4 ominous disappearances that were never solved

While it seems impossible for people to simply disappear from the face of the earth without a trace, it does happen - and a lot! So if you're a fan of intriguing disappearance mysteries that still have no definitive explanation, check out the four stories we've put together for you:

1 - Children of the Sodder Family

In 1945, on Christmas Eve, members of the Sodder family, Italian immigrants living in Fayetteville, West Virginia, were asleep when a fire broke out in the house, and five of the ten children living there were trapped upstairs. However, after firefighters extinguished the fire, no trace - like charred bodies or even bones - was discovered among the rubble.

And a succession of strange details surfaced during the investigations ... The Sodder couldn't call the fire department because the phones weren't working, and the children's father tried to get his truck closer to the house to access the upstairs, but the vehicle would not start. In addition, witnesses said they saw strangers prowling around the residence before the fire, and a bomb-like artifact was found in the garden.

Not to mention that days before the fateful fire, the family was visited by two strange men - one of them introducing himself as an insurance broker - who made direct threats to the Sodder because of antifascist comments the father of the family would have made around the city. Interestingly, this same broker participated in the process that determined the cause of the fire as accidental.

Later, a roadside waitress and a woman staying at a Charleston hotel told authorities that they had seen the children accompanied by a group of apparently Italian men who let no one approach the little ones. After 20 years, the mother of the children received a picture that supposedly showed one of their grown children, but none - not their bodies - were ever found.

2 - Ghost Airship

In the year 1942, Lieutenant Ernest Cody and Officer Charles Adams were patrolling the San Francisco area on an L-8 blimp when they radioed that they were on their way to the Farallon Islands to investigate an oil spill. A few hours later, the aircraft was sighted off the reported Daly City route and, after scraping over a few houses, the L-8 crashed to the ground.

When the accident witnesses rushed to the rescue, neither Cody nor Adams were on board. Upon investigating the case, the navy concluded that no parachutes or lifeboats were missing - only a few life jackets were missing - the radio and engines had no malfunctions. And apart from the gondola door being wide open, there was nothing wrong with the aircraft and no signs of fighting.

To this day it is not known what happened to the two military men - whether they were captured by Japanese or Nazi soldiers, jumped to their deaths along the sidewalk, were abducted by aliens ... -, and the ghost blimp accident became one of the most bizarre mysteries of World War II.

3 - Ben Padilla

Although we have the impression that the disappearance of aircraft is commonplace, especially after the extensive coverage we had on the subject during the year, the fact is that these events are relatively rare - and always very intriguing. This is the case involving Ben Padilla, an American aircraft mechanic who disappeared from the map with a Boeing 727 in 2003.

The disappearance came after Padilla went to Angola to oversee the refurbishment of an old 727. During a test in which the aircraft should only taxi down the runway to test the engines, the Boeing - occupied by the American and a Congolese named John Mikel Mutantu - took off towards the Atlantic with the transponder disabled and without asking permission or communicating with the tower.

The aircraft carried thousands of gallons of diesel, and although Padilla had a pilot's license, none of the men on board had sufficient experience to fly a 727. As far as anyone knows, Mutantu didn't even have a license. Witnesses said that before taking off, the plane zigzagged erratically down the runway, suggesting that some kind of fight occurred in the cabin.

The case was investigated by a number of security agencies, as it was feared that due to Boeing's charge the disappearance could be linked to a terrorist mission. However, despite this, curiously the FBI closed the case suddenly and without explanation in 2005, and neither Padilla, Mutantu or 727 were ever seen again. One theory is that Boeing owners have decided to halt the plane to receive insurance money, but the mystery persists.

4 - The Flannan Islands Lighthouse Trio

The last case on our list today is about the disappearance of three men who ran a lighthouse on the Flannan Islands off the coast of Scotland in 1900. The trio - formed by Thomas Marshall, James Ducat and Donald MacArthur - was supposed to stay in the tower for 14 days, however, passing boats realized that the lighthouse was not working, and soon a team was sent to investigate.

As you know, at that time lighthouses were instrumental in helping to steer vessels offshore and should always be in operation to prevent accidents. However, when the team reached the lighthouse, the investigators found the door locked and, inside the tower, they found unmade beds and a meal left untouched on the table.

At first, the researchers imagined that the three men could have been taken by sea during a heavy storm that had hit the region. But the hypothesis was ruled out after information was found in the logbook long after the storm. Besides, the trio were very experienced, and it is very strange to imagine that the men had gone out together, ignoring the rule of never, ever leaving the lighthouse alone.

What's more, why did they lock the lighthouse door if it was in an uninhabited place? The most widely accepted theory to date is that a huge and unexpected wave has hit the scene and taken the three men away, but will you know if the Loch Ness monster did not visit the trio during dinner?

* Originally posted on 10/30/2014.