The disappearance of Amy Lynn Bradley is being examined anew in a Netflix series called Amy Bradley Is Missing.

In 1998, Bradley, then 23, went on a family cruise with her parents, Ron and Iva, and her brother Brad. The family was staying in the same cabin.

One night, as the ship sailed from Aruba to Curacao, Bradley disappeared. She was captured on video dancing with a bass player named Alister “Yellow” Douglas. He admits dancing with, and talking to, Bradley, but denies any connection to her disappearance, although a witness claimed to have seen Bradley and Douglas around 6 a.m.

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That’s crucial because her family last saw her sitting on a balcony in their cabin around 5:30 a.m. At 6 a.m., she was gone, the ship docked in the port of Curacao, and she vanished into thin air.

Over the years, many theories have emerged. Some believe Bradley jumped or fell overboard from that balcony, a theory buttressed by the fact that a table was pushed against the railing wall, according to the documentary. However, over the years, a series of strange sightings have led to the persistent belief that it’s possible that Bradley is still alive, and that she may have either left the ship voluntarily (possibly to get drugs, according to the documentary) or was human trafficked.

Those sightings spanned a time period of about nine years, and they centered on Curacao and Barbados, but also Aruba.

“Amy Lynn Bradley, while on a family cruise to the Caribbean, went missing from the Royal Caribbean International Cruise Line’s ship Rhapsody of the Seas. On Saturday, March 21, 1998, the vessel departed San Juan, Puerto Rico, and traveled to its first port of call, the island of Aruba,” the FBI says on its website.

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“On Monday, March 23, 1998, Rhapsody of the Seas departed Aruba and was traveling in international waters to its next island port of Curacao, Netherlands Antilles. During the early morning hours of Tuesday, March 24, 1998, Amy Lynn Bradley went missing. The vessel later departed Curacao and continued on to the island of St. Martin (Sint Maarten) and further traveled to St. Thomas, United States Virgin Islands, before returning to San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Saturday, March 28, 1998.”

Here’s a list of the main sightings of Amy Lynn Bradley over the years, along with a timeline.

The 6 a.m. sighting: March 24, 1998

On the morning she disappeared, a cruise ship passenger claimed she saw Amy going up an elevator with a bass player named Alister Douglas, who is a central figure in the case. She then claimed that he walked alone past her, according to the documentary.

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The witness said this happened at 6 a.m., which is critical; it would mean that Amy left her family’s cabin alive, rather than falling or jumping overboard from the balcony where a family member last saw her shortly before that time.

Douglas, who was seen on video dancing with Amy the night before she vanished, has denied having anything to do with Bradley’s disappearance and said in a recent interview that he was back in his room at that time.

Related: Alister Douglas Today: Where Is the Amy Bradley Cruise Ship Entertainer Now?

The cab driver sighting: March 1998

According to the documentary, a cab driver told the Bradleys that he had seen Bradley in Curacao.

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“When the Bradleys returned to Curacao to search for Amy, a Curacao cab driver approached them,” the Amy Bradley missing website says. (That’s the website that the documentary says experts used to document a pattern of IP addresses visiting it on holidays from the Caribbean.)

“He claimed he had seen Amy when the ship was docking. He said he recognized her green eyes, which had been clearly described in the reward poster. The cab driver claimed that Amy was running through the parking lot looking for a phone. He also claimed that he had seen Amy in other locations on the island.”

The David Carmichael Sighting: August 1998

David Carmichael is a Canadian tourist who said he saw Amy on a beach in Curacao in August of 1998, a few months after she went missing.

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According to the documentary, what’s particularly compelling about Carmichael’s sighting is that he claims the woman he saw had a Tasmanian devil tattoo – just like Bradley. There were men with her.

“If he (one of the men) had not stared at me, I would have forgotten everything, but I can’t,” Carmichael said on the series. “I think about this every day. There isn’t a day goes by when I don’t.”

The Bill Hefner Sighting: January 1999

According to the documentary, another sighting was reported years later, but supposedly occurred in January 1999.

A Naval officer named Bill Hefner came forward years later and indicated he met a woman who said she was Amy Bradley at a bar in Curacao, which is where the cruise ship was docking the day Amy disappeared.

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“She told me she got off that ship and she left on her own, ’cause she was going to score drugs,” he said in the documentary. “She said, ‘Well, me and my brother were partying, and I went ashore to get drugs, and now I’m stuck here with these guys.’ ”

Investigators didn’t turn up anything after Hefner’s report because he took so long to report the sighting due to concerns about his career.

According to the Amy Bradley missing website, “Hefner was sitting in the bar area and noticed two women sitting together at a table. One woman was Caucasian and the other was Hispanic. The Caucasian woman walked over to him and told him that her name was Amy Bradley and she needed help.”

The website continues, “Hefner did not recognize that she was a missing person, but he did recognize that she was an American. He told her to go to the ship that was docked five minutes away. Amy made another attempt to tell him that he didn’t understand, her name was Amy Bradley and she needed help. Two men then approached Amy and sent her upstairs.”

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The bar has since burned down, and Hefner passed polygraphs, the website says.

The Judy Maurer Sighting: March 2005

A tourist named Judy Mauer reported another sighting of Bradley. She was on a different cruise with her husband when she encountered a woman she thought was Bradley in a restroom in Bridgeport, Barbados.

She said the woman was being controlled by three men. She contacted authorities after seeing a photo of Bradley on television.

Maurer said in the documentary that the woman said her name was Amy and she was from Virginia.

“That girl is being forced to do something,” she told her husband.

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The Amy Bradley missing website says, “Amy was seen in Bridgetown, Barbados on March 1, 2005. The witness encountered Amy in the bathroom of a Broad Street department store, but Amy was actually seen three times that day. Amy was seen with four ‘handlers.’ They were initially seen standing in the cash register line at the Del Sol store on Broad Street, in a department store restroom, and walking on the sidewalk a block away from Broad Street. The witness described Amy as walking with the four men completely surrounding her.”

The website includes sketches of the woman Maurer saw and one of the men with her.

The adult website photo: 2005

Also in 2005, according to the documentary, the Bradleys were anonymously sent a series of photos showing a woman posing on an adult website.

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The documentary says that a forensic analyst concluded the photos matched the dimensions of Bradley’s face, although her hairstyle and makeup were different.

The official Amy Bradley missing website has the photos and says, “From 2002 until 2008, Amy’s photograph appeared on the website for an escort resort in Venezuela.”

“A complete forensic evaluation was done to determine if the photographs were Amy Bradley. The forensic evaluation was done by Wesley Neville, a well known and highly respected certified forensic artist at International Association for Identification, in Fredericksburg, Virginia,” the website says. It includes a graphic showing the different dimensions studied in that analysis.

The Aruba sighting: January 2007

The Amy Bradley website also lists another sighting not detailed in the Netflix series.

Four men “were seen having dinner at The Mill Restaurant, in Aruba. Amy Bradley was with them,” the website alleges.

Related: Alister Douglas Today: Where Is the Amy Bradley Cruise Ship Entertainer Now?

Amy Lynn Bradley Sightings: Full List With Timeline first appeared on Men’s Journal on Jul 20, 2025