They've already been brought up and challenged in various ways, but I don't think the missing persons statistics given in the source article have been adequately verified.
From the source article:
In the U.S. alone there are reports of over 10,000,000 people going missing per year. Out of this figure 500,000 are never found. Some of these people are victims of crimes but some are just gone.
Skeptic that I am, whenever I see claims like these, I seek corroboration to make sure they're not bogus.
After all, it's wise not to believe everything you read on the Internet, you know.
Sure enough, I have been unable to find any credible source (or any other source, credible or not, for that matter) which claims anywhere near those numbers.
I started with a google search and went from there.
So far the most authoritative source I've seen is this:
From NCIC Missing Person and Unidentified Person Statistics for 2006:
The National Crime Information Center's (NCIC's) Missing Person File was implemented in 1975. Records in the Missing Person File are retained indefinitely, until the individual is located, or the record is canceled by the entering agency.
[...]
As of December 31, 2006, there were 110,484 active missing person records in the NCIC. Juveniles under the age of 18 account for 58,763 (53.18 %) of the records and 12,657 (11.46 %) were for juveniles between the ages of 18 and 20.
Now granted not every disappearance will necessarily make it into the NCIC's database, but the Missing Person File is the place where missing persons reports from law enforcement agencies all over the U.S. have been collected for over thirty years.
And according to them, the total number of active missing persons files they had on 12/31/2006 was 110,484. That cumulative total from thirty-one years falls far, far short of 500,000 permanent disappearances per year. Additionally, the NCIC added 836,131 records in 2006 -- not even close to 10,000,000 -- and 851,940 were cleared that same year.
Again, I can accept that not every case makes it into the NCIC database, but if law enforcement is involved, it's supposed to.
In light of the vast discrepancies between the claims made in the source article versus any other source I could find, I suspect they are false.
Of course I could be wrong, so I invite anyone who can to validate the figures given in the source article.
All that said, even the official statistics -- though far less spectacular -- are nothing to sneeze at. If we believe them, over a hundred thousand people have gone missing without explanation in the past three decades.
Every one of them is someone's child, friend, spouse or relative, and I'm sure they would like to know what happened more than anyone else.
[edit on 4/6/2008 by Majic]
