This Missing Person from Chicago Might Not Even Exist

This week, my girlfriend, Catherine, showed me a TikTok video that has stayed with me ever since. I knew nothing about it going in, and even when I pressed play on the video, I had no idea what I was in for. Now, the clip in question has gone from a passing curiosity to a minor obsession in no time.

It is the curious case of Joanna Lopez, a missing person from Chicago that might not even exist in the first place. Full disclosure: this story is weird and slightly nonlinear. Being that I can't find any reputable news sources covering this story, I had to resort to everything from an Urban Legend Fandom site, half of a Medium article I could read before being paywalled, and stray Reddit posts. That's the thing about so called urban legends. You're never sure what to believe, you just soak up the information you can find like a sponge.

Who is Joanna Lopez?:

On Saturday, January 14th, 1989, WMAQ-TV (Chicago's NBC affiliate) was airing their usual E/I programming in the early morning hours. PSAs revolving around anti-drug campaigns, a meditation segment, and more were all part of this seemingly routine broadcast. Following the station sign-off, a clip of the National Anthem was aired. It's what happened after that has everyone talking.

Following the anthem, a 20-second still image of a missing person named Joanna Lopez was shown on the screen. No sound. No music. No context. Nothing. Just an eerie black still with a grainy picture of a woman, her name, "Joanna Lopez," a "MISSING" banner, and a phone number (312-744-5594) to call.

The Photo of Joanna Lopez:

Where to begin from there? For starters, the picture displayed is absolutely awful. It looks like a Xerox copy of a missing person flyer, and renders Joanna Lopez an indistinguishable blob of inky, oversaturated blackness. The picture resembles an alien more-so than an actual human being.

Not to mention, with a terrible photo and no information about Lopez, there was ostensibly no hope of finding her. Chicago is home to millions of people. There are no details about Lopez on the slide. No age, height, weight, neighborhood, "last seen" date, etc. Nothing off which to go if someone wanted to make a valiant effort to find her. Keep in mind too, this was 1989. There was no internet to look up more information on Lopez and her missing person case.

The Phone Number:

After watching the TikTok video together, Catherine and I couldn't resist not calling the phone number. After two or three rings, the phone call itself displayed "User Busy," followed by an abrupt hang-up. Using city records from the time, someone on Reddit discovered that the phone number was once listed as that of the Youth Division of the Chicago Police Department on 1121 South State Street (Room 700).

That has led some to believe Joanna Lopez was a runaway, or perhaps someone who escaped a juvenile facility in the city. Again, all speculation. All hearsay. Nothing concrete whatsoever.

The Many Theories of What Happened to Joanna Lopez:

The aforementioned Urban Legend Fandom site has a barrage of theories of what could've possibly happened to Joanna Lopez. Ordinarily with missing persons cases, there is a story attached. There's a description of where he/she was last seen, where they lived, their family. Something off which to go. For Lopez, no such context exists. There's not even confirmation of her age. As a result, theories are all over the place.

There is strong belief she was a juvenile runaway, and perhaps her parents contacted WMAQ and supplied them with a photo in order to bring her home. There's a theory that she never existed and perhaps a hacker tapped into WMAQ and erroneously displayed the message (before you roll your eyes, I advise you to read about the infamous "Max Headroom signal hijacking" that happened in Chicago around the same time).

The Urban Legend Fandom site also notes that there was a rumor that the woman in the picture was actually a Chicago Community High School student named Rachel Lopez, and that the TV slide got the name wrong. A yearbook photo of (Rachel) Lopez does look a lot like the figure in the missing person slide, with matching hair, glasses, and skin-tone.

Where to Go from Here?:

As is the case with missing persons, urban legends, and strange happenstance that somehow finds its way on television. There are no concrete answers. The internet, however, doesn't forget. On Reddit, a Joanna Lopez subreddit has been created for people to share theories and/or developments on the case. Various threads about Lopez outside of that subreddit exist too. Conversation is ongoing.

People have gone as far as to contact Chicago police for any information, but have either found themselves with nothing but dead-ends or no returned phone calls. On one hand, it might suggest that Lopez was eventually found. Nobody truly knows.

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Visit the Urban Legend Fandom site to read more about Joanna Lopez and possible theories. See the full WMAQ-TV broadcast from 1989 on YouTube. Keep her name alive online, and perhaps one day there will be confirmation and clarity as to what happened with the missing person from Chicago who may or may not even exist in the first place.