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"Scripture teaches that the coming of Christ will be sudden and unexpected, especially to unbelievers. This is the teaching of Paul in I Thess. 5:1-10. But to say that it will be sudden and unexpected is not to say that it will be secret."

correct -- we will not know, it could be tomorrow.

ok, now my questions --> caveat: note: these are just questions, I have no opinion either way on this, I just want to know both sides' answers to decide for myself

Why does the rapture have to be "secret"? Does it have to be secret? Is it even possible for this to be secret? Come on, wouldn't people notice if a large number of folks just disappeared? Isn't a secret contrary to I Thessalonians 4:16?

more frivolously -- why does the anti-Christ have to be Romanian? I gotta tell my Romanian friends about this, they're already tickled pink by the stories made about their national hero Vlad Țepeș

“As a thief in the night”

indicates to me . . .

totally unexpected—at least to non-Believers.

I would expect that after the fact—probably immediately after the fact—all hell will break loose in more than figurative terms.

Why does the rapture have to be "secret"? Does it have to be secret? Is it even possible for this to be secret? Come on, wouldn't people notice if a large number of folks just disappeared? Isn't a secret contrary to I Thessalonians 4:16?

One would think so, and there may be some disagreement among various factions within dispensationalism as to who witnesses what, but generally the idea is that Christ is only visible to the Church at the rapture. The rest of the world witnesses nothing, except that the person standing next to them suddenly vanishes. Like a magic trick. At least this is the way it is often depicted in the pop dispie literature.

Now, if you read 1 Thess. 4 more critically, you’ll see this is a rather noisy event. By way of trumpets and shouts, Christ is announcing His coming to the world. If the pre-trib rapture were true, and this is it, then those Left Behind® will witness a tremendous event that could trigger massive conversions.

So the event is kept secret in that sense. In neo-classic dispensational thought, the second coming is the noisy event, while the rapture is more low key.

more frivolously -- why does the anti-Christ have to be Romanian? I gotta tell my Romanian friends about this, they're already tickled pink by the stories made about their national hero Vlad Țepeș

That is nowhere in the Bible. It pure speculation on the part of the Left Behind crowd.