A few weeks ago in Half Price Books I heard a catchy tune playing. Searched it up and it was UFO by Jim Sullivan. Added it to my playlist and enjoyed listening to it, great song.


But then today I randomly decided to look into who this dude was because I'd never even heard of him and within a few minutes I found myself going down a rabbit-hole about his disappearance in 1975. Some of yall have undoubtedly heard this whole saga, but if you haven't, short version is that he left LA bound for Nashville but stopped in Santa Rosa NM and was never seen again. He drove his VW to the outskirts of town, and police found it abandoned with his stuff all inside but no trace of where he went. A search was done, but to this days it's a cold case with no leads...dude just vanished.

Possibly, no body being found complicates that. The guy wasn't in super good shape or prepared in any way for a desert trek, so body likely wouldn't have been super far from his vehicle.

Also, some weird stuff about the family's ranch he was on possibly having mafia ties and the behavior and lack of proper record-keeping by the Santa Rosa police all lends itself to some wacky theories.

Another random fact I learned was that in his years playing shows in Malibu he became friends with some stars and Dennis Hopper made him a background hippy in Easy Rider.

ETA - His wife told authorities that his last call home from Santa Rosa was a little strange. She asked him why he sounded a little off or something and he said "If I told you, you wouldn't believe it".

He bought a bottle of vodka right before he disappeared. My theory, he was distraught over his failing marriage and his failed music career as both of his albums sold poorly so he got drunk, drove off in the desert in search of peyote and fell into a ravine and died while tripping balls.

That's pretty likely, but I'm still skeptical that a guy of his age/fitness/preparedness and inebriated could wander far enough from his car that he wouldn't be found over the course of 40 years, but could be.

He'd had a run in with local cops earlier and he may or may not have gotten on their bad side. Not implausible that one of them or the mafia family whose ranch he enroached upon knocked him off and disposed of the body where it would never be found. Apparently that family shortly after sold that ranch and moved to Hawaii.