Huntsmen Podcast
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Huntsmen Podcast
The Enigma of the Missing 411
What happens when people vanish from national parks without a trace? Why do search dogs abruptly lose scents after just 50 feet? How does a two-year-old end up 12 miles away across mountain ranges—alive and unharmed?
The Missing 411 phenomenon represents one of modern America's most disturbing mysteries. Retired police detective David Paulides has documented thousands of disappearances in national parks and wilderness areas that follow bizarrely similar patterns, yet defy conventional explanation. These aren't typical lost hiker cases—they're characterized by sudden vanishings, strange weather patterns during searches, and victims sometimes found in locations physically impossible for them to reach independently.
We dive deep into several compelling cases: six-year-old Dennis Martin vanishing during a family outing in the Great Smoky Mountains, leaving no trace despite a massive search involving 1,400 people; fourteen-year-old Stacy Arras disappearing in Yosemite with only her camera lens cap found; and perhaps most perplexing, toddler Keith Parkins being discovered alive across rugged terrain that would challenge even experienced adults. The evidence—or lack thereof—raises uncomfortable questions about what's happening in our wilderness areas.
What makes these cases truly unsettling is the bureaucratic resistance researchers face when seeking official records. When Paulides requested information from Yosemite, officials claimed the data would cost $1.5 million to compile, later suggesting they relied on "institutional memory" rather than formal documentation. The pattern of official reluctance adds another layer to an already mysterious phenomenon.
Whether you're fascinated by unsolved mysteries, concerned about wilderness safety, or simply curious about the unexplained, this episode will challenge what you think you know about our national parks. Remember—preparation is crucial whenever venturing into the wild. Never hike alone, carry emergency supplies, and know how to navigate without technology. The wilderness demands respect, and sometimes, it keeps its secrets.
And we're back Once again. It's becoming a habit. Welcome back to the Huntsman Podcast. Drew, you had some clarification on our last podcast dealing with Montauk and the Philadelphia experiment.
Speaker 2:Hi guys, thanks for watching today. What I wanted to cover was there was an emergency seaman, carl allen, who was on aboard the merchant ship, the ss carl for for seth, I believe, is how you pronounce it and he was the one that allegedly witnessed the uss eldridge, the ship that was involved in the philadelphia experiment or project in norfolk. And I did some research about the history of the SS Fulcif and there was a naval lieutenant, jg, junior grade, who was the master or captain of the vessel and in naval records that reflected some of this information said and that lieutenant JG said that he never saw the Eldridge and and the full set at norfolk than at the atlantic fleet at the same time. So I just thought that was kind of, you know, an interesting thing that you know you only got one guy that says this and then you've got you know people are like, well, no, I never, that part of it never happened.
Speaker 3:So okay so drew went home, was really thinking about this and was like I'm not done with this. I, I gotta, I gotta wrap this up.
Speaker 2:Like a dog with a bone.
Speaker 1:It never ends, okay.
Speaker 3:So we are the Huntsman podcast.
Speaker 1:For the curious, the skeptical and those who know the world is stranger than it seems. We are the Huntsman podcast. Okay, so now we're back, and so this topic today is the missing11,. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so the Missing 411 is a reference to back in the old days when you had dial-up phones. Dial-up phones, yeah, well, like a phone with a keypad.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, a rotary dial.
Speaker 1:We didn't have cell phones. Okay, a dial-up phone, but if you didn't know somebody's phone number, you would dial 411. Information yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh, I see where you were trying to go with that, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, we don't have rotary phones anymore.
Speaker 3:We don't have phones and our cell phones had the button one yeah right, Maybe you're older than me.
Speaker 2:I had one on the wall with a cork board, so then I think I had tin cans with string attached to them.
Speaker 1:Well, the funny thing is that back in the day you had to rent those from the phone company. That's right, yeah. So they charged you X amount of dollars a couple bucks a month for the pleasure of having their Equipment. Yeah, yeah, equipment. So this is a topic that's near and dear to Drew's heart. So I'm going to let Drew kind of explain the 411. I think we've talked about it in the past. Yes, we have, but we thought we'd revisit it.
Speaker 2:Okay, the Missing 411 is a project that began with a retired San Jose police detective by the name of David Paulides and Dave was in law enforcement in the 70s, into the 80s I believe, and when he retired he was involved. He got involved with he had an undergraduate degree in human resources and worked in the information technology area company and retired from that and then after that he was investigating cryptic sightings. Basically he was working in Yosemite and basically a Bigfoot investigation and he was staying off the park, I believe in a hotel, and a couple of off-duty US forest rangers had knocked on his door and started talking to him and said you know that you may be something to look into, the possibility that there's, you know, missing individuals. And it kind of piqued David's you know that you may be something to look into, the possibility that there's you know missing individuals. And it kind of piqued David's you know interest and he made some phone calls with some former law enforcement contacts and they verified basically what he was saying. It was like, yeah, these people are going missing. There's a real, you know large presence of searchers and helicopters and aircraft and you know canine and searchers and search and rescue and which goes on for about seven to 10 days and after that generally the search kind of winds down and that's it. Nothing's ever really heard again.
Speaker 2:Now he did wind up putting together a number of what he calls profile points, and there are different areas where it doesn't fit the pattern of you know. It's like, well, if, if someone you know was attacked by an animal, if someone was a criminal and they were escaping law enforcement, or people just on the run wanting to disappear, or someone with mental illness who just basically wandered away into you know, the woods, into the forest, and disappeared that way, or, yeah, I think that's it. I'm doing this off of memory right now. Some suppositions that he made about you know, involvement of people I don't want to say being abducted, but being lost or disappearing near boulder fields, granite and also there's. There may be something involved with people winding up in bodies of water as well. And there's certain demographics too. German physicist, german physicist is a big subset that they seem to disappear a lot.
Speaker 2:And the one thing to remember is these are cold cases and what you find in the beginning, thinking well, it's one thing. It turns out to be just an accident, one of the real other things that happen during these search and rescue operations is you'll have canine that live for nothing but for tracking people and they'll they'll use a scent, a clothing article or something that the missing person had held or worn. They use that as a as a scent startup, and then they'll wind up going in, you know, searching, doing their dog thing and sniffing the air and trying to find where the you know where that scent leads them to. And the strange thing is, the majority of these cases, the dogs will go up 50, 50 feet, 50 yards and stop. They can't find anything.
Speaker 2:The scent is gone. They'll either, you know, sit down or go back to the truck, which is is really, really strange, and that was, that's one of the things that kind of starts to put into. You know what is really going on with these people that go missing. Sometimes they turn up, sometimes they don't. The majority of the cases they don't. The other thing that happens during these search and rescue operations is whether it becomes really horribly, you know, difficult to operate in, and I think that's pretty much where we're at right now.
Speaker 1:Okay. So some of the key characteristics that I ran across was that these missing cases 411 cases are related to geographic clusters. Unusual circumstances. Lack of evidence, like no signs of struggle, animal tracks or blood. Ruling out typical causes like bear attacks or abductions, amnesia or strange accounts. Survivors adults have no memory of the event. Sometimes children report bizarre experiences. Missing clothing Victims are frequently found with clothing removed, folded or turned inside out without clear reason. Inconsistent record keeping from the parks department I believe the investigator. He tried for years to try to get records from the parks department and they were resistant. So either they didn't keep good records, or they didn't have them, or they were missing. Am I along those?
Speaker 2:lines. Well, the us park, the us park service, which you know like they oversee it's actually under the bureau bureau land management and it's under, I think I think, the way the BLM is. And then I think there's the US Forest Service and then the US Park Service and the Park Service is responsible for national parks. Forest Service, the US National Forest Service is responsible for US forests.
Speaker 2:And one of the things that was very frustrating for Dave is he had gone and filed a number of freedom of information requests to the park police, a number of freedom of information requests to the park police, specifically for finding or trying to get you know the reports of a lost you know person and he's he had been denied several times and they said that if they wanted him, if they wanted and yosemite national park is probably one of the biggest cluster of missing people in the United States and he said that he had gone and requested this and they said that they could get the information for him but it was going to cost either 1.5 or 1.8 million dollars. When he got some pushback from the park service saying that quote well, we don't really keep any reports and we that we depend on what's called institutional now memory, institutional memory, for you know their employees, just to remember these things. Well, I was in law enforcement for 21 years and we wrote everything down, so I have no idea what institutional memory is.
Speaker 1:So one of the things when you talk about Yosemite, yosemite is a big park yes, so it covers several counties in in california.
Speaker 2:How many square miles?
Speaker 1:do you think is yosemite?
Speaker 2:off the top of my head.
Speaker 1:No, I have to look it up so, and then you're also talking about some of the most rugged terrain in the united states, in these national parks in general, smoky Mountains, whatever, because they had disappearances in Smoky Mountains.
Speaker 2:Appalachia, yeah, yeah out west.
Speaker 1:It's inhospitable, unforgiving environments.
Speaker 3:Not to mention predators.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So yeah, I don't go hiking because there's too many things that want to eat me and can't run fast enough. If you see me running, something's probably chasing me, and you can be darn sure that it's going to be a short chase.
Speaker 3:So so we just need to make sure we're faster than you.
Speaker 1:Yes, if this were a zombie apocalypse, yeah.
Speaker 3:I would probably be, you know, is it?
Speaker 1:the bad ankles. I've had three knee surgeries. That's my excuse. Besides that, I'm overweight and out of shape. Okay, it covers 1,187 square miles.
Speaker 2:Is that all? That's enough? Okay, all right. Well, okay, it covers 1,187 square miles.
Speaker 1:Does that?
Speaker 2:all, that's enough, okay.
Speaker 1:All right, Well, yeah, so you know we're talking about an expansive area.
Speaker 2:Covers four counties in California.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. So it's hard to find anybody in those type of things. So, you know, is there anything that I know? I've got some details on some of the cases of the missing people I think that are. One of the earliest cases was a six year old by the name of Dennis Martin that vanished on June 14th 1969. Yeah, in Appalachia. Yeah, he was playing hide and seek with his family members and near Spence Field in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He was last seen around 430 pm by his father, who turned away briefly with his family members near Spence Field in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He was last seen around 4.30 pm by his father, who turned away briefly and then within minutes Dennis was gone. So a massive search took place 1,400 people, including park rangers, fbi, national Guard and volunteers. It lasted for weeks. Bloodhounds, helicopters and green berets were deployed, but no trace of Dennis was found. No clothing, no footprints, no signs of struggle.
Speaker 2:Now as an aside, the FBI does not get involved in missing person cases unless they suspect foul play Well when a six-year-old goes missing, still, yeah, well, I mean they will send and this is something they've said over the years. There's usually like one or two representatives from the FBI that do come up to these things and monitor the situation, so they just don't totally blow it off, they don't get actively involved unless, of course, local law enforcement is asking them for specific resources.
Speaker 3:Now I have that. Some witnesses did say that they heard some screams in the distance With Dennis Martin, yeah, that afternoon. And another person claimed to have seen a rough looking man moving through the woods nearby, but none of this led anywhere.
Speaker 1:I heard it was a bear like figure carrying something.
Speaker 3:Right, oh, ok.
Speaker 1:But this was dismissed as being unrelated. Well, I mean, if there was actually a bear-like creature carrying something?
Speaker 3:well, what's bear-like good question on hind legs. What's?
Speaker 1:was it? He just not shaven? I mean, yeah, like grizzly adams yeah, I mean, maybe he was I mean what?
Speaker 3:what year was this again? Did we say the 60s?
Speaker 1:1969.
Speaker 3:69, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, there are people that live out in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1:I've seen deliverance, you know, and there's some crazy people out there.
Speaker 3:No one's going to ask you to squeal.
Speaker 1:Oh my God Whee. But they also want to say that the search was hampered by heavy rain. So whenever you have heavy rain, anything evidence-wise gets washed away pretty quickly, so footprints disappear. Any scent although really good scent hounds can smell in the rain, but if it's been raining for a while, I imagine that you would lose scent too.
Speaker 3:So I mean I mean, it's a tragedy.
Speaker 1:It is All these. Any of these are.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, I remember reading about a case where you know people will take off their clothes. Usually it's because of hypothermia. Right In the final stages of hypothermia you actually feel hot, so they start stripping off their clothes and then they'll fold them up and then that's. You know that's too late. By then they die. So. But then you know, you get critters out there. You know who, you know, that's easy meal.
Speaker 2:So, they'll take an arm or leg and go off with it and it winds up becoming a matter of it after you die. Animal predation Right, I said that, right, you know, and a lot of people don't realize this and I've gotten some rather heated arguments with people on from friends of mine from years ago about you know that bones antlers from from deer is a really good example. You know well, bones antlers from from deer is a really good example. You know well how come this? You know the forest floor isn't littered with these because they shed them after, you know, every year and it's because the guy has, they have high amounts of calcium, and squirrels and critters, like you said, we'll go ahead and, and you know, just consume those. And weather, you know, I mean, you know, you put it's just, it's what happens, unfortunately, all up from weather and wind and other things as well. As you know, their, their, their skeletal remains are scattered over. You know could be scattered over a large area yeah, only if you're in a very cold climate.
Speaker 1:Like you know, there's people climbing mount everest and people die on that mountain all every year, right, and they found, actually, who was it? The, the guy that was, they think actually may have summited mount everest for the first time, but he and his uh climbing, they fell or they disappeared. They didn't know what happened to him. Well, they found one of them, but his body was intact, because of the cold, of course, but his, his clothes, had that was exposed to the wind, had disintegrated, right so, but they could, they could see he'd broken his leg and you know he couldn't move. So he, that was it for him. You know he died on that mountain, but there's still people up there every year. There's still people. You, you, apparently, if you summit mount everest and this is getting totally sidetracked but you, you go past dead bodies because they don't bring them down. No, it's too, too dangerous to bring them down.
Speaker 3:That would suck, and they serve as a cautionary tale.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do they listen? No, so yeah, people they still do it.
Speaker 2:Rich, rich people, money problems. You know it's. It's like well, we got to do this because we got the money for it Right, stay home.
Speaker 3:So Dennis was Smoky Mountains, and then there was another case.
Speaker 2:It was the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee.
Speaker 3:There you go. So then there was another case of a 14-year-old girl in Yosemite National Park. I think you've got that one too, don't you, Curtis?
Speaker 1:Yeah, she disappeared while on a horseback camping trip with her father and others in Yosemite National Park, she left the group to take a short walk to the nearby lake, to photograph scenery, and the only thing they found was the lens from her camera. Well, she was accompanied by an older man from the group after he became tired and returned.
Speaker 3:Now I have that. It's her father.
Speaker 1:It was just an older man. Maybe it was her father. No, no, it wasn't her dad.
Speaker 2:It was an older man. Okay, okay, I have that it was her father and a group of writers, so maybe one of the writers. Well, they had stopped for the night and sorry for interrupting you.
Speaker 3:Oh no, no, that's fine. Okay, so for interrupting you oh no, no, that's fine, okay.
Speaker 1:So, um, you should be well don't do it again. Yeah, exactly, I've heard that before I'll just turn his mic off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right, I'm gonna mute you curtis, throw the switch.
Speaker 2:I can do it so anyway, what's her name again?
Speaker 2:stacy yeah stacy had had. They had gone writing and stacy was having some teenage issues at home that teenage girls have with their parents and their fathers, you know. And she had, she had gone and they had stopped for the night and it was either cabins or tents or something, and she told her dad that she was going to walk down by this body of water and take some photos and there was a person that had been, an older gentleman that had been horseback riding with them, and the father felt fairly comfortable to say, yeah, just make sure he goes with you. They walk a short distance. The older guy stops and she says I'm going to just get to the lake and take some photos and that's it. So the only thing that was found was the lens cap to her camera and that's all there was.
Speaker 2:Now I'm probably going to mention, throughout the course of this two YouTube channels, the Lore Lodge. It's run by a gentleman named Aiden Mattis who's actually five cousins away from General Mattis, chris, what? Aiden Mattis, general Mattis, oh, I don't know. Yeah, general Mattis, chris, what? Aiden Mattis, general Mattis?
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't know, yeah, general Mattis Anyway, because Aiden gets asked this all the time and he's like five cousins removed from he's a retired Marine, general Mattis, anyway. And the other one is the Lost Enigma by Kyle or Nick. Kyle, I believe, is the gentleman's name and Nick actually went into some Nick and Aiden. They both went into some fairly long discussion of where I can't remember her first name. God, I hate getting old. What Her first name again?
Speaker 3:Stacey.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Stacey when she could have gone and walked to a road and was picked up by someone her boyfriend or whatever and there had been some unofficial sightings or something, I believe, in British Columbia in Canada after this occurrence and people had actually approached her and she said she just wanted to be left alone. So I don't know if it's the same person or not, but there are some weirdness associated with that that she's, that that she very well may be alive well, they did an extensive shirt search with helicopters, dogs, the whole nine yards well, the area that she, that she, went missing in, was extremely rugged and dangerous.
Speaker 3:There were cliffs, a thick brush, what? What's a? What's a? Talus slope?
Speaker 2:t-a-l-u-s is it loose rock talus?
Speaker 3:yeah, I think so, yeah okay, yeah, so that's listed as well. So it does sound like it's an area that is very dangerous, especially for a 14 year old to go venturing off and can definitely fall, get injured. Maybe she even went further than what they originally even reported yeah, I mean again.
Speaker 1:Uh, you're talking about an unforgiving environment. It is a very sudden place.
Speaker 3:Yeah, very hazardous.
Speaker 2:So that was Stacey Ann A-R-R-E-S.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm from Kentucky, so I don't know how to pronounce Aris Aris.
Speaker 2:Possibly Aris. I mean, I lived in California for a long time. I think that's pretty close.
Speaker 3:Aris. Is that what we're saying? Aras, aras.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Aras.
Speaker 3:Curtis, how are you going to pronounce it?
Speaker 2:Yes, e all the above.
Speaker 3:That's why I was like Stacy, a 14-year-old.
Speaker 1:But then you have some younger ones too, like Dior Kunz Jr from Idaho. Let's see, he was two years old. He vanished from a family campsite. He did what he vanished, vanished. Vanished, vanished from a family campsite in Timber Creek Campground in Idaho's Salmon Chalice National Forest.
Speaker 2:What was his name?
Speaker 1:again. What was his name? Yeah, dior Coons Jr, k-u-n-z. He was last seen playing near his parents, grandfather and a family friend. His parents stepped away briefly and when they returned he was gone. His parents stepped away briefly and when they returned he was gone. So there was no trace of him, found no clothing, footprints or evidence of animals. The unusual aspects they said the campsite was remote but surrounded by open areas, making it difficult for a toddler to wander far unnoticed. The parents' accounts faced scrutiny from some of the inconsistencies leading to suspicions of foul play, though no evidence supported this.
Speaker 3:Polites, polites, polites.
Speaker 2:I think we're just struggling today. We can't talk. Sorry, it's David Polites.
Speaker 1:Polites leans toward an unknown phenomenon, noting the lack of clues in the remote setting. Some speculate abduction, while others suggest the oar wandered off and succumbed to exposure or fell into a nearby creek. The parents maintain he was taken by an unknown entity.
Speaker 3:Unknown entity. I mean, are they trying to allude that it's paranormal? Is that a known entity?
Speaker 2:I think this is the case where they hired a private investigator and, after an unspecified period of time, the PI figured out what was going on and quit because he could not support what the family was alleging.
Speaker 1:So that would mean foul play, if you ask me Correct. So yeah, family was alleging, so that would mean foul play if you ask me correct. So yeah, anyway, it was one of the cases. It was featured in the missing 401, the hunted documentary. Another case jared atodaro.
Speaker 2:Uh aratero darrow pod yeah, we did so well with carl Allen's name last week, you know.
Speaker 1:Huh.
Speaker 2:We did so well with Carl Allen's nom de grail last week.
Speaker 1:This was in Colorado. He was missing In 1999, three-year-old Jared Adatero Darrow disappeared while hiking in a Christian singles group in Comanche Park Wilderness near Fort Collins, colorado. He was last seen running ahead on a trail with the other children but vanished within minutes. Now this one, he was found Right. They did a large scale with 50 people, dogs, helicopters. Then, in 2003, four years later, his skull, pants that were turned inside out and a single shoe were found 1,100 feet up a steep incline, 3.5 miles from where he vanished, an area deemed nearly inaccessible for a toddler. Well, he's three years old, so that would be a long way to go.
Speaker 1:So unusual aspects the remains were found in an area previously searched, raising questions about how they got there. Clothing was oddly intact, with no signs of animal damage, despite mountain lion and bears in the area. Let's see the notes. From the distance and elevation it was impossible that a three-year-old could traverse this alone. Theories suggest an unknown force moved jared or his remains, hinting at paranormal involvement. Skeptics argue a predator like a mountain lion could have carried him, though the lack of bite marks or blood on the clothing weakened this theory others proposed he wandered and died of exposure with remains later scattered Abductions, you know.
Speaker 2:I mean, they also looked at possibly abduction and then a subsequent homicide, and then the suspect just threw his clothes away that were not recovered. Right, that's a possibility.
Speaker 1:Well, from the clothes. I mean I guess not all his clothes were found, right, no, there were some that were missing. So I mean an animal like a mountain lion could have carried him off. And then the clothes that had bite. I mean, do your clothes really show bite?
Speaker 2:marks, no well, they'll show puncture wounds, yeah. And a mountain lion will usually go for the throat no Well, I mean after they, you know they can kill their game. They go for the stomach, okay. For the internal organs, okay, it's easy access for the mountain lion.
Speaker 1:What's unusual is that his pants were found inside out. Which I thought was really strange too, yeah but if he is suffering from hypothermia, he may have been trying to take his pants off because he was hot maybe, and kids don't necessarily. They just take it off and it would flip it inside out, correct and that would be.
Speaker 1:That would be a personally logical explanation for that yeah so, but there's no blood on the clothes or anything like that, and if he had been grabbed by a mountain lion, I would think that there would be some blood somewhere.
Speaker 3:If that's what happened?
Speaker 2:What happened yeah?
Speaker 3:So, with these books and shows, I mean what? What's? What's Davis, what's David telling us? I mean, is he does he offer an explanation as to what's happening? What's the point of his books? Is he just pulling? Is he highlighting the dangers of parks and forests?
Speaker 2:Well it's. There's several things, Yvonne, and you know one of the one of the things that he I think he the big highlight of this is be careful when you go in the woods. Don't go alone. You know, if you're able to go armed, go armed. Don't go out with a, you know, your cell phone and a camera a hundred yards away to you know, take some photos at a lake. You know you have some stuff with you, some, some, you know. Backpack with you know the ability to. You know, have like a bivy sack where you can, you know, stay, wrap yourself in. So it's a mylar blanket, is what it is. You know, have some water. You know have another way of communication other than your cell phone, some sort of satellite, either a satellite telephone or the ability to send, you know, know, a text message through a satellite beacon, for example, or locator. You know, and people get turned around really easy. And if you have a poor sense of direction, if you're not using a compass and you're just going, you go. Okay. I can see this from point A to point B and I've spent time in the woods and I've been. I misjudged a distance from a tree once and I went to go find it and I could find it from point a, but it wasn't at point B. You know, until I had a, you know, orient myself with other things around this particular tree, that I was looking for something and it it took a while to get, you know, the right orientation, to find what I was looking for.
Speaker 2:And unfortunately, you know, people learn. Learn, you know. If they're, if they're lost, that they may not admit it and they start wandering around instead of standing still and just wait until you're rescued. If you're, if you're totally lost, stop, don't go anywhere, hunker down and just wait. Try to start a fire if you can. You have a fire and fire three shots in the air. That's a. That's a, you know, a well-known distress signal, you know. And why david is bringing this up is probably because it's very important, you know, and I think it's really, and just because you're in, you know, a park service park doesn't mean you're going to be safe. Safety lies between the, you know, the ears, not within the or depending on somebody else to do it for you. It's why we wear seatbelts in cars, you know.
Speaker 1:Well, if I go to a national park, I'm not leaving the RV.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying yeah, it's like the only reason we have a spare tire, just in case your wind string, that's it.
Speaker 1:Now here's this next case Keith Parkins, ritter oregon 1952. Two-year-old keith parkins vanished from his family's ranch near ritter oregon playing. He was while playing near near in a field. His mother briefly turned away and he was gone. Search efforts involved local volunteers, authorities scouring the area. After 19 hours Keith was found alive, 12 miles away, across rugged terrain and two mountain ranges, at an elevation of 3,000 feet higher than his starting point. So unusual, that's unusual in itself. The distance and elevation were considered impossible for a toddler to navigate, especially in cold, snowy conditions. He was found unharmed, with no memory loss of no memory of how he got there, wearing light clothing unsuitable for the weather. No tracks or signs explained how he traveled so far. So this is a weird one. So he was unharmed, he was alive. How old was he?
Speaker 1:again, he was two years old, a two-year-old Two-year-old so 12 miles away across rugged terrain.
Speaker 2:So this is the point where you say, well, it was this or it was that. And, if I can digress for a minute about this, one of the things I found about talking to individuals who don't have a great deal of background in any sort of critical thinking or investigatory background will say, oh, it's this. And then they read three or four books from Paulides and they go, have no idea what happened. This person, you know, and I, I mean I've discussed this with with other lay people and they want to jump on to something fast and although they were doing this because of this, oh really, well, the person was found 10 miles away. It's a two-year-old and the kids alive. So how do you explain that that you know and and sometimes they're you know, we can hypothesize and and you about well, it could have been this, it could have been that. Well, I don't know, paulides doesn't know either, and I don't know how this kid got from point A to point B. I have no idea Unless.
Speaker 2:Well, this is where circumstantial evidence comes into play. And for those of you who don't know what it is, if you have a pitcher of milk and you have it in your refrigerator and you close the door to your refrigerator and then go to work and come back eight hours later and you open the refrigerator door and you live alone, mind you, and there's a fish in your milk. Okay, that means that someone was in your house and put the fish in your milk, and the same thing applies here. Something happened and but we don't know who or did what or anything like that. So I like the fish in the milk for the an old friend might explain that to me for the best explanation of circumstantial evidence. Somebody moved that kid or something moved that that child, but who or what I don't know. And and politis isn't saying either, because Because maybe no one knows Right.
Speaker 1:Well, they say that this is a hallmark missing 411 case, suggesting an unknown entity or phenomenon transported Keith. Skeptics argue that there may be. Maybe he wandered farther than believed possible, perhaps aided by adrenaline or an unreported helper, though this stretches plausibility of the given terrain. He survived, but the lack of explanation on his journey remains a mystery. And I would say, 12 miles away, adrenaline will only get you so far For a two-year-old. Yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, and I think these stories do you know, spark debate. You know as to, you know really what's behind this, and you know a lot of people do debate or you know they speculate. Is this paranormal causes? Is this UFOs? There's some type of you know interdimensional phenomenon that's happening? You know cryptides and I think that's the thread that is very common whenever you hear a story like this, instead of maybe someone took that child 12 miles away Because one the child did not walk 12 miles. You'll never convince me of that.
Speaker 2:No, there's no way.
Speaker 1:Maybe he is an expert at snowmobile. Yeah, maybe they confused the snowmobile track as one of the rescuers' snowmobiles. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Just throwing that out there, I'm just throwing out random stuff.
Speaker 3:I'm just putting words together.
Speaker 2:It could be portals too. No one knows. You know and we're not going to sit there and say, well, yeah, it's got to be this.
Speaker 3:Well, and I think Pilatus, is that his name, pilatus, I'm just kidding. Can I just say David? Can we just call him David.
Speaker 2:Yeah, david's fine. Yeah, david, he avoids offering a single explanation, which drives people nuts, because people are looking for the answer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that that's what's leaving the mystery open for interpretation, and that that's where these debates are coming in right you may have someone who's very grounded, who's saying look it's. There's a lot of plausible explanations as to what happened and there's others who are like I'm not saying that it was aliens, but it was aliens.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, there are some patterns, they say, that go across all the 401 cases Proximity to wilderness Everything occurred within or near a national park or forest. Rapid disappearances. Victims vanished quickly, often within minutes, despite being near others. Lack of evidence no footprints, blood or signs of struggle, ruling out typical causes like animals or abductions. Strange discoveries when found victims or remains appear in improbable locations, high elevations or vast distances. And there's also bureaucratic resistance. He often cites the difficulty of accessing case files, as seen with the Stacey Aris case. So when he requested that case, I believe they couldn't find it, or it was incomplete or missing or something.
Speaker 2:Well, when he first started, dave put in an FYI request for a case or cases in Yosemite and they sent him a letter and they said you don't sell enough books in a library or there's not enough of your books that are in public libraries, which is not one of the requirements to satisfy if you're doing an FYI request for your Information Act request to the United States government. So he rewrote it and put it back in. He gets a call from a I don't know if it was a park service attorney or park service special agent who called them and said you're never going to get this case file. Now I don't know if it was about Stacey Harris or not, but it was one that he had been working on. I mean there's missing 411 cases about, you know, us Forest Service personnel that are missing too, right, and you know I mean these cases are 20-plus years old and the Forest Service isn't giving up the information either.
Speaker 1:Well, there's a case of a and this was not a 411 case, but a guy. He's a mapmaker for the Forest Service and basically he maps trails in forests and he was out in the middle of nowhere mapping a trail and he got attacked by a grizzly with some cubs and he barely survived. And I mean it tracked him for a while and he could have been one of those people that had been missing. You would have never heard from him, but he managed to to survive. He was injured quite a bit but he survived. I mean, but things happen like that, yeah, well, like I said, you know.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's a very sudden place. Uh, the outdoors are, you know, and and it's. It would be easy for somebody to get turned around in the lost if they're not familiar with the area, and even if they are familiar with the area I was going to say even an experienced hiker people can still make mistakes, not pay attention to what they're doing and map reading, because everybody depends on GPS now on your phone or GPS device.
Speaker 2:A lot of people have lost the skills for map and compass and I think that's a really important thing If you're going to be spending a lot of time afield. Learn how to read a map and a compass. There's classes available. You can do it online.
Speaker 1:I used to do that. I used to orienteer.
Speaker 3:You used to what.
Speaker 1:Orienteer Orienteer Reading maps with a compass and reading the terrain.
Speaker 3:Orienteer. Is that what it's called?
Speaker 1:Orienteering with topographical maps?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and of course you know we're not. We're not talking like a city map. We're talking about something that shows topography. You know where there's, you know mounds and hills and mountains.
Speaker 3:Not no city map no, it's not, not no city map no it's not.
Speaker 1:I mean there's more cases. It goes on.
Speaker 3:I mean there's hundreds of cases that he's highlighted right, there's several thousand actually. Several thousand Wow. So does he ever go back and update records or stories when someone is found or the case is now solved?
Speaker 2:Not that I'm aware of it doesn't mean he doesn't. But I don't know and I don't want to you know. Again, I'm not an apologist or I'm not you know. You know I'm trying to say something that isn't true about you know his work or anything I I I don't know if he does any sort of updates. I haven't heard, but I think he has. But I'm not sure on that.
Speaker 3:Okay, Well, it's all very fascinating. You know it's a dangerous place out there.
Speaker 1:Yes, it can be.
Speaker 3:It can be If you're not prepared.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't discourage people from.
Speaker 3:I mean, I wouldn't take my two year old out to a forest and Well, watch them wander away.
Speaker 1:No, they're going to stay pretty close.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but there's nothing wrong with taking your kids out for you know, for a hike or anything either you know, just as long as they listen to what mom and dad says.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like yeah, I mean you know, know, I don't know, so I mean there's others, they've there's. I've got all kinds of cases here, you know, and it's it's. You know, they find pieces like this one guy. He disappeared, he was a photographer. They found his remains in a previously previously searched area with no signs of how they got there yeah, that's.
Speaker 2:that's a really weird part about some of this some of these cases too is is they'll go and during pattern grid searches, what they'll do is they'll search the same area dozens and dozens and dozens of times, and where they will go in an area that's been searched several times, the missing child will be there or there'll be evidence there clothing or was there one and there was a child where part of a skull in his tooth was found on like a tree branch or something, a stump, in an area that had been searched several times, and that was after several months after the date of the disappearance.
Speaker 1:Right, this one guy. His pants were discovered folded neatly with a single tibia bone inside. Yeah, they were turned inside out. No other clothing or gear nearby, despite no evidence of animal activity.
Speaker 2:So yeah, there are going back to the lore lodge and the missing enigma. They discussed some follow-ups to a couple of cases that david profiled, and one of them, yvonne and I were talking before we went live and there was a hiker who just flat out disappeared and come to find out that there had been a 20-foot well that was half full of water and this hiker had gone and it was covered with a bunch of wild grass and stepped right into the hole and that was it, and they wound up finding him just by chance later there had been a female hiker who her goal was to hike all the seven tallest mountains on the planet and she just disappeared without a trace. And A hiker sometime later was going along this trail where she just happened to have been at and was looking at the bottom of the sole of a hiking boot and what had happened was she got caught in a rock slide and that's what killed her. So you know I mean there's some finality to some of these cases, as unfortunate, you know, as they are. You know we live in southwestern Indiana and 30 years ago a 23-year-old woman was sunbathing, and this is right outside of Evansville, indiana, and the Kentucky border is just mere minutes away and there had been a gentleman with a telescope across the Ohio River was just having to see that this 23-year-old female was abducted and 30 years later there's still questions about what happened and it's just a tremendous amount of pressure. I can't even imagine what that's like. There was a suspect. That was who they believe did it, but unfortunately he committed suicide prior to being arrested. So they don't have any real information about what happened to this female and they recently the local paper had something about his body being exhumed for DNA purposes. So I don't know if there's anything that the FBI and the Kentucky State Police are looking at regarding some new evidence.
Speaker 2:And with technology changes, you know things will wind up. I mean, that's how a lot of cold cases get solved is. You know technology gets better, dna gets better. It used to be months to get a DNA result back and then it was down the weeks and now it's down to days result back, and then it was down the weeks and now it's down to days. In fact, brian Kohlberger, how he was caught was you know he was the idiot that went and killed those four college students in Idaho. And how he was caught was there was some he. He bought a K bar Marine Corps knife, I think, I believe, off of Amazon, with a sheath and there's a brass button that holds the knife in place in the sheath and his DNA was on that sheath, on that button, that brass button on the sheath, and they ran it through DNA and they were able to determine within a relatively fast period of time who it was.
Speaker 3:Yeah, time who it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there might have been some interconnection with like 23andMe or one of those send in your DNA and we'll tell you where you come from or who your relatives are. I think it might have been one of those private entities may have assisted them with that.
Speaker 1:Well, they caught some serial killer that way. His relative turned in a DNA sample for their.
Speaker 3:Wasn't that the Golden Gate killer?
Speaker 1:I don't remember, but they caught him. I guess it flagged him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was the Golden Gate killer.
Speaker 2:Okay, and we can go on with people that were missing, you know, and it's just.
Speaker 3:Well.
Speaker 2:Well, I I mean, look at ted kaczynski the unabomber. You know how he was caught and the fbi was doing all kinds of you know people who had moved from illinois to california, for example, they were running their driver's licenses to see if you know how many people had moved from illinois to californ, me being one of them and to determine the approximate ages and some other factors they were looking for that were specific to Ted Kaczynski. And one of the things they did was Kaczynski demanded that his manuscript be published in, I think, the Washington Post and I think the Washington Post and I think maybe the Chicago Tribune, I think, and they were Ted Kaczynski's brother read it, recognized it, went upstairs to the Attica and the family home and found his manifesto that he had written in college and it was basically the same. He contacts the FBI, ted Kaczynski's brother, and before you know it they were able to find him, and I mean that had been unsolved for almost 20 years.
Speaker 2:Eric Robert Rudolph is another one. He was the Atlantic City Olympic Summer Game bomber, you know, and they were convinced well, we're not going to be able to find this guy because he's hiding in the hills in Appalachiaia, you know, being helped by other people. He had blown up abortion clinics and just had a real hard-on for people in general. And he was found by a rookie, 21 year old police officer who has been patrol, had been patrolling behind a supermarket and rudolph was, you know, dumpster diving for food. I mean, you know, osama bin Laden's another one. You know that one took 10 years to find and it was just. It was just a really long period of time and we talked about this a little bit before, about how you know telecommunications and how it is easy to track and so forth and so on, and in bin Laden case they were just using couriers and it was word of mouth. But he was eventually found.
Speaker 1:Well, but if today you were tuning into this podcast wanting the answers and the final resolution and the for the 411, missing 411,. I'm sorry to disappoint you.
Speaker 3:There is none.
Speaker 1:Nope. So I mean, you know as big of a brain trust we have here between the three of us, we have not solved anything.
Speaker 2:No, unfortunately no.
Speaker 1:We have taken up 50 minutes of your time, but we thank you for being here for you know, for information, if nothing else, for the 411. For the missing people that are still missing and unsolved. Yeah, pray for them, you know. Yeah, so hopefully they can find peace in the families, hopefully.
Speaker 2:I can't even imagine you know, someone close to me, disappearing like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Well. Okay, people, I think that about wraps it for the Missing 411 for us. Thank you for joining the Huntsman Podcast. Until next time. We will catch you later.
Speaker 2:Bye guys.
Speaker 3:Bye.