The World Leader that disappeared without a trace 50 years ago....

Many may not know this story, but it is very interesting. Imagine a World Leader just disappears today and he or his body isn't found for at least 50 years? As you can imagine, the conspiracy theories would be rife - and that is exactly what happened in Australia in 1967 and the years following the disappearance of the 17th Prime Minister - Harold Holt. The 50th Anniversary of this monumental event is Australia's history is this Sunday.

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Fifty years on from the unsolved disappearance of Australia's 17th prime minister, Harold Holt, the conspiracy theories will not go away.

No trace of Holt has been found since he disappeared from waters of Portsea, Victoria, on December 17, 1967.

In the decades since, theories involving spies, assassination and kidnapping have emerged.

As the anniversary of his disappearance approaches, these are among the most popular theories:

WAS HE A CHINESE SPY?

One of the more outlandish theories, popularised by a British writer Anthony Grey in 1983, is that Holt had been a Chinese spy for more than 20 years, was picked up by a submarine and taken back to China before Australia's intelligence service made the discovery.

WAS HE ASSASSINATED?

The year before Holt disappeared, the opposition leader Arthur Calwell survived an assassination attempt by a student at an anti-conscription rally.

After Holt's death, the police found what looked like a bullet hole in a window of the prime minister's office, bolstering the theory that he may have been murdered.

WAS IT A BOTCHED KIDNAPPING?

A book by Australian author Scott Cooper, based on details from a friend and spy who died in 1974, claims Holt was killed accidentally in a botched kidnapping prompted by his plan to increase troops to Vietnam.

Cooper said the plot to make Holt see reason went horribly wrong as the prime minister died of asphyxiation during the kidnapping.

WAS IT SIMPLY AN ACCIDENT?

Holt's former press secretary Tony Eggleton maintains that the prime minister's demise was nothing more than a tragic accident.

"Basically, I think that people just find it very hard to accept that a prime minister can go for a swim on a Sunday afternoon, like anyone else, and end up misjudging the situation and drowning," he told the ABC in 2007.

"But that's what happened."

SUICIDE?

Australian National University's Professor Nicholas Brown has dismissed all conspiracy theories - including that Holt suicided - as a product of the tense political climate post-WWII.

"It was a bad day to go swimming in rough sea and there was no indication he didn't intend to come back," he said.

MYSTERY OVERPOWERS LEGACY

Holt's own son has dismissed conspiracy theories surrounding the disappearance, and remembered the "feeling of foreboding" he felt after hearing a missing person alert on the radio on that afternoon in 1967.

"I heard from a very modern instrument known as a transistor radio that ... there was a missing VIP at Portsea," Sam Holt said.

Prof Brown said that the circumstances of Holt's disappearance have largely overshadowed his political achievements.

"He's remembered as the bloke who drowned," Prof Brown said.

"But the transition he represented when he took office changed the political landscape."

He made the role of prime minister more informal, developed relationships with the media and was "superb" on television, Brown added.

"He was a modern presence, a much more approachable and affable kind of guy."

During his almost two years as prime minister, Holt eased parts of the White Australia Policy, built relations with Asia and backed the referendum to include Indigenous Australians in the census.

However, Holt also ramped up Australia's commitment to the Vietnam War, including through conscription.

His famous proclamation "all the way with LBJ" while visiting the United States and president Lyndon B Johnson, further inflamed opposition to the war in Australia.

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