a lonely figure wandering through the night in L.A, searching everywhere with a flashlight. It was the first part of a triptych. The second part would be the record of his Atlantic crossing (see below), the third part a similar night time search somewhere in the Netherlands, again to be recorded in a series of photographs. He had arranged for a choir to sing sea shanties at a gallery in Los Angeles before his departure from Cape Cod. A similar performance was planned upon his arrival in a museum in Groningen, Netherlands. Due to his loss at sea, the triptych was never completed. The title "In Search of the Miraculous" was a reference to P.D. Ouspensky's mystical book In Search of the Miraculous. Disappearance On 9 July 1975, Ader set off from Cape Cod and the U.S. state of Massachusetts in a modified "Guppy 13" pocket cruiser named Ocean Wave, to make his single-handed west–east crossing of the North Atlantic. He estimated that the voyage should take him some two and a half months. His unmanned boat was found on 18 April 1976, nine months after he had set sail, floating nearly vertically in the water, bow down, 200 nautical miles (360 km) due west of Land's End, 100 nautical miles SW of Ireland. Ocean Wave was found by Spanish fishermen who took her to A Coruña from where she was stolen somewhere between 18 May and 7 June 1976. How Ader may have met his death is the source of much speculation. Sightings of him and his boat off the American East Coast and the Azores are unconfirmed. Ader was an accomplished sailor, having been one of a two-handed crew, sailing a yacht from Morocco to California in 1962–63. His brother Erik, an experienced ocean sailor, thinks that the fixed point on the boat to which his life line was attached was ripped out when he fell overboard in heavy weather. His conclusion is based on interviews with people in Spain who saw his retrieved boat before it was stolen. Exhibitions, reception and impact In 1961, Ader exhibited his works at three galleries in Washington DC and received a positive review in The Washington Post. He became a minor sensation, being interviewed by The Voice of America and by the press in his native Holland. In 1967, he gained his Master of Fine Arts with his project Implosion at