Would the dogs hit on her pee? Or sent if she was trying to go &fl but fell? They would find her Did she go on the walk? Any real proof she left with her friends??
Would the dogs hit on her pee? Or sent if she was trying to go &fl but fell? They would find her Did she go on the walk? Any real proof she left with her friends??
Another option for abducting the smoker who left her smokes behind would be to offer her a ride to a smoke seller. That gets her willingly into their car and beyond the reach of help.
Hey, with the three of you out there you’re AAA 🚙 !!! Here to help by bringing light to these cases. Appreciate the whole team AAA, and those behind the scene! 😎 ❤
Bronze Palm Eagle Scout here. The stories you cover regarding scouts being involved are so infuriating to me, because ALL OF THEM DO NOT HAPPEN if the buddy system is followed
As a female city dweller, I have never been a Boy Scout and was super confused as to why the scouts seemingly went on a trip together only to hike individually upon arrival.
It infuriates me too. Another Eagle Scout here (never got any palms, life happened and my journey was stunted). Makes me wonder how these people become leaders.
Let’s also remember that they’ve found missing people long dead who stepped off the trail and were only like 200m from a marked trail, they were in heavily searched areas, and people just never found them. It’s a lot easier to get lost and a lot harder to get found than people want to think You can be 1/10th of a mile from safety and just never be found
I know right? As much as I 100% respect the work search teams do - - out there in the woods it's unrealistic to imagine they can look under every single rock, bush, tree, crevice, etc. across dozens of square miles of terrain. I think it's more amazing that they are able to find as many as they do.
Exactly...and let's remember that the search and rescue crews usually only go to "accessible areas". They don't search every single Sq inch...its literally impossible. Don't fault SAR...its your job to keep yourself safe and not involve them. Plan accordingly folks...otherwise you're going to put the lives of others in danger because of your bad decisions...God bless.
I think the main issue I have with discounting kidnapping by saying "they didn't scream" or "there were no signs of a struggle" is that it implies a kidnapper must physically overpower someone to kidnap them. I'd imagine most people will be quiet and do as they're told if someone pulls a gun on them.
And if its a small kid vs a large strong man, their struggles might be totally ineffective. I’m a big dude, and when i worked with junior high kids i used to lift this one scrawny sixth grader with one hand and throw him into the camp lake during swimming (he enjoyed it, other kids wanted the same, and a guy bigger than me joined in the throwing). A hand over the mouth and a arm around the torso and a small child can kick all they want and not leave a trace. I’ve taught my daughter to resist in every way possible if someone tries to grab her. Scream, bite, kick, flail wildly. Not that she’s ever in a position to be alone to be grabbed Other than when she’s using restrooms when we travel. And there she hss my cellphone and its always places with cameras and workers, not unmanned rest stops.
That is true! Which is why, PSA folks, you are usually better off fighting or fleeing where you are (even if they're armed) over letting them take you to a secondary location. The reason they're threatening you to go quietly is they *don't* want to do anything where they are right now. They don't want to get caught and they've determined that the risk is too high at the current location. Which means they will probably hesitate to actually use their weapon right there in a busy area. But even if they do, your chances of surviving are usually still better there than in a secluded location where they control all the variables and there's no help around.
Maybe I’m just pessimistic but I also question what the witnesses claim happened. Especially when there are indicators of disagreement; like walking ahead of your group or staying behind. Not saying I think it was foul play, just that I don’t understand how it was ruled out sometimes.
Agreed. Also he completely discounts stranger abduction because apparently less likely in his mind means it doesn't happen, which, considering adult abductions aren't tracked in the U.S. can be completely wrong. Child abductions by strangers is about 28%. But that doesn't mean adult abductions by strangers is the same. Also also, just because a person knows about her, doesn't mean she knows about them.
@@crygonegin7692 neither slipped, but it was very irresponsible of him to run on the slippery rock immediately after his girlfriend almost slipped on it
I'm an archaeologist. A couple years ago I worked out in the Cherokee National forest in TN. Off trail, 70% slopes, huge amounts of mountain laurel, bears, ground hornets, snakes, no service (obviously). Super humid in the summer, the crew I was on ran out of water a couple days. It is brutal out there. We were scrambling up and down some real dangerous slopes to access ridgelines and streams. Even with GIS, it was easy to get lost, and we were often 1-2 miles from one of the roads that wind through the mountains. I have worked in 12 states now, all across the country, in assorted forests and deserts, and nothing has scared me as much as Cherokee. There's something... threatening. I don't necessarily believe in bigfoot or wendigos or what not, but the sheer hostility of the forest made me question on a couple days if I would make it out in one piece. I could see how people go missing, slip while going down a slope, fall and die. There's some crazy places out there.
450 pages of research for the Great Smokies cluster? Good lord brother that's a madness. The amount of time and effort you put in is absolutely admirable. Thank both of you (Aidans) for all of the work you do. Side note - you should 100% publish a formal book with what you've put together.
Oh, absolutely. I would 100% read it. He's kind of inspired me to write one myself on some of these missing person cases. Just a whole book where I throw out theories both wacky and plausible.
Imagine walking down a trail with your family and then you pass a dude with a camera saying “this is probably exactly where she disappeared. And they never found the body”
I have to say, I really enjoyed the "on location" theme of this episode. Nothing wrong with the usual studio-based presentations, but there's nothing quite like being there and getting a sense of what these places are actually like.
@@krgid65 i always think of Geraldine Largay. very similar to Polly. she was extremely close to where searchers had been. they were less than 200ft away from her at some points, yet she wasn't found until years later. so i'm just not willing to believe that "they would've found her".
31:23 😆 The timing of what Mattis said just as they were passing and within earshot of someone probably in or very close to that demographic was golden 🌞
I love how you mentioned cigarettes. I always make sure I have my cigarettes before I go anywhere. This reminds of the guy who worked night security in a platinum factory and went missing. They suspect foul play because he left a carton of cigarettes in the break room.
the Smokies are a part of Appalachia which is in the east of the US. the Rockies are in the western US. they're two different mountain ranges. Fun fact the Appalachian mountains are 500 million years old! The Rockies are much younger.
Regarding the wild people: my family has a cabin in a remote area of the Western U.S., where much of the land (over 2.5 million acres) is government-owned and used for logging. It’s a dense forest, 2+ hours from civilization, so its ideal for anyone looking to disappear. Each year, loggers find abandoned campsites, cabins, vehicles, and unfortunately occasionally even bodies out there. They've been from criminals on the run, families that vanished, religious fanatics, or even seemingly ordinary people with no clear motive. The news is hyper local, but anyone in the area would agree that people live in the woods. So I believe that fan you met and think honestly any large public land has its share of squatters, but these are people who’ve intentionally left society, not members of a hidden tribe or group isolated from society for multiple generations.
I know that there are many reasons why people go off the grid or into the woods. But I don’t believe that most of them are dangerous unless they feel threatened. To much isolation may lead to mental health issues. ❤
@@BrendaPenepent Exactly agree! Most of the time, people are going out there explicitly to avoid other humans. I'm sure due to mental health issues or other conditions, people have acted violently but it is in no way the majority.
I live here in western Nc. I hunt slick rock wilderness. There’s no wild people. Lmao. But now you get caught in our last area not ruined by tourists and foreigners you see some of us get wild.
I have a weird SAR story to tell finally. We were called for a 16 y/o who went hunting, failed to return. This is a town of 1500. We got there and it was close to night so we decided since its getting cold at night instead of get ready to bunk down for the night lets send up the drone. We have thermal and noght vision on it. Nothing. We started on foot the next day and found spent shell casing to a 30-06 the rifle he was carrying, but can't confirm those. We go another mile and find a back pack when we opened it it was still full. We kept going and started finding cloth wrapped around trees that was confirmed to be what he was wearing. We found a little further from that his rifle, missing a few rounds. We finally found socks (no boots), the rest of his shirt, his cut up jacket and his knife right next to it. This place is remote enough that no one would be able to kidnap him, and he was a big dude (6'0 280). And no where near a drivable road. We only found one set of foot steps, nothing that indicated suicide, homicide or abduction. Happy home life no reason to run away. We sent up the drone again that night and nothing. We searched for 4 days using the drone, game cams, a dive team to get in a small 8-10 foot pond, I mean we threw EVERYTHING at it. Dead or alive we would have found him if he was there. And there was no where to reasonably get out of the woods between he was reported missing and we got there. The fastest way out would have been back tracking towards his car which was still there and we found no footprints coming out.
Thoughts and observations: Case 1 / Polly. I'm a 65 yo female and although I hiked and backpacked for years my knees and hips will no longer cooperate with a "squatty potty." Unless it was a serious emergency I'd elect to make it back to the campground. If she was able to toilet/void the dogs would've found it. My only other thought is since she was a regular there she knew about the baby's gravestone and maybe went to check it. That's something I would do if I walked that trail regularly. Also, that trail was once a road, maybe for lumber or mining but it certainly started life as a road.
That's what I was thinking, that maybe she knew the area that well because she had lived there before the park commission bought it. They still had families living there at least into the 30s, and even if Polly never lived there, her parents might have. With Polly, though, I like the Reddit theory that she ran away _to_ somebody. She left her ID, she took her cigarettes, she let the trail take the blame for "losing" her....
She was walking back to camp and hurried ahead; that's what I didn't understand before. The walk was over and they were going home. She wouldn't have popped a squat a half mile from a flush toilet.
From another 65 y/o female. The onsite look at where the parking lot is in relation to the road/highway helps a ton. I didn't see (there may have been) showing the path she/they took in relation to the campground itself. How much of a distance. Seeing what was reported and told, my opinion - she chose to leave. Got in a vehicle by choice. Looks like someone could easily fall along the path, but the dogs/ searchers SHOULD have found her if that was the case.
The only problem with the whole idea of “it doesn’t make sense that rangers/dogs didn’t find her” is that this is something that legitimately actually happened to Geraldine Largay, she wandered off to go to the bathroom, searchers came within like 200ft of her but she wasn’t found until years after her death. I don’t think a disappearance can be called inexplicable if it doesn’t pass the Geraldine Largay test
@@MelissaThompson432you’ve obviously never had the urge to poo come on suddenly and without warning. When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go. There’s no waiting, or walking another half mile to a proper toilet, especially when walking releases muscles and makes the urge more prominent.
56:29 - I just want to say how much I respect you for not naming the source that emailed you with more information about Trenny Gibson's case. I'm sure it wasn't easy for them to decide to reach out to you about it, and even if they didn't ask you to keep their name private, I'm sure they appreciate it.
We used our cadaver dogs to locate unmarked graves over 150 - 200 years old, and civil war battle sites prior to construction and on old family farms. A woman I knew uses her dogs to locate unmarked graves and mass graves in Serbia and Croatia, and WWI/II battlefields. Are able to scent very old decomp and bones in soil and groundwater. Buried decomp is centralized to a site and spreads into the soil. The way a dog works scent makes a huge difference in how effective they are in different condition. A dog that works off both ground and air is an asset. Hounds will work of ground scent, as will dogs trained for IPO or AKC disciplines. Once of my dogs worked a cadaver trail by standing on her hind legs to track scent swept into windbreak pines. I've also trained two horses to track live or recently dead people. Horses do very good scent-work, for air scenting they have a height advantage over dogs.
@@cunit80 Depends on the dog and handler. Typically tracking dogs don't make good evidence dogs, and cadaver dogs are something different. Those are specialist, and I see a lot of cop dogs working scent. They can do it, but it's not their primary job. There has to be a high degree of understanding between you and your dog, a lot of finesse, and you work with them -- not"command" them. In scent work, the dog is the expert, not the handler. Generally when I work with police, we're finding probable cause for the LEOs to move on, so you're pulled out when your dog alerts. Sometimes you're called back in to find more evidence and parts on a scattered crime scene, and often you aren't sure if results, since you're ushered away. I train using bone fragments and teeth (some decades old), and cadaverine. Human decomp doesn't smell like anything else's decomp, so when I hear the dog alerted on animal remains or something else for I know it's amateur night. On most SAR teams there are dogs who search for live people others who search for deceased people. Like people, dogs have talents and preferences. We used to laugh at my evidence dog. On initial training sweeps, she would find planted evidence, but also every discarded cond*m in a park. I train with cops, and their patrol dogs are generalists. Much better than humans, but not like specialist dogs. BTW, scent is generally not broken grass, or sweat, oil, or "fear". Rescue and evidence dogs are primarily searching for skin dander, and/or things that don't belong there. Cadaver dogs work off decomp. Around here, my dogs can be distracted by centuries old mound burials. Also, you don't generally have drug/people/money dogs cross-trained on explosives lol.
My horse is a walking surveillance system. He has the most incredibly fine senses and is always on duty. I have learned over the years to watch him closely when we are hunting because he will point out things, like side trails with sent on them while ignoring others that were unused. He is far less distracted than my dogs can be.
@@jessepitt Horses are amazing, so many people sell them short, or think of them as defective dogs :( So far I've trained a shire mare, a quarter horse mare, an Egyptian Arabian stallion, and an Arabian cross mule gelding to search for people. The Arabian and Arabian mule are my favorites for field work, and learnt fastest, had the most creativity and persistence. Didn't surprise me, their brains are full of things that click and glitter and whirr. That access to air currents from the ground to 6' or more up, plus their amazing vision, makes them so valuable. You can't hide anything from your horse. I got the idea from a guy with Texas Equisearch.
To me the three boy scouts story is pretty obvious that the lawyer's son was bullying the boy that went missing. The two boys went off together and only the lawyer's son returned. Jeff being pretty traumatized by being told he couldn't join the other boys returning to the vehicle. He went off by himself and got lost and perished.
Eagle Scout Mom here- I’m so grateful for the outstanding leadership my son experienced- the scoutmaster was always extremely responsible. However, once he went with a different scout troop to Mt Whitney. He was allowed to go all alone ahead of everyone and make it to the top hrs before anyone else. He was only 15. Though nothing bad happened, watching your videos gives me chills at what could have. I also appreciate the way you are not afraid to take a stance, and give your honest opinion - excellent work.
Sam and Leah Hunnicutt lived alongside Deep Creek. The land belonged to Marion Eppley before it became a National Park. Samuel wrote a book titled "Twenty Years Hunting and Fishing in the Great Smokies". He has children, grandchildren and great grandchildren alive today. He died in 1969.
I know that local clubs like The Kiwanis Club in my old hometown, care for and leave flowers on old gravestones that no longer have living relatives. It's a great charitable cause that is rarely considered. It's possible a local charity keeps this grave preserved. We would have never known about it if you wouldn't have stumbled onto it by chance.
That or an individual, I used to go find and clean up old graves in a historical cemetery where I grew up. I found some of the original graves from the original failed settlement where the town now is, they were Feild stones layed out in a way that is clearly old graves and shared graves, likely entire families based on the known stories of the failed settlement. Also found a bunch of unmaintained and forgotten graves from the French Indian war. I just felt if was bored and finding old cemetery plots from old maps and lucky guesses of where to look might as well clean them up too. Now the cemetery also knows the location so other people who just feel the need to clean them up and help can and help find other sites in the area. Also they now will give a print off sheet on how to safely clean the graves as not myself but others have just gone in with household cleaners (which can damage the stone and environment around it. Obviously overgrown graves now have wildlife and native plants growing around them that can't be disturbed, it's their home even if also the home of a long lost person.)
@DeliveryMcGee there are 100yr old stones down the road where I live that look brand new. I think it all depends on the stone used, the climate, and if it's in the sun a lot.
@DeliveryMcGee idk, the Roman's have some pretty precision cut lettering that still exists🤷♀️and just point of fact that I know, these stones go back much older than youre thinking. It's more to do with your misguided perception of what we could do in the past and when we could do it, I'm guessing. We started using granite in the 1800s for headstones, and that stuff will look brand new as long as we live. Won't reply again, I supplied the information and you can verify it to become more educated or don't.
Silent viewer here - I just wanted to thank y'all for your hard work. Not only your thoroughness in research, but going the extra mile to show us the exact places these events took place. Love the perspective and visual aspect and I can't wait for the next big hiking video! Thanks again Aiden² :3
The Hunicutt grave was a family cemetery near a home. The park was legislated for in 1926, and the park service moved people out, sometimes with great difficulty, over the next 10 years. Often left behind were their cemeteries, or even whole homesteads. (When the big lakes were built in the area, they also left behind settlers' cabins, as you might remember from _O Brother, Where Art Thou?_ which takes place in another part of the South.) Guarantee the Hunnicutt family still lives in the area, and visits on a regular basis. The stone is recent, of late 20th century or of 21st century date. I am old enough to be required to have rudimentary knowledge of genealogy. I could take you through 3 centuries of stones in my own family's cemetery, although most of the ones from the 1800s are really just rocks, and there's no good way of knowing who is where.
Backpacking backpack packing tip: water is heavy. Heavy items should be as close to your back as possible to not create torque on your shoulders. Strapping water bottles to the outside of your pack, furthest from your back, is not ideal weight management. Thanks for the video!
A similar story happened in Canada in BC last summer...a girl went hiking with her church group...the trail was too challenging for her so she fell behind and no one in her group fell back to help her...great friends hey? So anyway she panicked because she was getting further behind so she tried to take what she thought was a short cut and got lost. Her group didnt even know she was gone until they got back to the parking lot ? They waited a couple of hours then called for help. By then it was dark. This poor kid wandered around in the bush for 48 hrs until rescue found her. She found a place where her phone worked and called 911. TRANNY story....the other story that caught my attention was Polly Melton....she was being peculiar...pot on the stove, no smokes walking way ahead...made me think she may have been having an early denmentia episode and wandered off and got lost.
At about 22:32 - the baby's gravestone is most likely a replacement set by a descendant of the Honeycutts. The fact that there are offerings of flowers indicates that a family member is looking out for the baby's memory. (The money is probably left by hikers, a common tradition in some places). As Aiden noted, the stone is in extremely good shape. It's also a more modern cut than what was offered in that area in that time period. Another thing to think about is that most parents of babies and young children didn't have resources to pay for any special grave marker. Even if a collection was taken up by the community, most likely it might only cover a simple stone. The burial was probably on the family land, as were nearly all of the pioneer cemeteries in remote locations where there weren't churches yet. By the way, much of my family is buried in an old cemetery that had a Paupers Section from 1874, when it was established, to fairly recently. It was only closed to burials because the previous sextons hadn't exactly kept careful records of the burials in that ward. The current sexton is the one who documented it as improper for new burials. He told me that it was where many young parents had to bury their babies, and there are dozens of records of infant burials in the ward, but no record of the row or plot number. There are extremely few markers in that location, all of them if the simplest stone, some wooden crosses that are probably replaced often by living family members, and I can't remember any markers for babies. The sexton got a phone call from across the country one day, from a nephew of one of the babies buried in that ward. The nephew had just discovered that his grandparents had a baby that died, and that the grave wasn't marked (genealogy research, including Find-A-Grave). He wanted to arrange to mark the grave with a proper headstone. It broke the sexton's heart that he couldn't locate the grave. He had to phone the nephew back to tell him that the only information that was recorded was the "Paupers Ward," not even the row. It's really sad.
I'm sorry but... "a 2-pack a day smoker that did not bring her cigarettes on this hike" ??? My brother, I'm a 1.5 - 2 pack a day smoker myself that loves hiking and I could not fathom going on a hike like that without bring AT LEAST one pack of cigarettes with me, that alone screams suspicion.
@@yourfriendlygothfox9888 yeah vapes are so much more nicotine compared to cigs lmao - i go back n forth between em and have for yrs at this point the best part ab vaping is how cheap it is - most disposables ($25) last me 2 weeks even constantly hitting it, vs like 4 packs ($40-50) in that same time. btw good luck w quitting, ik how tough it is lmao
As someone who used to hike on parts of the Appalachian trail in PA I can tell you how easy it is to get lost on it. Back in the mid to late 90's a friend of mine and I would pick a spot and hike for an hour and turn around. One day we found what we thought was part of the trail and decided to hike it. Well it wasn't a trail it turned out to be just a an open space sparsely populated with trees. When we turned around we were almost positive we were going straight back from whence we came. After 2 more hours of hiking we finally made it back to the road where we sure our car would be. We were over a mile away from it. I can see someone thinking they are on the right track and be way off. It happened to me. I thank God we didn't get lost that day.
Sometimes you have diarrhea at inopportune moments. Sometimes you’re a trail and really don’t want any one to know you’re having diarrhea so you go really far😂
I was thinking the same thing, but the issue with this is scat. Dogs would easily find the scent, as could humans. We do this all the time when hunting animals. Scat is easy to find, especially when a search party is launched. There’s just no way if the issue was shitty, nobody could find evidence
Thought on Trennie. She might have stepped off the trail to check to see if she had issues with menstrual leaks. It would explain why she didn't say anything, being an embarrassed teen, and why she had borrowed a jacket.
Got to say that Trenny Gibson story sounds like you nailed it that really is way too suspicious to not be what happened, hats off to whoever gave you that info. Also I wonder how many of the really strange nothing makes sense cases are like that one.
I know you've collabbed with Missing Enigma before and it's cool that you're taking a cue from him and going on location. It really is helpful to see the terrain and general surroundings.
A & A were already going in this direction before and talked about doing just this thing. Missing Void might have helped seal the deal to get better info by putting boots on the ground. Paulides, take note! The big plus is that us viewers also get a much clearer picture. Thanks to Lore Lodge for going in the winter as they should instead of a nice Spring day.
Excellent video! I loved seeing the locations "in real life", that was a great touch! Of course I wish people didn't go missing and that there was no need for videos like this, BUT this is a wonderful way of presenting this information. Thanks, y'all!
If you guys are ever sceptical about how someone could possibly go missing from a trail due to a bathroom break and never find their way back to the trail, bear in mind that this literally happened to Geraldine Largay
I grew up in Asheville and used to go to Deep Creek alot in the 80s. It was always alot of fun but we kids were warned VERY strongly never to go off trail. It's extremely easy to get lost in certain areas of the smokies.
About the headstone in the woods: in the 1920s-30s a lot of new dams were built in the Appalachia region, and a lot of small communities were relocated due to the area being flooded by the planned dam. The government would give them time/money to relocate somewhere else before the water came in, so a lot of old graves were relocated too. That family probably lived in one of those towns that are now under whatever lake is closest to you, and when they moved to a new area they placed the grave on their new property.
With Dennis Martin you have to remember that he was a 7 year old kid, Aidan. I, as a child, got lost in a local Kmart looking for a psychedelic 70's fashion show stage they had there at the time. I can well imagine poor Dennis getting disoriented and walking off the trail because he got lost.
I grew up in an area that had many many ridges and hollars with 80°-60° forested slopes. There is a trick to walking up or down them, but definitely aren't as far as in the mountains. Going down slope, you step heel down hard, testing each step because there is always a thick carpet of dead leafs and tree limbs. You also travel downhill at an angle from tree to tree, zig zagging down the slope. Going up you do the same, except you dig in with your toes rather than heels. I'll never forget taking my 3 children back home to visit. My elderly dad and I took them to a hollar and told them to go down. They ended up scooting down mostly on their bottoms, my dad and i walked down, stopping to laugh. Going back up the hollar, we had to instruct them in how to get to the top, because they would get 4 foot from the bottom, and slide back down. I was definitely winded when i got to the top, but mostly from laughing so hard. My dad and I waited at the top as they followed our instructions to the top. It was in the late Fall, so we had clear line of sight, and no dangers of snakes. My children were born in Florida where it is flat, so it was a real learning curve for them, and at ages 6 up to 12, they all fell asleep on the way back from the woods.
Findagrave has this to say about Mabel Hunnicutt: "Mabel was the daughter of Samuel Jeter and Leah 'Lear' (Truett) Hunnicutt. She was born and died (at approximately 8 months of age) in a cabin near the confluence of Hammer Branch and Deep Creek, which is now in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Her burial site is located directly across the road from the old home, and is marked by a large rock at the head and stones around her body." The grave description doesn't match so the stone may be a replacement
Nice coverage. Really points up the fact that maps simply can’t give you a picture of reality. One thing though, bears can go up and down those steep drop offs like it’s nothing. Incredibly muscled, they even climb trees. They’re not like us!
In the story about Trenny's disappearance, is there any information about Robert's life after this event? I'd think if he did kill her allegedly, there might have been signs of behavioral issues afterwards, or other crimes he was suspected of... allegedly.
As an Eagle Scout/Retired Search and Rescue Team member we used Letter codes over radio so that the public didn’t know what we had going on. For instance, if we found a body the code over the radio would be, “We have a K at Team 2s GPS coordinates. Rescue 1 to this location.” Or if we found bones or evidence “We have E at Team 2s GPS Coordinates. Rescue 1 move to this location.” Rescue 1 is for example our primary Rescue Trucks number on a Search and Rescue it would always stay at HQ and we always had a Sheriff Deputy with HQ. Once the codes are used depending on what Code was used Rescue Team members would know what to do next automatically. So I can understand the Army Rangers and Park Service would want to make clear what “they” as a group would do if Dense was found. As for them “going dark” /shrug… no idea.
1:22:18 Part of why I really like this video is that getting a good visual impression of the location really helps you make sense of what could have happened. Just reading or listening about a case you can picture a genetic "trail" in your mind, but seeing the actual location can take a lot of the mystery out of it. Especially with some good thinkers like you as a guide.
This is the first Lore Lodge video to drop, after I discovered your channel. I loved to binge the 411 playlist and see you turning more critical of the sources during this, sometimes even debunking cases - but still maintaining an open mind, even for the unusual or uncanny, where appropriate. And I am delighted to learn the first new entry on 'my watch' being a quintessential expedition into what brought me here in the first place. Thank you very much and best regards from Germany.
I have hiked the trail to Mount Laconte and I recall how steep the slopes were all along that trail. I also have hiked one of the trails above Cades Cove, but that was not the shelter we camped at. Ours was more of an open lean-to with wire mesh bunks above dirt ground, no enclosed walls, and no fireplace. My friend started to get hypothermia which was scary. Luckily we got it under control, but I hope to never have that experience again. We did run into some cowboys on horseback the next morning. It was nice getting a quick visual of the trails after all these years.
I read that after several months after Polly Melton disappeared , a check was cashed in her name in Birmingham Alabama. Might be something to try and look into.
Honestly even if none of these are anything spooky or cryptic, i still enjoy the way you guys cover these cases. they make a lot of information easy to understand
Had a 2 year very happy relationship end yesterday and ran to your channel hoping you had a new one. Tonight as I'm staring at my screen on youtube recommended I see you uploaded an absolute masterpiece. Thank you Aidan for all the help you indirectly give me through life's hurdles man.
Ive been camping at deep creek since i was young, we go every year still, with my kids now. There was another man that disappeared there about 3 years ago. Camp site was still left standing, he just walked off and never returned
i did some research on the grave you found, it’s a family cemetery for the Hunnicutt (also spelled honeycutt) family. leah died in 1936 and sam died in 1969. Mabel was their only daughter
as an infertile mother of ONE child. I will proudly helicopter lmao 🤣 😆 😂 seriously though my child understands and is attached at the hip to me, anyway. if she sets boundaries, I respect that.
On-location segments, when possible, bring so much context and depth to the tale. Missing Enigma adds much to his stories when able to visit the scene.
Damn this is refreshing, I've been waiting for someone to actually go out to these areas and investigate rather than just talking about it. Seeing the actual environment where these people disappeared makes it so much more impactful and informative.
Never watched your show before today and have now spent most of the day glued to youtube! Gotta say as an ex smoker the idea that Polly was annoyed with her friends and marched off ahead is most likely to ne. I would never have gone anywhere without my cigarettes and people, maybe making fun of me for needing my nicotine fix would of infuriated me. I would of got myself back to the camp site in record time and shovelled those ciggies into my poor lungs. I believe the campsite holds the answers, not the trail. ❤
This was epic. Hearing about these cases is one thing but seeing the Terrain is something completely different. I'm not from the US, I'm European (Dutch/German) and have no reference points, so this was super interesting. So please keep up the good work, I really enjoyed this form of content ❤. I hope the families and friends of the lives lost find peace and answers someday
My theory on poly is that she forgot her cigarettes when she went on the trail. This is why she was walking at a very fast pace on the way back and left her friends behind. This allowed her enough time to get her cigarettes from the camp and went off to meet an individual in a car. They both then left the area not telling her friends where she went. Maybe this was a bad situation and she was killed or prevented from contacting anyone.
It's always a great Friday when The Lore Lodge posts. Thanks for all the effort in research into these cases. There's a special type of tragic horror when it comes to unresolved disappearances, especially in the wilderness and even if the cause may be apparent.
The thing that infuriates me about the missing 411 cases, is that per square mile, less people go missing in national parks than in the rest of the US, but so many channels dedicate so much time to them. If half the channels spent half the time on the 4.5 million missing persons outside of national parks and forests as the 1000 per year inside them think of the good that could be done.
You seem very passionate about such subject, I think we all can look forward to any work you choose to dedicate your time and resources to spread the information on missing people
Going missing in a national park is also extremely explicable because as much as people don’t want to admit it and want to come up with more sinister explanations, the answer is almost always that they just got lost
Do you mean, missing person cases labeled as '411', by a bad ex cop, grifting the missing person genre? The only uptick in channels that cover the '411' are AI.
@@blitzofchaosgaming6737you have time to whine in the comments of a 2+ hour video though. I don’t get that mentality at all man. Why work 70 hours a week and spend your limited free time bitching?
Considering the Bobby and Trenny angle: maybe it wasn’t as violent or terrible as everyone assumes (aka he did something to her, lured her, etc) but maybe he was a secret-not-so-secret boyfriend. Tells her to hide off trail so they can canoodle or kiss before heading back (especially if the story of Bobby being in her room is true) and Trenny slipped, hurt herself, cracked her head, anything to seriously hurt herself and Bobby freaked out and Trenny died. He hides her body in some way, tells his dad that she got hurt and died and they cover it up. Just a thought! I’ve just really discovered your channel recently and even though I’ve always felt weird about “true crime” as a genre, I really enjoy your in depth research into the Missing 411 cases, and your willingness to travel to Alaska or the Smokies to see this for yourself.
I like your approach but I am not too sure why Bobby and his family would've felt the urge to "cover it up". Why not just tell the family honestly? Could've faked a search since Bobby knew. Bobby leads them to where she is and they say they found her body and leave it at that, no need to cover up anything unless something suspicious happened. My thought (if Bobby is innocent) was that he told her to go hide so they could kiss or whatever and she got lost. He stayed back trying to find her and couldn't. He thought well maybe she doesn't want me to find her or she led me on, and he gets back on the bus in an irritated state so he doesn't really want to see if she's on the bus on the way home. However, what doesn't add up is how he possibly had the ring and comb unless that was stuff he had gotten from her before she disappeared. Plus, the source that he mentions in this video seems to know something more was going on with Trenny and Bobby.
I'd agree that a hookup/temporary getaway is very likely. Something happens, maybe he was directly involved maybe it was just because she went off trail to meet him. Either way this can't get out/he panics. His family covers it up but, obviously, this puts a strain on things in the family and community.
It makes no sense for him to freak out if she slipped and fell while hiking, that wouldnt incrimimate him and his dad was the DA. It's normal to slip and fall while hiking
I always always always take at least one person with me when I go for a hike or anything like that solely because of stories like that of the Boy Scouts. Follow the buddy system. Doesn’t matter if the trail is well known, doesn’t matter if you “know these woods” always stay within line of sight
ten years ago i backpacked the first few segments of the mountains to sea trail solo. my very first night backpacking i stopped at poke patch backcountry campsite which is in deep creek. i had my tent up and i layed in my tent for a couple hours when well after dark, a guy with a french accent came up to my tent and asked "hello? is anybody there?" he repeated this phrase over and over again. i was terrified as a lone female backpacker so i didnt say anything and just held my knife in one hand and mace in the other. after about 15 minutes he finally wandered off and a few hours later i finally fell asleep. obviously i was just fine and walked it off... but for some reason i still to this day have thought about who or what that was. if it was somebody in trouble wouldnt he have said i need help im lost? but no he never did, he just kept repeating "hello? is anybody there?" or if he meant harm wouldnt he have tried to rip the tent open or followed me the following day and attempted something? i honestly to this day believe it was supernatural. there was some french occupation back during the french and indian war in the 1700s involving the cherokee in this very region. clingmans dome is in sevierville county which is a french name. however it could also be something a lot more sinister, such as an entity of some sort. the national parks are known for some strange things that happen. i will never backpack alone ever again, especially in that region of the country, or the southwest us for that matter.
Regarding Trenny Gibson: If Robert was her boyfriend, and if her mother did catch him coming out of Trenny's room, is it possible that Trenny was pregnant? Maybe Robert had a plan with her to run away together, but in reality it was a trap to unalive her.
Remember, a person can be made mute and unable to scream almost immediately with certain chemicals. The trail passes a parking lot at the beginning. Polly could have been followed in the creek by a man who spied her who was sitting in a car as she passed, who she may not have seen was there if they had dark glass. The road so close to the trail at one point is a weak point too as far as safety is concerned for a woman. If such a person with nefarious intent caught up with her when she was having a secret cigarette, she could have been assaulted and carried off once made unconscious. A bear or Bob cat could have heard her coming for miles with all those dry leaves on gravel and with her large size and I assume a hurried walk (which might around a hunting instinct more in a hungry predator. My deep condolences to her family, and to her spirit too! Poor love!
Great smoky mountains lifelong native here, and I can attest, people literally can just vanish into thin air around here. I’m in Western NC near the Cherokee reservation and I’ve seen some extremely strange things around here.
I enjoy more when you guys go out to the places where people sadly go missing, you guys have made my recovery from open heart surgery, more interesting as I had to be bedridden ,for several months, so keep up the good work and please post more with being out there
Hey Aidens! I just wanted to say thank you for traveling to the places that people have disappeared. Seeing y’all actually traversing the trails gives it more perspective. Dennis Martin is the case that sticks in my craw the most. Can’t wrap my head around that one. The sound deadening properties of the area answers my question about why no one heard him yell for help.
253k views and only 9k likes? I’m appalled , your content is fabulous and so very well done, educational and interesting! If I could like this 253k times I absolutely would!!! ❤
Dude all those flat paver stones on that trail at 57:59 you get those wet enough as you experienced here its REALLY easy to slip and fall on those with just even a little bit of moisture, its never good to pave trails in that, even loose gravel provides a better more stable gripping surface...
True, but gravel on a ledge like that is going to get washed down really fast. Those rocks ensure that the path sticks around and doesnt get lost to the slope.
@NicknotNak I was more referring to that the missing in question at any point could have easily fallen and gotten injured and then ant number of things could have happened that caused her to go missing
A lot of my family lives in the Smokies, those mountains are beautiful and old, that underbrush can swallow people whole, I’ve watched it happen, you’ll see someone 20 feet in front of you then turn around, and when you look back they’re gone, I loved this video, you guys always do amazing work
I’d love to eventually see you guys do the Yuba county 5 in person, it’s my favorite case you guys have covered! -side note it’s awesome to see you guys running around North Carolina my homestate especially after we were hit so bad with the hurricane, awesome to see some of the good ole Appalachian trail.
Just watched the story about the Boy Scout that was found. You said assume the FBI was particularly lying at all times, well I was drinking my tea and spit it out laughing! That was funny as hell!😂😂😅🤣🤣🤣🤣
You were quite correct there was a multi decade period of cooling that ran from 1940 to around 1977 in between the multidecade period of warming from the late 1800's to 1940, and the multi decade period of warming from 1977 to now .
One of the most important aspects of Polly’s disappearance is that the trail appeared to have followed a creek that would have been almost certainly a torrent of water if it has rained significantly recently that had she fallen in while taking a potty break would have carried her away substantially. Has the weather and creek conditions at that time been noted?
Much respect for not clickbaiting like 'We Went Into the Forest and Maybe Found Remains,' not that I'd expect such a thing from you guys. Also, just impressed you went into the woods at all, something despite my love of trees and nature I dare not do. I'm autistic and I think neurodivergent people are common Missing 411 targets.
Lol wasn't the original title another one something along the lines of "did a cryptid kidnap people in the great smokie mountains"? I'm very happy they changed it to something less click bait that being said though
it feels kind of surreal to see you in the GSMNP, for me for the trail Polly went missing on, the embankment ledge you spotted - I remember once when my family and I went on a hike there when I was a kid, we took a brief break to sit down and I'm fairly sure it was at that exact spot
With new technology, perhaps with a huge megaphone, call out and at night get searching portable lights and play rock music. Just a suggestion, must think out of the box for the people trying to find their way out
My husband and I have 5 children. Something we've learned while hiking trails and exploring is the "moderate," "arduous" trails are NOT tough for children, especially young boys who have enough energy to run all day long without stopping. Ours boys scrambled up embankments, over boulders and up trails that took my husband and me three times as long. I think some adults forget just how much energy kids have. 2000 feet, uphill doesn't sound like much when I think of my boys doing it.
Seeing the actual places where these disappearances have occurred is fascinating. I know some things may have changed but it adds so much to each story. Thank you!
I really enjoy these on location videos. They give the viewers a better perspective on the terrain and that it's plausible for someone to disappear without ever being found again or how people can get completely lost. I don't want to completely dispell supernatural explanation but I think all the plausible reasons should be completely explored before labeling it a supernatural cause.
Go to buyraycon.com/lorelodge to get up to 30% off sitewide! Brought to you by Raycon.
Would the dogs hit on her pee? Or sent if she was trying to go &fl but fell? They would find her Did she go on the walk? Any real proof she left with her friends??
Would the dogs hit on her pee? Or sent if she was trying to go &fl but fell? They would find her Did she go on the walk? Any real proof she left with her friends??
Don’t lie. You definitely don’t work out.
Another option for abducting the smoker who left her smokes behind would be to offer her a ride to a smoke seller. That gets her willingly into their car and beyond the reach of help.
Hey, with the three of you out there you’re AAA 🚙 !!! Here to help by bringing light to these cases. Appreciate the whole team AAA, and those behind the scene! 😎 ❤
Bronze Palm Eagle Scout here. The stories you cover regarding scouts being involved are so infuriating to me, because ALL OF THEM DO NOT HAPPEN if the buddy system is followed
As a female city dweller, I have never been a Boy Scout and was super confused as to why the scouts seemingly went on a trip together only to hike individually upon arrival.
Evan as a adulte my mates and I still follow The buddy system on hikes
Golden palm eagle scout here and yeah
At ease, soldier.
It infuriates me too. Another Eagle Scout here (never got any palms, life happened and my journey was stunted). Makes me wonder how these people become leaders.
'He was almost dead but otherwise in good shape' is my total mood.
Word!
Same, tbh
Me since age 23 😂
Me since 21 rolled around
I'm in good shape for the shape I'm in.
Everyone who doesn't know the geography: HOW DID THEY GO MISSING AND NO ONE FOUND THEM??
Everyone after seeing the locations: Oh.
Yeah. I’m of the opinion that no disappearance in the mountains is mysterious….so many nooks, crannies, chasms, etc….someone could fall into.
Let’s also remember that they’ve found missing people long dead who stepped off the trail and were only like 200m from a marked trail, they were in heavily searched areas, and people just never found them. It’s a lot easier to get lost and a lot harder to get found than people want to think
You can be 1/10th of a mile from safety and just never be found
I know right? As much as I 100% respect the work search teams do - - out there in the woods it's unrealistic to imagine they can look under every single rock, bush, tree, crevice, etc. across dozens of square miles of terrain. I think it's more amazing that they are able to find as many as they do.
Exactly...and let's remember that the search and rescue crews usually only go to "accessible areas". They don't search every single Sq inch...its literally impossible. Don't fault SAR...its your job to keep yourself safe and not involve them. Plan accordingly folks...otherwise you're going to put the lives of others in danger because of your bad decisions...God bless.
@@palehorse24681it's not always a bad decision that gets people lost out there
I think the main issue I have with discounting kidnapping by saying "they didn't scream" or "there were no signs of a struggle" is that it implies a kidnapper must physically overpower someone to kidnap them. I'd imagine most people will be quiet and do as they're told if someone pulls a gun on them.
or could be a person they knew.
And if its a small kid vs a large strong man, their struggles might be totally ineffective.
I’m a big dude, and when i worked with junior high kids i used to lift this one scrawny sixth grader with one hand and throw him into the camp lake during swimming (he enjoyed it, other kids wanted the same, and a guy bigger than me joined in the throwing).
A hand over the mouth and a arm around the torso and a small child can kick all they want and not leave a trace.
I’ve taught my daughter to resist in every way possible if someone tries to grab her. Scream, bite, kick, flail wildly. Not that she’s ever in a position to be alone to be grabbed Other than when she’s using restrooms when we travel. And there she hss my cellphone and its always places with cameras and workers, not unmanned rest stops.
That is true! Which is why, PSA folks, you are usually better off fighting or fleeing where you are (even if they're armed) over letting them take you to a secondary location. The reason they're threatening you to go quietly is they *don't* want to do anything where they are right now. They don't want to get caught and they've determined that the risk is too high at the current location. Which means they will probably hesitate to actually use their weapon right there in a busy area. But even if they do, your chances of surviving are usually still better there than in a secluded location where they control all the variables and there's no help around.
Maybe I’m just pessimistic but I also question what the witnesses claim happened. Especially when there are indicators of disagreement; like walking ahead of your group or staying behind. Not saying I think it was foul play, just that I don’t understand how it was ruled out sometimes.
Agreed. Also he completely discounts stranger abduction because apparently less likely in his mind means it doesn't happen, which, considering adult abductions aren't tracked in the U.S. can be completely wrong. Child abductions by strangers is about 28%. But that doesn't mean adult abductions by strangers is the same. Also also, just because a person knows about her, doesn't mean she knows about them.
amanda: *jogs a bit and almost slips*
aiden: "careful"
also aiden: *jogs a bit on the same rock amanda almost slipped on*
@@crygonegin7692 neither slipped, but it was very irresponsible of him to run on the slippery rock immediately after his girlfriend almost slipped on it
I'm an archaeologist. A couple years ago I worked out in the Cherokee National forest in TN. Off trail, 70% slopes, huge amounts of mountain laurel, bears, ground hornets, snakes, no service (obviously). Super humid in the summer, the crew I was on ran out of water a couple days. It is brutal out there. We were scrambling up and down some real dangerous slopes to access ridgelines and streams. Even with GIS, it was easy to get lost, and we were often 1-2 miles from one of the roads that wind through the mountains. I have worked in 12 states now, all across the country, in assorted forests and deserts, and nothing has scared me as much as Cherokee. There's something... threatening. I don't necessarily believe in bigfoot or wendigos or what not, but the sheer hostility of the forest made me question on a couple days if I would make it out in one piece. I could see how people go missing, slip while going down a slope, fall and die. There's some crazy places out there.
You are definitely not an archeologist
@@saywhen9998 And what are you?
@@saywhen9998 Proof?
@saywhen9998 you are definitely not a decent human being
As someone not from the region who has very extensively hiked around that area, and a lot of the national parks, are you Just simply retarded?
450 pages of research for the Great Smokies cluster? Good lord brother that's a madness. The amount of time and effort you put in is absolutely admirable. Thank both of you (Aidans) for all of the work you do.
Side note - you should 100% publish a formal book with what you've put together.
Oh, absolutely. I would 100% read it. He's kind of inspired me to write one myself on some of these missing person cases. Just a whole book where I throw out theories both wacky and plausible.
Not joking. Alien abduction? Or planned identity escape?
Imagine walking down a trail with your family and then you pass a dude with a camera saying “this is probably exactly where she disappeared. And they never found the body”
😂 😮.harsh
I have to say, I really enjoyed the "on location" theme of this episode. Nothing wrong with the usual studio-based presentations, but there's nothing quite like being there and getting a sense of what these places are actually like.
I also enjoy on location. We need that! I know you were excited "reporting" on location. Slow down. Breath deep.
When Aiden slipped on the rock, it quite nicely demonstrated just how easy it is to slip, crack your head, and perish to the elements
I think she would’ve been found, especially by the dogs
@@krgid65 we'd like to think that, but dogs aren't perfect
No, dogs aren’t perfect, but she wouldn’t have been that far off the trail. I think dogs would’ve picked up on that.
@@krgid65 i always think of Geraldine Largay. very similar to Polly. she was extremely close to where searchers had been. they were less than 200ft away from her at some points, yet she wasn't found until years later. so i'm just not willing to believe that "they would've found her".
I love how that lady looked over at them and he immediately apologized for the weirdness XD
31:23 😆
The timing of what Mattis said just as they were passing and within earshot of someone probably in or very close to that demographic was golden 🌞
I love how you mentioned cigarettes. I always make sure I have my cigarettes before I go anywhere. This reminds of the guy who worked night security in a platinum factory and went missing. They suspect foul play because he left a carton of cigarettes in the break room.
I remember that case thanks.😊
The smokies and the Rockies are so aptly named. That does look like smoke and those sure are rocks.
Underrated comment, lol.
the Smokies are a part of Appalachia which is in the east of the US. the Rockies are in the western US. they're two different mountain ranges.
Fun fact the Appalachian mountains are 500 million years old! The Rockies are much younger.
@ yes, they are separate ranges. Nailed it. Good job!
Regarding the wild people: my family has a cabin in a remote area of the Western U.S., where much of the land (over 2.5 million acres) is government-owned and used for logging. It’s a dense forest, 2+ hours from civilization, so its ideal for anyone looking to disappear. Each year, loggers find abandoned campsites, cabins, vehicles, and unfortunately occasionally even bodies out there. They've been from criminals on the run, families that vanished, religious fanatics, or even seemingly ordinary people with no clear motive. The news is hyper local, but anyone in the area would agree that people live in the woods. So I believe that fan you met and think honestly any large public land has its share of squatters, but these are people who’ve intentionally left society, not members of a hidden tribe or group isolated from society for multiple generations.
I know that there are many reasons why people go off the grid or into the woods. But I don’t believe that most of them are dangerous unless they feel threatened. To much isolation may lead to mental health issues. ❤
@@BrendaPenepent Exactly agree! Most of the time, people are going out there explicitly to avoid other humans. I'm sure due to mental health issues or other conditions, people have acted violently but it is in no way the majority.
Makes sense. If you can have homeless at the corner of I and 17th in urban northwest DC, why couldn’t you have them off the trail in a national park?
I live here in western Nc. I hunt slick rock wilderness. There’s no wild people. Lmao. But now you get caught in our last area not ruined by tourists and foreigners you see some of us get wild.
@ 🤣🤣🤣You lil devil, you! 😎
“Did people live here before it was a park?”
Brother, have I got some news for you.
😂😂😅
Did he say that? I missed it lol
@@nickrogers1124 the other Aidan said it lol
Underrated comment IJBOL
Obviously he was talking about white people who make head stones like the one they saw. Not Native American savages.
As someone living in England it makes such a difference to actually see you at these places explaining it. This episode was f**king awesome.
I have a weird SAR story to tell finally. We were called for a 16 y/o who went hunting, failed to return. This is a town of 1500. We got there and it was close to night so we decided since its getting cold at night instead of get ready to bunk down for the night lets send up the drone. We have thermal and noght vision on it. Nothing. We started on foot the next day and found spent shell casing to a 30-06 the rifle he was carrying, but can't confirm those. We go another mile and find a back pack when we opened it it was still full. We kept going and started finding cloth wrapped around trees that was confirmed to be what he was wearing. We found a little further from that his rifle, missing a few rounds. We finally found socks (no boots), the rest of his shirt, his cut up jacket and his knife right next to it. This place is remote enough that no one would be able to kidnap him, and he was a big dude (6'0 280). And no where near a drivable road. We only found one set of foot steps, nothing that indicated suicide, homicide or abduction. Happy home life no reason to run away. We sent up the drone again that night and nothing. We searched for 4 days using the drone, game cams, a dive team to get in a small 8-10 foot pond, I mean we threw EVERYTHING at it. Dead or alive we would have found him if he was there. And there was no where to reasonably get out of the woods between he was reported missing and we got there. The fastest way out would have been back tracking towards his car which was still there and we found no footprints coming out.
Thoughts and observations: Case 1 / Polly. I'm a 65 yo female and although I hiked and backpacked for years my knees and hips will no longer cooperate with a "squatty potty." Unless it was a serious emergency I'd elect to make it back to the campground. If she was able to toilet/void the dogs would've found it. My only other thought is since she was a regular there she knew about the baby's gravestone and maybe went to check it. That's something I would do if I walked that trail regularly. Also, that trail was once a road, maybe for lumber or mining but it certainly started life as a road.
That's what I was thinking, that maybe she knew the area that well because she had lived there before the park commission bought it. They still had families living there at least into the 30s, and even if Polly never lived there, her parents might have.
With Polly, though, I like the Reddit theory that she ran away _to_ somebody. She left her ID, she took her cigarettes, she let the trail take the blame for "losing" her....
She was walking back to camp and hurried ahead; that's what I didn't understand before. The walk was over and they were going home. She wouldn't have popped a squat a half mile from a flush toilet.
From another 65 y/o female. The onsite look at where the parking lot is in relation to the road/highway helps a ton. I didn't see (there may have been) showing the path she/they took in relation to the campground itself. How much of a distance. Seeing what was reported and told, my opinion - she chose to leave. Got in a vehicle by choice. Looks like someone could easily fall along the path, but the dogs/ searchers SHOULD have found her if that was the case.
The only problem with the whole idea of “it doesn’t make sense that rangers/dogs didn’t find her” is that this is something that legitimately actually happened to Geraldine Largay, she wandered off to go to the bathroom, searchers came within like 200ft of her but she wasn’t found until years after her death.
I don’t think a disappearance can be called inexplicable if it doesn’t pass the Geraldine Largay test
@@MelissaThompson432you’ve obviously never had the urge to poo come on suddenly and without warning. When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go. There’s no waiting, or walking another half mile to a proper toilet, especially when walking releases muscles and makes the urge more prominent.
56:29 - I just want to say how much I respect you for not naming the source that emailed you with more information about Trenny Gibson's case. I'm sure it wasn't easy for them to decide to reach out to you about it, and even if they didn't ask you to keep their name private, I'm sure they appreciate it.
As a born and bred mountain girl, you guys worry me when you go in the woods.
We used our cadaver dogs to locate unmarked graves over 150 - 200 years old, and civil war battle sites prior to construction and on old family farms. A woman I knew uses her dogs to locate unmarked graves and mass graves in Serbia and Croatia, and WWI/II battlefields. Are able to scent very old decomp and bones in soil and groundwater. Buried decomp is centralized to a site and spreads into the soil.
The way a dog works scent makes a huge difference in how effective they are in different condition. A dog that works off both ground and air is an asset. Hounds will work of ground scent, as will dogs trained for IPO or AKC disciplines. Once of my dogs worked a cadaver trail by standing on her hind legs to track scent swept into windbreak pines.
I've also trained two horses to track live or recently dead people. Horses do very good scent-work, for air scenting they have a height advantage over dogs.
Does this work? I have what I suspect is tons of headstones on our property. Cheaper than radar.
Not always true. Dogs have very high fail rates actually.
@@cunit80 Depends on the dog and handler. Typically tracking dogs don't make good evidence dogs, and cadaver dogs are something different. Those are specialist, and I see a lot of cop dogs working scent. They can do it, but it's not their primary job. There has to be a high degree of understanding between you and your dog, a lot of finesse, and you work with them -- not"command" them. In scent work, the dog is the expert, not the handler.
Generally when I work with police, we're finding probable cause for the LEOs to move on, so you're pulled out when your dog alerts. Sometimes you're called back in to find more evidence and parts on a scattered crime scene, and often you aren't sure if results, since you're ushered away.
I train using bone fragments and teeth (some decades old), and cadaverine. Human decomp doesn't smell like anything else's decomp, so when I hear the dog alerted on animal remains or something else for I know it's amateur night.
On most SAR teams there are dogs who search for live people others who search for deceased people. Like people, dogs have talents and preferences.
We used to laugh at my evidence dog. On initial training sweeps, she would find planted evidence, but also every discarded cond*m in a park.
I train with cops, and their patrol dogs are generalists. Much better than humans, but not like specialist dogs.
BTW, scent is generally not broken grass, or sweat, oil, or "fear". Rescue and evidence dogs are primarily searching for skin dander, and/or things that don't belong there. Cadaver dogs work off decomp. Around here, my dogs can be distracted by centuries old mound burials.
Also, you don't generally have drug/people/money dogs cross-trained on explosives lol.
My horse is a walking surveillance system. He has the most incredibly fine senses and is always on duty. I have learned over the years to watch him closely when we are hunting because he will point out things, like side trails with sent on them while ignoring others that were unused. He is far less distracted than my dogs can be.
@@jessepitt Horses are amazing, so many people sell them short, or think of them as defective dogs :(
So far I've trained a shire mare, a quarter horse mare, an Egyptian Arabian stallion, and an Arabian cross mule gelding to search for people. The Arabian and Arabian mule are my favorites for field work, and learnt fastest, had the most creativity and persistence. Didn't surprise me, their brains are full of things that click and glitter and whirr.
That access to air currents from the ground to 6' or more up, plus their amazing vision, makes them so valuable. You can't hide anything from your horse.
I got the idea from a guy with Texas Equisearch.
I, for one, shall never forget Amanda's I'd-Like-To-See-You-Try-Bub face when Mattis says he could pick her up bodily and run back with her.
Looks more like a "Yeah, could be" look or a "makes sense" look.
I saw that 😂
The next edition of the Missing 411 book is gonna be awesome, when it features two TH-camrs vanishing while searching for the “M” cave.
Two TH-camrs that we might happen to know of? 🤔
Paulides might well get the last laugh…
THE M CAVE I REMEMBER THE M CAVE
To me the three boy scouts story is pretty obvious that the lawyer's son was bullying the boy that went missing. The two boys went off together and only the lawyer's son returned. Jeff being pretty traumatized by being told he couldn't join the other boys returning to the vehicle. He went off by himself and got lost and perished.
Or something happened between the bully and Jeff.
"If you're hiking the AT, bring toilet paper"
- Aiden, with only a left sock
Eagle Scout Mom here- I’m so grateful for the outstanding leadership my son experienced- the scoutmaster was always extremely responsible.
However, once he went with a different scout troop to Mt Whitney.
He was allowed to go all alone ahead of everyone and make it to the top hrs before anyone else. He was only 15. Though nothing bad happened, watching your videos gives me chills at what could have.
I also appreciate the way you are not afraid to take a stance, and give your honest opinion - excellent work.
Sam and Leah Hunnicutt lived alongside Deep Creek. The land belonged to Marion Eppley before it became a National Park.
Samuel wrote a book titled "Twenty Years Hunting and Fishing in the Great Smokies".
He has children, grandchildren and great grandchildren alive today. He died in 1969.
Thanks for that history. Answers Aiden's question and I hope the team see your comment :)
Thank you ❤
Love this bit of history ❤ thank you
I know that local clubs like The Kiwanis Club in my old hometown, care for and leave flowers on old gravestones that no longer have living relatives. It's a great charitable cause that is rarely considered. It's possible a local charity keeps this grave preserved. We would have never known about it if you wouldn't have stumbled onto it by chance.
That or an individual, I used to go find and clean up old graves in a historical cemetery where I grew up. I found some of the original graves from the original failed settlement where the town now is, they were Feild stones layed out in a way that is clearly old graves and shared graves, likely entire families based on the known stories of the failed settlement. Also found a bunch of unmaintained and forgotten graves from the French Indian war. I just felt if was bored and finding old cemetery plots from old maps and lucky guesses of where to look might as well clean them up too. Now the cemetery also knows the location so other people who just feel the need to clean them up and help can and help find other sites in the area. Also they now will give a print off sheet on how to safely clean the graves as not myself but others have just gone in with household cleaners (which can damage the stone and environment around it. Obviously overgrown graves now have wildlife and native plants growing around them that can't be disturbed, it's their home even if also the home of a long lost person.)
Yeah, that stone definitely wasn't 100 years old, looked like it was replaced in the 1980s or later.
@DeliveryMcGee there are 100yr old stones down the road where I live that look brand new. I think it all depends on the stone used, the climate, and if it's in the sun a lot.
@@libra11426 Yeah, but the one in question is a modern machine-cut thing.
@DeliveryMcGee idk, the Roman's have some pretty precision cut lettering that still exists🤷♀️and just point of fact that I know, these stones go back much older than youre thinking. It's more to do with your misguided perception of what we could do in the past and when we could do it, I'm guessing. We started using granite in the 1800s for headstones, and that stuff will look brand new as long as we live.
Won't reply again, I supplied the information and you can verify it to become more educated or don't.
Silent viewer here - I just wanted to thank y'all for your hard work. Not only your thoroughness in research, but going the extra mile to show us the exact places these events took place. Love the perspective and visual aspect and I can't wait for the next big hiking video! Thanks again Aiden² :3
The Hunicutt grave was a family cemetery near a home. The park was legislated for in 1926, and the park service moved people out, sometimes with great difficulty, over the next 10 years. Often left behind were their cemeteries, or even whole homesteads.
(When the big lakes were built in the area, they also left behind settlers' cabins, as you might remember from _O Brother, Where Art Thou?_ which takes place in another part of the South.)
Guarantee the Hunnicutt family still lives in the area, and visits on a regular basis. The stone is recent, of late 20th century or of 21st century date.
I am old enough to be required to have rudimentary knowledge of genealogy. I could take you through 3 centuries of stones in my own family's cemetery, although most of the ones from the 1800s are really just rocks, and there's no good way of knowing who is where.
Backpacking backpack packing tip: water is heavy. Heavy items should be as close to your back as possible to not create torque on your shoulders. Strapping water bottles to the outside of your pack, furthest from your back, is not ideal weight management.
Thanks for the video!
A similar story happened in Canada in BC last summer...a girl went hiking with her church group...the trail was too challenging for her so she fell behind and no one in her group fell back to help her...great friends hey? So anyway she panicked because she was getting further behind so she tried to take what she thought was a short cut and got lost. Her group didnt even know she was gone until they got back to the parking lot ? They waited a couple of hours then called for help. By then it was dark. This poor kid wandered around in the bush for 48 hrs until rescue found her. She found a place where her phone worked and called 911. TRANNY story....the other story that caught my attention was Polly Melton....she was being peculiar...pot on the stove, no smokes walking way ahead...made me think she may have been having an early denmentia episode and wandered off and got lost.
At about 22:32 - the baby's gravestone is most likely a replacement set by a descendant of the Honeycutts. The fact that there are offerings of flowers indicates that a family member is looking out for the baby's memory. (The money is probably left by hikers, a common tradition in some places). As Aiden noted, the stone is in extremely good shape. It's also a more modern cut than what was offered in that area in that time period. Another thing to think about is that most parents of babies and young children didn't have resources to pay for any special grave marker. Even if a collection was taken up by the community, most likely it might only cover a simple stone. The burial was probably on the family land, as were nearly all of the pioneer cemeteries in remote locations where there weren't churches yet.
By the way, much of my family is buried in an old cemetery that had a Paupers Section from 1874, when it was established, to fairly recently. It was only closed to burials because the previous sextons hadn't exactly kept careful records of the burials in that ward. The current sexton is the one who documented it as improper for new burials. He told me that it was where many young parents had to bury their babies, and there are dozens of records of infant burials in the ward, but no record of the row or plot number. There are extremely few markers in that location, all of them if the simplest stone, some wooden crosses that are probably replaced often by living family members, and I can't remember any markers for babies. The sexton got a phone call from across the country one day, from a nephew of one of the babies buried in that ward. The nephew had just discovered that his grandparents had a baby that died, and that the grave wasn't marked (genealogy research, including Find-A-Grave). He wanted to arrange to mark the grave with a proper headstone. It broke the sexton's heart that he couldn't locate the grave. He had to phone the nephew back to tell him that the only information that was recorded was the "Paupers Ward," not even the row. It's really sad.
I'm sorry but...
"a 2-pack a day smoker that did not bring her cigarettes on this hike" ???
My brother, I'm a 1.5 - 2 pack a day smoker myself that loves hiking and I could not fathom going on a hike like that without bring AT LEAST one pack of cigarettes with me, that alone screams suspicion.
exactly lmao, i’m only a pack every 3 days but id have em w me on a hike like rhis
@@abc.216 I used to only be a half a pack a day smoker but trying to quit with vapes only doubled my nicotine tolerance.
@@yourfriendlygothfox9888 yeah vapes are so much more nicotine compared to cigs lmao - i go back n forth between em and have for yrs at this point
the best part ab vaping is how cheap it is - most disposables ($25) last me 2 weeks even constantly hitting it, vs like 4 packs ($40-50) in that same time. btw good luck w quitting, ik how tough it is lmao
I do wonder if they meant 'extra' smokes? Because yeah otherwise THEY ARE LYING.
Might explain why she was walking so fast
Wasn't expecting a feature film length documentary but I'm not disappointed in the slightest
As someone who used to hike on parts of the Appalachian trail in PA I can tell you how easy it is to get lost on it. Back in the mid to late 90's a friend of mine and I would pick a spot and hike for an hour and turn around. One day we found what we thought was part of the trail and decided to hike it. Well it wasn't a trail it turned out to be just a an open space sparsely populated with trees. When we turned around we were almost positive we were going straight back from whence we came. After 2 more hours of hiking we finally made it back to the road where we sure our car would be. We were over a mile away from it. I can see someone thinking they are on the right track and be way off. It happened to me. I thank God we didn't get lost that day.
Sometimes you have diarrhea at inopportune moments. Sometimes you’re a trail and really don’t want any one to know you’re having diarrhea so you go really far😂
I was thinking the same thing, but the issue with this is scat. Dogs would easily find the scent, as could humans. We do this all the time when hunting animals. Scat is easy to find, especially when a search party is launched. There’s just no way if the issue was shitty, nobody could find evidence
This would be how I got lost.
That's why you shit in the river, act like you're swimming and sit behind a large rock
@@cucuawe465hell no people swim in rivers and creeks
Thought on Trennie. She might have stepped off the trail to check to see if she had issues with menstrual leaks. It would explain why she didn't say anything, being an embarrassed teen, and why she had borrowed a jacket.
Got to say that Trenny Gibson story sounds like you nailed it that really is way too suspicious to not be what happened, hats off to whoever gave you that info. Also I wonder how many of the really strange nothing makes sense cases are like that one.
I know you've collabbed with Missing Enigma before and it's cool that you're taking a cue from him and going on location. It really is helpful to see the terrain and general surroundings.
A & A were already going in this direction before and talked about doing just this thing. Missing Void might have helped seal the deal to get better info by putting boots on the ground. Paulides, take note! The big plus is that us viewers also get a much clearer picture. Thanks to Lore Lodge for going in the winter as they should instead of a nice Spring day.
Excellent video! I loved seeing the locations "in real life", that was a great touch! Of course I wish people didn't go missing and that there was no need for videos like this, BUT this is a wonderful way of presenting this information. Thanks, y'all!
If you guys are ever sceptical about how someone could possibly go missing from a trail due to a bathroom break and never find their way back to the trail, bear in mind that this literally happened to Geraldine Largay
I grew up in Asheville and used to go to Deep Creek alot in the 80s. It was always alot of fun but we kids were warned VERY strongly never to go off trail. It's extremely easy to get lost in certain areas of the smokies.
About the headstone in the woods: in the 1920s-30s a lot of new dams were built in the Appalachia region, and a lot of small communities were relocated due to the area being flooded by the planned dam. The government would give them time/money to relocate somewhere else before the water came in, so a lot of old graves were relocated too.
That family probably lived in one of those towns that are now under whatever lake is closest to you, and when they moved to a new area they placed the grave on their new property.
With Dennis Martin you have to remember that he was a 7 year old kid, Aidan. I, as a child, got lost in a local Kmart looking for a psychedelic 70's fashion show stage they had there at the time. I can well imagine poor Dennis getting disoriented and walking off the trail because he got lost.
I grew up in an area that had many many ridges and hollars with 80°-60° forested slopes. There is a trick to walking up or down them, but definitely aren't as far as in the mountains. Going down slope, you step heel down hard, testing each step because there is always a thick carpet of dead leafs and tree limbs. You also travel downhill at an angle from tree to tree, zig zagging down the slope. Going up you do the same, except you dig in with your toes rather than heels. I'll never forget taking my 3 children back home to visit. My elderly dad and I took them to a hollar and told them to go down. They ended up scooting down mostly on their bottoms, my dad and i walked down, stopping to laugh. Going back up the hollar, we had to instruct them in how to get to the top, because they would get 4 foot from the bottom, and slide back down. I was definitely winded when i got to the top, but mostly from laughing so hard. My dad and I waited at the top as they followed our instructions to the top. It was in the late Fall, so we had clear line of sight, and no dangers of snakes. My children were born in Florida where it is flat, so it was a real learning curve for them, and at ages 6 up to 12, they all fell asleep on the way back from the woods.
Findagrave has this to say about Mabel Hunnicutt: "Mabel was the daughter of Samuel Jeter and Leah 'Lear' (Truett) Hunnicutt. She was born and died (at approximately 8 months of age) in a cabin near the confluence of Hammer Branch and Deep Creek, which is now in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Her burial site is located directly across the road from the old home, and is marked by a large rock at the head and stones around her body." The grave description doesn't match so the stone may be a replacement
Nice coverage. Really points up the fact that maps simply can’t give you a picture of reality. One thing though, bears can go up and down those steep drop offs like it’s nothing. Incredibly muscled, they even climb trees. They’re not like us!
In the story about Trenny's disappearance, is there any information about Robert's life after this event? I'd think if he did kill her allegedly, there might have been signs of behavioral issues afterwards, or other crimes he was suspected of... allegedly.
A key question in the Polly Melton case would be, did she usually leave her cigarettes at home on these walks?
As an Eagle Scout/Retired Search and Rescue Team member we used Letter codes over radio so that the public didn’t know what we had going on. For instance, if we found a body the code over the radio would be, “We have a K at Team 2s GPS coordinates. Rescue 1 to this location.” Or if we found bones or evidence “We have E at Team 2s GPS Coordinates. Rescue 1 move to this location.” Rescue 1 is for example our primary Rescue Trucks number on a Search and Rescue it would always stay at HQ and we always had a Sheriff Deputy with HQ. Once the codes are used depending on what Code was used Rescue Team members would know what to do next automatically.
So I can understand the Army Rangers and Park Service would want to make clear what “they” as a group would do if Dense was found. As for them “going dark” /shrug… no idea.
1:22:18 Part of why I really like this video is that getting a good visual impression of the location really helps you make sense of what could have happened. Just reading or listening about a case you can picture a genetic "trail" in your mind, but seeing the actual location can take a lot of the mystery out of it. Especially with some good thinkers like you as a guide.
This is the first Lore Lodge video to drop, after I discovered your channel.
I loved to binge the 411 playlist and see you turning more critical of the sources during this, sometimes even debunking cases - but still maintaining an open mind, even for the unusual or uncanny, where appropriate.
And I am delighted to learn the first new entry on 'my watch' being a quintessential expedition into what brought me here in the first place.
Thank you very much and best regards from Germany.
I have hiked the trail to Mount Laconte and I recall how steep the slopes were all along that trail. I also have hiked one of the trails above Cades Cove, but that was not the shelter we camped at. Ours was more of an open lean-to with wire mesh bunks above dirt ground, no enclosed walls, and no fireplace. My friend started to get hypothermia which was scary. Luckily we got it under control, but I hope to never have that experience again. We did run into some cowboys on horseback the next morning.
It was nice getting a quick visual of the trails after all these years.
31:22 she was so relaxed about it, haha. Reminds me of my grandma :)
Having the actual location helps so much with getting a sense of scale with the environment.
I read that after several months after Polly Melton disappeared , a check was cashed in her name in Birmingham Alabama. Might be something to try and look into.
Honestly even if none of these are anything spooky or cryptic, i still enjoy the way you guys cover these cases. they make a lot of information easy to understand
Had a 2 year very happy relationship end yesterday and ran to your channel hoping you had a new one. Tonight as I'm staring at my screen on youtube recommended I see you uploaded an absolute masterpiece. Thank you Aidan for all the help you indirectly give me through life's hurdles man.
Womp womp get over it
@ somebody must’ve hurt you
@ that is the gayest response I’ve ever heard😂
@ buddy you are a walking stereotype
@@inactivedishonor5366 another gay response, you happen to be a liberal?
Ive been camping at deep creek since i was young, we go every year still, with my kids now. There was another man that disappeared there about 3 years ago. Camp site was still left standing, he just walked off and never returned
i did some research on the grave you found, it’s a family cemetery for the Hunnicutt (also spelled honeycutt) family. leah died in 1936 and sam died in 1969. Mabel was their only daughter
“‘Helicopter parents suck’ but I don’t want to judge” 😅😅😅
as an infertile mother of ONE child. I will proudly helicopter lmao 🤣 😆 😂
seriously though my child understands and is attached at the hip to me, anyway. if she sets boundaries, I respect that.
“Helicopter parents suck” Also, here’s a story of a kid who went missing because his parents weren’t watching him. 🙃
On-location segments, when possible, bring so much context and depth to the tale.
Missing Enigma adds much to his stories when able to visit the scene.
Damn this is refreshing, I've been waiting for someone to actually go out to these areas and investigate rather than just talking about it. Seeing the actual environment where these people disappeared makes it so much more impactful and informative.
Never watched your show before today and have now spent most of the day glued to youtube! Gotta say as an ex smoker the idea that Polly was annoyed with her friends and marched off ahead is most likely to ne. I would never have gone anywhere without my cigarettes and people, maybe making fun of me for needing my nicotine fix would of infuriated me. I would of got myself back to the camp site in record time and shovelled those ciggies into my poor lungs. I believe the campsite holds the answers, not the trail.
❤
I was there on Dennis Martain.All my life I have followed this.The family knows something 🎉
This was epic. Hearing about these cases is one thing but seeing the Terrain is something completely different. I'm not from the US, I'm European (Dutch/German) and have no reference points, so this was super interesting. So please keep up the good work, I really enjoyed this form of content ❤.
I hope the families and friends of the lives lost find peace and answers someday
My theory on poly is that she forgot her cigarettes when she went on the trail. This is why she was walking at a very fast pace on the way back and left her friends behind. This allowed her enough time to get her cigarettes from the camp and went off to meet an individual in a car. They both then left the area not telling her friends where she went. Maybe this was a bad situation and she was killed or prevented from contacting anyone.
It's always a great Friday when The Lore Lodge posts. Thanks for all the effort in research into these cases. There's a special type of tragic horror when it comes to unresolved disappearances, especially in the wilderness and even if the cause may be apparent.
The thing that infuriates me about the missing 411 cases, is that per square mile, less people go missing in national parks than in the rest of the US, but so many channels dedicate so much time to them. If half the channels spent half the time on the 4.5 million missing persons outside of national parks and forests as the 1000 per year inside them think of the good that could be done.
You seem very passionate about such subject, I think we all can look forward to any work you choose to dedicate your time and resources to spread the information on missing people
Going missing in a national park is also extremely explicable because as much as people don’t want to admit it and want to come up with more sinister explanations, the answer is almost always that they just got lost
Do you mean, missing person cases labeled as '411', by a bad ex cop, grifting the missing person genre? The only uptick in channels that cover the '411' are AI.
@@MmMm-yd4rn I would love to, but i work 70 hours a week at 2 jobs just to be able to have a roof over my head and electricity.
@@blitzofchaosgaming6737you have time to whine in the comments of a 2+ hour video though. I don’t get that mentality at all man. Why work 70 hours a week and spend your limited free time bitching?
Considering the Bobby and Trenny angle: maybe it wasn’t as violent or terrible as everyone assumes (aka he did something to her, lured her, etc) but maybe he was a secret-not-so-secret boyfriend. Tells her to hide off trail so they can canoodle or kiss before heading back (especially if the story of Bobby being in her room is true) and Trenny slipped, hurt herself, cracked her head, anything to seriously hurt herself and Bobby freaked out and Trenny died. He hides her body in some way, tells his dad that she got hurt and died and they cover it up. Just a thought!
I’ve just really discovered your channel recently and even though I’ve always felt weird about “true crime” as a genre, I really enjoy your in depth research into the Missing 411 cases, and your willingness to travel to Alaska or the Smokies to see this for yourself.
I like your approach but I am not too sure why Bobby and his family would've felt the urge to "cover it up". Why not just tell the family honestly? Could've faked a search since Bobby knew. Bobby leads them to where she is and they say they found her body and leave it at that, no need to cover up anything unless something suspicious happened. My thought (if Bobby is innocent) was that he told her to go hide so they could kiss or whatever and she got lost. He stayed back trying to find her and couldn't. He thought well maybe she doesn't want me to find her or she led me on, and he gets back on the bus in an irritated state so he doesn't really want to
see if she's on the bus on the way home. However, what doesn't add up is how he possibly had the ring and comb unless that was stuff he had gotten from her before she disappeared. Plus, the source that he mentions in this video seems to know something more was going on with Trenny and Bobby.
@@kennedyp7151i think you might be on to something.
I'd agree that a hookup/temporary getaway is very likely. Something happens, maybe he was directly involved maybe it was just because she went off trail to meet him. Either way this can't get out/he panics. His family covers it up but, obviously, this puts a strain on things in the family and community.
It makes no sense for him to freak out if she slipped and fell while hiking, that wouldnt incrimimate him and his dad was the DA. It's normal to slip and fall while hiking
@@Hunting-jr1mpFrom what I've heard there is a much more malicious angle to it all and even other students were wearing her belongingd afterward.
Ordered some coffee last week and honestly some of the best I’ve gotten. Thank you for all your hard work and research 🫡
I just got mine and it smells amazing! I can't wait to brew some!
I always always always take at least one person with me when I go for a hike or anything like that solely because of stories like that of the Boy Scouts. Follow the buddy system. Doesn’t matter if the trail is well known, doesn’t matter if you “know these woods” always stay within line of sight
ten years ago i backpacked the first few segments of the mountains to sea trail solo. my very first night backpacking i stopped at poke patch backcountry campsite which is in deep creek. i had my tent up and i layed in my tent for a couple hours when well after dark, a guy with a french accent came up to my tent and asked "hello? is anybody there?" he repeated this phrase over and over again. i was terrified as a lone female backpacker so i didnt say anything and just held my knife in one hand and mace in the other. after about 15 minutes he finally wandered off and a few hours later i finally fell asleep. obviously i was just fine and walked it off... but for some reason i still to this day have thought about who or what that was. if it was somebody in trouble wouldnt he have said i need help im lost? but no he never did, he just kept repeating "hello? is anybody there?" or if he meant harm wouldnt he have tried to rip the tent open or followed me the following day and attempted something? i honestly to this day believe it was supernatural. there was some french occupation back during the french and indian war in the 1700s involving the cherokee in this very region. clingmans dome is in sevierville county which is a french name. however it could also be something a lot more sinister, such as an entity of some sort. the national parks are known for some strange things that happen. i will never backpack alone ever again, especially in that region of the country, or the southwest us for that matter.
Regarding Trenny Gibson: If Robert was her boyfriend, and if her mother did catch him coming out of Trenny's room, is it possible that Trenny was pregnant? Maybe Robert had a plan with her to run away together, but in reality it was a trap to unalive her.
I really hope this theory isn’t true but it seems like a good one
Yeah that makes a sad amount of sense
Remember, a person can be made mute and unable to scream almost immediately with certain chemicals. The trail passes a parking lot at the beginning. Polly could have been followed in the creek by a man who spied her who was sitting in a car as she passed, who she may not have seen was there if they had dark glass. The road so close to the trail at one point is a weak point too as far as safety is concerned for a woman. If such a person with nefarious intent caught up with her when she was having a secret cigarette, she could have been assaulted and carried off once made unconscious.
A bear or Bob cat could have heard her coming for miles with all those dry leaves on gravel and with her large size and I assume a hurried walk (which might around a hunting instinct more in a hungry predator. My deep condolences to her family, and to her spirit too! Poor love!
Great smoky mountains lifelong native here, and I can attest, people literally can just vanish into thin air around here. I’m in Western NC near the Cherokee reservation and I’ve seen some extremely strange things around here.
I enjoy more when you guys go out to the places where people sadly go missing, you guys have made my recovery from open heart surgery, more interesting as I had to be bedridden ,for several months, so keep up the good work and please post more with being out there
Hey Aidens! I just wanted to say thank you for traveling to the places that people have disappeared. Seeing y’all actually traversing the trails gives it more perspective. Dennis Martin is the case that sticks in my craw the most. Can’t wrap my head around that one. The sound deadening properties of the area answers my question about why no one heard him yell for help.
253k views and only 9k likes? I’m appalled , your content is fabulous and so very well done, educational and interesting! If I could like this 253k times I absolutely would!!! ❤
Dude all those flat paver stones on that trail at 57:59 you get those wet enough as you experienced here its REALLY easy to slip and fall on those with just even a little bit of moisture, its never good to pave trails in that, even loose gravel provides a better more stable gripping surface...
True, but gravel on a ledge like that is going to get washed down really fast. Those rocks ensure that the path sticks around and doesnt get lost to the slope.
@NicknotNak I was more referring to that the missing in question at any point could have easily fallen and gotten injured and then ant number of things could have happened that caused her to go missing
A lot of my family lives in the Smokies, those mountains are beautiful and old, that underbrush can swallow people whole, I’ve watched it happen, you’ll see someone 20 feet in front of you then turn around, and when you look back they’re gone, I loved this video, you guys always do amazing work
I’d love to eventually see you guys do the Yuba county 5 in person, it’s my favorite case you guys have covered! -side note it’s awesome to see you guys running around North Carolina my homestate especially after we were hit so bad with the hurricane, awesome to see some of the good ole Appalachian trail.
That's such a good mystery
Just watched the story about the Boy Scout that was found. You said assume the FBI was particularly lying at all times, well I was drinking my tea and spit it out laughing! That was funny as hell!😂😂😅🤣🤣🤣🤣
Thsnks for taking the time to do this guys..its always helpful to see the place where these ppl actually disappeared. So thsnk you
You were quite correct there was a multi decade period of cooling that ran from 1940 to around 1977 in between the multidecade period of warming from the late 1800's to 1940, and the multi decade period of warming from 1977 to now .
Love the in field work. Great to give perspective to those who haven't been and a nice reminder for those of us who have been.
One of the most important aspects of Polly’s disappearance is that the trail appeared to have followed a creek that would have been almost certainly a torrent of water if it has rained significantly recently that had she fallen in while taking a potty break would have carried her away substantially. Has the weather and creek conditions at that time been noted?
Much respect for not clickbaiting like 'We Went Into the Forest and Maybe Found Remains,' not that I'd expect such a thing from you guys. Also, just impressed you went into the woods at all, something despite my love of trees and nature I dare not do. I'm autistic and I think neurodivergent people are common Missing 411 targets.
Lol wasn't the original title another one something along the lines of "did a cryptid kidnap people in the great smokie mountains"? I'm very happy they changed it to something less click bait that being said though
it feels kind of surreal to see you in the GSMNP, for me
for the trail Polly went missing on, the embankment ledge you spotted - I remember once when my family and I went on a hike there when I was a kid, we took a brief break to sit down and I'm fairly sure it was at that exact spot
Seeing the trails and terrain of the actual locations gave really interesting context to the stories
With new technology, perhaps with a huge megaphone, call out and at night get searching portable lights and play rock music. Just a suggestion, must think out of the box for the people trying to find their way out
In the mountains south of there I've seen boars and bears run up those slopes at a very high speed. The wildlife is very adapted to it's environment.
My husband and I have 5 children. Something we've learned while hiking trails and exploring is the "moderate," "arduous" trails are NOT tough for children, especially young boys who have enough energy to run all day long without stopping. Ours boys scrambled up embankments, over boulders and up trails that took my husband and me three times as long. I think some adults forget just how much energy kids have. 2000 feet, uphill doesn't sound like much when I think of my boys doing it.
One of the best channels on YT hands down. These guys are the real deal. Thank you for all you do to bring us this content ❤
Seeing the actual places where these disappearances have occurred is fascinating. I know some things may have changed but it adds so much to each story. Thank you!
I really enjoy these on location videos. They give the viewers a better perspective on the terrain and that it's plausible for someone to disappear without ever being found again or how people can get completely lost. I don't want to completely dispell supernatural explanation but I think all the plausible reasons should be completely explored before labeling it a supernatural cause.
Really enjoyed the on-the-ground footage. Love how you guys have gone so in-depth on the missing 411 stuff and can't wait for more :D
That child's headstone is not original. It is a replacement.