Missing 411: Hunters

[davsco]

Evil does not call ahead for an appointment. It just happens and most folks first thought is 'I do not believe this is happening to me'.....then its over. Be vigilant always.

i (concealed carry license) got pulled over a few years back. had just finished an idpa match and threw everything in the trunk. cop really scolded me for not having it on me, "the devil comes out of nowhere" he said.

 

[MtnOyster]

Yea...……..I take my primos bigfoot call (the feed call NOT the mating call) with me on my diy solo western trips and call all bigfoot or I mean bigfeet (more than one) when I get 5 miles in and give em all a few pieces of jacklink jerky, they keep all the boogy men scared off after that (NEVER USE THE MATING CALL THOSE BIGFOOT SOWS WILL NEARLY KILL A MAN)

 

[Rokwiia]

A new movie, Missing 411: The Hunted, is based on the book Missing 411: Hunters. It is due out June 25.

 

[[email protected]]

I wonder sometimes if some of the guys who disappear do so on purpose.

 

[Midwest.Bushlore]

A friend my mine was active in SAR for 35 years and has seen it all. People do weird stuff when they get lost. He was actually shot at once by someone that they'd been searching for for five days; guy just became unhinged, paranoid and lost touch of reality. Some people will freak out and hide, no good way to explain the thought process. Then there are the many cases where a person survives, reporting that a rescue craft flew very close multiple times and never spotted them despite attempts to signal. How could it be a real surprise for someone to go missing in the deep woods of AK, ID, CO or MT and "no one finds a trace"? Just look at the freakin' map! Hard enough finding someone who's conscious and trying to signal.

There's also a big gap between hunters and bushcrafters. I've known a lot of "experienced hunters" that don't have the sense God gave a goose when it comes to outdoors skills. How many of you can start a fire without matches, a lighter, ferro rod, etc? Or light a fire even with good equipment in a downpour? Can you pitch a shelter to stay dry within a few minutes if bad weather rolls in? I'm not saying the membership of Rokslide can't, just pointing out that the news media will call someone who hunts twice a year of goes on a backpacking trip twice per summer an "experienced outdoorsman."

Anytime that a white male 40+ years old goes missing "without a trace" my automatic first though is he died of a heart attack. I'm 50 right now which makes me one of the oldest males in four generations on my dad's side (two died at 40 and 42 respectively, heart attack).

 

[Rokwiia]

"I wonder sometimes if some of the guys who disappear do so on purpose. "

I could be wrong but my understanding is that Paulides, to the best he can, looks at cases where the issues of self-vanishing, foul play, and predator attack have been eliminated as best as possible.

 

[NWhunt]

Following


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[MuleDeerMike]

Did anyone watch this yet?

 

[Rokwiia]

No but my copy of the movie should arrive some time this week.

 

[CorbLand]

It’s on Hulu so I am watching it now. Interesting note. They announced they are shutting down a portion of the camp ground that the little kid from Idaho went missing in because of a lead they got.


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[Rokwiia]

Yes, I watched it last night. Absolutely riveting as far as I am concerned.

 

[Milestone522]

I watched the first 411 documentary but have not seen the new hunting one yet. That being noted I do not think people go missing due to aliens or bigfoot. They either want to be missing, they die and disappear due to nature decomposing them, they are murdered and hidden, or scattered after being the victim of a non human predator.

I was fortunate to be taught at homicide school by a detective who worked 25 years of his career at LAPD in homicide. He told me to go to every suspicious death during my first year in homicide, as people "die in weird ways". Even though i had almost two decades seeing homicides, murders, suicides, and accidental deaths in uniform, I took his advice and lived death investigation every week for a year. That did not include later working on almost 100 homicide investigations. People do die in very weird ways was also my conclusion. And that was in a metro area. How about the guys who investigate crimes in the sticks? Or work SAR? Weird shit happens, even in the boonies, maybe even more so...

Look at Southeast Asia and the Vietnam War. We can have a lat/long for a downed aircraft, or where a recon team called for xtraction while being overrun, or where a pilot parachuted into the jungle. And they just vanish. Shot, killed, buried, and part of the food chain. We are still sifting dirt, reading old records, and interviewing locals to find our dead and missing. 50, 60, and 75 years after the fact. WW2, Korea, Vietnam, does not matter. What do we recover? Buttons, zippers, bone fragments, and teeth. What is the difference between the rural forest in Northern Idaho and the the rural jungle in Laos? nothing. They both hold their secrets close to their chest is all, making you work for your answers.

Documentary makers like to sell documentaries. I have never seen one yet that did not leave out facts that would be detrimental to their view, angle, or might debunk their movie. Every coin has two sides, and every death or missing person has a logical but perhaps bizarre explanation.

Enjoy the entertainment, then get back out in the woods where you belong.

 

[Rokwiia]

With all due respect, I have to agree with some of your premises.

Let's take the first case discussed in the most recent movie. Local and state investigators were called immediately and arrived on the scene. The FBI was also involved. No trace was found of the subject even though he was hunting with 6 other men narrowly spread apart in a small defined area.

In Laos, we didn't have cadaver-dog teams and helicopters with thermal imagers on the scene searching the area unimpeded within hours. In Laos, we didn't have 300 people grid-searching for two nearly weeks and arriving hours after someone went missing. And in Laos, we didn't have the FBI on the scene.

No evidence of foul play, animal attack, or self-disappearing. His rifle was never recovered, nor his walkie-talkie (two-way radio), hat, or other clothing. He literally vanished without a trace of evidence he was ever there. Local, State, and Federal authorities have no answers.

What happened to him and what would you do differently?

 

[Fatcamp]

What's his name?

 

[Milestone522]

With all due respect, I have to agree with some of your premises.

Let's take the first case discussed in the most recent movie. Local and state investigators were called immediately and arrived on the scene. The FBI was also involved. No trace was found of the subject even though he was hunting with 6 other men narrowly spread apart in a small defined area.

In Laos, we didn't have cadaver-dog teams and helicopters with thermal imagers on the scene searching the area unimpeded within hours. In Laos, we didn't have 300 people grid-searching for two nearly weeks and arriving hours after someone went missing. And in Laos, we didn't have the FBI on the scene.

No evidence of foul play, animal attack, or self-disappearing. His rifle was never recovered, nor his walkie-talkie (two-way radio), hat, or other clothing. He literally vanished without a trace of evidence he was ever there. Local, State, and Federal authorities have no answers.

What happened to him and what would you do differently?

If I was a guessing man he is still out there, down between a some rocks, over on the next ridge, or right in the middle of the search grid. The FBI brings manpower and equipment but are still supported in mass by local authorities and their volunteers . There is not much magical about it though, just more resources for boots on the ground.

FLIR has its limitations, and cadaver dogs like hunting dogs vary in ablility and are only as good as their handlers. I watched one dog walk right past a partially visible human skull and not alert. What happens when that same dog is working the same grid as the body of your missing person? They are not found.

There are lots of cases where grids have been searched multiple times before a victim is found. And often well after the search has been called off, sometimes years later. Causes big problems in court on murder cases when a location had to be searched multiple times before remains and/or evidence is found.

But the police, and the FBI, are just people dressed up like the police and FBI. We make mistakes, our search teams make mistakes, and our dogs as well. All you can do is give 100% but the weakest link can ruin it all for everyone, and that includes your missing person.

Would I do anything different? Nope. But I still think there is a logical explanation for every case, although sometimes bizarre.

And those in the DPAA who recover our servicemen in Laos have a lot of resources and are excellent in what they do. The comparison between Idaho and Laos is not about the seach teams themselves, but how both locations can swallow aircraft and people, making their discovery very difficult. Sometimes nature likes to hold on to what she has taken back.

 

[Nickofthewoods]

The Swiss Cheese Model comes to mind here. Several factors must align perfectly to result in unlikely scenarios.

Telling someone your whereabouts, and not deviating from that plan is probably the single most important factor in being found, dead or alive. One afternoon (pre PBL era) I rode my bike into the National Forest behind my house where there were miles of roads and trails. On a whim I decided to try an old overgrown logging road as a shortcut and while climbing up it my rear tire hung up on a log I was trying to cross and I just fell over and tumbled down the side of the mountain with the bike. I came to rest about 50 ft down from the road and when I stood up I was right on the edge of a vertical mineshaft about 40 ft deep and filled with water at the bottom. If the bike and I had went down, Im convinced that my chances of being found would have been slim. The opening was completely obscured by the brush and you literally could not see any hole in the ground unless you were standing right over it like I was. All anyone would have know was that my bike and I weren't at the house.

 

[BeaverHunter]

With all due respect, I have to agree with some of your premises.

Let's take the first case discussed in the most recent movie. Local and state investigators were called immediately and arrived on the scene. The FBI was also involved. No trace was found of the subject even though he was hunting with 6 other men narrowly spread apart in a small defined area.

In Laos, we didn't have cadaver-dog teams and helicopters with thermal imagers on the scene searching the area unimpeded within hours. In Laos, we didn't have 300 people grid-searching for two nearly weeks and arriving hours after someone went missing. And in Laos, we didn't have the FBI on the scene.

No evidence of foul play, animal attack, or self-disappearing. His rifle was never recovered, nor his walkie-talkie (two-way radio), hat, or other clothing. He literally vanished without a trace of evidence he was ever there. Local, State, and Federal authorities have no answers.

What happened to him and what would you do differently?

Maybe he just ran off? And if he wanted to run off and create a different life, he wouldn't leave a note or many clues(on purpose anyways) to give people an idea of where he went. Not that hard for me to imagine. Maybe he just wanted to disappear. I have a steady job and a wife and kids and I don't think it would be too hard for me to "go missing"(not that I want to) if I tried to. I haven't watched the show but that's my thought. He went missing because maybe he wanted to go missing.

 

[Rokwiia]

The person in the case I mentioned above was Thomas Messick who was 82-years old, blind in one eye, and had a heart condition.

My understanding is that self-appearance, foul play, and animal attack are off the table. In this case, the level of investigative and search and rescue efforts were off the charts. In most of the 411 cases, people simply vanish and are never found.

 

[Milestone522]

If you google the Messick case you will see they are still conducting searches as of Nov 2018 and asking for hunters help, and noting the region has numerous caves and crevasses where a body could be located. Local LE are still seaching, which suggests they know the location could still hold their victim and has not been covered 100%. The search is only as good as each searcher. Apparently some are dedicated to keep trying, which I feel is admirable.

Don't get me wrong, I scratch my head and and am fascinated by these cases as much as anyone. But I also know bodies can be wedged into small places, and nature takes back our dead into the ecosystem very quickly.

I do not think people are thrown over the shoulders of Bigfoot and disappear into the next County, and I do not think UFOs zap our rural hunting population into space. The prairie is as vast as the wilderness, yet farmers do not vanish in places like Circle Montana as much as Hunters in the Idaho panhandle wilderness. Why? Nature swallows life as quickly as it produces it.

 

[Fatcamp]

Messick was 82 and suffered from heart issues. He was hunting in a very rough area. Not hard to see how he disappeared. Confused on direction due to oncoming acute illness and wandered off. Humans are capable of far more than some give them credit. That's why we use bed and chair alarms in the hospital. The most decrepit looking person can out of the blue start moving really well.