Ambrose Bierce is probably the one person on this list more famous for what he did before he disappeared than for the disappearance itself. He was an author famous for his cynically satirical The Devil’s Dictionary, which gives definitions such as “Politeness, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy,” and supernatural stories such as “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and “The Damned Thing. Alternatively, you might know him for writing the stories that inspired the stories that inspired Season 1 of True Detective.

When you combine his penchant for cynicism and the macabre with his history as a veteran of the Civil War, it may not entirely surprise you that he had what Time describes as a “morbid fascination with horror and death.” This led to him making the pretty wild decision at age 71 to leave behind his life of boredom in the United States to witness Pancho Villa’s Mexican revolution in 1913. He sent his cousin a super reassuring letter saying, “Good-bye — if you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stars.”

He was never heard from again once he set out for Mexico. Some believe he was killed in the siege of Ojinaga in 1914, while others believe it was all a ruse and he never went to Mexico at all, but just ran off and committed suicide somewhere.

According to the St. Petersburg Times, Diane Augat disappeared in April 1998 in Pasco County, Florida, and was reported missing by her mother on Good Friday of that year. In the years before her disappearance, Augat had struggled with mental illness and addiction, and according to her mother, “was very trusting and liked men with money.”

It’s hard to say whether her issues or personal associations had something to do with her disappearance, but the things we do know are pretty disturbing. A few days after Augat went missing, she left a message on her mother’s answering machine in which she can be heard saying, “Help, help!” followed by the sounds of a scuffle and someone saying, “Hey, gimme that” before hanging up. The caller ID simply said “Starlight” and when Augat’s mother called the number back, there was no answer.

Wait, it gets worse. Two days after the phone call, the tip of Augat’s middle finger was found on the side of the same highway she had last been seen walking down five days earlier. And then, a week after that, a bag of Augat’s clothes were found neatly folded inside a bag that had been placed in the totally normal location of a convenience store freezer. And according to the Charley Project, the day after the Times reported all that stuff in 2000, another bag was found in another convenience store, this one a Ziploc bag full of makeup labeled “Diane.”

Who’s freaking out now? Everyone? Yeah.

The scary thing about most of these stories are the details we don’t know. Who made that phone call? Where did the person run? Was there someone else in the house, or was this an accident or foul play? If only there were a series of strategically placed cameras that could show what happened.

Well, uh, it turns out that may not help either. As Cleveland’s Fox 8 News reports, there were cameras all over Columbus, Ohio’s Ugly Tuna Saloona (side note: this is a terrible name) on April 1, 2006, but that hasn’t helped anyone discover the whereabouts of Brian Shaffer since he disappeared that day. In fact, the cameras show him going in the bar but never show him going out.

The recordings account for every other person in the bar, both entering and exiting. Shaffer is seen going in at 1:15 a.m., but he never comes out any of the exits. Searches through the bar, the adjacent alley, nearby trash cans, and the nearby river turned up nothing.

Despite a number of hoax tips, hope for Shaffer has been kept alive. His girlfriend would call his cell phone every night, and every night it would go straight to voicemail. One night about six months after his disappearance, however, it rang, pinging a cell tower just outside Columbus. This slim hope has been enough to keep his family and friends going, more than a decade later.

Most of these stories are terrifying mega-bummers, as you might expect from a series of unsolved disappearances whose solutions are probably kidnapping or murder or human trafficking or something. Not very cheery or inspiring fare, to be honest. But while the disappearance of housewife Joan Risch from her home in Lincoln, Massachusetts, in 1961 is also unsolved and involves a not insignificant amount of blood, we feel it has a somewhat different flavor. Maybe you’ll agree.

As reported by the Boston Globe, on the afternoon of October 24, 1961, Risch’s 4-year-old daughter went to a neighbor and said, “Mommy is gone and the kitchen is covered with red paint.” If you’re more than 4 years old, you know the paint was actually Risch’s blood. Police also found the telephone ripped out of the wall and a bloody fingerprint that has never been identified. The blood trailed into the driveway, but no body or weapon was ever found.

Further investigation led the police to looking into Risch’s borrowing history at the local library. It seems she had checked out and read a shocking 25 books that summer, most on a similar theme: unexplained disappearances. These books included one called “Into Thin Air.” One guess what it was about? Yeah. A woman who went missing, leaving behind only blood smears and a towel.

Run free, Joan Risch. Find that new life, unshackled from the burden of a mid-century suburban housewife life. We hope you found happiness and libraries for the rest of your days.