Investigator David Paulides, who has worked in law enforcement in the San Francisco Bay Area, is an expert in the disproportionate number of mysterious disappearances happening in our national parks. In the first three hours of the show, he discussed cases of experienced hunters who vanished under odd and unexplained circumstances. In the US and Canada, there are 59 geographic clusters of missing people, with Yosemite being the largest cluster, he reported. Among the repeated patterns are no scent trail for canine trackers, no sounds or screaming when people vanish, inclement or changing weather at the time of the incidents, and loss of memory of the victims that are found alive.

What's particularly strange about hunters' disappearances is that they're armed, and they know the areas they're in, yet often they vanish within a very short time span when alone for just a few minutes, and their bodies are usually never found, he cited. In the case of Robert Winters, aged 78, who disappeared in Sparks Lake, Oregon in 1969, when hunting with his three sons, sixty searchers converged on the area, just as heavy snowfall hit. His body was never discovered, but nine months later, one boot, one glove, glasses and other items belonging to Winters were found. The single boot and glove appeared to be carefully removed from the body, and no bones or signs of death were ever found.

In a recent case from June of this year, Jack Thomas, an avid outdoorsman, disappeared in Sawtooth Wilderness, Idaho. He'd been carrying a SPOT device, a personal transmitter that sends one's location signal via satellite. His body has yet to be found, though the SPOT was recovered in a different location then where he'd sent a signal. "It's the only case I know of where someone was carrying one of these, and wasn't found," Paulides commented. He also announced the completion of his documentary, Missing 411 (view video trailer), which he plans to release in the first half of 2017.

Open Lines

Before going to calls, George shared a recent bizarre episode in which the blades of his appliance spun even though it wasn't plugged in. Tim, who said he's been studying "metaphysical defense" for the last 20 years, described seeing a beam of energy in his backyard, followed by a harrowing lucid dream involving predatory Reptilians. Barbara, an astrologer from Vancouver, said she studied Donald Trump's chart, and expressed concerns over his safety on Sunday, December 18th, because of his planetary alignments on that date.

News segment guests: Lauren Weinstein, Mish Shedlock

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