Mohammad Ala, 71, is a former professor, award-winning documentary film producer, and a Laguna Beach resident. On Aug. 14, he took a wrong turn in L.A. County and hasn’t been seen since.
His two sisters have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to find him, reaching out to every possible agency, but so far, nothing. No leads, no credit card activity, no car.
What is known is that he was driving home from his brother’s house in Long Beach, when he missed a freeway exit. He was late arriving back to Laguna, so his sister Mina called him on Aug. 14, at 4:30 p.m. He said he was lost but had regrouped and was on his way.
He never arrived. When Mina called him again his cellphone was dead.
Later, she would learn from police that before his cellphone died, it pinged towers near Brookhurst Street in Fountain Valley, then at 8 p.m. in Anaheim.
The following day, Aug. 15, at 9:24 a.m., Laguna Beach Police said a camera picked up his car driving on Firestone Boulevard at the 605 Freeway in Downey. The car is a gold 2006 Toyota Avalon (license plate: 5TKD181). But the camera did not see who was driving.
After that, there are no other tracking clues.
“They don’t know whether he was driving the car, or someone stole it and was driving it,” Mina said on social media.
At the time he vanished, Ala was wearing denim pants, a gray shirt, black shoes and a straw hat. He’s 5 foot 8, 125 pounds, with green eyes and white hair.
Although retired, Ala is an Iranian scholar and an expert in production and operations management. He taught at the University of Wisconsin, the University of Southern California, and most recently, the California State University, Los Angeles.
He produced three documentary films inside of Iran in 2011 and 2012. One of them, “Immortality,” received an Italian International Film Festival Award in June 2013.
Anyone with information about his whereabouts can contact Laguna Beach Police Det. Ryan Radel at (949) 497-0701, ext. 432, or via email at rradel@lagunabeachcity.net. You can also anonymously contact the Orange County Crime Stoppers, 1-855-847-6227, or http://occrimestoppers.org.
There is also a missing person’s report on the state’s Department of Justice site, https://oag.ca.gov/missing/person/mohammad-ala.
