“In a time when tele-evangelists seem to inundate the airwaves with their own cable channels and are just another stop in an evening’s channel surfing, it’s easy to forget an earlier time, when revival meetings were as exciting as the circus coming to town, and evangelists were treated like rock stars. For Los Angeles, the premiere evangelist of those days was Aimee Semple McPherson. … The citizens of Los Angeles, and particularly her large congregation, were stunned to learn on May 18, 1926, that Aimee had disappeared while swimming near Venice Beach. Members of her congregation went into the waters where she disappeared, with one person drowning and another dying of exposure. Not a trace of her body could be found. After 32 days, Aimee stumbled out of the desert near Douglas, Arizona…”

For more info on the controversy surrounding Sister Aimee and her mysterious 1926 “kidnapping,” follow this link to the USC Libraries website.