Attempt to Vanish

The topic of people faking their deaths, creating a new identity, and starting over is very interesting. Not just the fact that people can do it and can succeed or try and get caught, but also the reason that they wanted to disappear in the first place. Evan Ratliff's idea to "vanish" was very intrigueing but also seemed ridiculous and crazy. He just decided to leave everything that he had; his family, friends, work and basically his whole life to just go on the run basically and start a new identity to trick people. Then have them go on the hunt to track him down and find him by saying the code word "Fluke" and shoot a picture of him. It was really interesting how he had so many followers and how they created a twitter and other online groups to talk with other trackers of Ratliff to try and track his whereabouts and give eachother clues and tips that they have gained. Ratliff did a very good job covering his tracks and being very careful about his physical appearance, not sticking out when he was in public, covering up his IP addresses and being careful about his privacy online, and all of his money transactions, etc.

I am not sure which shocked me more; the fact that he had so many people basically stalking him through leads and clues they discovered about him, what the motive people had for tracking him whether it was the $5,000 or whatever reason they had, or just the fact that people can gain so much knowledge about someone through technology. The large number of people that were on the hunt acquired so much information about Ratliff that he did not tell them and a great majority of them had no idea who Evan Ratliff was before he "vanished". It is almost scary to know that it is almost impossible to vanish and never be tracked because of technology today. It can also create somewhat of a paranoia for some that complete strangers can access a variety of information or find out where someone is with out ever meeting or speaking to them.

It seems that this project of just vanishing and trying to be untraceable did affect Ratliff. It did create a bit of paranoia in him. Even while he was just out for a usual jog, he felt that people were always watching him, like the helicopter that was hovering near by him on the beach sort of freaked him out. He felt like everyone was "out to get him" which in reality they were. It also seems like he was still affected after he was caught that he was still a little paranoid even though he had returned to his actual life and he was not being followed and no one seemed to care about his whereabouts. Overall I found Evan Ratliff's story extemely interesting not just because it was a contest to find him after he vanished but they way people reacted to it, how and the extent people that people went to track him, and why they were trying to track him down.