known location. That’s why your best bet is to pre-plan as much and as far in advance as is humanly possible. You want to purchase your gear from multiple locations and with cash. Spread those purchases out over weeks or months if feasible. If money is going to be needed where you are going, then take cash with you. Again, time can only help you in this case, because if you purchase the gear you need slowly over time, you won’t leave as bold of a signature than if you spend $5000 in one trip to REI.

BE AWARE: “BIG BROTHER” MAY BE WATCHING

If you are bugging out from a technologically superior adversary, then you should be aware of the fact that street cameras and store cameras are literally everywhere nowadays. Facial recognition technology has come a very long way since it was first introduced and the number of locations that are covered by cameras that are recording live video by both public and private entities has increased greatly. It is close to impossible to walk or drive anyplace in many of the more populated places in the US without being recorded, and any recorded video can be interrogated by facial recognition software. If you suspect that the person looking for you could have the knowledge and placement to tap into those systems, then your best bet is to either stay out of public completely or, if that is not an option, then consider distorting your appearance so that it will be difficult to recognize your key facial features such as eyes, nose, chin, and ears in the event that the your facial image is captured on video.

TECHNOLOGY IS A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD

While watches, smart phones, computers, and other “smart” technology does a great job of helping to keep you in contact with friends and family and perform a plethora of other functions, from telling time and accessing weather data to staying in shape, they also often have GPS technology that can alert anyone who is looking for you as to where you are and where you have been. I am not saying to throw away your iPhone or laptop, I am just saying that if you don’t have an in-depth knowledge of the technology that you possess to a point where you feel secure that your devices will not inadvertently give away your location to those seeking to find, then you must either counter the capabilities of those looking for you or don’t take the chance with any device that has a GPS, beacon, radio signal, IP address, or any other function that could ping your location out into the atmosphere.

A PICTURE SAYS A THOUSAND WORDS

You need to consider the five W’s when it comes to photographs: who, what, where, when, and why. If you don’t want someone who may be searching for you to know any of the W’s, then you need to try to eliminate any traces that such a picture ever existed. When you bug out, just know that if someone is looking for you, they can get a ton of information just by looking at photos you left behind, and that they could be used as powerful tools in trying to determine your current location. Because of this, it is smart to destroy all your hard copy photos that you don’t take with you and to delete any photos you currently have posted online. Of course, it should go without saying that once you bug out you want to stay away from having your picture taken to the best of your ability.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IDENTIFICATION

If you are trying to disappear, there are pros and cons to whether or not you should keep all of your identifying documents and ID cards or if you should destroy them. One thing for certain is that you should never leave those papers behind. If your plan is to create a new identity, then you may want to keep those documents to assist you in the process, but changing your identity is a completely different and separate class of instruction, so I’ll save it for another book. Bottom line is that all of those documents contain clues that can help lead a pursuer to your location, so you need to take measures to ensure they never get that opportunity.

To sum it up, if you really want to fall off the grid and not be found, your first step should be to disconnect yourself from all electronic gadgets and tools like laptops, cell phones, and debit or credit card charges, and try to avoid being filmed by ATMs, street cameras, and other surveillance systems. At this point you have a choice to either travel deep into the wilderness and live off the land, leaving as low of a signature as possible, or, if living off the land is not your thing or you simply do not possess the skills to do so successfully (as most people do not), you need to find someplace to live where you can pay cash to live and buy all of the things you need to live with a cash-only rule. Remember to always take steps to disguise or distort your appearance in any way that you can. Between wigs, clothing, make up, prosthetics, and a few other creative props, you can do a decent job of this without spending a fortune. As you can see, there is a lot more that goes into bugging out and falling off the grid when your survival depends on not being found than most people have or ever will take into consideration.