Hannah Upp, known for her mysterious disappearances and miraculous reappearances, vanished for the final time on September 14, 2017. Despite having disappeared and been found multiple times before, this time her fate remained a mystery. Her disappearance marked the end of a baffling series of events, leaving behind a tragic and unresolved enigma.

The First Disappearance of Hannah Upp

Hannah Upp was a middle-school teacher at Thurgood Marshall Academy in Harlem, New York. On August 28, 2008, she left her apartment for a jog on Riverside Drive but did not return. 

Hannah’s sudden disappearance stunned the city. Her friends posted flyers about her disappearance on signposts, at subway stations, and bus stops, but Hannah was untraceable. 

About two weeks later, Hannah Upp was spotted in surveillance footage of the Apple Store in midtown Manhattan. The sighting brought a glimmer of hope to her supporters. They divided themselves into different groups and looked out for Hannah in the woods, on running paths, and under benches.

Hannah Upp is found

On September 16, 2008, the twentieth day of her disappearance, the captain of the Staten Island ferry saw a woman bobbling in the water near Robbins Reef, a rocky outcropping with a lighthouse south of the Statue of Liberty.

The captain sent his two deckhands with a rescue boat to save the woman. Initially, the deckhands believed the woman to be dead as she was floating face down in the water. When the rescuers lifted the woman out of the freezing water, she gasped for air and began to cry. The woman was identified as Hannah Upp, who had been missing for three weeks.

Hannah was taken to Richmond University Medical Center on Staten Island. Lying in the hospital, dehydrated and sunburned, Hannah could not remember anything about her disappearance, what she did or where she lived during those three weeks of disappearance.

Strangely, she was suddenly able to recall her name and also the phone number of her mom, Barbara Bellus. 

Upp could not understand how she ended up in the river. “I went from going for a run to being in the ambulance. It was like 10 minutes had passed. But it was almost three weeks.”, said Hannah in an interview given to the New York Times.

During her stay in the hospital, she was diagnosed with Dissociative Fugue, a rare form of amnesia that makes its sufferers temporarily forget their own identity – for days, months, or even years.

About a year after her disappearance, Hannah left New York to join her mom at Pendle Hill institution, a retreat for people of all religions. She worked in the kitchen and also attended daily meetings for worship.

After working at Pendle Hill for about three years, Hannah joined as a teaching assistant at a Montessori school for underserved children in Kensington, Maryland.

Hannah Upp’s Second Disappearance And Bewildering Reappearance

Hannah went missing on her first day of the class. Her purse, wallet, and cell phone were found on a wooded footpath in Kensington.

The next day, Hannah Upp is found in a dirty creek in a residential area in Wheaton, Maryland, a mile and a half from her school. There was a shopping cart right beside her. 

Ankle Bracelet for Hannah Upp’s safety

To keep her safe in the future, The Maryland Police proposed using an ankle bracelet having a tracking device that would keep a track of her movements. However, Hannah refused the suggestion as she did not want to remain bound by the tracking device. Barbara, respecting Hannah’s freedom of choice, let go of the suggestion.     

There was a striking similarity between her two disappearances. In both instances, Hannah had disappeared at the beginning of the school year, after traveling with her father. 

A year later, Upp moved to St Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands to join as a teaching assistant at a Montessori school.

Hannah Upp Vanishes Again

In September 2017, she vanished for a third time, shortly after Hurricane Irma battered the island and other areas killing more than 130 people.

On September 14, Hannah told her housemates that she was going to school. But neither she arrived at school nor returned home. The next day, her neatly-folded clothes and car keys were found at a nearby beach. It was the same month as her previous disappearances, and again her disappearance was connected to water.

She had stopped using her phone about six days before her disappearance and she seemed to be living on autopilot mode. But her friends thought she is under some kind of stress as they were not aware of her fugue state of mind or her past disappearances.

Her friends explored the sea and shore for three days, but they had to suspend their search as Hurricane Maria was heading their way.

Hannah Upp’s disappearance brings back the haunting memory of Lauren Spierer, who had disappeared mysteriously in the wee hours of June 3, 2011, in Bloomington, Indiana, after a night out with her friends. Lauren too remains untraced.

Find Hannah Upp Facebook Page

To extend the purview of their search, Hannah’s friends and family set up a Facebook page – Find Hannah Upp 

Documentary on Hannah Upp’s disappearance

Elizabeth Vargas explores the mysterious disappearance of Hannah Upp in a documentary, Vanished in Paradise: The Untold Story featured on A&E Networks.

She remains missing to date and no one knows what happened to Hannah Up. We still want to believe and hope that she miraculously appears one day, like her previous returns.

If you have any information about Hannah, please contact her family’s private investigator Steve Wagner at (724) 591–0675 or swager@sherawassociates.com.