Famous vanishings and disputed deaths, reopened and argued.
Vanished covers cases where the record gives no ending, or gives one that many people still doubt, including Jesse James, John Wilkes Booth, Amelia Earhart and the Zodiac. Narrated passages set scenes with dates and weather, and the conversation around them weighs theories, argues over evidence and sometimes puts a case on trial.
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Vanished is a history podcast about endings that will not stay settled. It comes from Straight Up Strange Productions, and its introduction promises knowledge, curiosities and 'high strangeness'. Its subjects fall into two kinds. The first is the death that history believes it has settled. The record says Robert Ford killed Jesse James, and that John Wilkes Booth died at Garrett's Farm on April 26th, 1865. The show presents both men's stories as theoretical accounts, because many believe those endings remain unresolved. The Jesse James account even carries a second date, August 15th, 1951, next to April 3rd, 1882. The second kind is the case that never closed: the Zodiac, the Mary Celeste, and two aviators, Amelia Earhart and Amy Johnson. Narrated passages set scenes with dates and weather. Amy Johnson appears under grey, rain-heavy skies on January 5th, 1941, approaching the Thames estuary as conditions worsen. The Mary Celeste story starts in cold, desolate Atlantic waters on December 5th, 1872. The talk around those scenes is casual and pointed. The Amy Johnson discussion weighs a claim from Tom Mitchell, a retired former gunner who came forward decades later. He says he was the one who shot down her aircraft, as one of a group of soldiers ordered to shoot down anything over a stretch of Kent countryside that did not identify itself by radio. The Jesse James conversation works through the Pinkerton agents and an attempted amnesty bill in the Missouri State Legislature, then settles on a comparison: the Waco of the 19th century. Structure is where the show aims highest. The Zodiac series presented its case as a trial by jury and left listeners to reach their own conclusions. Its epilogue allows that more than one person may have been involved. The Booth series cast Montgomery Sutton and R. Bruce Elliott of the 1865 podcast as Booth and Vice President Andrew Johnson. Its epilogue brings together a roundtable with the 1865 creators Eric Archilla and Stephen Walters, plus Jen and a returning Dave, and it speaks frankly about the work: the structure changed midway through research, and the case was, in essence, covered twice. The show also reopens its own finished files. After walking away from Earhart on July 5th, 2020, it came back when Tony Romeo and Deep Sea Vision revealed a sonar image of what appears to be an aircraft 16,000 feet below the Pacific. The Jesse James account is mixed in stereo surround and recommends headphones. For the most theatrical side of the show, 'Abandoned Ship' was recorded live at the True Crime Podcast Festival in Austin, Texas. It features objections and a witness who admits he is intoxicated, which shows how loosely Vanished can play a mystery in front of a crowd.
Made for: Suits a listener who likes historical mysteries with some theater to them, and who wants an alternative theory argued in full, with dramatized scenes, witnesses and a verdict left open.
What sets it apart: Vanished stages its cases instead of just retelling them. Guest performers voice historical figures, a Zodiac series was run as a trial by jury, a live Mary Celeste show includes courtroom questioning, and some accounts openly challenge deaths the record treats as settled.
The Mary Celeste gets courtroom objections, and your inner juror gets a seat.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A disputed Jesse James death becomes a measured look at identity, myth, and connected violence.
Vanished revisits the recorded St. Joseph, Missouri killing of Jesse James and uses it as the starting point for a larger question: did the story really end there? The episode centers on the claim that J.
A sonar image pulls Earhart's case back into view, where deep-sea hope meets the cost of proof.
Vanished circles back to Amelia Earhart's disappearance with a sonar image that may show an aircraft 16,000 feet beneath the Pacific, and the possibility gives the episode a useful charge.
A live Mary Celeste mystery turns blood, ship damage, and a stained sword into courtroom drama.
The Mary Celeste arrives as a maritime mystery built around a strong first image: on December 5, 1872, the De Grazia is 400 miles east of the Azores when its crew notices the brigantine drifting in the Atlantic, eight days after it left New York City for Genoa, Italy.
Amy Johnson's final flight becomes a tense mystery of bad weather, radio uncertainty, and a late wartime claim.
Vanished tracks Amy Johnson's final January 1941 flight from an English airfield toward Scotland, where bad weather, grey skies, turbulence, mist, fog, and radio uncertainty turn a routine route into a lasting aviation mystery.
A reflective close weighs the possibility of more than one Zodiac against the cost of chasing the case.
Vanished closes this chapter after trial by jury, leaving San Francisco with a lingering question: was the Zodiac more than one person? The episode gives real weight to Drabison's thinking on why Cheney may have placed himself inside the case, then links that possibility to…
Overlooked lives, read from the sources, talked through warmly.
Mike Duncan narrates Rome's full history solo, from Aeneas to Romulus Augustulus's exile in 476.
Vanished: Jesse James "St.
Tony Romeo and Deep Sea Vision surface a January 26 sonar image that appears to show an aircraft 16,000 feet down in the Pacific, and the hosts say the new material looks closer to crash and sink than to older Earhart theories.
Vanished: The Mary Celeste "Abandoned Ship" (Live) was recorded at the True Crime Podcast Festival in Austin, Texas, and the hosts open by framing the case as a live courtroom trial.
Amy Johnson's career starts in Hull, England, with a June 9th, 1929 solo flight after 15 hours and 45 minutes of training at De Havilland Aerodrome.
Vanished: Zodiac "Epilogue" revisits the trial format after the series on the Zodiac Killer, with Jennifer Taylor and Chris Williamson assessing the Don Chaney theory and the idea that Zodiac may have been more than one person.
Stephen Riegel, an attorney and author of Finding Judge Crater, recounts researching the judge’s disappearance after August 6, 1930.
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Vanished opens its Judge Joseph Force Crater case with the August 1930 disappearance of a newly appointed New York Supreme Court justice.
A roundtable discussion about the unresolved theories surrounding John Wilkes Booth's death after the Lincoln assassination.
The host investigates the unresolved disappearance of John Wilkes Booth after Lincoln's assassination, exploring theories that he escaped death.
A man confronts a historian about a 200-year-old diary entry that accuses his ancestor of murdering Ichabod Crane, threatening his family's business.
This episode explores the events surrounding Amelia Earhart's final flight and her mysterious disappearance in 1937.