Time suddenly jumped forward for Hannah Upp, erasing weeks of memory in an instant. In 2008, a frantic search gripped New York City when the 23-year-old Spanish teacher vanished, only to be rescued three weeks later with zero recollection of what had occurred. She disappeared again in 2013, and one final time in 2017.
Her story involves a rare medical diagnosis, unusual behavior patterns, and a final vanishing amidst the chaos of two devastating hurricanes. This is the complete factual account of a woman whose successive disappearances remain unsolved today.
Missing in Manhattan: The 2008 Disappearance
On August 28, 2008, Upp left her Hamilton Heights apartment for a run, leaving her identification, wallet, phone, and passport behind. For nearly three weeks, her whereabouts were completely unknown. On September 16, a ferry captain spotted her floating face-down in the Upper Bay near Staten Island.
Deckhands quickly rescued Upp, who was still wearing her running clothes. She believed only ten minutes had passed. Surveillance footage later revealed she had visited a gym, checked emails at an Apple Store, and even spoken to a classmate who asked if she was the missing teacher, which she denied. Doctors diagnosed her with dissociative fugue, a rare condition causing temporary amnesia and identity loss while allowing sufferers to function normally and travel.
A Second Vanishing: The 2013 Maryland Case
Five years later, on September 3, 2013, Upp went missing while walking to her teaching job in Kensington, Maryland. Her purse was discovered near a local footpath. Two days later, on September 5, Upp was found sitting in a creek alongside a shopping cart. She borrowed a stranger’s cell phone to call her mother.
Clear patterns emerged between the two events: both happened at the school year’s start, both involved bodies of water, and both occurred shortly after she returned from traveling abroad with her father. Upp quickly recovered from this second episode and eventually moved to St. Thomas.
The Final 2017 Disappearance in St. Thomas
In September 2017, Hurricane Irma struck St. Thomas, heavily devastating the island. Upp chose to stay behind to help her Montessori school prepare for the incoming Hurricane Maria rather than evacuate on a mercy ship. On the morning of September 14, she left for a pre-work swim in the ocean.
She never arrived at work. Friends located her sundress, sandals, and car keys on a bar stool at Sapphire Beach. Her car remained parked in the lot with her purse, phone, and passport locked inside. The ocean was behaving abnormally between the two hurricanes, and despite searches of the coastline, Upp was never found. A badly decomposed skeleton washed ashore on a nearby island in 2018, but it could not be identified through DNA testing. Hannah Upp remains missing.