Until 2008, Hanna Epp was an ordinary resident of the USA. She worked as a teacher at a public school in Harlem.
She had no apparent mental health issues or personal problems, wasn’t addicted to drugs, and didn’t drink alcohol. Friends and acquaintances described Hanna as cheerful, friendly, and very sociable.
Hanna loved spending evenings with friends, had no known enemies, and was financially stable enough to afford an apartment in Manhattan, New York.
But in August 2008, Hanna suddenly disappeared. According to her neighbors, they last saw her in the morning, as she left her apartment for her usual morning jog around the block. She never returned. She wasn’t seen the next day or the day after that.
Two days after Hanna’s disappearance, her friends reported her missing to the police. Upon searching Hanna’s apartment, all her documents, money, cell phone, and credit card were found, and her belongings seemed undisturbed. It was clear that Hanna hadn’t planned to go anywhere.
The investigator suspected foul play, initiating a search for her body. The surrounding neighborhoods were thoroughly searched, but no clues were found.
Nine days after her disappearance, a passerby spotted a strange woman at an Apple Store in Manhattan. She was standing in a trance-like state, looking ahead. The passerby recognized her from flyers with the caption “Missing Person – Hanna Epp”.
The concerned shopper approached the woman and asked if she was Hanna. However, the strange woman didn’t react and eventually disappeared. She was later seen in other places in Manhattan and SoHo, entering shops, cafes, and even a sports club, but she didn’t make any purchases or engage in purposeful actions. Witnesses consistently described her as resembling Hanna Epp and being in a trance-like state.
Each time the police arrived, the woman had already vanished. This continued until mid-September.
On September 16, 2008, two ferry workers near the Statue of Liberty saw a human body floating near the shore. Initially assuming it was a drowning victim, they pulled the person out and discovered she was alive. It was a woman who closely resembled the photos of the missing Hanna Epp.
She was taken to the hospital, where doctors found her suffering from mild hypothermia, dehydration, and minor sunburns. When she regained consciousness and spoke to the police, she confirmed she was Hanna Epp but remembered nothing of the past three weeks.
According to Hanna, the last thing she remembered was leaving her apartment for her morning jog. She had no memory of wandering around Manhattan or how much time had passed since her disappearance. To her, it seemed like she went for a jog and then woke up in an ambulance about ten minutes later.
Even after thorough medical examinations and tests, including regressive hypnosis, no underlying trauma or psychological issues were found.
Doctors concluded that Hanna likely experienced a rare condition similar to “Jason Bourne Syndrome,” where a person suddenly loses part of their memory related to identity but retains general knowledge of the world.
Despite attempts to understand her condition, Hanna decided to accept it and moved to Maryland, where she resumed teaching and initially lived normally.
However, in September 2013, almost exactly five years after her first disappearance, Hanna vanished again. Her mother found a stack of neatly folded clothes and her car keys near her home on the beach. Hanna’s car was parked nearby with her purse, wallet, passport, and phone on the seat.
Despite extensive searches by the police, including beaches, hospitals, homeless shelters, and nearby islands, no trace of Hanna was found.
There were sporadic sightings of a woman resembling Hanna near yacht harbors and homeless shelters, but police always arrived too late to find her.
Hanna’s family still holds out hope that she’s alive somewhere, possibly living under a different identity. The mystery of why Hanna’s strange memory losses occurred exclusively in September and always involved water remains unsolved.