Due to David's name popping up in the corona virus mega thread, it was suggested that this topic merited its own thread. David Paulides clarifies the phenomena better than I ever could, so I'll leave some interviews which are excellent at the end. I listen to shit like this in the gym, great stuff.
Missing 411 refers to the staggering amount of people who have vanished whilst in national parks and other wilderness areas. Initially this research focused on the United States and Canada, but as time has gone on, it has become apparent that this is a global phenomena. Now clearly people disappear all the time for a myriad of reasons, but what's set this particular phenomena apart is that each case needs to fit a defined set of criteria laid out by Paulides. For example if it was know that a person intended to vanish or at least fake a vanishing it would not fit. Same with animal attack, if a cadaver was recovered indicating predation, then that too would be discarded. That isn't to say that some of the cases covered aren't animal attack, but simply that no evidence could be found. These cases date back to pre-colonial times and certain areas where these things happen were known to the natives.
Now David isn't the first to write about missing people, but as far as I'm aware he was the first to link them together into clusters and notice patterns between the cases. there are lots of researchers now working on these topics due to the sheer rabbitholes and branches it's possible to explore.
A few things that makes these cases different to just accidents or predation are that:
1. People can vanish leaving no trace and their bodies are never recovered.
2. If bodies are found, then they are found in areas already searched, or at distances that would be impossible for the person to have travelled. Sometimes just a few bones may be found years later.
3. Bad weather sets in and seems to hamper search efforts.
4. Specialist search dogs are called in and rarely in ever find a scent, despite dogs like these being able to find traces of blood in the Mccann's boot.
5. Occasionally random items are found years later like a walking boot, or clothes.
6. The disappearances can be split second events, people may be walking together, look around for a second and upon looking back the person has vanished.
7. Government and military agencies turning up to also scour the area, despite not having been contacted by local sheriffs etc.
8. People of higher IQ seem to vanish more often as do people on the autistic spectrum.
9. People of Germanic descent seem to vanish more often (in the states).
10. People who are discovered alive have no memory or tell odd stories about being with their 'nan' or being looked after by a bear.
11. The parks are aware of these disappearances but keep a tight lip on it.
12. These disappearances appear to take place in clusters, so you may get 10 vanishings within a national park within 10 years, then nothing for 50 years and then the same again.
13. A large number of people who vanish do so at locations with foreboding names or have 'devil in the title (see Paulides book, the devils in the detail), this harks back to the native american prior knowledge of areas they just avoided.
14. People's cars and wallets are often found which seems to rule out crime as a motive.
15. A disproportionate number of people vanish near boulder fields or berry patches.
16. Water also plays a role.
There's probably more, but these are the ones that jump out.
Paulides himself is careful to not come up with a reason for these disappearances, he just gives the cases. Many people think he's alluding to bigfoot in these cases as he was a bigfoot researcher before a chance encounter with some forest rangers one day, but this is unfair, there's so much going on here that some cases defy any explanation. I have a few possible suspects that I'll discuss later on in the thread.
Two interviews that give a good overview, first one with Tim Binall, second one with where did the road go. Both good.
https://www.cyberears.com/Browse/playaudio/27319
Potential criticisms
David's work has attracted criticism over the years, most notably from the fact that some cases have been debunked. For example he states the facts as he found them, then other researchers have found extra details about the same case and found that it was a normal vanishing, e.g. man walking out on his wife. Again with the sheer number of cases included, this doesn't mean the body of his work is also flawed.
A good discussion on this is here...
Secondly, as discussed with @Dickwan earlier, people have claimed to have found discrepancies in his back story, regarding his role in the police, the length of his service in law enforcement, and the reason for leaving. This may be a case of trying to discredit the person rather than the facts, but it's worth mentioning as presumably a statement of service or the like would banish all these claims. Again I have no idea about the veracity of the fraud claims made against him, but it's no different to us discussing Max Igan, Hugo Talks or even David Icke's potential closets.
Thirdly, he's attracted criticism for the price of his books, but this is generally down to the sellers on Amazon banging extortionate prices on them, so is not directly his fault. His style of also just listing cases in the books with the associated facts, and little discussion has attracted criticism, but he comes from the background of facts as opposed to page turning authorship. IMO his books are good to dip in and out off, and see the sheer bizarreness of some of the cases.
I'll leave it here for now, but what i will say is that I'm sure dodgy shit is afoot in the world's wilderness areas, and I'll get more into that later as well. Paulides is clearly a smart man, and although he'd never say it, I'm of the opinion he also smells something brown and squidgy with regards to covid, but he's smarter than to come straight out and say it I guess.
Slainte.
.jpg.8081a54a3b74a5d1823dfac966666137.jpg)
.jpg.594f0ef23288ec5ab04539b2f8a8dbd4.jpg)
