Missing in National Parks

In 2015 alone more than 300 million people visited the US national park system. Some stayed for a few hours, others for a few days - and, occasionally, some never make it out. Join the guys as they take a closer look at the fact, fiction and conjecture surrounding disappearances in national parks.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,

(00:20):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt's, my
name is Noel. I am. Then you argue hopefully and
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
Let's let's get into this with a personal story first.
Do you guys have any experiences and parks. Yeah, I've
been to several national parts with the family over the years.

(00:42):
Took a trip out to the Grand Canyon which was
really nice with a couple of friends. Never um, never
never done anything insane though at these places usually it's
just hiking on, you know, for a day and then
go back to a camp site or just go back
to the car heading hover to a hotel. Actually, in

(01:02):
my my hometown, outside of my hometown Augusta, Georgia, there
is a national park called Finnasy Swamp Nature Park and
I had something of a spiritual awakening there. Let's say
there's a little area where you walk out onto this dock, um,
this kind of like winding bridge that goes over the

(01:23):
swamp and you end up on this sort of like
floating little pier's out in the middle of the swamp
and it's just like covered in neon green, you know, muck,
And there were just thousands of tiny little blue insects
that they call no sums. You guys know what these
in the South. I'm not sure what they call them elsewhere,
but they're they're very tiny, and they are blue, and

(01:46):
they are very easy to breathe in. And they were
just clouds of them all around my head and every
time I breathed in, I felt like they were there
going inside me. It's very small. Yeah, that's sort of
derailed by spiritual awakening, but it was beautiful at that point.
So I also have had experiences in parks. There is

(02:10):
a park here in Georgia and the Atlanta metro area
called Arabia Mountain. Yes, let's just talking new a friend
about that. As she said, it looks like you're walking
on the surface of the moon. Yeah, it's it's different.
It's part of the basaltic extrusion that formed Stone Mountain,
which is another strange place to visit and also a park. Uh.

(02:32):
The reason that we're talking about this today is because
the US has an amazing system of public land. And
despite the political changes that the country undergoes every you know,
for eight or two or six years or whatever, regardless

(02:54):
of how the tied shifts, people seem to in general
as a culture UH respect and want to keep this
stuff wild. And every so often you'll hear stories about
uh government agencies privatizing it or allowing businesses to do
this that or the third there. But the fact remains, uh.

(03:16):
The fact remains that the U. S National Park system
is an amazing institution. I almost got to go on
a road trip to Yellowstone when I was in high school.
My parents wouldn't let me go because the trust the
guy and slightly older guy we knew who would be driving,
and they were pretty sure that we were going to

(03:37):
uh do a lot of drugs, try to sleep around
with some fellow campers and stuff, all of which but
I'm sure would have been true had I gone. But
had I gone, I would also be one of the
proud visitors to the first ever national park in the US,
which is Yellowstone Right, founded by Alysses Grant on March one,

(04:00):
eighteen seventy two. It actually predates the National Park Service,
not to be confused with Jellystone, which which clearly derived
you know its name from Yellowstone. Absolutely, yeah, that's all
it's coming together, so noel, The National Park Service, as
Ben said, Yellowstone predated the actual National Park Service because

(04:21):
that was created by Woodrow Wilson on August twenty five,
nineteen sixteen, several several years after Yellowstone was established. Full circle,
Woodrow Wilson's from my hometown of Augusta, Georgia. Whoa, The
Woodrow Wilson boyhood home is in historic site? There have
you been there? Name doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

(04:42):
It's fun to stay kind it is. Do you think
one can only hope for the kind of success that
makes people reconstruct and preserve your boyhood home? Oh? Man,
wouldn't that be great? People would be so unimpressed with
mine really is born in a year? No? No, all right,

(05:04):
so we have a It would be cool. Though. There's
plenty of room for a your or nomadic existence in
the National Park System today, ladies and gentlemen, this is huge.
It has four ten areas and when there's a reason
we use the word areas, and there are more than
eighty four million acres all told, Yeah, and this goes

(05:27):
throughout every state in the contiguous United States, the Continental
US and expands out to the District of Columbia, which
is still inside the United States but not exactly a state. Uh,
the American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and even the Virgin Islands.
And it was, so why are we calling these areas
so just parks? So some of them aren't exactly parks. Right,

(05:51):
You've got something like a monument that's been erected somewhere,
the surrounding area of that monument might be considered an
area of a of the National Park System. Let's say
a battlefield where a battle from the Civil War took place,
something like that. That isn't necessarily a park of any
kind in itself, for a nature preserve, but the area

(06:11):
needs to be maintained. Yeah. This also includes lake shores, seashores,
scenic rivers, trails, and oddly enough, the White House. Yeah,
the White House. The area of the White House is
also considered one of the areas under the purview of
the National Park Service. So like when they mow the

(06:32):
lawn at the White House, are like our feel like
trying to get away, Like, well, yeah, we'll do put
the lawn mowing and under here. That's where the budget
will come from. Perhaps perhaps, or perhaps if you work
for the Park Service you can rite in and tell
us a little bit about that. Either way, this is
a runaway success. In two thousand and fifteen alone, how

(06:55):
many people went to national parks was upwards of three
hundred and seven million. Yeah, yeah, that's that's a ton
of people's It is a ton of people. And um,
this isn't something we really discussed in advance, but bringing
it up to the modern day, um, pretty interesting story.
I heard NPR a few weeks ago, specifically about Joshua
Tree National Park, and it applies to pretty much all

(07:16):
of them. How there are so many historic structures at
these parks, like from cabins to just different, um, different
buildings that are falling into horrible disrepair, not to mention
the amount of money and effort it requires to maintain
the grounds, cutting back foliage and things like that, and
just you know, just you own a house man, you

(07:37):
know how much of a pain it is just to
keep up your yard. Can you imagine having to do
it for acres and acres and acres of National park land?
So apparently these parks today have these intense lists of
problems and things, but there's just not enough money to
cover the cost. Well yeah, I mean, like you said,
it's crazy expensive, and I guess when you're looking at
a budget, it might be difficult to you know, uh,

(08:00):
convinced someone that this is where a priority is. Yet
the National Park Service is part of the Bureau of
the Interior and for following you know, the budgetary money. Uh,
it's composed of more than twenty two thousand employees paid
employees and two hundred and twenty thousand or so volunteers. Wow,

(08:23):
that's that's who gets the work done. And I just
found the statum from the story. I just wanted to
throw this out there and we can be u Um,
there is a according to this MPRPS, nearly twelve billion
dollar maintenance backlog of work that needs to be accomplished,
but there just isn't the money in the budget for
the park. So I just thought that was interesting. I mean,
some people would say that the the US is lucky

(08:46):
that the parks still exists. Other people would say that
there's something completely different to this story, that there's something
different going on, and we'll get to that in just
a moment. But first, quick words, here's where it gets crazy.

(09:19):
So out of the what was it, no, upwards of
three hundred and seven million thousand, So you've got the numbers. Yeah,
well three of those were us and listeners. Odds are
that some of those people were also you. And if
you're like many of these people, you visit for a day,
hike a few hours, maybe a weekend, maybe take a

(09:41):
couple of weeks and go down a river, or get
really into some strange throw Walden stuff and or Emmerson stuff.
And then sometimes people just don't come out at all.
People disappear in national parks, and they disappear for different reasons.

(10:02):
There are some people who disappear who do it on purpose.
Oh yeah, I just don't want to live off I
don't want to live on the grid anymore, right, I
mean I've had that inclination a couple of times in
my life. I think we all have. There's something so
tempting about just you know, disappearing, walking into the forest

(10:23):
never to return, hopping a train to the great horizon.
You know, I have to admit. When we started this
show back in oh eight, when we started production, uh,
midway through two thousand nine. I really felt like, oh
my gosh, dude, we have to get off the grid
right now, all of us. Anyone who is awake right
now needs to leave, go to the woods and just

(10:46):
learn how to farm. They make it really difficult for
you to do that, just I mean, just in terms
of like dealing with city government logistics. I mean I
actually saw the story court rules living off the grid
is illegal out of Cape Coral, Florida, where basically someone
has sort of like a tiny house situation out in
the woods and um unplugged for municipal services, and that

(11:09):
was ruled by a court in Cape Coral to be illegal. Um,
a magistrate judge actually said that this individual is not
allowed to live on her own private property without being
hooked up to the city's water systems and health. And
that's the thing. There's always some some reason, you know,
and I think it's absurd, but um, it's interesting, and
you know that that hence, maybe disappearing is the only

(11:31):
way to do it, right. It will will do an
episode about how to disappear if we have it. Yet.
It's pretty fascinating. I think stuff you should know did
a peace about living off the grid if you would
like to check that out listeners. So for people who
willingly disappear, people who become modern hermits. There's an example
of a guy named Daniel Solo Swalo who quit using

(11:55):
money in two thousand and then moved to some canyon.
It's near a place called Arches National Park. And he's
been living in these different caves, tucked into these nooks
of sandstone. Uh, and he just doesn't want to practice
anything related to money. You can read some great um

(12:15):
you can read some great stories about him on the
Atlantic and of course, uh, an internet search will show
you some of his various trials, travails, his ups and downs. Yeah,
there's a great article on the Atlantic that you shared,
Ben that it kind of goes through his beliefs almost
and why he's doing it. It's it's pretty interesting that

(12:37):
talks a lot about capitalism and and some people temporarily
reside in national parks, such as members of the Rainbow
family gatherings, you know, which is another fascinating topic. And
in either of these above cases, Yes, ladies and gentlemen,
it is absolutely possible that some individuals in these situations

(12:58):
may be running from the law or from other institutions,
maybe an abusive spouse, or in some cases breaking it.
Because let's say you're an active you're an active member
of a militia, or your a felon who is on

(13:18):
the run with some priors, you can disappear. It's way
easier to disappear in America than people make you think.
It's not easy by any stretch, sure, and it's much
easier to disappear in let's say o woods or an
isolated area than it would be in the middle of
the city where you have to go procure things or something. Yeah,

(13:39):
I've mentioned all the closed circuit cameras that exist in
a situation, traffic cameras, things like that that aren't out there.
You know, you might have the occasional park ranger snooping around.
You're not trying to make sure you're not staying any
picnic baskets, but you know, barring picnic basket theft, you're
probably we're gonna we're gonna get into some right basket theft. So,

(14:03):
for instance, some people might move nomadically from one site
to the next, people who travel for alternative community or
intentional community kind of gatherings, but they might still have
little interaction with the mainstream world, which the rainbow gatherings
is referred to as Babylon. I need to learn more

(14:24):
about the rainbow gatherings. You can go. I'm sure they'd
be happy to see you. I might have to try
it out. Guys. Hula hooping, right, I imagine there's some
hula hooping involved, probably not competitive though it's just hula
hooping for hula hooping sake. They don't seem like the
most competitive group of people. But if anybody's been to
a rainbow gathering, we'd like to hear about it, right
with your experience, I am teasing. I have always just

(14:45):
in the past, associated it with like um use people
that like follow bands or something like like the grading
sort of that same kind of scene. But I could
be entirely wrong. Oh, I could totally I could completely
see that. So in those cases, people might have a
largely off the grid or disappeared life but interact with

(15:07):
the mainstream world sporadically or as needed. And this goes
to the picnic basket example. Yes, this goes to the
wild Man of Central Maine. His real name is Christopher
Thomas Knight. Again, awesome article on this dude. I think
it's in g Q. Yes, Uh, it's okay. So I

(15:32):
just want to say, first off, this guy I kind
of want to be him. But then as you continue
reading on, no, no, maybe not, Maybe that's a bad idea. Uh.
This gentleman when he when he was twenty years old,
just took off into the woods. He said it was
around the time because he didn't know what year it
was when he was asked by the people who apprehended him.
Eventually he was finally captured. Yes, so this guy was

(15:54):
living in the woods, and what he would do is
he would break into let's say a cabin that's on
property somewhere or where people camp seasonally, sure exactly, and
just take whatever he could from there, or break into
let's say a yurt, you break into a yurt or
you know, a larger facility where food is stored, and
would break in there, take what he needed and then

(16:16):
continue on and clothing, books, beer, food, possibly even like
a shed where they keep um boats or things like that,
or like equipment. I mean, the guy, the guy was
pretty masterful with tools, being able to get into things,
and you know a lot of times keys are stored
in a place like that. Where it's a facility used
by a park service or something. He was legendary in

(16:38):
the area. He was known as a well man of
Central Man as mentioned before. When he was arrested and
finally hot he was sentenced to seven months in jail
and probation and at the time of this recording, he
is slowly rehabilitating into society. He has a brother. Yeah.
What was the story though when he when he was
when he was discovered, was he just like he had
to kind of be reintegrated more like ultimately he just

(17:01):
was not He had not been around people at all first,
and they suspect that he may uh that he may
be somewhere on the as Burger's autism spectrum, but there
at this point, I don't know if that's confirmed or
if it's just the amount of time living in a
solid in such solitude that has affected his behavior in

(17:22):
a way that they might confuse with that. Do we
know what led him to this life? Was it homelessness
with I mean, I'm just I'm interested. I don't believe
it was homelessness. Uh. This this decision though it seemed
like it was a snap impulse. Maybe had just had
it with people like when forrestcomp just wanted to run
right right, or when everybody in the r M video
just gets out of their car. That's a powerful moment.

(17:46):
I always think of that moment. One time I did
try it in a bad and bad traffic. I got
out of my car and I stood there, but no one,
no one walked out with me. So next time in traffic, foakes,
if you happen to see Nolan Matter, I get out
of a car, hop out long enough to say hi.
So the thing that sticks with me about this story

(18:06):
is the wild Man of Maine, is that he was
a legendary being that existed in this area where people
would talk about him, would say, oh, you better lock
up tight, you know, the wild Man of Maine might
be coming around. Drops. Yeah, don't leave anything out wild
man amate And then he became a reality, and he's
a myth that became real, which hurt anybody, right, Well,

(18:30):
I mean, yeah, exactly. There's no evidence. So other people
have disappeared fatally in national parks. And these are people
you who break their leg in a remote place, take
a bad fall, are murdered, perhaps because again it's an
isolated area. Drowning. Drowning is huge, which ties into possibly

(18:52):
the Smiley Face Killer different type of show naving episode
in the future. Some of these disappearances remain unexplained to
this a. There's a house Stuff Works article on ten
mysterious disappearances in national parks. Uh. Just for one example,
in a seventy three year old man named John Divine, Uh,

(19:13):
mysteriously disappeared in the Olympic National Park in northern Washington State.
That's interesting because he's not the first hiker that's disappeared
from there over the past twenty five years. At least
four that we know of have disappeared. And yeah, and
he was with a friend when he went missing. Uh.
There there's a lot of strange stuff to his story,

(19:34):
that's right. So what's the cause? What? What is the
single cause of one of the causes? What are what?
What's making this happen? What gives to answer that question? Uh?
We checked out some work recommended to us by you, uh,
written by an author named David Politis. Yeah, and he
actually wrote a series of books about these disappearances of

(19:56):
the missing four one one series about different regions and
difference that suations. One is Western U s and Canada.
There's another one on the eastern United States, one in
North America and beyond. Then there is one called the
Devils in the Details as well, and he's also written
quite a few books about the cryptid known as Bigfoot. A. Right, Yes,

(20:17):
that's something that in some cases will some sources feel
that damages his credibility. Right, because for a lot of people,
if you write a thing about a cryptid, especially cryptod
of that size or that popularity, then they will tend
to look askance at any other work you do. For
the record. In the Missing for one one series, while

(20:40):
Politis makes imply some stuff about a cryptod, he never
says these people were clearly killed by Yetti. So at
some point when Mr Politis kind of got on this
route of wow, there seemed to be a lot of
people that go missing in national parks. Yeah, a park
ranger asked him to look into it. Yes, and he

(21:04):
tried to find more information, and he seemed to hit
a couple of brick walls. So it led him further
and further down this road of trying to explain what
happens to all these people and is there some kind
of common thread that links them together? Right? Have they
nailed down a theory. So here's some possible causes for
these rashes of disappearances in no particular order. First, as

(21:26):
we mentioned accidents, it's gonna happens. Let's walk through these
and the pros and cons of both. So, uh a
pro at least in terms of the likelihood of accidents occurring.
The woods are huge, many people are not familiar with them,
and you're in isolated areas where a slip on the
path can make you break your leg, or if you

(21:48):
have a head injury and you're in the backyard of nowhere,
then it is it is possible that that that could
be it for you if you don't have a method
of contacting someone else. That's why, you know, if you
go into a wilderness, you should always always have at
the very least someone back in the civilization who expects

(22:11):
to hear from you by a certain amount of times. Yeah,
but even that might not save you because there these
areas are so vast. And one big con for the
likelihood of accidents would be that we know not all
of these things are just human error accidents. We there
have been attacks, you know, animals have attacked people, people

(22:31):
have been murdered, you know, bodies have been found mangled
and stuff like that. You know, I forgot. Actually, another
National park that I've been too part of is a
site in the Chattahoochee National Forest um called Anna Ruby Falls,
which is beautiful, glorious, but you go there, there are
a lot of little nooks with signs basically saying don't

(22:52):
step here or you will die instantly. And you see
it and you're like, yeah, yeah, I would die, like
that would happen. And I mean, and it's like that
all were these spots and it's wet, it's slippery, there's
you know, a waterfall, and there's and again, like I
was talking about earlier, the infrastructure and some of these
spots not exactly up to par a lot of times.
So you've got to think that there are opportunities for

(23:13):
people to maybe be going into an area after hours
moving around. Maybe they fell over a rail, maybe you know,
a slat and a bridge broke. There's a lot of possibilities.
And I know they do try to cordon off these
areas where you can't get to them, but people can
be pretty tenacious. Heck, maybe they just got lost. You know,
that's one of the most terrifying things is how easily

(23:34):
someone can get lost in the woods. It's not that
search parties do a bad job, it's just that the
game is rigged. It's really difficult. So another thing, another
likelihood possibility animals of attack people. And there aren't that
many types of large animal that would attack something like
a person. Yeah, and it's gonna vary per region where

(23:58):
you're where you're talking about. The the ans out in
California that you might have to worry about are going
to be a little different than the animals you have
to worry about if you're let's say the Everglades in Florida, Like,
how well, like talking about a bear, perhaps we're talking
about a Gatorah, yeah, out in Colorado. I just remember
Joe Rogan talking about an attack on his dog from

(24:20):
I believe a mountain lion or coyote or a cooi
wolves as well. So we know those creatures exist, we
know that in some cases they will attack human beings.
One of the cons to this is that animal attacks,
as far as we know, the official record, seemed to
be fairly rare in comparison to other people. And then

(24:42):
you know, you can often find some sort of evidence,
you know, bones or something. As soon as you die,
no matter how you die, as soon as you die
in the wild, there's an army of creatures, scavengers, predators,
micro organisms that fall upon the sweet sweet buffet that
used to be you. Need your eyes and your tongue

(25:03):
and your other soft parts. And then other people come
in and excuse me, other creatures come in your pile
of bones in a nifty north face jacket. That last
personal detail. I guess we didn't need to add another.
Like I was just, I was just I got stuck
on sweet sweet buffet that used to be you. It's

(25:23):
true that apparently a lot of times they start with
your feet. Oh yeah, I was reading an article about
like the bacteria and feet is pleasing to carry in.
I'd always heard even more disturbing, perhaps if they started
at your soft bits, like your face, your tongue, genitals. Yeah, well,

(25:47):
there there are other possibilities besides that, which would be crime.
Oh yeah, a drug deal gone bad. This makes me
think of the fantastic episode of the Soprano was called
the Pine Barrens, where and I kind of forget what happens,
exactly what the crime was, but somebody ends up getting it.
So the pine barrens are actually um, they're for to

(26:10):
as several different things. The pine Lands, the New Jersey
pine Lands are a National park area in New Jersey
that is about one point one million acres, just to
give you the scope of some of these types of areas.
And like I said in the episode, the whole crux
is that they are trying to hide a body, and
it's clearly considered a pretty solid place to do a

(26:31):
thing like that. You know, yeah, you've heard the I
mean you out there have probably heard the pine barrens
mentioned in pulp fiction and other uh not the movie
pulp fiction, just throughout pulp fiction. Uh, when involving the mafia,
especially in New Jersey. Yeah, it's a seems like a
prime spot, although that would not account necessarily for missing visitors.

(26:52):
You know, what were you saying then about like some
drug deals gone bad, like that place where they would
meet to do the drug deal. Because it's such a
rural area where there's not maybe not gonna be any
people around. Something goes bad, nobody ever leaves. Some an
accident happens on a camping trip. You want to fake
your death or you want to commit suicide, you want
it to be a new person, which we should do

(27:13):
that episode here. Another thing to think about here is abduction,
like child abduction. Uh. There was one case in that article,
the house Stuff Works article that tend mysterious disappearances. Uh.
A kid believe it. Believe his name is David Gonzalez. Uh.
He was he was going to his car to get
some cookies out of the car. Mom was like fifty

(27:33):
yards away, and then all of a sudden, kids gone,
can't find them. And I think they saw a truck
like leaving really fast out of the park area. But anyway,
it's just that kind of thing. That kind of thing
must happen, right. It seems like a perfect place to
target someone who's isolated and not in their own element. Right.

(27:56):
And the thing here is that whatever these causes, maybe
Paul i'ds uh does not specifically trace it to one
thing yet that they say they're narrowing down suspects. Whatever
the cause of this may be. Uh. This author and
his supporters argue that there are clusters of information here,
three types of clusters. One in cluster in terms of geography, like,

(28:19):
for instance, uh, Yosemite National Park is one of the
clusters that he sites with forty six something disappearances occurring somewhere.
The bodies were later found somewhere nobody was recovered. He
also says that there are clusters in terms of chronology.
Certain times of the year or certain years people seem

(28:41):
to discipline more frequently, and then there's a type of
person who disappears more frequently, the very young, the elderly.
And according to these books, uh, many times when people
are recovered they have some of the same um. They
have some things in common, for instance, and they have
wounds light light wounds are clothing store and they have

(29:04):
little to know memory of the event. They're located further
than one would imagine they could travel on their own.
That being said, Uh, paul I d. S believes there
is a conspiracy afoot of some sort that the National
Park is the National Park Service is not being on
the up and up right. Yeah, when when he tried

(29:27):
to get more information, as we mentioned earlier, from the
National Park System through Freedom of Information Act requests, he
seemed to be stone walled a bit. At least that's
what he thought at first until he realized, wait, there
isn't a lot of good record keeping when it comes
to missing people in these areas. Um, everything is simple

(29:48):
as names and dates and times. It's just not It wasn't,
at least at the time being collected. And he also
claims that he had several Freedom of Information Act reques
ust that were denied when when he asked for more information.
At this point, uh, At this point, this author is

(30:09):
continuing their investigation into the possible causes of of these disappearances.
I will say that, given that there are more than
a thousands or so cases that he has catalogs, I
would say it's difficult to imagine that these are all

(30:30):
attributable to a single cause. I would go so far
as to say it's impossible that they're all the exact
same thing. I'm hesitant to say impossible, but I would
be surprised. I would buy a lot of I probably
I would buy a lottery ticket if it turned out
that kind of math works. So at this point, no,

(30:55):
I don't buy that is like a rule. Now I'll
buy a lottery too, for someone as a president. Now,
have you ever gotten lottery tickets as a stocking stuffer?
I have me too. It's really sad stocking stuff. Well,
when you get a roll of them and you win,
you win another ticket from a role anyway, I'm sorry.

(31:16):
The potential is okay, it may be tiny, but it's potential.
So yeah, So we're at a point now where this investigation,
led by Paulites continues. Some of the more skeptical in
uh the the world of this conversation have pointed out that,
of course there's a reason it's called the wilderness. People

(31:39):
get lost, people get hurt, people miscalculate, people can unfortunately die,
and that can be a completely mundane explanation. However, Polides
and other investigators as well, believe that there is something
more afoot, that there is a cover up on the

(31:59):
part of Uncle Sam. So without claiming to know what
could or could not be causing these disappearances. Instead, the
author does say that there is an active stonewalling occurring.
Is that the crazy us? Yeah, that's a that's a
very good point. We want to know what you think.

(32:21):
Do people disappear in national parks? Is there? What do
you think the cause of it is? Do you think
that there could be some sort of cryptid involved. To me,
that's a little bit tough to conjecture, especially if it's
something that would be the size of a primate, You
know what I mean? Can I give you a story
about that bend lead people's minds down this road? Here

(32:46):
on the website vist Ramic vist Ramic journeys dot com.
This is a group of people who have looked at
the Missing four on one books and kind of taken
exact places where people jually went missing and then taking
a panoramic photo of the spot where they supposedly went missing.

(33:07):
And there's one story on here about a dude named
Christopher Tompkins who was on an isolated road in Georgia
walking behind several other guys. They were working together, and
one of the other gentlemen claims to have turned around
and Christopher was no longer there. As they were walking

(33:27):
along this road, they ended up finding parts of his clothing.
One of his boots was where like right behind them.
They found some of his clothing on a barbed wire
fence a little ways away, and they found some more
of his clothing another boot even further away from that.
And this all took place within a matter of minutes
less than that. And I know that's one of those

(33:48):
situations where it makes me kind of go, well, how
in the heck did that happen without something really big
either carrying him away unless he just got super excited
and ran like a large bird for ins maybe or
a drone. Yes, the possibilities stretched forward, and we would
like to hear from you. So let us know. Do
you think these people disappear due to mundane uh causes?

(34:12):
Do you think that there is something um, something more
organized at work. And let's also keep in mind that
given the in terms of the number of people who
attend these parks, relatively few so far as we know,
are actually going missing. So let us know. And then

(34:33):
if you just have a story about something creepy that
you have found in a national park or encountered, and
you are comfortable telling us, we'd love to hear that too.
It might make it to the air. Speaking of listeners,
I think it's time for it shut at Kona. Our
first shout out comes from Augustina, who says, someone from

(34:57):
Panama would like you to talk about the Panama Papers
also a shoutout would be cool. Shout out to you, Augustina,
and we are on it. Act surprised, yes, as soon
as it came out, you know, all three of us
were just attached to our computers. Gasp. Second shout out
goes to Evelyn Raoul, a photographer who listens to the

(35:18):
show while she's retouching images. Quote, I think Tyson stole
your opening. Go listen to the opening of Star Talk.
It sounds suspiciously similar. Mmmmmmm yeah, I don't know. I
haven't checked that out, but I appreciate the tip and
retouching images. Huh changing history once I think about Stalin
the kids stays in the picture. Of course, we're kidding

(35:38):
evil and big shout out to you and thank you
so much writing I'm gonna check out this Star Talk
the Star Talk out. It's pretty good about it is
good and I don't recall the theme, but I need
to give it another listen. It's new to me. You
guys know, I'm I'm not about uh So. Our last
shout out of the day of the week really goes
to Simon. Simon wrote in uh to say, commenting on

(36:02):
our A m A at above top secret, so is
us Scully, Harvey Oswald and the Illuminates with their breakout
hit Roswell. That ends well because we released a picture
of the four of us and we thought, hey, this
looks kind of like a band. Yeah, we were around
Scully like she was the lead and we were the Illuminats.
We're working on the mixtape, Simon. You know, we're working

(36:26):
on the mixtape. You can pay for it in uh,
stolen Nazi gold or ben bucks or ben bucks those
two things, well, you gotta convert your stolen Nazi gold
to ben bucks. I mean that's just how the economy,
the exchange right in your face. Ye. Actually it's it's rigged.
I can't believe we started out with such an idealistic

(36:47):
currency and then three weeks in we've become the monsters
we were fighting in the first become the monsters we
fought in the first place. Yeah, we're mostly kidding about that.
But if you would like a shout out, let us know.
If you'd like to see that picture, you can find
us on Twitter and it's on our Facebook as well.
I believe both of those are conspiracy stuff. And if

(37:10):
you want to hear every podcast that Noel, Matt and
I have ever ever done, then check out our website.
Stuff they don't want you to know dot com where
you can hear those podcasts for free. That's right. The
biggest U R L in the history of the world.
What up? But if you go there, once you get
there one time, you'll always want to go back. I
can promise you that if you don't want to do

(37:30):
any of that stuff that we just mentioned, you can
always send us a message. We are conspiracy at how
stuff works dot com.