The first question I would have to ask is why anyone would want to disappear? Well that’s just me: I like my life and I am happy, but there are many people in this world who would rather die than carry on the way they’re living. So there are countless reasons why someone disappears; it might be planned, accidental, or involuntary. In most cases when a person disappears, there are extenuating circumstances that indicate what kind of disappearance it is. The list of explanations is long, and below are just a few reasons why people would want to disappear:
• Many young children disappear because they wish to escape from child abuse, either emotional or physical (they usually end up being abused further).
• Teenagers may disappear because they fall in love with someone their family disapproves of, running away to live with their partner.
• Others—for a number of reasons—may wish to disappear and quietly commit suicide rather than carry on living.
• Many adventurers have disappeared, mainly due to accidents in the wild or at sea.
• Others plan to rid themselves of an unruly spouse or for financial gain, such as insurance fraud.
• Many individual travelers are robbed, raped, murdered, and their bodies disposed of.
• There is a huge market in human trafficking; people are sold into slavery or a life of prostitution. Most end up dead from a drug overdose or lying in a ditch with their head removed for disobedience.
•Some people disappear simply because the government wishes it—this might be a political rival or drugs baron with vast control over a specific region.
Abuse is a common occurrence with either husband or wife being to blame. Often, this creates the desire to walk out of the relationship.
The list is perhaps endless and the reasons are varied. Just because a person disappears, it should not be automatically assumed that they are dead. In many cases, missing persons do eventually return home, or their whereabouts become known. On the other hand, in certain circumstances it can be accepted that the person is actually dead. For example, some 2,600 American servicemen were listed as missing in action during the Vietnam War. These servicemen have a legitimate reason that explains their disappearance. While it is true that some might have been captured and held prisoner for many years, the majority were probably killed in a firelight and left behind to rot in the jungles of Vietnam. Their bodies were never discovered by anyone who had the time or inclination to find out the identity of the corpse.
A better known disappearance of an individual is that of aviator Amelia Earhart, who disappeared while flying over the Pacific in 1937. No wreckage was ever found and there was speculation that she had merely chosen to vanish. However, with her high public profile, this would have been virtually impossible for her to achieve. Given the circumstances and dangers inherent in her trip, it is far more reasonable to assume that she simply crashed into the sea and died.
Lord Lucan simply disappeared.
The point I am trying to make is that when a person disappears, circumstances around the disappearance, the person’s state of mind, and recent actions can contribute to legal presumption that the person has actually died. Where there are no circumstances to suggest a person is dead but that they have simply disappeared, then it is for the courts to rule on when that person is considered legally dead. This ruling will affect any estate the person has left behind, as well as any insurance claims. Therefore, while making your disappearance plan, you must factor in all the possibilities that could indicate you are simply missing and not dead, should you wish to leave any financial benefits such as pensions or insurance plans to your loved ones. Moreover, you must do this in such a way as not to arouse suspicion.
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Before we continue, I must stress that it is not illegal to disappear unless you are trying to avoid debt, have done something unlawful, or if you intend to defraud an insurance company, etc. The simple fact is that people go missing every day: In the United States alone, an astounding 2,300 Americans are reported missing every day, including both adults and children. As mentioned, in many cases there are circumstances surrounding the disappearance of a person that point to the reason he or she is missing. In addition to circumstance, there are other logical reasons for people to have disappeared, such as that they have committed murder, stolen money, accumulated large debts, and so on. For the majority of these people, their disappearance is controlled by the circumstances they find themselves in and it is not something they had time to plan in advance.
This book is dedicated to providing information for those who simply want to disappear and never be found again. In doing so, I have avoided the usual disappearing material found in most books on the subject and utilized my military background and the fact that I have traveled much of our wonderful planet. If it is your intention to completely disappear and never be found, then you need to make a proper plan. However, before you do this, there is one important consideration that most of us will have to face: leaving our loved ones behind. This has to be the toughest of all the decisions that need to be made; to leave one’s family, husband or wife, children, friends, mother and father, and never see them again.
No matter the reason for leaving, the thought of your loved ones will always be with you. Try to think how they will feel if you disappeared, never to be seen again. You may well have left some provisions to cover living expenses, but think of a young mother with children and her thoughts on how she is going to survive without you. Or a father who finds his wife has disappeared and is left with the children. How will they cope with going to work and looking after the children, especially if they’re very young?
Leaving loved ones behind must be the most difficult part of disappearing.
You must also consider when you disappear that your family will not know what actually happened to you. If your plan is being carried out with attention to detail and they have no suspicion of your intentions, then they will not understand the reason for your disappearance. They may think you’ve been killed in an accident, run off with another person, or even that you’ve been kidnapped. The point being, they will be left not knowing if you are alive or dead. Just think how many people your disappearance will affect: your direct family, your close friends, the insurance company, the police, the missing persons bureau—all of them will be looking to find you or confirm the means of your demise.
Before making any plan to disappear, it is better to first consider whether it is possible to change the circumstances that are driving you away. See whether it is possible to continue your present life and change it for the better. Change is always possible; victims of violence and people with heavy debts can always find help and guidance to make their present lives bearable. No matter what trouble you are in, there are many organizations—both in the United Kingdom and United States—that will help put your life together again or to put your problems in perspective.
At some time in our lives, we will all come face to face with a major problem that might not be of our own choosing and might even be forced upon us, but face it we must, for the alternative is not worth contemplating. Life, as precious as it is, can sometimes feel subordinate to death. So great is the feeling of helplessness that suicide comes to the forefront as an option to end the pain. Thankfully, there is always light at the end of the tunnel and things do work themselves out.
Author’s Note: In 1990, I separated from my wife after seventeen years of marriage. The fact that I loved my wife and freely admit that her leaving was due to my own adultery does not make the situation any easier. The children—my son, aged sixteen, and my daughter, aged fourteen—decided to stay with me and not go with their mother. So there I was, a single parent with no job and about to start work on building a new home, which we had planned for our family.
The first few days I just walked around in disbelief, while the children seem to bear their mother’s departure a lot better than I did it was the start of a horrendous six months. After about a week, I felt that my whole world had collapsed around me, and the hole in my chest seemed to get bigger day by day. It is difficult to describe those feelings to anyone other than those who have suffered a similar situation. Luckily, I had two children to look after and our new house to build, which occupied my mind. My son helped me with the house construction and my daughter continued to go to school. In the evenings I continued with my writing, hoping to finish my first book. If I’m honest, I really enjoyed looking after my children, as previously I spent most of my life away on military operations. After about three months, I started to get a feeling that there was something else out there pushing me toward a new purpose. Initially I thought I was going to win the National Lottery, and the feeling grew stronger by the day. What I didn’t realize is that it was being generated by my writing, something I had taken up each evening to alleviate my broken heart. At long last, after I had completed three books, I decided to send one to a publisher.
I had previously purchased a book titled How to Get Yourself Published and while this was a great read and offered lots of advice, it was difficult to see how it would get me into the world of writing. Then came the biggest shock of all: three days after I sent my first manuscript to Bloomsbury Publishing (the same people who publish Harry Potter in the UK), I received a telephone call from the managing director asking to see me. While on the telephone, I told him about the other two books and he asked me to bring them all up to London. Within less than two weeks I had a contract and a check for all three books, which set me on the path of my writing career.
The reason I tell you this is simple. No matter how bad your situation or your circumstances might seem, you never know what’s around the corner. For me, the feeling that was so strong inside me pushed me to become a writer; something I enjoy to this day that turned my whole life around. Actor Ben Affleck recently summed this up when he stated, “It doesn’t matter how you get knocked down in life, all that matters is that you get up.”
Do not try to fake your own death or pretend to have committed suicide by leaving your clothes on the seashore or disappearing from a ship. Leaving your personal effects behind always raises some suspicion of doubt, especially if there is a large insurance payout. There are cases where people have tried to disappear using someone else’s death—disfigured bodies caused by various accidents such as fire or long-term drowning at sea—to cover their tracks. I can assure you that this is not the path to take, as the true identity of any dead victim will soon be established and your disappearance discovered.
Faking your own death to collect life insurance is more common than we think, with thousands of people trying to outwit insurance companies every day. There are people who have killed people who look similar to themselves and claim the body is theirs. One guy even tried to take advantage of an insurance company when the Twin Towers were brought down by terrorists, claiming that his wife had been in one of the buildings.
Some people have gone to the extent of using a disfigured body as part of an elaborate insurance scam. Few succeed in fooling modern day forensics.
Unless you have a 100 percent waterproof plan to defraud insurance companies, I would suggest you don’t do it. No doubt there have been many successful cases where people have staged their own death and claimed the insurance. But if they exist we will never know for as far a society is concerned they are dead—or are known as someone else.
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Most people who run away from a serious crime and start another life in a different country usually turn to crime again, and their life becomes the same as it was before. More likely than not, their crimes will catch up with them and they will either be caught or will be on the run once more. Criminals will always be criminals; those who pursue a path of violence and easy money will never change. If you made a living selling drugs in America and then fled justice to live in Thailand, I would lay money down that sooner or later you will end up selling drugs in Thailand. If you get caught, you are in for a serious shock (believe me, the Bangkok Hilton is not a hotel), and the death penalty or life in jail is not a promising prospect.
Therefore, I do not intend to understand the reason why anyone would want to disappear and start a new life; I’m simply going to show you how to do it. I take no responsibility for what I write here; it’s just information I have gathered over the years, mainly from my SAS military service and travel experiences. I have spent much of my time in surveillance—both in urban and rural conditions—and you would be surprised at the many places I’ve found to hide for weeks or even months at a time. It is true that I had a support unit to provide food and water so I could remain at the observation point without being discovered, but the principles of hiding and not being discovered remain the same.
As mentioned above, people all over the world will find a reason why they would want to disappear. In addition to many of the obvious reasons, such as murder, debt, rape, depression, and so on, there are also many other reasons for leaving your identity behind. The world is full of places controlled by dictators, unrighteous regimes, police states, and governments practicing religious and sexual oppression. Citizens from these places would happily disappear just to rid themselves of the daily drudge under tyranny. For them, disappearing would mean freedom, even if it means trekking miles with crying children only to spend several years in a refugee camp—millions of people find themselves forced into this situation every year.
Sometimes people disappear and hardly anyone notices; these people are loners, divorced men or women who have already parted from their families, or people who have simply been working overseas for so many years that even close family have them only on the back–burner of their thoughts. For these people, it is simply a matter of clearing their public records as much as possible. Once again, if they have been working overseas for many years, this will be minimal.
In a few cases, people disappear through no fault of their own. Young people—especially girls—are kidnapped and shipped off to faraway places where they are used for sexual exploitation. Furthermore, their disappearance seems to be magical, with all traces of them wiped away. Despite massive media coverage, public awareness, rewards, and substantial police investigations, many young girls are simply never seen again. Madeleine McCann was just one instance when she disappeared while on vacation with her parents in Portugal .
Madeleine McCann disappeared right under her parents’ noses.
Madeleine McCann disappeared on the evening of Thursday, May 3, 2007 from the first–floor apartment where her family had been staying on vacation in Portugal. Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, told police they left the children in a ground– floor bedroom while they took their evening meal in a restaurant about 120 meters (400 feet) away. When the parents returned, they found that Madeleine was gone and immediately called the police. Despite a worldwide appeal and a reward of £2.5 million, not one single piece of factual information that would lead to how or why she disappeared has ever come to light.
I mention this here because it’s one of the “tradecraft” tools used by various government agencies to remove the identity of someone they have killed, and the person simply becomes a “John Doe.” This tradecraft is a skill used by a “clean-up” or “wet” team, whose job it is to make sure the body cannot be identified. This entails removing or disfiguring all body parts that might be on record, such as fingerprints, iris and the retina, teeth, or distinguishing body marks, such as tattoos and full facial scans. One or more of these potential leads could allow the public authorities to identify the dead body. Total disfigurement is the only way to overcome these identity biometrics. The most common method used is acid. If a strong solution of sulphuric acid is poured over the hands and face, it will totally eradicate the facial structure, including the eyes and enamel from the teeth, while also burning off fingerprints. An alternative to acid is removing the teeth with a hammer and dropping the body in the sea. Long-term (two weeks) exposure to marine life will certainly do the trick. Personally, I think it’s an awful lot of wet work to arrange and you must ask yourself if it’s really necessary. In many cases, government agents have not been so fussy and mass graves have been the norm for disposal of unwanted bodies.
There are many people out there who will offer to help you disappear, either by design or simply by selling you a how-to book. First of all, if you plan to disappear, never trust anyone other than yourself; never take written advice as gospel unless you have tested the methods personally.
It is possible to find agencies that will help you disappear in a way similar to how a witness protection program works. You are taken away to a safe house and protected until you are required to give testimony, after which point you are furnished with a new identity. The only thing I can say about individuals and companies offering services that will guarantee your disappearance is to be very careful. Most stipulate that you must travel to a foreign country and visit a specific address; you should not tell anyone you are going to disappear and neither should you say where you are going. Now how dumb do you have to be to actually do this?
Say for example, the company wishes you to travel to Bolivia and visit the town of Vallegrande; you should bring $10,000 with you, after which they guarantee you will disappear. Trust me, you will disappear and never be seen again. The trouble is that you will end up dead and buried in a hole someplace. So please don’t bother answering any advertisements that guarantee your disappearance as they will probably honor the guarantee.
Barry Davies
Disappearing service might be genuine, but would you want to take the chance?
Before you even think about disappearing and forming a new life, there are a few factors that will automatically govern your decision. Your lifestyle, age, ability, and skills will all affect any plans to disappear. As humans, we are all molded into various lifestyles. For example, you might work in the stock exchange and earn a great deal of money, or on the other hand, you might be a clerk working in a supermarket. This lifestyle mold is extremely hard to break, and while many believe they can always do better, it is a fact of life that we use the skills we have learned. Therefore, if you are a highflyer in your old life, you will have a tendency to be a high-flyer all your life. If you were a vehicle mechanic in your past, then you will certainly look for similar work in your new life—it’s just using the skills you have.
For example, it would be almost impossible for me to disappear completely and never be found. The reason being that I’ve written more than twenty-three books, most of which are for sale on the Internet. These I cannot retract or remove, and so I am doomed to always be Barry Davies. However, few people know what I presently look like, so I could change my name, get a new passport and driver’s license, and travel to a new country to start a new life. While all these things are possible, I would not be able to leave my family behind. It would be the same for anyone who has a lifestyle that is known to many others (to prove a point, I have managed to remove all but one image of me from the Internet, however, there remain hundreds of videos on YouTube).
Your age is also a vital factor when considering this. The majority of people who seriously consider this are generally between the ages of twenty-five and fifty. Many young people leave home because they’ve been abused by a family member. You can find these people on the streets of New York or London every day. They are wrapped in blankets, sleeping in shop doorways, and begging for money. While these people have run away, they have not disappeared; in addition, they are open to a whole range of abuses.
There also comes a time when you are just too old to disappear. If you have reached the good old age of, say fifty-five, it’s going to be hard, and by the age of sixty you will most likely be accustomed to your lifestyle. As we grow older, our bodies become frail and we might need medication or other state benefits, so disappearing becomes less of an option. No matter how strong your determination, motivation, and confidence may be, the body ages and there is a point at which the aging process will simply deny any further progress. As we get older we lose muscle weight, flexibility, and our bones become more brittle. At what stage this occurs differs in all of us and in most cases is dictated by our lifestyle. For some it will come early, while others can remain active into their eighties.
If you try to disappear when you are in your teens, you will have very little worldly experience, and you will be of a sexually attractive age and therefore very vulnerable. If life is so bad that you need to run away as a teenager, the best advice I can give is to move in with a relative or friend you can trust. If you have no one, then go to the authorities .
Between twenty and forty years old, you will be at your peak. Confidence and motivation will be at its highest. You will understand a more about the world and what makes it tick. This is the best age bracket in which to disappear.
If you’re forty and beyond then, you will need to look at what you have and what you are leaving behind. At forty or older, most of us are married, have children, have built a home, and maybe saved a little money for a rainy day. While it is still possible for you to disappear, my advice would be to first search for an alternative.
Beyond sixty, you have really waited too long to disappear. You may still have the drive and determination, but your body will start letting you down. Imagine if you decided to leave home one day and become a hobo—a year of being on the road will age you so fast you will end up looking ninety.
A very important requirement for being able to disappear must be the ability and skills you possess. For example, a soldier who has seen action around the world who is in his early thirties with no physical disabilities would have no problem disappearing just about anywhere on the planet. By comparison, a young mother of similar age, with two or more small children, would find it hard to even contemplate leaving her family behind.
Skills are something we have learned; these might be physical, such as being a mechanic, or practical, such as being a housewife working around the home—but they are all skills. A mechanic can find work in most countries and a housewife could easily turn her hand to working as a maid in a hotel. In each case, we understand how to do something. Most people have a lot of skills: some speak a foreign language, another may be proficient in a specialized subject such as sky diving or skiing, while others are professionals, such as doctors or soldiers. Anything you learn is a skill, and skills are crucial when it comes to disappearing. Skills give you confidence, can earn you money, and help you steal a car or pick someone’s pocket.
I have added a list of skills later in this book that might be worth learning if you intend to disappear. In their own context, none are illegal unless you use them for illegal purposes. These skills are intended more for the hobo section (Chapters Eight and Nine), whereby you will be living on your wits, cunning, and ability, rather than financial support.
You should also take into consideration your health. While you might be in perfect shape when you actually disappear, there is always the possibility that you will fall ill, contract some contagious disease, or be in an accident. If you are in your fifties, you might be on medication or showing signs of an age-related illness. In any case, you should always check what the medical facilities are like in any country you think of disappearing to. In addition, you should consider the cost if you are not a resident—hospital fees can be very expensive .
Author’s Note: A friend of mine, let’s call him George, went to Thailand and remains there to this day, happily married. What you don’t know is that in his first year there, George spent most of his money. Although he had found employment as a teacher almost right away, the appeal of the nightlife in Bangkok led him to go out most weekends, staying in hotels and over-indulging on alcohol and women (this happens a lot to those who have never been to Thailand before).
Barry Davies
George and his wife Whaw are happy despite the fact that George speaks little Thai and Whaw very little English.
Some eight months in, George purchased some locally made Viagra in the hope of increasing his waning love life. Sure enough, George took three tablets and was all set for a fantastic weekend. Some hours later, while lying in a hotel bedroom next to a beautiful young Thai woman, George’s chest suddenly gripped him like a vice. He had the good sense to get the girl out of there, jump in a taxi, and make his way home. But on the way home, the pain was so severe he asked the taxi driver to divert to the nearest hospital. This was perhaps the luckiest move George ever made, as had he not decided to leave the hotel, he probably would have died.
He told the doctors the truth and had immediate heart surgery with several stents implanted in his heart. He needed weeks off from work to recover, which nearly cost him his job. Moreover, he had to pay out the equivalent of $15,000, which put a huge hole in his disappearance fund.
The lesson here is not to be tempted into anything that could impair your health, deplete your financial reserves, or put your earning potential in jeopardy. George did learn from his mistakes, and took to providing private English lessons to supplement his school income. Today, this enables him to live a quiet and happy life with his beautiful wife (there will be more about George later).
In many cases, all some people need is a short-term disappearance to get their affairs in order. This disappearance might buy you time to collect enough money to pay off your debts or provide some space for you to reflect on your current situation should you be the victim of abuse. Many young teenagers run away because they do not get along with someone in the family home (or they are being abused). Most of these disappearances are short term because they do not really want to vanish; they simply want an end to the abuse or to change their living situation.
Disappearing for a short time is relatively easy. In most cases, people will simply stay with a close friend or distant relative. For those people who do not have either friends or family they can trust, it is always possible to find some location where they can hide and never be discovered. The problem is that most of those who disappear in the short term are young children or teenagers, and, without sounding detrimental to their generation, they give little consideration to where they will go or what they will do when they get there. Most of these young people flee without a thought; they have only a small amount of money for food and drinks, and at best a sleeping bag. I can offer little advice to these people other than to find a safe place after dark. Get away from the streets, get somewhere dry, and snuggle up in your sleeping bag or anything that will keep you warm. Come out onto the streets only during daylight hours. If you must beg for money, do so in a crowded area. Be aware that it’s not the general public and police you need to watch out for, but others living rough or those that want to exploit you.
If you are young and have run away from home for reasons known only to you, never be afraid to go to the police or call a close friend. Once reported, you will be relatively safe or placed in proper care. Being a young girl or boy on the streets is not the best of situations, so before you decide to leave home, please read the horrendous stories that have happened to others close to your age. There is always an alternative and help available.
Many teenagers run away from home and sleep rough when they disappear from home. Life on the streets for young boys and girls is no picnic.
While not directly related to disappearing completely, there is much to be learned from the methods used by Special Forces. The British SAS have long been revered for their ability to hide or enter undetected. This is due to a long history of constructing hides that have enabled the SAS to stay concealed for weeks at a time while observing their enemy. The first of these is called an observation post, or “OP” in military terms. The second is referred to as a “hide,” which is designed for staying behind enemy lines so they can attack the enemy in the rear. Years of painstaking training and refinement have created a set of simple rules for both the OP and the hide so they are never discovered.
An OP is a covert site from where enemy activity can be watched and intelligence gathered. The SAS are experts in setting up OPs and remaining in them for long stretches of time in the most hostile conditions. Sometimes they are in a rural situation and are constructed from natural materials to blend in with the surroundings. At other times they may be placed in an urban area, such as the loft space of a house or underneath a garden shed.
Wherever they are located, the rules for their construction remain the same. A site must be chosen that is not vulnerable to discovery and yet must also afford a good view of the target position. A concealed entrance and exit are also needed. High ground, although good for visibility, is an obvious spot and one that the enemy will search, so a less likely place is a better choice. Once the site has been chosen, the OP can be constructed under cover of night. It can be made out of any material: waterproof sheeting, ponchos, camouflage nets, and natural or locally available materials are all useful, as long as the end product blends in with everything around it and can’t be easily seen. OPs tend to be built either in a rectangular shape, where the patrol members lie in two pairs facing opposite directions, or in a star shape where each member takes up an arm of the star.
As OPs are often maintained for long periods at a time—during the Falklands War, one OP was maintained for twenty-six days—so they have to contain all that is necessary for the inhabitants to be self-sufficient, particularly if it is not possible for them to be resupplied. In addition to food, water, clothing, and sleeping bags, operational gear is also stored inside the OP: weapons, radio equipment, binoculars, night sights, cameras, and telescopes. This can make conditions cramped and uncomfortable; a situation often made worse by weather conditions. No sign of the men’s presence can be left since it may be discovered by an enemy. Therefore, even normally private functions such as urinating and defecating must be done in the OP into separate bags which are then sealed and taken away by the patrol members at the end of their operation. Other things that might not be appropriate in such a situation are smoking, cooking, and the wearing of deodorant or aftershave.
When living in such close conditions, it is essential that the men and women get along well. It also requires mental strength and the ability to get on with the job no matter how hard the conditions or how boring it might seem at times. However, these qualities are second nature to SAS soldiers.
© British Resistance Archive
A mock-up of an underground Operational Base at Parham Museum, Suffolk.
Although now obsolete, the MEXE shelter was used by the two Territorial (Reserve) Army units—21 SAS and 23 SAS—when they were deployed in the forward observation, or “hide role,” in Germany during the days of the Cold War. Designed to accommodate a patrol of four fully equipped men for a period of several weeks, it was installed underground in an excavation dug with the soil and turf being replaced thereafter to provide protection and camouflage. The main components were a steel frame, which had a load–bearing limit sufficient to support a vehicle crossing the ground above, and a prefabricated hatch unit, which provided entry to the shelter and a special skin. Once assembled, the frame was covered with the skin manufactured from a special composite fabric which was both waterproof and NBC agent (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) proof. The latter property also kept scent from permeating through to the surface of the ground, thus preventing tracker dogs from detecting the presence of the occupants.
Many of these hides exist to this day and have never been removed. I once found one in a forest in Southern Germany (I had been given its exact location), and after a great deal of searching, I managed to find the trap door. The whole area was so overgrown that the trapdoor blended in perfectly with the surrounding vegetation. Inside, the shelter was still dry and could have been used again if need be. The communications aerial ran up out of the hide, under the ground, and up the side of a tree, which took me a long time to locate. This particular hide was not designed for observation but as a stay-behind hide—in the event of the former Soviet Union and its allies overrunning Southern Germany during the Cold War. The idea was that the hidden SAS men would emerge and attack the Russian command centers from the rear. This was not a new idea, as during the early days of WWII, thousands of young British troops were hidden in caves and mines, sealed in with weapons, food, and ammunition. Churchill set up the British Resistance Organization (BRO) with the idea to hit the Germans in the rear should they manage to successfully invade the British Isles. Fortunately, this never happened as the RAF broke the back of the Luftwaffe and the invasion never took place. Once it was realized that it was safe, the caves and mines were unsealed and the men and weapons used to reform a new army, one which eventually invaded and defeated Hitler.
Just once in a while we do get to know what actually happened to people who have disappeared. While it is interesting to learn that the British Special Forces are able to stay in underground bunkers (MEXE Shelters) for weeks at a time, you may think this has little or no relevance in a book on How to Disappear. You would be wrong. If I had to disappear for a while, digging a hole and living in it is a perfect way. However, I would need to make sure my hole were sufficient to support life. The former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussain was found in a concealed hole and only discovered due to the massive bounty on his head. But there is a far better portrayal of living underground and undiscovered, not for a few weeks but for twenty-four years. Unfortunately, this story is true and ranks as one of the most revolting crimes ever committed in recorded history.
Elisabeth Fritzl was abused by her father when she was just eleven years old. By the time she was eighteen, he had incarcerated her below ground. For twenty-four years, Josef Fritzl kept his daughter, and three of the seven children he incestuously fathered with her, locked away in a secret maze of underground rooms he’d built below his Austrian home. Josef Fritzl told his wife that their daughter had run off to join a cult, and for the next quarter of a century, he led two lives: one upstairs with his wife and one below the family home where he repeatedly raped his daughter. Elisabeth endured the rapes and subsequent births for twenty-four years before being discovered. Had one of the children not been seriously ill, she may have lived out her life in her underground tomb.
Of the seven children, one died at birth, three remained with Elisabeth, and three were taken upstairs by Josef Fritzl. His explanation for the children’s appearance was that they had been left on his property—no one seemed to question the periodical appearance of children in the family home, not even his wife. The remaining three, a girl, aged nineteen, and two boys, aged eighteen and five, remained with their mother, buried alive, within the confines of a small apartment.
Josef Fritzl hid and abused his daughter below ground for more than twenty-four years.
It was April 19, 2008, before Josef Fritzl’s secret was discovered. Their eldest daughter became ill and Elisabeth somehow managed to persuade her father to take the girl to the hospital. The authorities became suspicious when Fritzl produced a letter supposedly written by his daughter. It looked false and provoked suspicion, leading to the case of missing Elisabeth being reopened. The report of her disappearance was televised and Elisabeth actually watched it in her underground cell. The next time her father visited her, she pleaded with him to let her go to the hospital. On April 26, he allowed Elisabeth and the other two children upstairs, explaining to her mother that she had decided to come home after all these years. She then went with her father to the hospital to see her daughter, at which time the doctors tipped off the police and both were held for questioning. Elisabeth would say nothing to the police until they promised her that she would never have to see her father again. Then she told them of her twenty-four years of captivity.
Although they suffered massive psychological and medical problems from their captivity, Elisabeth and the three children survived. If nothing else, this horrific story goes to prove that humans, given the right conditions, can disappear for years.
Some people, for reasons known only to them, go into voluntary exile. Some do so because they think others are after them and mean to do them harm; others do it just for a change of lifestyle. Self-exile is the same as disappearing, but without trying to cover your tracks.
In the United Kingdom, a middle-aged man named Philip Sessarego pretended that he had been a member of the British Special Forces (SAS). He wrote a book about SAS undercover operations in Afghanistan using the pen name Tom Carew. In fact, he had never been a member of the SAS (although he had been a failed candidate of selection) or anywhere near Afghanistan, and the whole book was a complete piece of fiction. Even so, some of what he had written was extremely close to the truth with regards to SAS operations, because Sessarego had read and done research into the way the British SAS operated. His book, titled Jihad, gave him two years of fame before it was exposed as a hoax. The reason it took so long to uncover Sessarego as a fantasist was that the SAS says very little and never comments on any of its operations.
Convinced he would face assassination for exposing some of the techniques used by the British Special Forces, he disappeared to the Belgian city of Antwerp. Here he rented a lock-up garage and, using survival techniques that he formerly claimed to have mastered in the SAS, simply disappeared. His decomposing body was found by the landlord some months after he had died. The lock-up contained jerry cans of water, a small stove, and some basic sleep equipment. There was also a loaded pistol by his side. There were no signs of foul play, and it is believed he died by inhaling carbon monoxide fumes from his stove. Despite this, there was much speculation about his decomposing body, which was unrecognizable. Some of his family members believe that the body was not his and that it was just another elaborate plan to fake his own death. DNA samples were taken from family members in order to finally establish the identity of the body as his. His death left few people grieving as he was a man who made a lot of enemies and few friends.
“I wouldn’t care if somebody killed him, because he brought it all on himself,” said Claire, his daughter, in a recent interview, adding that there were “a lot of former SAS men” who had scores to settle with him and would be happy to have murdered him. So what had the soldier done to merit such hatred? Simple: He was regarded as a traitor and an “SAS wannabe” who had failed The Regiment’s selection process, yet claimed throughout his military career that he was a member of the legendary British military elite.
Philip Sessarego played at being British Special Forces, but he died a sad and lonely death.
George (mentioned earlier in this chapter) is another example of self-exile. He got divorced in the UK, lost his job, and ended up as a truck driver. Once a month or so I would meet him for a drink and he was so melancholy about his lost love (ex-wife), that it was painful to be with him. In the end, I took the initiative and told him to snap out of it and go to Thailand for a vacation. Some months later, he did. He then returned home to the UK, only to go back to Thailand the next month and then the month after that (Thailand has that effect on sorry souls).
The next time I met George, he was full of beans and told me of his plan: He would take a TEFL course and learn how to teach English to Thais. When qualified, he would sell his house and move to Thailand, maxing out his line of credit to raise cash before he left. There was no talking him out of it, as he had met the woman of his dreams, a twenty-one-year-old Thai girl who worked in a bar, and he was set on marrying her.
George, who was fifty-eight at the time, did exactly as he planned and departed the shores of home for Asia some months later. He walked into a good job at a Thai school the second day after he arrived (he still works there), and met up with his Thai beauty. It took him a year to adjust and realize the girl was just a barfly working in Bangkok. Today, eight years later, George has found a wonderful Thai wife who is also a teacher, and they live happily in a small house to the north of Bangkok. I see him from time to time, and have never seen a happier man and wife.
Finally, before you disappear, there are other questions you will seriously need to consider. In addition to your age and your physical condition, do you know where you are going and how you’re going to get there? How are you going to raise the money? Will you need to change your identity? What happens if people come looking for you? What if you leave with nothing? Can you survive as a hobo? What plans do you have for your new life? All these questions will play a major part in where you go, how you get there, and what you do after you have disappeared.
With social networking, the Internet, credit cards, and so on, the world is not a wilderness anymore, and it’s not that simple to disappear and never be found. For example, you would think it would be easy to disappear into vast wastelands of Australia, but it’s not! Within a month of anyone going missing, more than 95 percent are actually located. Check out the link below, as this will give you some ideas: australianmissingpersonsregister.com
In order to disappear and never be found, it will take detailed planning and preparation—you will need a heart of cold steel to leave your loved ones—but most of all, you will need skills to make you plan work.