From left: Vasile Gorgos upon his return home in 2021; and his ID card from 30 years ago, which was found in his pocket
Vasile Gorgos was 63 years old when he left his home in eastern Romania to go on a short business trip.
As a cattle farmer and trader, Vasile often made such excursions and, this time had bought his train ticket in advance.
The difference here was that he didn’t return home on this fateful day in 1991.
Knowing that he was due to come back the same day, his family immediately called the police who launched a search effort.
But after days turned into weeks, then months, then years, with neither sight nor sign of Vasile, his loved ones were forced to assume the worst.
With no leads or traces to follow, they suspected foul play, but endless questions were left unanswered.
But then, on 29 August 2021, three decades after Vasile’s disappearance, his family was faced with the ultimate plot twist.
A car stopped in front of their home – the same one they’d had for the past 30 years – and out stepped an old man, looking confused.
That man was none other than 93-year-old Vasile, wearing the same clothes he left all those years ago. His pocket even contained the same train ticket he was due to travel with.
The car allegedly raced off before anyone had a chance to question the driver, but when asked where he’d been, a baffled Vasile replied that he’d been “at home”, Medium reports.
He subsequently underwent a thorough medical examination but doctors concluded that he was in remarkably good health.
Admittedly, he had some neurological issues, but these were nothing unusual in a man of Vasile’s age, as the podcast Gone, But Never Forgotten notes.
Indeed, the 93-year-old’s memory of his home, his family, and his life 30 years ago was near-perfect.
The issue was, that the past three decades were a black hole in his mind: he couldn’t remember a thing about what had befallen him.
This left his loved ones with arguably even more questions than before and, of course, once the story hit the headlines, numerous theories as to his whereabouts soon flooded social media.
The first theory, as set out by Gone, But Never Forgotten, was that Vasile had simply decided to “ditch his life and his family”, possibly having taken a lover with whom he had run away.
In this case, it is possible that he “wanted to make amends with his former family before he passed away.”
And yet, how can you make amends when you offer no explanation as to where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing?
Another theory is that he may have been dumped by the person he ran away with who, accepting that he was getting older and not wanting to take care of him, simply returned him to his family.
A third theory, which would explain how he retained his clothing, is that he had spent the past 30 years in jail but hadn’t wanted to admit this to his family.
And, of course, even more outlandish theories also abound, including that he was a spy who had his mind “wiped” after his service came to an end, or that he was abducted by aliens.
Ultimately, neither we, nor Vasile’s family, may ever learn the truth of what happened to him. But at least this is one missing person’s case that has a happy, albeit flawed, ending.
