What are some of the strange cases of people who disappeared without a trace?

 For example, the following cases:

1. El primer teniente Felix Eugene Moncla Jr.

He was a U.S. Air Force pilot who was sent by plane to intercept an air defense over Lake Superior, on the border with Canada, in 1953. According to official reports, he left Kinross Air Force Base to intercept an aircraft that had strayed off course, however… the Canadians had no record of any aircraft in the area that night.

Radar operators reported receiving one light signal, then a second; then the two merged. After that, no trace of the Moncla F-89 jet was recovered, neither on land nor in the lake; it simply vanished. The theory that circulated widely was that it had encountered a UFO.

2. Ray Gricar

In April 2005, this man, a Pennsylvania district attorney, called his girlfriend to say he was going for a drive and would be back soon. He never returned. His car was found parked outside a nearby antique shop, while his laptop was discovered in a local river. There was never any sign of him, and it is unknown whether he was kidnapped and murdered because of his high-profile job.

3. Kenny Veach

In November 2014, Veach disappeared while trying to find a hidden cave. In a comment on a YouTube video, he mentioned that he accidentally found an "M"-shaped cave in the Nevada mountains near Nellis Air Force Base. He posted that upon finding it, he was so frightened that he ran away, unable to remember the location.

A month later, he left another comment on the same video, stating that he was going to go looking for the cave again. That was the last anyone heard from him.

4. Rebecca Coriam

In 2011, Rebecca was working on the Disney Wonder cruise ship, which departed Los Angeles en route to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. In the middle of the ocean, Rebecca failed to show up for her 9:00 a.m. shift. When the staff went to her cabin, she was gone. The only evidence of Rebecca's disappearance was a large amount of surveillance footage showing her on the phone, and then nothing more—she simply vanished. The ship returned to its course, and the Coast Guard conducted a search, but found no trace of her. Her parents had to accept the fact that she had mysteriously disappeared. But then things got even stranger…

Weeks after her disappearance, someone changed her Facebook password and tried to access her bank accounts. Then, a former coworker told her parents that the cruise line had instructed them to deny that her disappearance had occurred.

5. Conor and Sheila Dwyer

This is one of the most mysterious missing persons cases in Irish history. An elderly couple, Conor and Sheila, attended a funeral mass in the town of Fermoy. Afterward, they got into their car and presumably drove home… but they never arrived.

After a few weeks of not hearing from them, Sheila's sister went to their house and found the door locked. Inside, all their belongings were untouched (clothes, passports, money, etc.); the only things missing were the clothes they had been wearing that night and their car.

What are some of the most interesting cases in medicine?

 This case was published in PsyCh Journal in 2015 under the title “Sight and blindness in the same person”. When I first read it I couldn't even believe that something like this was even possible. It is one of the best documented cases of mind body connection ever recorded.

Here is the case of a German woman named BT.

BT suffered from Dissociative identity disorder and was under the treatment of Dr. Bruno Waldvogel. She had at least 10 different personalities each with a different name, gender, voice and temperament.

4 years into her treatment something happened that stunned Dr. Waldvogel. BT, while in the personality of a teenage boy picked up a magazine and started to read.

Nothing shocking right?

But BT was Blind and had been that way for the past 13 years. At the age of 20 she suffered a traumatic accident which doctors initially diagnosed as brain damage to her visual processing centres, the reason they believed she had permanently lost all sight.

So how was she able to see suddenly? How was this even possible?

To investigate this, an EEG was placed on BT's visual cortex to measure her response to visual stimuli. It turned out that BT's vision was switching on and off based on her current personality. This ruled out any possibility of faking as humans cannot control visual cortex electrical activity. It turned out her blindness was never physical, it was psychological.

After intense therapy 8 out of her 10 personalities regained full sight while 2 personalities remained blind. Doctors believed the blind states served as a protective trauma mechanism.

BT's case remains one of the most fascinating in modern times. It serves as a reminder that human brains are capable of extraordinary things much of which is yet to be fully understood.

What are some of the toughest cases that CBI has cracked?

 Noida Double Murder Case

In May 2008, the nation was shocked with the sensational double murders in Noida. The victims were Arushi Talwar and Hemraj Banjade. Initially, there was no clarity about the motive or the perpetrator of this ghastly crime. After a lengthy investigation which spanned close to 6 years, the CBI based on circumstantial evidence established that the parents of Aarushi Talwar, Rajesh Talwar and Nupur Talwar were the perpetrators of this crime. Based on CBI's finding's, on 25 November 2013, a special CBI court held Rajesh and Nupur Talwar guilty for the two murders.

The evidence based on which the conviction was made is quoted below -

"From the evidence as tendered by the prosecution in form of oral and documentary evidence this court reaches to the irresistible and impeccable conclusion that only the accused persons are responsible for committing this ghastly crime as the following circumstances unerringly point towards the hypothesis of guilt of the accused," the 210-page order said while pointing out 26 circumstances leading to the conviction.

1. That on the fateful night of May 15 and 16, 2008 both the accused were last seen with both the deceased in Flat No. L-32, Jalvayu Vihar at about 9.30 P.M. By Umesh Sharma, the driver of Rajesh Talwar;

2. That on the morning of May 16, 2008 at about 6.00 A.M. Aarushi was found murdered in her bed-room which was adjacent to the bedroom of the accused and there was only partition wall between two bed-rooms;

3. That the dead body of the servant Hemraj was found lying in the pool of blood on the terrace of flat no. L-32, Jalvayu Vihar on May 17, 2008 and the door of terrace was found locked from inside;

4. That there is a close proximity between the point of time when both the accused and the deceased persons were last seen together alive and the deceased were murdered in the intervening night of May 15 and 16, 2008 and as such the time is so small that possibility of any other person(s) other than the accused being the authors of the crime becomes impossible;

5. That the door of Aarushi's bed-room was fitted with automatic click-shut lock. Mahesh Kumar Mishra, the then S.P. (City), NOIDA has deposed that when he talked to Rajesh Talwar on May 16, 2008 in the morning, he had told him that in the preceding night at about 11.30 P.M. he had gone to sleep with the key after locking the door of Aarushi's bed-room from outside. Both the accused have admitted that door of Aarushi's bed-room was having automatic-clickshut lock like that of a hotel, which could not be opened from outside without key but could be opened from inside without key. No explanation has been offered by the accused as to how the lock of Aarushi's room was opened and by whom.

6. That the internet remained active in the night of the gory incident suggesting that at least one of the accused remained awake;

7. That there is nothing to show that an outsider(s) came inside the house in the said night after 9.30 P.M.;

8. That there was no disruption in the supply of electricity in that night;

9. That no person was seen loitering near the flats in suspicious circumstances during that night;

10. That there is no evidence of forcible entry of any outsider(s) in the flat in the night of occurrence;

11. That there is no evidence of any larcenous act in the flat;

12. That in the morning of May 16, 2008 when the maid came to the flat for the purpose of cleaning and mopping, a false pretext was made by Nupur Talwar that door might have been locked from outside by the servant Hemraj although it was not locked or latched from outside;

13. That the house maid Bharti Mandal has nowhere stated that when she came inside the flat both the accused were found weeping;

14. That from the testimony of Bharti Mandal it is manifestly clear that when she reached the flat and talked to Nupur Talwar then at that time she had not complained about the murder of her daughter and rather she told the maid deliberately that Hemraj might have gone to fetch milk from Mother dairy after locking the wooden door from outside. This lack of spontaneity is relevant under section 8 of the Evidence Act;

15. That the clothes of both the accused were not found soaked with blood. It is highly unnatural that parents of deceased Aarushi will not cling to and hug her on seeing her murdered;

16. That no outsider(s) will dare to take Hemraj to the terrace in severely injured condition and thereafter search out a lock to be placed in the door of the terrace;

17. That it is not possible that an outsider(s) after committing the murders will muster courage to take Scotch whisky knowing that the parents of the deceased Aarushi are in the nearby room and his top priority will be to run away from the crime scene immediately.

18. That no outsider(s) will bother to take the body of Hemraj to the terrace. Moreover, a single person cannot take the body to the terrace;

19. That the door of the terrace was never locked prior to the occurrence but it was found locked in the morning of May 16, 2008 and the accused did not give the key of the lock to the police despite being asked to give the same;

20. That the accused have taken plea in the statements under section 313 Cr.P.C. that about 8-10 days before the occurrence painting of cluster had started and the navvies used to take water from water tank placed on the terrace of the flat and then Hemraj had started locking the door of the terrace and the key of that lock remained with him. If it was so then it was not easily possible for an outsider to find out the key of the lock of terrace door;

21. That if an outsider(s) may have committed the crime in question after locking the door of terrace and had gone out of the flat then the outer most mesh door or middle mesh door must have been found latched from outside;

22. That the motive of commission of the crime has been established;

23. That it is not possible that after commission of the crime an outsider(s) will dress-up the crime scene;

24. That golf-club no.5 was thrown in the loft after commission of the crime and the same was produced after many months by the accused Rajesh Talwar;

25. That pattern of head and neck injuries of both the accused persons are almost similar in nature and can be caused by golf-club and scalpel respectively;

26. That the accused Rajesh Talwar was a member of the Golf-Club NOIDA and golfclubs were produced by him before the CBI and scalpel is used by the dentists and both the accused are dentists by profession;