As political hide-and-seek goes, Russia's Vladimir Putin seems to have everyone scratching their heads. The leader who normally doesn't shy away from the spotlight appears to have vanished from the face of the earth as questions into his policies and even his sex life plague him.

Is he hiding from the truth or merely taking a hiatius from his presidential duties? Here are some guesses and conspiracy theories surrounding Putin's sudden absence.

Here is what we know for sure. Putin's last official public appearance was on March 5 during a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in Moscow. After that, eyebrows began to raise when the state-run national broadcast system aired images of Putin meeting with the governor of Karelia, Aleksandr Khudalaynin, on March 11.

However, some netizens were quick to point out that the images published of the supposed meeting actually were taken on March 4, which prompted kremelin.ru to issue a clarification saying to effect that although the meeting did in fact occur on the 4th, due to many factors, such as waiting for the transcript of the meeting to be approved, the photos were not published until the 11th.

On March 13, Russian state television aired footage of Putin meeting with Supreme Court chairman Vyacheslav Lebedev outside Moscow at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence, described as "Putin's residence near Moscow."

The rumor mill was already starting to churn with skeptics wondering if the footage was indeed taken when the Kremlin said it was.

Then the online rumors finally erupted into an uncontrollable frenzy when Putin canceled his planned trip to Kazakhstan on Wednesday. The official reason given was illness.

The 62-year-old Kremlin leader usually has very careful and methodically planned public appearances, but this has been the longest he has gone without the media spotlight. Could it really be a simple case of him falling ill and needing bed rest, or could something bigger be happening to the leader?

On social media, the speculations are running high. Some people think Putin has died, sparking the Twitter hashtag #putinumer (Putin is dead). The New York Post published a story of him running off in secret to Switzerland to witness the birth of his love child with retired Olympic Gymnast Alina Kabaeva. Others satirically say he has snuck off to join ISIS, or meet with Muammar Gaddafi and Hugo Chavez, the deceased former leaders of Libya and Venezuela.

Check out some of the buzz on Twitter asking #WhereIsPutin?

Others think that his simple illness may be graver than the Kremlin is leading the public to believe, saying that Putin may be suffering from cancer or had a stroke that is being covered up.

Still, others are even quietly hoping that a palace coup had taken place and Putin is being held hostage and out of the public eye.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin is not amused by all the online speculation. Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesperson, told reporters that none of the wild Internet rumors are true.

"We've already said this a hundred times. This isn't funny any more," he said.

"I am going to ask people who have money to organize a contest on the best media rumor," he added.

He will certainly have a lot of rumors to sift through for such a contest.

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