Rayford Steele is piloting an international flight when his stewardess alerts him that 25% of the people on his plane have vanished, leaving behind clothes, jewelry, and all other physical evidence. Steele, inattentive husband to a devout Christian woman, knows immediately that his passengers, like true Christians around the world, have been caught up into Heaven. So begins Jerry Jenkins/Tim LaHaye novel (and the series) Left Behind.