Case file · High strangeness
Ambrose Bierce vanishes in revolutionary Mexico
American writer Ambrose Bierce, author of 'The Devil's Dictionary' and ghost stories, crossed into Mexico to follow Pancho Villa's army; his last known letter was dated 26 December 1913 from Chihuahua, and he was never seen again.
1913 CE · 28.64, -106.08 · status: unexplained
The account
Theories include death at the battle of Ojinaga in January 1914, execution by a firing squad, or suicide in the Grand Canyon. The mystery inspired Carlos Fuentes's novel 'Gringo Viejo'.
The researched reading
A famous writer vanished in revolutionary Mexico. Death in the war, illness or a planned suicide explain it.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Undetermined | 39% | The share the reading had given to fabrication on doubt rather than evidence: the record does not settle it either way. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 22% | Bierce suffered from asthma; death from illness or exposure in northern Mexico in winter is quite possible. |
| A cultural story | 18% | The author of ghost stories about vanishings became a legend himself, with tales of a mystical disappearance. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 12% | His letters joke about being “stood up against a Mexican stone wall” and his friends suspected he went to die; a planned suicide, possibly in the Grand Canyon, was also suggested. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 5% | A deliberate human act is the leading explanation: a 71-year-old American travelling with Villa’s army in a brutal civil war could easily have been shot, either in battle (Ojinaga, January 1914, is often proposed) or by execution. There is no record of his death. |
| Something in the surroundings | 2% | Nothing in the surroundings beyond war and harsh country. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 2% | An elderly man lost in a war needs no strange cause. |
Official position: US consular and family inquiries found nothing; no official conclusion exists.