Strange Disappearances

by Elliott O'Donnell

A collection of true stories of mysterious disappearances, including that of Benjamin Bathhurst who vanished while checking his horses in the presence of other people

Genres: Nonfiction

Paperback

First published May 1, 1990

About the author

Elliott O'Donnell was an Irish author known primarily for his books about ghosts. He claimed to have seen a ghost, described as an elemental figured covered with spots, when he was five years old. He also claimed to have been strangled by a mysterious phantom in Dublin.

He claimed descent from Irish chieftains of ancient times, including Niall of the Nine Hostages (the King Arthur of Irish folklore) and Red Hugh, who fought the English in the sixteenth century. O'Donnell was educated at Clifton College, England, and Queen's Service Academy, Dublin, Ireland.

In later life he became a ghost hunter, but first he traveled in America, working on a range in Oregon and becoming a policeman during the Chicago Railway Strike of 1894. Returning to England, he worked as a schoolmaster and trained for the theater. He served in the British army in World War I, and later acted on stage and in movies.

As he became known as an authority on the supernatural, he was called upon as a ghost hunter. He also lectured and broadcast (radio and television) on the paranormal in Britain and the United States. In addition to his more than 50 books, he wrote scores of articles and stories for national newspapers and magazines. He claimed "I have investigated, sometimes alone, and sometimes with other people and the press, many cases of reputed hauntings. I believe in ghosts but am not a spiritualist."

Reviews

[Shawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, I'll fess up - I tried but I jut couldn't read this. O'Donnell is most famous as a "ghost-hunter" (think early 20th Century Hans Holzer, if that even means anything to you), writing up his "cases" for a semi-credulous audience while exercising a bit of his fiction-writing skills. We ran a story by him on Pseudopod, The Haunted Spinney.

Here, he bangs out a book (in 1927) about "mysterious disappearances", but some of these are just the reverse ("mysterious people, obviously hiding, who were they really?") and some are not so much "disappearances" (in the paranormal sense) as "unsolved crimes/missing persons" reports. And I found the writing style a bit too leaden, wide-ranging and "historic" for me (in the sense that the figures often involved previous century European royalty/politics, which is not really my thing).

So, off on the "to sell" pile it goes...

[Helen Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting combination of fiction and reported disappearances.

Published in 1927, O'Donnell has taken newspaper reports of people who have disappeared under mysterious circumstances and woven interesting stories and conclusions for them. However, to the 21st century reader these might seem inconsequential. O'Donnell has included 'word for word' conversations of the victims to their family, friends, and acquaintances, which should probably be taken as fiction as the reader cannot know for certain that these exchanges actually took place, especially when he is writing about a disappearance from the 16th century!

Although I have given this book a 3 star rating, from a historical point of view I found it very interesting and would consider carrying out further research into some of the stories included.

[David Lumpkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was entertaining in an interesting way. However, the subject was ominous due to the supposition that most victims of disappearances most likely met with an unfortunate demise.