California man who disappeared in 1999 is found alive 25 years later

A California man who has been missing since 1999 has been found alive 25 years later after his sister never stopped searching for him.

Altura Advertising

The man, whose name has only been listed as ‘Tommy’ for privacy reasons, had been reported missing in 1999 from Doyle, California, and was found over 500 miles away in a Los Angeles county hospital over the weekend, the Lassen County Sheriff’s Office said on Monday.

Despite there having been no trace of him in the past two and a half decades, he was miraculously found alive after being taken into the hospital.

His sister had been sent a USA Today article seeking information about an unidentified man who was nonverbal, who had been at the St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood for over a month after being found in South LA, according to the sheriff’s office.

After seeing the article, she reached out as she believed that the man in the photograph was her missing brother, sparking the Lassen County Sheriff to investigate.

Altura Advertising

The unidentified and nonverbal man was found in an LA hospital. Credit: Phil Fisk/Getty Images

Sheriff’s Deputy Derek Kennemore had reached out to the hospital but was told by staff that the man had been transferred to a different Los Angeles area hospital in July.

When Kennenmore called the second hospital, they confirmed that they had a nonverbal patient in their care whose identity was unknown, who matched the description of the woman’s missing brother.

The Los Angeles police and missing persons unit was notified and they joined the investigation to try and establish his identity.

The unknown man was visited by an LAPD detective who fingerprinted him and found his prints were a positive match for the man who’d vanished from Doyle in 1999.

After the match was established, Kennemore called the man’s sister and gave her the news she’d been waiting to hear for 25 years – that her brother had been found safe and alive.

Altura Advertising

An appeal had been put out to find the man’s identity. Credit: LinkedIn/St Francis Medical Center

She is now soon to be reunited with her long-lost brother, the sheriff’s office said.

The Nor-Cal Alliance for the Missing called it “a long-awaited and miraculous reunion”.

It said in a press release: “Tommy’s return proves that miracles can happen. To Tommy’s family, your courage and perseverance inspire us all. Today, we celebrate a reunion 25 years in the making – a moment that brings light to the darkest of times.”

Article saved!

A passenger was left freaked out after seeing someone apparently staring at them on a plane – but all was not as it seemed.

Altura Advertising

A passenger took a terrifying image aboard a recent flight. Credit: urbazon/Getty Images

Air travel can be stressful at the best of times – from trying to keep your luggage within the weight limit, to making sure you get through the security line without missing your flight, by the time your plane takes off you’re probably ready to switch off and relax until you reach your destination.

However, other passengers can sometimes make that impossible, as one flier found out after seeing what appeared to be a creepy person staring at them unblinkingly from another seat.

The X (formerly Twitter) user snapped a photo of what appeared to be a man with his face pressed into this seat across the aisle staring at them from beneath his hoody.

Altura Advertising

The user, who goes by @bluemupp on the social media site, shared the picture and captioned it: “I ALMOST LANDED THIS PLANE MYSELF.”

People flooded the post, which has been viewed over 35.7 million times, sharing their terror at the creepy image.

They wrote: “Tf is that?”, “Ok but what actually is that,” and: “I woulda jumped out.”

Others added: “lmfao bro i would’ve been landed bc wtf is a alien doing on there,” and: “the scream I would let out is just bizarre.”

Thankfully, others managed to decipher the nightmare-inducing image, explaining: “I got this.. that’s a person with their hoodie on backwards over their face and the black thing the looks like an eyeball is a headphone.

“So it looks like they are staring at you creepily but that’s really just the side of their head with a headphone in the ear while the hoodie covers the face.”

Altura Advertising

Thankfully the image was later debunked by another user. Credit: Jasmin Merdan/Getty Images

Many people thanked the user for ending the optical illusion, writing: “Thank you. That would have haunted me for days.”

Others added: “Omg you have great eyes, I seent (that’s a real word lol) it after I read your tweet,” and: “I pray you’re right or we are in trouble.”

Some people were still unconvinced, writing: “I need someone to show me what headphones on the market look like that otherwise I ain’t believing it.”

Another commented: “But I see a moustache,” while someone else added: “That would make sense if there wsnt a mustache and that doesn’t look like a headphone.”

Some even joked that creepy entity in the hoody is the “not real” passenger Tiffany Gomas went viral for yelling about on a plane in 2023.

We’re going to go with it being a headphone in someone’s ear because all of the other options are far too terrifying.

Article saved!

The real D.B. Cooper’s identity may have finally been unmasked after a pair of siblings believe their late father may have been living a secret double life.

Altura Advertising

D.B. Cooper was never found after the crime. Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images

D.B. Cooper, also known as Dan Cooper, is a man who hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, a Boeing 727 aircraft, on November 24, 1971.

The flight had been midway from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington, when Cooper told a flight attendant that he had a bomb and demanded $200,000 (roughly $1.5million in today’s money) in ransom, as well as four parachutes after landing in Seattle.

He allowed the passengers to leave the flight in Seattle, before instructing the flight crew to refuel the aircraft and fly toward Mexico City, stopping off to refuel in Reno, Nevada.

Around 30 minutes after taking off from Seattle, Cooper opened the aircraft’s aft door, deployed the staircase, and parachuted out into the sky over Washington.

His real identity as well as his whereabouts – and whether or not he survived the jump – have never been conclusively determined.

A small amount of the ransom money was recovered on the banks of the Columbia River near Vancouver, Washington, in 1980 but the rest has never been found.

The crime remains the only unsolved case of air piracy in the history of commercial aviation, and the FBI had long speculated that Cooper may not have survived the jump due to the inclement weather, lack of proper skydiving equipment, the forest terrain and lack of detailed knowledge of the landing area, as well as the remaining ransom money having disappeared and never been spent.