🔍 Unsolved Disappearances Trivia Questions & Answers
Amelia Earhart, the Mary Celeste and history's great vanishings. Below are 30 free unsolved disappearances trivia questions with answers — part of Mysteries trivia on BUZZ. Want a real challenge that adapts to what you know? Play the Mysteries quiz — no signup needed to start.
30 Unsolved Disappearances trivia questions
Q1. Australian PM Harold Holt vanished in 1967 while doing what at a Victoria beach?
Answer: Swimming
💡 He'd nearly drowned at that same beach just months earlier while snorkeling.
Q2. Bandleader Glenn Miller disappeared in 1944 on a flight over which body of water?
Answer: The English Channel
💡 The likely culprit was mundane: a carburetor icing up in the bitter December cold.
Q3. Amelia Earhart vanished in 1937 while trying to reach which tiny Pacific island?
Answer: Howland Island
💡 Howland Island is so small and flat that finding it by dead-reckoning navigation was notoriously difficult, even without bad weather.
Q4. What was the model of plane Amelia Earhart was flying when she disappeared?
Answer: Lockheed Electra 10E
💡 The twin-engine Electra was specially modified with extra fuel tanks for the round-the-world attempt.
Q5. Who led the search party that found the Roanoke colony deserted in 1590?
Answer: John White
💡 White's own granddaughter, Virginia Dare, was among the colonists he never found.
Q6. What ship discovered the abandoned, crewless Mary Celeste adrift at sea?
Answer: the Dei Gratia
💡 The Dei Gratia's crew boarded to find personal belongings and cargo untouched, deepening the mystery.
Q7. What cargo was the Mary Celeste carrying when it was found deserted?
Answer: industrial alcohol
💡 Some investigators think fumes leaking from the alcohol barrels may have spooked the crew into abandoning ship.
Q8. D.B. Cooper hijacked a plane in 1971 flying between which two U.S. cities?
Answer: Portland and Seattle
💡 He boarded under the alias 'Dan Cooper' — a reporter's mix-up later turned it into 'D.B. Cooper' in the press.
Q9. How much ransom cash did the mysterious 1971 skyjacker demand before parachuting away?
Answer: $200,000
💡 Some of the marked bills turned up along Washington's Columbia River nearly a decade later, in 1980.
Q10. From which Florida naval air station did the ill-fated Flight 19 depart in 1945?
Answer: Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale
💡 The squadron was flying a routine overwater navigation exercise when their compasses reportedly failed.
Q11. Which two British ships were abandoned in Arctic ice during Sir John Franklin's doomed 1840s voyage?
Answer: HMS Erebus and HMS Terror
💡 Both wrecks stayed hidden for over 165 years until Erebus was found in 2014 and Terror in 2016.
Q12. What was the flight number of the Malaysia Airlines jet that vanished en route to Beijing in 2014?
Answer: MH370
💡 It disappeared with 227 passengers and 12 crew aboard, sparking the most expensive search in aviation history.
Q13. What month and year did Amelia Earhart disappear over the Pacific?
Answer: July 1937
💡 Her last confirmed radio message came in as she and Noonan searched in vain for tiny Howland Island.
Q14. What everyday item did skyjacker D.B. Cooper leave clipped to his tie before jumping?
Answer: a mother-of-pearl tie clip
💡 That clip became one of the FBI's few physical leads in the decades-long case.
Q15. What type of aircraft did D.B. Cooper hijack in 1971?
Answer: a Boeing 727
💡 The 727's rear stairway could be lowered mid-flight, which is exactly how Cooper made his escape.
Q16. What U.S. Coast Guard ship was in radio contact with Amelia Earhart just before she disappeared?
Answer: the Itasca
💡 Garbled radio transmissions between Earhart's plane and the Itasca made the search that much harder.
Q17. A 1945 house fire that erased five siblings without a trace struck which US state?
Answer: West Virginia
💡 The family later put up a roadside billboard offering a $5,000 reward for information.
Q18. On which 1945 holiday did the fire that swept away five Sodder children break out?
Answer: Christmas
💡 The surviving Sodders believed for the rest of their lives that the five children had survived.
Q19. In December 1900, three lighthouse keepers vanished off the coast of which country?
Answer: Scotland
💡 The lighthouse sits on Eilean Mòr, one of the remote Flannan Isles in the Outer Hebrides.
Q20. Who was navigating alongside Amelia Earhart on her final flight?
Answer: Fred Noonan
💡 Noonan was a highly experienced navigator who had previously charted Pan Am's Pacific Clipper routes.
Q21. What nickname did colonists carve into a post at Roanoke as their only clue when they vanished?
Answer: Croatoan
💡 The colonists had agreed in advance to carve a cross too if they'd left in distress — no cross was ever found.
Q22. In what decade did the Roanoke colonists vanish, leaving only a carved clue behind?
Answer: 1580s
💡 The colony was actually founded in 1587 and found empty by White in 1590.
Q23. The Mary Celeste was found drifting and empty near which island group in 1872?
Answer: the Azores
💡 The ship was still under partial sail and fully stocked with provisions when it was discovered.
Q24. In what year did the FBI officially close its case on the still-unidentified 1971 skyjacker?
Answer: 2016
💡 It remains the only unsolved commercial hijacking case in American aviation history.
Q25. Which magazine writer coined the phrase for the ocean region famous for Flight 19's loss?
Answer: Vincent Gaddis
💡 His 1964 Argosy article titled it 'The Deadly Bermuda Triangle,' and the name stuck ever since.
Q26. What Arctic route was Franklin's 1845 expedition trying to chart when it vanished?
Answer: the Northwest Passage
💡 All 129 crew members eventually perished from causes including starvation, scurvy, and lead poisoning.
Q27. In 1925, Percy Fawcett vanished hunting for a legendary lost settlement he called what?
Answer: the City of Z
💡 Fawcett was last confirmed alive at a spot he'd nicknamed 'Dead Horse Camp' deep in Brazil's Mato Grosso.
Q28. Who accompanied Percy Fawcett on his final, fatal 1925 jungle expedition?
Answer: His son Jack and a friend
💡 Decades later, lidar scans of the same Amazon region revealed real traces of a large ancient settlement.
Q29. What organization has spent years searching Nikumaroro Island for Earhart plane traces?
Answer: TIGHAR
💡 TIGHAR stands for The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery.
Q30. Which officer led the ill-fated 1945 Navy squadron that flew off course over the Atlantic?
Answer: Lieutenant Charles Taylor
💡 Investigators later softened their report to 'cause unknown' rather than pin the loss solely on him.
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