How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found Read online

  If you feel you must have educational credentials it is much better to buy degrees mail order than to use the ones that came with your new shell. At least you won't have to worry about running into fellow alumnus--and if you do, they won't be in any position to blow the whistle on you.

  Still another route is to go through the educational process and get a new set of your own degrees. If you've already been that route, you can shave a few years off your studies by taking waiver exams. Many disappearees want to change the direction of their lives anyway, so there is a double reason to go back to school. And a university is perhaps the best place in the world to lay low while establishing your new identity. The social climate is generally free and easy, jobs without strings attached are readily available, and the world in general doesn't make the kind of demanding requirements on college students that it expects of the average working stiff.

  Many disappearees I talked to were apprehensive about not being able to take their military records into their new lives with them. They had served honorably in one branch or another of the Armed Forces. While they were in the service they were told how valuable their military experience would be in finding a job. And they were of course told that no reputable employer would allow someone with less than an honorable discharge onto the premises.

  Most of them realized, though, that no employer had ever asked to see their discharge papers. They also knew that many of their contemporaries who avoided military service seemed to get along just fine. Even out-and-out draft evasion didn't seem to damage one's ability to make a living.

  If by chance you assumed the identity of an old war buddy, though, don't think of assuming his rank and background, and especially not his veterans benefits. This would be out and out fraud and highly illegal. Besides, the Veterans Administration has records coming out the wazoo and chances are you wouldn't get away with the deception for very long.

  HOW TO GET CREDIT

  Establishing credit is important to most disappearees, as it is for the rest of the population. At first blush it would appear that getting credit could pose quite a problem for the vanisher. And it is true that the person who takes a new identity will not be able to get immediate credit. While it will take time to build up a credit rating, it is not at all difficult. The credit people look for two things before allowing credit: a steady job and evidence of having paid bills promptly in the past. Most disappearees need to find work immediately in order to survive. That takes care of the first requirement. Again, it is better if the job is regular and steady. Credit departments look askance at the writer or the door-to-door salesman, regardless of their income.

  As to the second requirement, the heart of the problem is getting that first credit purchase. From then on, it's all downhill.

  In any town of any size there are "jewelry stores" with their display windows filled with schlock and a snake-like character lurking in the doorway waiting to pounce on prospective customers. These places operate on the very small down payment plan. They figure that if they can get five dollars down on a $25 watch that they only paid five dollars for in the first place, any future payments are just so much gravy. They judge your credit worthiness by the clothes you wear and how clean you are, and even then their standards aren't very high. If you look decent and tell them you have a steady job, they will let you walk out with anything under a couple hundred bucks for a ten percent down payment. They know that a few people are going to rip them off, but on the other hand enough people will end up paying ten times what an item is worth on the "easy payment plan" to make it a very profitable business.

  Buy a cheap bauble in one of these places, on the installment plan of course. Then make all the payments regularly. After you have the merchandise paid off you can move up to the kind of place that doesn't drag customers off the street by brute force. Small artsy-craftsy stores are an excellent choice. Again, the mark-up is high, even though the crafts people that make the stuff barely eek out a living. Many artists are willing to sell their work on the installment plan because it is important for them to move merchandise if they are ever going to get a good reputation.

  With these two references you should be able to get a credit card from a local department store, like Macy's. With your job and your credit references they will be willing to extend you a nominal line of credit, usually about $300 to start. A couple of these cards, if worked properly, could lead you all the way to the big time: bank credit and major credit cards such as VISA or MasterCard. On the other hand, if you aren't careful to pay down your balances, they could lead you into serious debt problems, which may have been your reason for disappearing in the first place!

  Don't worry if you aren't immediately accepted by the big credit card companies. Your recently cultivated credit record built up through nickle-and-dime retailers will be good enough to get you a car on the deferred payment plan. Being able to buy a car is the prime purpose for getting credit in the first place, because in this country having a car is almost a necessity. A car is probably the only really expensive item a single person needs. He can pay cash for room, board and clothing out of his regular income, but it is usually out of the question for him to buy an automobile this way.

  If a lamster winds up doing the eight-to-five for a company that has a credit union, he should by all means join and make regular deposits. Credit unions often have plans whereby their depositors are allowed to borrow their own money for a slight charge. That is, if one has $ 1000 on deposit, it is dead simple to borrow $500 and pay interest on it, paying off the "loan" directly out of your paycheck. Meanwhile, your deposit pays interest to you, although at a somewhat lower rate than you are paying to the credit union. People do this all the time, for the same reason a disappearee would want to: borrowing your own money and paying it back will lead to a better credit rating than you could achieve through a dozen schlock shops.

  There is one kind of credit problem that is peculiar to the identity changer. You may have assumed the identity of someone who was deep in debt himself. If the name of the person whose identity you copped is unusual, you could already be on a credit bureau's shit list without even knowing it. This is one of the reasons why an identity changer assumes only so much of another's identity as is absolutely necessary, and why it is so important to start with a new and pristine Social Security number. Most credit records these days are tied wholly or in part to the Social Security number. All it takes is the difference of one digit to completely confuse most information retrieval systems.

  If the identity you assumed comes with credit problems, and your name is already on a bad-risk list, you can correct the "mistaken" identity if you have carefully documented yourself with unique ID.

  DISGUISE

  While a thorough search for a missing person is rarely ever conducted, a wee bit of disguise is definitely a good idea for an identity changer. The observation that "it's a small world" can be a scary but true prospect for the disappearee. Leaving his wife behind in Wilmington, Connecticut, he forgets that her sister, who he met once or twice over the holidays, lives in Carson City, Nevada -his new home. As he reaches for a piece of lingerie to purchase for his girlfriend's birthday, he turns around and who do you think is looking him over trying to think where she's seen this man before? Gotcha! It never ceases to amaze me just how often I run into people I knew when I was a kid but haven't seen for years, or relatives I forgot I had, or old flames, etc. When you add to that the people you've met in your work life, friends of your friends that you've seen casually many times, and gas station attendants, barbers, grocery clerks, postal delivery people, etc., the number of people out there that are familiar enough with your face to remember who you are is staggering! All it takes is just one of them to make you and connect it with something they read about your having committed suicide, and you're a goner. Considering the possibilities, and the repercussions of being identified, a little disguise might just be the best buy in the history of insurance.

  By "disguise" I do not mean
the Lon Chaney, Hunchback of Notre Dame type of getup. A lamster doesn't need much of a change in appearance to effect his purposes. Even so simple an exercise as a change in clothing from what one ordinarily wears and a change in hairstyle are enough to throw off even one's friends and relatives. A detective for the California Police Department once told me that it is not at all unusual for parents searching Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue area to fail to recognize their own children when they meet them face-to-face.

  There are six general ways that a person is recognized:

  1) Gait.

  2) Overall appearance.

  3) Shape of the head and face.

  4) Voice.

  5) Features. Not the same as #3, above.

  6) Location.

  A simple disguise that changes any or all of these items of identification is all that is required for good, basic camouflage. Let's take them in order.

  It is relatively easy to deliberately change the way you walk. But it is only too easy to forget to keep in character when tired, or when you think no one is watching. To rule against this contingency you can make it impossible to return to your original gait in moments of stress or absentmindedness. One way to do this is to wear shoes of different heights. A good orthopedic shoemaker could add 1/4" to the heal of one shoe and subtract the same amount from the other. You will automatically be forced to adjust your gait to compensate for the 1/2" difference. Once you fall into your new gait it will never be forgotten as long as the trick shoes are worn, and perhaps even with regular shoes.

  Another way to change your walk is to permanently attach some object inside one shoe of every pair you own or buy. As we all know too well, the smallest little particle stuck in your shoe causes enough discomfort to change the way you walk. The item should be identical for each pair of shoes, and it should be placed in exactly the same place. A good choice is a thumbtack with the pointed edge pushed into the sole of the shoe. The rounded back of the tack should be enough to alter your gait without crippling you for life.

  Overall appearance is determined to a marked degree by clothing, weight and posture. Most of us have had the experience of meeting our dentist or corner policeman out of uniform and completely and embarrassingly failing to recognize him. Similarly, a man who always wears neat, conservative suits will pass unnoticed by his co-workers and associates if he meets them head-on while dressed in laborer's clothing.

  It is more important, however, for a disappearee to dress so as not to attract attention than it is for him to dress for disguise. A person who was a carpenter in his old identity and switches to masonry work should not go around dressed in three-piece suits in his off hours to disguise himself. Rather, he should attempt to blend in with his surroundings as best as possible. There are other ways to alter the appearance without changing the way one dresses.

  One of the surest ways to avoid recognition is to wear glasses, especially sunglasses, if you did not wear them previously. Many people look very similar if one judges them by height, weight and hair coloring. So many times someone will only recognize you at the moment they make eye contact. Clear eyeglasses are an excellent disguise for the person that never wore glasses. And while sunglasses may seem inappropriate for many occasions, a person who always wears tinted glasses or sunglasses will not stand out once people are used to them.

  Some other simple methods for disguising the appearance are changing hair color and hair style, removing any jewelry that you customarily wear, wearing different colored clothing than you might normally wear, growing or shaving facial hair, and getting dentures if you've needed them for a while anyway.

  A drastic weight change affects the appearance in several ways. A man who was a consistent forty pounds or more overweight in his original existence will drastically change his gait, general appearance, features and the very shape of his face simply by knocking off the spare tire. And it isn't that hard to do--I've done it myself. Several times.

  The congenitally skinny people have a different weight problem, for which I know of no solution. I know several thin people who could eat everything on the menu of an Italian restaurant three times a day and not gain anything but heartburn for their efforts. These kind of people will have to find some other way to disguise themselves.

  One is also recognized by the general appearance of the head and face, which is different than being recognized by your features. It is this facet of identification that enables one to recognize a friend seen dimly through the side window of his car as he drives by in the rain.

  Changing the length of hair is a good way to alter the shape of the head. Your disappearance may be the occasion for a crew cut or even a Yul Brynner cue-ball bob. Eyeglasses change the shape of the head while they hide the eyes. Beards and mustaches change the shape of the face, though they may not be appropriate in certain communities or professions. Taking up smoking cigarettes or a pipe will have the effect of changing your facial appearance, particularly in profile.

  It is probably more difficult to permanently change your voice than any other aspect of your identity. A person's friends can usually recognize him by voice alone. If one speaks with an accent or in a dialect it is best to get rid of it pronto and learn "standard" American English. Of course, this is easier said than done. But if a man is clever enough and determined enough to change his identity, the task of changing his language should not be beyond his reach.

  A great many of our language habits are a product of the environment we find ourselves in. It is very important that the identity changer adjust his speech to fit in with his surroundings. A white collar executive who turns to the building trades in his new life better learn to cuss a good streak, and learn it quickly. Four-syllable words are seldom uttered on Alaskan fishing vessels. Highbrow language will make you stand out like a sore thumb in a blue collar existence. If you are making a big change in status, it is best to keep quiet for awhile anyway until you learn the ropes. Fortunately, it is a lot easier to fall into the vocabulary of your class than it is to change an accent or dialect.

  It really isn't that practical to change one's features, which is often accomplished through plastic surgery. And if you make changes of your hair, facial hair, eyes (by wearing glasses or switching to contacts) you will also alter your features well enough to disguise yourself in most instances.

  One exception would be scars or other glaring marks of identification. In many cases scars and other marks can be disguised with makeup or facial hair, and often as not the people who have them have been disguising them for years already. I met one disappearee who claimed to have had a spectacular set of buck teeth, so bad that, as he put it, he could "eat corn on the cob through a picket fence." The first thing he did when he vanished was have a dentist replace his protruding front teeth with a bridge, and it changed his appearance from night to day.

  Hair dye for a man is often more trouble than it's worth. A dye job has to be continuously touched up or it becomes painfully obvious and a distraction to boot. The possible exception is for a man whose hair is bright orange because their aren't many people with naturally orange hair. A phone contact I made who was in this situation said he felt a cue-ball haircut was the best way to deal with it. He would rather run an electric razor over his head now and then than to always be monkeying around with a chemistry set. A hair dye job on a man will be talked about to no end if it is noticed, and talk is one thing the disappearee wants to avoid.

  Location is a seldom appreciated method of personal identification, and it plays into the hands of the vanisher. One often fails to recognize them simply because they were expected to be elsewhere. And even if the disappearee is half-recognized the observer will be inclined to believe it is simply a case of mistaken identity if there is the least bit of disguise employed. And sometimes, even if there is no disguise at all.

  SOME THINGS TO AVOID

  The disappearee must be like a chameleon if he wants to stay a free man. That is, he must be able to blend in with his surroundings and avo
id attracting attention to himself. If this fails and he finds himself being interrogated for some reason, a traffic violation, for example, he must be prepared with a reasonable-sounding life story that is backed up with some documentation. In short, the lamster must be prepared for identity checks at all times and proceed with caution to avoid them. There are many cases of disappearees who have been able to outlast intensive investigations only to blow everything through an act of sheer stupidity.

  Take the celebrated case of Patricia Hearst. Her kidnappers/companions were well known to the law enforcement folks, yet even the vaunted Federal Bureau of Investigation could not find hide nor hair of them for over a year. With all the money involved, and the fantastic amount of publicity surrounding the case, you can believe it was one of the most thorough manhunts ever launched. Yet a few of Miss Hearst's original group were only located and ventilated because one of them ripped off a pair of 98 cent socks in a sporting goods store!

  For those who seriously desire to stay free, then, here are some tips from those who "have gone before."

  The Paper Trail

  Nobody, whether vanisher or "straight" can avoid laying a paper trail as he moves through life. The disappearee must be very careful in the initial stages of his new life not to make a slip. One mistake in documenting an identity could surface many years later, catching the disappearee off guard as he believes he has made it free and clear. No matter what malarkey government agencies spout, all records, both private and official, must be presumed to be open to inspection by all comers. Social Security, withholding reports filed by employers, licenses, even Federal Income Tax returns are more or less open to the general public. And the information these records contain is always available to official investigative agencies.