@BarelySociable

Spoilers



I elected to not go into much specifics in the video on the specific method used (despite it being outdated) because I didn't really want to give people detailed instructions on how to commit a crime lmao. Additionally showing the book is something that I've gotten mixed bits of advice, given the nature of the subject matter.

Hence the final section being intentionally brief.

If you are a bit more curious on how identities were selected and wanted a bit more context on why children who passed away were selected here's an additional except on the process used in the original paper trip.

"Among other pointers, the pamphlet advised readers to search newspaper archives for old articles about an entire family getting killed in an accident while on vacation outside of their home state. This scenario offers several advantages to a ghoster:

-Because the incident involved multiple deaths, there are multiple candidates (of different ages, and both sexes) for an identity that the ghoster can steal.

-Because the entire family died in the same incident, the dead person whose identity is chosen for ghosting is not likely to have any immediate relatives who are still alive and aware of their death.

-Because the family died outside their home state, their birth records and death records are archived in two different states and are unlikely to be cross-referenced. Also, if the deceased family's remains were not returned to their home community for burial, the staffers in the local records office are unlikely to be aware that the family is deceased and will not be suspicious when someone claiming to be a member of this family requests a copy of the birth certificate.

-Because the deaths occurred years ago, new requests for an old birth certificate are unlikely to stir anyone's memory of that individual's death."

So like I mentioned in the video, this is mostly outdated due to the fact that record keeping has improved for births and deaths. While there are newer methods, and it is still possible to do something similar, the lack of oversight previously seen throughout the 1970's-2000's is something that will no longer see the same potential for such a method.

@minacapella8319

"He went to a Halloween party and sat in the corner alone all night"
"They don't know I'm living with a stolen identity"

@Baleur

13:00 it is actually not as impressive as you think.....
(I can talk about the following now because it's all cleared up and im back home)
I lived in China for 6 years with an expired visa & passport. When i one day (during covid lockdown) simply walked into the immigration office and said i wanted to get deported because i had no money left (lost job due to lockdown), they had to spend 3 full days searching for my records. They had zero records of me, zero registration of where i had lived, zero information about what i had done the past 6 years, they didnt even have anything showing i was still in the country... And this is a country with CCTV facial recognition on every street corner.

This kind of shocked me, considering i was living a normal life, had obviously been registered at the airport when entering the country, and had never been registered as "departed" at any airport. I simply assumed that all of that would be networked and that they'd easily be able to tell "this passport was never scanned as departing the country". But they had no clue about any of it.
And this is the immigration police we're talking about.
I had to spend the following week being interviewed and provide evidence of where i had worked and what i had done (basically prove i wasnt a spy). They literally had zero records of me those 6 years.
And i had been living a regular life, walking the streets openly, rented my own apartments with my expired passport, signed my name, chit-chatted with cops, even having some give me a ride to the job i didnt have a work permit for..

So when you say that someone, in the 80's, managed to slip under the radar in USA..
It's really NOT as unthinkable as regular people believe it is... I managed to do it in China in 2020, as a regular dude, with zero "training" on any of this. I just lived my life, and nobody knew i even existed..
Just food for thought. She certainly does not have to have been some mysterious "spy" or anything like that.
But that wouldnt make for a very exciting youtube video, i suppose.

@liyre4189

Imagine moving into a new neighbourhood and realising your neighbour has the same name and birthday as your little brother who died 40 years ago. Spooky!

@sierradavisdottir

I personally know someone who is living under the identity of a dead child. She was escaping an abusive ex a few decades ago and starting living her life as the child. A few years ago, she started going by her real identity again, which was, of course, very difficult. Looking like you never had a bank account, job, credit card, or anything else for 20+ years is sus.

@myguyjd5777

This video really hit home for me. My father disappeared when I was very young. He was exactly like the woman in the first case discussed: very secretive about his past, no living relatives, and a new wife that never really questioned those things. When he disappeared, he had left a box of belongings in the attic that my mom had never seen. It contained photos of his family before that, all his handwriting but a different name. The name he had gone by was a man that had died years before. The police assumed he left to do that again and closed the case. Since then, I've learned that you get more sympathy from people when you tell them one of your parents died when you were young
Edit: All of you are so kind. I appreciate all of the nice words and everyone sharing their own experiences. I have tried DNA tests and the closest I have gotten is a 3rd cousin from either side and the closest after that is 4th cousins. I haven't had any luck with contacting anyone or tracing him. I wish all of you the best in life 💙

@bruhistantv9806

there's an even weirder version of this that's unraveling today:

I implore you to look into the Yugoslav baby theft case. Up to 10k babies (with some of the most extreme numbers going up to more than a hundred thousand) are suspected of being literally stolen between the 60s and the 80s, always in the same manner - declared stillborn, parents never allowed to see, bury the body or even know where they were buried. Only for them to start popping up years later because they found the circumstances of their birth and adoption to be extremely dodgy.

@danielbradley5255

I dunno which excuse is stranger: admitting to getting intimate with a vacuum cleaner as your reason for a trip to the ER or, returning home with nothing after driving 700 miles to a L L Bean due to there being no parking space available

@starboard9551

Changing your identity before  2000 was extremely easy, especially before the 90's.  You could literally go to the DMV, give them any made-up name you could think of and they'd give you an ID with that name.  My dad unofficially changed his name in the 70's using that very method.  There were no background checks or papers required, you could say your name was anything you felt like and that would be your name.

@ChillFuel

Wow the 80's were a different time...what people could get away with

@dialaskisel5929

"He had apparently gotten a bit too intimate with his vacuum cleaner... and it had apparently resulted in severe lacerations..."

Well... That sucks.

@whattowatchrightnow

My mother's husband did this.  He was running away from a petty drug charge in the 1970s.  They spent basically their whole lives running every time someone recognized him from the old days.  After he died, I asked our local sheriff, someone I knew from high school, to look him up.  Nothing.  Whatever he was afraid of, it turned to nothing.  They're both ashes now.

@JamesMadisonsSpiritAnimal

My grandpa was a bank and jewelry thief during the 40's. He said you used to be able to rob a bank or jewelry shop then simply drive to the state next to it, change your name, cash out and start all over again. We didn't even know how old he was or if his name was real as we found baptism papers with the middle and first name swapped from his drivers license and it showed he was 5 years younger than his ID stated(1913 rather than the ID's 1918). 

The level of freedom people used to have is simply wild.

@zetaeerre0

"I'm Barely Sociable"
that's exactly what an identity thief would say

@dsnodgrass4843

Seems like the idea of the book's origin as a guide for "dodging the draft" is too blithely tossed aside. Evading the military draft (so as not to be sent to the shambolic American war in Vietnam) was treated as a serious crime when the book was written; with several years' prison as a penalty, and a felony record for life. Those were the stakes when the book was written; and its methods were so effective that other people on the run would follow them later. The book and its writers could not know that the antiquated record-keeping of government would remain so 20-30 years in the future; and be still vulnerable to abuse by those with darker motives than their own survival.

@squidthing

Kimberly Mclean might have been sexually abused at home. The trouble starting as soon as her mother moved a new adult male into the home and the prevalence of mental illness among sexual abuse victims could support this theory. I wonder if the stepfather was "connected"  to any criminal organizations, which would add to the paranoia of being found. Most teen runaways don't go through this amount of effort and it seems she was really terrified of being dragged back home.

@kaitlint3987

Reminds me of the story I was told at a gathering z women spoke of her life on the run from the mob. Her mother would pack them up and move every few months claiming they'd been found and their food was being poisoned. It turned out the mother was schizophrenic

@spacetimeworm

"Her hands are important to her, for some reason."
 That's sort of a common trait among all human beings.
☝️

@qyhh

20:40 this sounds like someone that has constant tinnitus. I use to put some white noise (ressembling a tv static), which quietens and soothes my tinnitus. Which is a condition that is also often times developped due to gunfire noises & all the surrounding noises.

@heinrichmuller7974

i've got a copy of "how to disappear and never be found again" as well as other copies of books on the same topic, can't say that ever wanted to use the knowledge contained within these books (keep in mind most of it is dated, so the info isn't as useful as it once was) but i always figured it's better to be prepared, as chance favours the prepared mind. 
i collect odd books and manuals, so when i read the title of this video i almost instantly knew it had to be about one of these books, some are printed in the early 80's and had a good 20+ years to help ppl vanish before computers took over and updated everything.