The nineteenth century’s quest for the missing matter (Vulcan) ended with the publication of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. We contend that the current quest for the missing matter is parallel in its perseverance and in its ultimate futility. After setting the search for dark matter in its historic perspective, we critique extant dark matter models and offer alternative explanations—derived from a Lorentz-invariant Lagrangian—that will, at the very least, sow seeds of doubt about the existence of dark matter.