There are so many ways a person can go missing nowadays but perhaps the
saddest and most unbelievable way is when the world seems to open up and swallow them whole.
There are sometimes no clues and it’s hotly debated whether that’s better or
worse than when there is a trail of strange and extremely confusing ones
left behind in the wake of the disappearance. Sometimes though, as we go forward in retelling
these missing people’s tragic tales, it’s what’s left behind that scares and confounds us the most.
Sadly, most of the time when something happens where a person is seemingly here one minute
and gone the next, especially when there is no trace of them left behind and no leads to follow,
the case goes cold, the searches are called off and unfortunately and tragically the
family and loved ones of the missing person are not only left to pick up the pieces but
the only ones who are left searching, most often for the rest of their lives.
However, every once in a while a person goes missing in exactly this way,
seeming to disappear in the wind and blow into the ether, who is relatively known
or perhaps even famous in some circles. This makes it much easier for the word
to get around and harder for people to let go of. Especially nowadays with the way the internet and
social media is, if something like this happens to someone who is even relatively or obscurely known,
the case will skyrocket into notoriety and many more people than just the family and
friends will be looking for answers as the case gets launched into the annals of the
strange and unsolved for each new generation to revive and garner interest in again.
This is exactly one of those cases. Let’s take a look at the strange,
creepy and possibly otherworldly disappearance of Jim Sullivan.
Jim Sullivan was a folk rocker who first started becoming noticed in
the 1960s in Los Angeles, California. He and his band The Survivors originally
took gigs in all of the usual, local bars and clubs. Eventually they brought in enough revenue
to be able to call one venue in particular their home as they quickly became a fixture
at a club in Malibu, California called The Raft. It was at this venue that Jim and his band became
local celebrities and started meeting all of the top people in Hollywood at the time,
which of course boded really well for their budding music careers. Jim even had a bit role
in the cult classic movie Easy Riders. In 1969 he was able to pull in and save
enough money to make his groundbreaking first studio album, aptly titled UFO.
Jim was by now a solo act and was given the chance to work with some major players during
the making of this album including a band backing him up called The Wrecking Crew
who were pretty influential themselves having played with and for such famous acts of the
time the Beach Boys and Simon and Garfunkel on some of the greatest hits of their own careers.
Despite all of the backup talent and local notoriety the album garnered, it, unfortunately,
didn’t draw the attention of any major record labels and was instead released on the much
smaller, and relatively unknown, Monnie Labels. UFO was unique in that it blended together
so many different types of music and genres; mainly folk, rock, and country,
and many years later it would become popular and have a very large cult following.
Despite this album becoming a classic in later decades at the time and when
it mattered most to Jim, it was a complete flop.
Though he continued performing and recording after the album bombed, this is said to be
the start of a complete downward spiral into depression- and some say mania- for him as well.
His second, self-titled album was picked up and distributed by Playboy Records
which was a company that was, very briefly, founded and owned by Hugh Hefner himself.
Unfortunately, this album didn’t do much better than the first and it’s said that Jim never
really came back from his initial failure in making it in the big time of the day’s music
industry and his depression quickly turned into a downward spiral of alcoholism and paranoia.
He seemed paranoid that other artists, mainly those who were more successful,
were ripping off his very unique style of music.
All of this combined with the fact that his marriage was all but over,
and Jim wasn’t doing very well, in any area of his life, during this time.
Becoming more disillusioned by the minute, in 1975 Jim traveled to Nashville thinking
he could revive his career and in doing so get his life back on track.
On March 4th of that same year, Jim loaded everything he owned into his
little Volkswagen Beetle and hit the road. He left his son, Chris, and his wife,
Carol behind promising them that they could come and join him once he started
making money with a permanent gig performing. That wasn’t destined to happen; it seems as
Jim Sullivan would never make it to Nashville or, it seems, anywhere else for that matter,
and by all accounts, he might have even driven right off the face of the Earth.
All that’s really known for sure is that he made it as far as New Mexico,
arriving the day after he left, on March 5th 1975.
He was pulled over at some point on that leg of his journey by a highway patrol officer
who reported Jim had been swerving all over the road and that he believed him when he said he was
simply exhausted and too tired to be driving anymore after going right through the night.
He was let off with a warning and immediately after checked
into the La Mesa Motel in Santa Rosa, New Mexico.
A weird fact that would be uncovered later was that the key to the room
had been left inside and the bed had never been slept in.
So, while Jim Sullivan did indeed check into the motel and it seems he at least entered his room,
he seems to have left the key and took off immediately after.
The next day on March 6th, he was allegedly
spotted wandering aimlessly on someone else’s property; a ranch to be exact.
This is the last known sighting of Jim Sullivan and the beginning of a mystery
that still endures, especially in this community, to this day.
During the initial search, Jim’s Volkswagen was found
on that same ranch where he was last seen, locked, and seemingly abandoned.
The vehicle still contained Jim’s wallet,
his clothes, his money and guitar, and a box of his unsold records.
During one of the many intensive searches into what happened to him the police even turned up a
dead body but it wasn’t Jim’s and that’s where the physical discoveries in this case end.
There are, of course, speculations, rumors,
and more theories than we could ever go over in just one video.
Later on Jim’s son Chris said of his father’s disappearance and the bizarre mysteries he and
it left behind, “I think he got on the wrong side of someone out there and was probably
murdered or buried. He was stopped by the police out there, and law enforcement has a
way with making people disappear. It was odd, of course, that all of his stuff was left behind”.
If you were killed or disposed of, would someone not get rid of all of the evidence?
Maybe he just took a long walk?
Maybe the grind of trying to make it in an industry he loved so much—and failed at,
for lack of a better word—just got to him.
Maybe I have some mysticism to me as well, tempered with pragmatism that overwhelms me.
Perhaps he just walked into the desert.
The mystery of it all is just nagging…a long way to say that I have no idea.
After the facts, no, we heard absolutely nothing about what happened to my dad.
Our families were out there for a time—they were bulldogs—even tried to get people to fess up,
but nothing ever came of it. I’ve had a long time to think about all this.”
Of course, because of the title alone of his first album UFO, many people have speculated
that perhaps Jim was abducted and/or had some other sort of extraterrestrial connection.
It has led to all manner of theories and rumors and took the paranormal
and ufology communities by storm, even before the invention of the internet.
It wasn’t only because of the album title either as Jim Sullivan went missing close
to the infamous site of the Roswell crash; some say a little too close.
Treble Magazine’s Jeff Terich said of the abduction theory,
“U.F.O. is the reason why the abduction theory persists, and I get why that is.
It’s a funny coincidence that six years before he vanished, Sullivan should happen to release
a song about extraterrestrial visitors. And he just so happened to go missing in New Mexico,
the very state where the famed Roswell incident occurred in 1947, kicking off generations’ worth
of suspicions over government cover-ups and airplane hangars full of flying saucers.
That being said, “U.F.O.” isn’t so much a prophecy as it is a warm and
good-humored psychedelic country-folk song about visions of faith. In listening to “U.F.O'',
it’s easy to hear why this is an appealing theory about what happened to Jim Sullivan.
Not because it’s likely—I doubt anyone could come to that conclusion so readily—but
because it provides some kind of comfort. In “U.F.O.”, he’s enthralled by what he’s seeing,
but it’s a feel good vibe, like maybe those aliens just might be alright after all.
(Or the Lord—it’s really more about that.) The truth about Sullivan is probably less
outlandish but a lot sadder. He probably died alone in the middle of the desert,
and that’s something that most of us probably wouldn’t want to fathom.
Given the circumstances, I’d probably prefer to be the subject of urban legend too.
And when I think of Sullivan looking toward the sky at the incredible sight before him, I can’t
help but smile at the thought of him on some interstellar journey beyond our understanding.”
Whatever the general public, the music industry or the individual person believes,
the disappearance of Jim Sullivan has become the music industry’s most
enduring and some say the most outlandish, unsolved mystery.
Many of Jim’s fans still consistently debate whether or not the UFO theory
overshadows the music and vision of the man himself or whether it brings
more people into his world, his writing, and his music.
The founder of the record label Light in the Attic Records, a man of no relation named
Matt Sullivan released a statement along with previously unreleased and unheard demos of Jims
and re-releases of all of his original songs and albums and in it, he stated,
“When you discover a story like Jim’s, you start hearing the music differently.
It seems impossible not to hear the lyrics as a prediction…that he would come to some kind
of mysterious end. I hope that people remember him for making a masterpiece.
His voice has this kind of weathered, worldly Americana sound. Kind of a
country-mixed-with-rock element to it. From there, the production, the strings:
It's lush, but they're dark and eerie.
I kind of look at it as pop songs that aren't happy.
They're filled with despair.
With or without his disappearance,
there's something in those lyrics that is incredibly mysterious and eerie.
One thing that one of Jim's friends pointed out was that the guitar was left in the car.
If Jim was going to disappear, that would have been the one thing that
he would have taken – because wherever he was in the world,
he could always stand on a street corner and make a few bucks playing his guitar.”
So what really happened to Jim Sullivan that
day way back in 1975 and what does his last known actions really mean?
Does it have anything to do with the title of his first album and his increasing paranoia?
Did he meet with foul play or simply get lost somewhere out
in the desert where he will most likely never be found?
Could it possibly be something so simple?
Or, did something otherworldly happen?
Was Jim destined to be abducted in order to take off with extraterrestrials on some
interstellar travel itinerary and was he aware that this was going to happen?
This is once again a case where we may never know what happened but where the
enduring mystery is enough to leave us scratching our heads for decades,
or as his music lives on with its very large cult following even today, even centuries from now.
So what do you guys think happened to Jim Sullivan?
Be sure to let us know in the comments down below!
But please, keep it friendly and respectful!
And I'll see you guys in our next video!