Missing 411 - Disappearances in National Parks

Don't go hiking alone!

Hey friends,

Today’s email is about the Missing 411. Let’s get right into it.

PizzaGate’s back in the news this week

With some help from TikTok, Justin Bieber, and the New York Times, the PizzaGate conspiracy is back in the mainstream again.

If you’re unfamiliar, PizzaGate can be summarized as high-ranking Democratic Party officials abducting and trafficking humans through restaurants.

If it seems farfetched, it’s because it is. It’s been debunked – or at least as debunked as a conspiracy can be. But it reminded me of one of my favorite conspiracies.

Thousands of people are going missing from National Parks without a trace

In his series of Missing 411 books, David Paulides documents unsolved missing persons cases in and around national parks in North America, primarily the United States.

Paulides, a former police officer, first stumbled upon the cases through a National Park Ranger. The frustrated Ranger mentioned dozens of missing persons cases, over many years and in many National Parks, where the search and rescue would abruptly halt after a week or so with no explanation as to why. He asked Paulides to consult.

And consult he did. Paulides did research for over six years on the subject and identified 52 geographical clusters of missing people in North America. In total, he has classified over 1,400 missing persons case under the Missing411 label.

These cases are peculiar…

One pattern that has emerged in the disappearances is a close proximity to water. If you look at the map above you can see the center of the US without a cluster. Maybe the abductors are handy with canoes?

Certain subgroups vanish at higher rates than the general population. Two particularly obscure groups are Germans and physicists. So if you’re a German physicist watch your back. Dark, anyone?

One child’s case epitomizes the unusual nature of these disappearances. Authorities found his clothes, but the pants were completely inside out. And although there no was no blood at the scene, one of the boy’s teeth was left behind.  

Bears, beets…bundles of missing persons?

Paulides is convinced that these disappearances defy conventional explanations. However, he is careful to only lay out data, steering clear of speculation on who or what is behind them. He fears that conjecture might discredit the facts. But that hasn’t stopped others from coming to their own conclusions.

We know that Reddit trails only Youtube as the king of conspiracy rabbit holes, so it’s not surprising that there’s a subreddit dedicated to the Missing 411. One user juxtaposed Paulides’s cluster map with a black bear habitat map, suggesting the bears might be behind the missing. Highly doubtful, but certainly interesting.

Go creep yourself out

For those unfamiliar with the case, I recommend starting with the 2017 documentary, Missing 411. It highlights the similarities among five missing children across multiple decades, but does not shed light on the potential culprits. From there, you can start jumping into the books. Or just get a little tipsy and lose sleep browsing the reddit thread like the rest of us.

Related resources:

1.    This reddit thread is dedicated to the Missing 411.

a.    One user juxtaposes the clusters and America’s cave systems. My favorite comment: “I can’t stop thinking of The Descent.”

2.    This is the Wikipedia page on David Paulides. I guess my guy wrote a book on Bigfoot, too. What a human.

3.    This Podcast dedicated to conspiracy theories had David Paulides on as a guest.

Next week we'll cover a mysterious, mass alien sighting in Zimbabwe.

Stay tuned...