Vasile Gorgos returned to his farm in Romania in 2021, three decades after he'd first vanished, wearing the same clothes he wore on the day he went missing.
Stirile ETVVasile Gorgos reappeared in 2021 just as mysteriously as he had disappeared 30 years earlier.
In 1991, Romanian cattle farmer Vasile Gorgos mysteriously disappeared. Thirty years later, he reappeared wearing the exact same clothing — with no memory of where he’d spent the last three decades.
When asked what happened and where he had been, Gorgos gave the same answer: nothing and nowhere. He had been home the whole time.
Of course, his family and friends could attest that this simply wasn’t true. They had filed a missing person report, police had carried out an extensive search to no avail, memorial services had been held. They had endless questions and no answers, but when Gorgos reappeared just as mysteriously as he had vanished, the mystery only deepened.
Even now, no one — including Vasile Gorgos himself, apparently — truly knows what happened.
The Cattle Farmer’s Sudden Disappearance In 1991
Back in 1991, Vasile Gorgos was a 63-year-old cattle farmer and trader from a small village near Bacău, Romania. He spent most days at home but would make brief business excursions to various cities to conduct his livestock business.
One day, Gorgos set out for what should have been a routine trip. He had even purchased his train ticket in advance. As always, he told his family he would return in a day or two, and boarded his train. But, as The Sun reported, Gorgos never came back home.
The day he was expected to return came and went without any sign of the cattle farmer. Naturally, his family grew concerned. When he failed to come home the following day, their worry escalated and they contacted local police. What began as concern quickly turned into panic as days stretched into weeks with no sign of the missing farmer.
Stirile ETVVasile Gorgos has no memory of what happened to him during the 30 years he was missing.
Despite extensive searches conducted by local authorities and volunteers, no clues emerged about Gorgos’ whereabouts. The investigation yielded no evidence of foul play, leaving the community and Gorgos’ family with nothing but unanswered questions and mounting despair.
Months eventually turned into years, the case grew cold, and any hope of finding Vasile Gorgos faded.
For 30 years, the Gorgos family lived with the uncertainty of not knowing what happened. Understandably, most of them believed he had died. Every year, they held a memorial service to pay their respects, but the lack of information made it seem like they would never get answers.
Meanwhile, Romania was changing dramatically. The country transitioned from communist rule to democracy, joined NATO and the European Union, and modernized significantly. New technology like the Internet, mobile phones, and social media transformed daily life, and the world Vasile Gorgos had known quickly became something that would have been unfamiliar to the humble farmer.
Then, on Aug. 29, 2021, the impossible happened.
Vasile Gorgos’ Mysterious Return After Three Decades
According to witnesses who claimed to see Gorgos’ return, a car suddenly pulled up outside his family home, and the now 93-year-old man stepped out, looking confused. Before anyone could record the car’s registration number, it sped off, the identity of its driver unknown.
Vasile Gorgos, meanwhile, was wearing the same clothes he had been wearing the day he disappeared. Even more strangely, he still carried the train ticket he had purchased for his trip back in 1991. But despite 30 years passing, both Vasile Gorgos’ clothes and his train ticket were in fairly good condition.
Morbidful/TwitterIdentification that confirms Vasile Gorgos’ identity.
When he was reintroduced to his children, Gorgos admittedly could not recognize them. His children could not recognize him at first, either.
“We don’t understand him. He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” Gorgos’ son told local media. “He talks to us about the period when he was involved in raising and selling cows. We ask him one thing, and he tells us another.”
Medical Examination And Memory Issues
Morbidful/TwitterDoctors who examined him found that Vasile Gorgos was in remarkable health.
Gorgos underwent a comprehensive medical examination, which found that he was in remarkably good health for his age, other than his significant memory issues. The medical assessment revealed a man who, despite being in his 90s, showed no major signs of physical deterioration or health problems other than what would be expected.
The odder thing, however, was his complete inability to remember anything that had happened during the 30 years he was missing. Gorgos could remember his family, his house, and his life on the farm. He was also reportedly able to recall that he was born in 1928, that his wife had died, and that he was the son of a famous merchant. The basic facts of his life, before his 1991 business trip, remained intact in his mind.
But between the 1991 trip and Gorgos’ return in September 2021, there was nothing.
This gap in his memory posed problems for his family as well. They had experienced three decades without him, and now he was home, a man in his mid-90s who seemingly could not recall that 30 years had passed. Adding to the mystery, Gorgos claimed that he had been “home” the entire time he was missing.
“Who knows where he has been, who kept him, maybe he was forced to work,” his son speculated, “…who knows what kind of life he led?”
Theories And Speculation About What Happened To Vasile Gorgos
Stirile ETVVasile Gorgos being interviewed after his 2021 reappearance.
Given how bizarre Vasile Gorgos’ situation was, it is natural that people who heard the story would speculate and theorize about what, exactly, happened.
Some of the more grounded explanations — as much as there can be — suggest there may be a medical cause to Gorgos’ memory loss, such as early-onset dementia or a severe dissociative disorder. It is possible, they say, that this could have caused Gorgos to lose his identity and wander for decades, potentially being cared for by an unknown party.
There are, of course, more wild theories as well. One of the most popular theories — online, at least — is that Vasile Gorgos was abducted by the government and held in jail, possibly for secret experiments of some kind that resulted in memory loss. Others have theorized he was abducted by aliens, who experimented on him for 30 years before returning him to his family with no memory of what happened.
But while interesting, there is no proof to support any of these theories, including the more plausible ones. There truly is very little that could explain how Vasile Gorgos returned with his clothes in good condition, his train ticket still in his pocket, with no memory of where he had been.
After reading about the strange story of Vasile Gorgos, learn about the unsolved disappearance of the Martin family in 1958. Then, go inside the unsettling disappearance of six-year-old Timmothy Pitzen after his mother’s suicide.
