Joseph Force Crater was an American lawyer who served as a New York State Supreme Court Justice and mysteriously vanished shortly after the state began an investigation into corruption in New York City. Despite massive publicity, the missing persons case was never solved and was officially closed forty years after Crater was declared dead.

Bureau of Missing Persons is a 1933 American pre-Code drama film with comic overtones directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring Bette Davis, Lewis Stone, Pat O'Brien and Glenda Farrell. The screenplay by Robert Presnell is based on the book Missing Men by former New York City Police Captain John H. Ayers and Carol Bird.