The topic known as the “Missing 411” is based on a series of books written by former police detective David Paulides. The book series is important work and is worth examining, because it involves vanishings and disappearances that happen with surprising frequency deep inside national parks and wildernesses. Large clusters of people have vanished from certain areas.

I wish to offer some thoughts on what may actually be going on in these cases but, to preface, we are skeptics when it comes to paranormal and UFO explanations, as regular readers know.

For further reading:

In my youth, I spent about 10 summers at a camp in the high Rocky Mountains. This included hiking above the tree line. I also lived near and hiked for many years in dense forests and mountain trails around Washington State, Oregon and Hawaii. The Cascades mountain range in Oregon especially are infamous for lost people.

Even though I know the experience of conservative wilderness hiking better than most, one can still get into risky situations. Mostly, this is from using poor trails or going off trail. Experienced hikers and hunters will sometimes push the off-trail envelope and get complacent. It’s best to curb the macho instincts or ego in the wilderness.

Paulides goes into some detail on one case in Vail, Colorado, of an extreme athlete and physician inexplicably getting in over his head and falling to his death.

This recklessness could be happening with some frequency, and these folks in turn disappear. Admittedly, many Missing 411 cases are mysterious but, as his body was found, this one is worth examining as an abject lesson for anyone inclined to extreme sports or challenges.

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Disorientation happened to my son and I two years ago in Germany’s Teutoburg Forest. We were lost for better part of an afternoon in spring after foolishly diving into the thick forest. This dense forest is where three Roman Legions were massacred by Germanic tribes in 9 A.D. It’s easy to visualize how this happened when you wander into them — and, yes, we were trying to get a sense of it. Background on this battle.

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Essentially, when you’re in dense trees, you get a form of vertigo and spatial confusion. There’s a tendency to walk in circles. Reference points start to blur. This lack of reference points and of a workable horizon can cloud thinking and create panic. We needed all our sobriety in Germany. (In the hunter 411 Missing mysteries, I wonder if some “Southern Comfort” was involved.)

Incidentally, there are references to 50-yard spacing in the 411 cases involving hunters and in one of the cases below. That’s too far in Teutoburg forest. We would have ended up separated and in deeper trouble. When we finally traversed the dirt road we came in on, we were only 200 meters from the car. I really don’t think we went too deep into the forest, but what a maze it was.

This is a northern latitude where seasonal dusk still sets in early in spring. We were almost stuck out there, and not well clothed for a cold night.

The following photo of Teutoburg illustrates it somewhat. This thick growth can go on for miles with little opening. And the trees are higher than shown here, blocking out any and all reference points. You can’t get the correct return track. Even in the middle of the day, if it’s overcast, a thick gloom or darkness sets in, you’ll lose visual clarity.

I doubt if a plane or helicopter search would’ve spotted us.

Older people, small children, urban dwellers and out-of-shape people can get exhausted and dehydrated quite easily. A fair percentage of children in the Missing 411 series were special-need. In the following video, we get details on the perplexing disappearance of an 84-year-old man just 50 yards off of a dirt road in Colorado. Again he was separated by 50 yards with his friend. There was another case of a one-eyed 82-year-old hunter who completely vanished. Could have been a variation of Teutoburg Forest but he had more physical handcaps.

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A high percentage of the children lost are very young boys. Young boys, especially those ages 3 to 5 years, can be super active and mobile. I can recall falling asleep once while sitting with my 3-year-old son and, when I woke up, the front door was open and he was a block away, motoring down the street at a fast pace. In the wilderness, precocious boys will be curious and active, and in dense woods or vegetation can get separated and disoriented. I used to love crawling into or hiding behind bushes at the age of 4.

They are then unlikely just to sit still and, if they cover even less than a mile off-trail, will be hard to find. So I disagree with those who say young boys can’t quickly go long distances. They can also be abducted.

This next video describes the case of one such lost 3-year-old child. It also offers good counsel for taking young children on wilderness trails. Incredibly, the child walked by alone and talked with two zombie fisherman well up the trail, and they just ignored him. There is a major anomaly in that the boy’s remains were found 550 feet above the trail. Did an animal drag him up there? Did the zombie flying-monkey fishermen call up their crew to take him up there?

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People sometimes enter these forests with insufficient water. Weather can change rapidly, and exposure is a risk. It doesn’t take long to become incapacitated or killed. Falls and injuries, like twisted ankles, occur often even on good trails. People camp out with poor preparations. It’s very easy for most modern people to find themselves completely out of their element and unprepared.

Paradoxical undressing is a factor when bodies are found. That’s happens when people die from hypothermia. It’s known as terminal burrowing, or hide-and-die-syndrome. Researchers described it as “obviously an autonomous process of the brain stem, which is triggered in the final state of hypothermia and produces a primitive and burrowing-like behavior of protection, as seen in hibernating animals.”

Hidden crevasses, sinkholes and other terrain features could definitely come into play. Who can forget the intense, based-on-real-life story of “127 Hours.:

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“Liberation” from “127 Hours.” Fitting music for today’s topic.

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Here is a case where a woman hiker fell in an obscured spot and fractured her leg. She was luckily seen by other hikers and rescued. Had she died, her body would have been carrion for scavengers.

The factor of dog tracking has come up in Missing 411 cases. However, tracking dogs come in all kinds of abilities and with challenges. Many dogs are excitable and too fast.

If you perished in the middle of a forest or mountain range, any number of things can happen to your remains. A badger might bury your body. Cougars could drag your remains up into trees, where they’re never seen. Remains or parts of remains can be dragged long distances even by small animals, which explains some of the inconceivable locations of bones and remains at unusual locations. In fact, I submit this is the fate of the majority of Missing 411 cases.

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According to Paulides’ research, actual animal predation is not that common. Scavenging would be an entirely different story, however.

Finally, people commit suicide in the wilderness. In Japan, there’s a dense suicide forest called Aokigahara that’s used for that purpose.

Could Something More Sinister be Afoot?

The majority of these cases can be explained as mentioned. But others are much more difficult to explain. The other element that is not appreciated and that is underestimated is the twisted discordianism running amok in society. This would include abductions, human trafficking and murders.

There have been a number of known crimes and murders in these parks, and they are perfect for disappearances. National parks and trails are used as a hunting and dumping grounds for victims. It’s no mystery why these secluded locations can be perfect crimes.

More and more, the creepiest and scariest thing you can meet in the woods is another human, or stumbling across criminal activity, like meth-head labs, illegal grows, etc. Bizarre “Deliverance” types and dangerous people can also be found living in remote, off-the-grid locations. And in a country as deeply sick and satanic as the USA, how many unapprehended Leonard Lake and Charles Ng types are out in these remote lairs?

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Israel Keyes used a similar M.O. of targeting victims in forests, such as the extremely dense Olympic Forest. One of the most organized serial killers of all time, he may be responsible for a slew of these wilderness killings. Again, body disposal is relatively easy as cited above.

In many of the cases we’ve looked at, parents and relatives of the victims believe a kidnapping had occurred. Law enforcement and the media usually do not publicize concerns of kidnapping or abduction.

There are cases of people just ending up in water a la Smiley Face Killers. Is that an aspect here as well? Some Missing 411 cases have the same covert sinister traits as Smiley Face. This would signal an organized cell or ring that hunts people in wilderness areas.

We’ve been holding that a bad element exists in law enforcement. Strangely, we run into the incompetence Hanlon’s Razor theory again. This razor is a red flag for us that malice or something rancid is afoot — and not just laziness.

Lending credence to this is that there is no legal requirement that federal records be kept of the circumstances surrounding a person’s disappearance, whether or not remains or belongings are recovered, or if a person is located alive and well. This should all be a matter of public record, but it is not. Thus, the numbers involved are unknown.

When researchers or family members request records that are sometimes kept, administrators have stymied requests, claiming it would cost upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce such records due to manpower issues and the cost of making copies. This is in spite of Freedom of Information Act guarantees that federal records are open to the public. Cases are even classified, which is truly inexplicable.

And here is a case that raises a red flag. In Taos, New Mexico, 61-year-old Walter Scheib parked his Subaru at the Yerba Buena Trailhead off State Route 150 near the Taos ski area. His cell phone indicates he probably made the summit of Lobo Peak at 12,115. His family realized he never returned and called authorities. Bad weather immediately inundated the search area and caused delays.

He was found 25 yards from the trail submerged in a drainage ditch. He died of drowning. Walter was the White House chef from 1994-2005 for George W. Bush and the Clintons.

At best, these cover ups and downplays are asset-protection methods given the financial value of national park admissions as a business. At worst, there are organized covert murders and people hunts in play.

If covert or organized murder is afoot, then the paranormal discussion is part of a misdirection and distraction.