Which makes it all the more mind-boggling when people actually do vanish into thin air, under very weird circumstances. Like ...

Back in the Dark Ages, people disappeared all the time. Crusades, disease and nearly nonexistent bookkeeping made it easy to slip through the cracks without so much as a footprint left behind. Luckily, the modern world makes such disappearances damn near impossible -- when people vanish, it usually turns out they were killed or kidnapped, or at least they were very likely to have been. The point is, usually we have some kind of an answer.

5 Ray Gricar

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For 20 years, Ray Gricar was the district attorney of Centre County, Pennsylvania. He was a solid man with a tough reputation. On April 15, 2005, Gricar phoned his girlfriend and told her he was driving in the countryside and would be back soon.

He never returned.

But hey, mystery schmystery, right? Dude was a hardass DA, he was bound to make enemies. He was probably making that call under duress from some gang member or something.

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"Tell her I send my love. No, I couldn't do it myself, it's embarrassing."

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That's pretty much what the cops must have figured when Gricar's car was found outside an antiques store. Pretty much everything but his cellphone was missing. There were no signs of a struggle, but it must be noted that DAs seldom put up a fight at gunpoint unless they're played by Aaron Eckhart.

A search ensued. Gricar's credit cards and accounts were monitored, with no signs of activity. His laptop was retrieved from a nearby river, too damaged to recover any files.

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Although thankfully not too damaged to run Windows ME.

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So what makes Gricar's disappearance any different from those of countless other guys who could have been killed, or killed themselves? Well ...

It Gets Weirder:

Want to guess what case he was working at the time he disappeared? Here's a hint: It's Pennsylvania, home of Penn State University.