The SOS Sign Incident - An Unsolved Mystery
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ธ.ค. 2020
- In 1989 two hikers called for help in one of Japan's beautiful national parks. After police searched for them from a sign they had seen from above, investigators learned that two hikers were not responsible for the SOS sign.
The subsequent events would lead down a mystery that is still unsolved to this day.
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How Ironic. You make an sos sign, and because of you 2 people were saved but you never were.
Life is weird.
Sacrifice?
Life just do be like that sometimes
@@georgeorwellgaming7898 it do be
It do be do be doo
you never were*
One thing is certain, that second pair of hikers owe their lives to a dead man's work.
love the نون profile picture here
Plot twist: The second pair of hikers actually made the sign but were embarrassed and said it wasn't them :P
Challen Bellamey why tf would they be embarrassed
@@CLBellamey lol 😂
Or a murderer's work
I think the most remarkable part of this entire incident is that there's a hiking trail that actually has a landmark known as the "fake safe rock."
Landmarks on this trail include:
Safe Rock: Located 3.5 km up the trail, this large cube-shaped boulder signifies the point at which it's safe to cross over the ridge of the mountain, and continue on your journey.
Fake Safe Rock for Dumb Stupid Idiots: Located 3.25 km up the trail, this large cube-shaped boulder signifies the point at which it's unsafe to cross over the ridge of the mountain, and if you do you will get lost in the woods forever and fucking die. Good luck, lmao.
that’s japan for you
“Should we put like a sign or something that says this is the fake safe rock?”
“Nah they’ll know the first one is the fake one.”
dangerous rock
@@CrumbMuffins”nah they’ll know it was fake once they get to the second one” 😂
What if someone else got lost the same way, found the axe, and was like "oh wow a free axe, what a lucky day!" and left with it not noticing the pile of bones to the left or realizing they fucked up a crime scene.
Yes completely
My family lives up north and regularly hunt for food still. It is not uncommon for my uncle to return with a new axe or firearm and a hard expression along with his prey. Anything my uncle took he'd leave a marker so he could return with authorities, but the cops around the bay just started supplying him with flares. He used to tell me that the lost jackets in the woods were like "scare crows" but mischievous, and if I tried to get close theyd turn me into one too. I suppose he wasn't entirely wrong about that lmfao. Unfortunately in such areas leaving an axe, jacket, bullets, bottle anything could mean you get fucked over. Whoever owned it before has moved on, and most likely will not return for that item. Now a days the trails are better marked and they now have cabins set up nearly everywhere for hunters or hikers that need shelter but even then they feel dangerous to approach, never know what's inside or watching. Not to mention the traps, teams regularly lose people and dogs to little hare snares and bear jaws since they aren't marked or always retrieved. Fuckin snow doesn't always set them off either
@@ollieworth7341 All this reminds me of that youtube channel where someone goes magnet fishing and police are so used to getting calls about him being 'a mysterious man messing around with the lake' and coming out to see if it's him again, that they've formed a friendship and now direct him to places where crimes take place so he can magnet fish for evidence like bullet casings and guns, which he finds often...
@@vaszgul736 may I know what's TH-cam channel called?
Is it possible that the trees were already cut by someone else and he just moved them to create the sign?
"It's a woman with O-Type Blood"
> are you sure it's not a man with A-type blood?
"It's a man with A-Type Blood"
Japanese police aren't exactly known for being thorough, unfortunately
that’s sus i reckon
Yeah I was wondering about that, okay it's understandable that they could've made mistake determining the person's gender based just on a pile of bones and few remains, but how could you get the blood type wrong?
It would be impolite not to come to the convenient conclusion.
That's the most surprising element of the story to me - more so than the missing axe. If you announce not only the person's sex but also their blood type, but then change everything in a new announcement, that means one of two things: you were making things up before, or you're lying now. That makes the pathologists' work dodgy dodgy in any case.
I almost wonder if there were two hikers, one injured and one not. The other goes to find help, dies in an undiscovered spot and now it looks like only one hiker was there.
It’s kinda disturbing to think that there is still an undiscovered body somewhere on that mountain
Exactly. They went to valley to get water, perhaps after the injury... also the area has huge bears.. grizzly bears to be exact.. ouch. "Perhaps the most unique of these are Hokkaido bears, also known as grizzly bears in North America. In Japan, the local name for these bears is higuma. They are also known to be dangerous to hikers in Hokkaido, being over 2 meters tall and 300 kilograms in weight" That is from search
@@williamstibor8606 an undiscovered corpse from a person who wasn't reported missing (At least not in the park)
As brad said, there was apparently nobody else reported missing at the time. Good theory tho.
That scenario happens all too often. Missing 411 covers these types of stories in the US. MrBallen is a great storyteller TH-camr covering strange, dark, and mysterious topics.
As for his parents not recognizing the voice as his, I don't think that's too strange. Between the fact that they hadn't seen him for at least 5 years, the tape being recorded over (likely on a crappy mic built in to his tape player), and the fact that the tape was at least somewhat exposed to the elements for several years, it's quite possible that the audio had degraded a bit and/or his parents didn't have a great memory of his voice.
I think it's also worth noting that he's screaming throughout the whole thing. I can definitely identify my family's voices, but my family's screaming? Maybe not so much
he may have been screaming for a while too, which could result in his voice going a hit hoarse
Or it could be the parents were in denial and didn't want to think it was their son.
On top of that, he was shouting and desperate to be rescued - you're not going to sound the same as normal.
I hear some people say that the first memory to go of a person after they die is their voice. My mom passed in 2019, and I can barely still hear her voice in my head. I only truly hear her, when I talk to my sister on the phone. She sounds just like her, and it refreshes my memory, so to speak.
3 points I want to make:
1) In 1989 very few people had private internet access and there were no such thing as Google Map. This means anyone who ventures out into the great outdoors had to use paper maps and even then very few maps were published for outdoors areas such as national parks that included areas off the beaten path. The vast majority of map published at the time were for cities and highway driving.
2) While it seems a no brainer to us that anyone lost in Iwamura situation just had to go down to the stream and follow it to the nearest town, you are assuming he knows about the lay of the land and that he was experience in hiking mountain trails. Having been an outdoors enthusiast for nearly 50 years, I can tell you people who live in the cities and being unfamiliar with such activities will make seemingly obvious mistakes such as taking what they think is a shortcut away from any trails or wander off because it's nature so it must be good and since it's good it must be safe. They also never plan for contingencies such carrying water and energy food, a compass, additional clothing, and most of all letting someone know where they are going and when they plan to return.
3) Japanese police despite or perhaps because of the very low violent crime rate in Japan are very reluctant to continue investigating a case if it can be attributed to something like misadventure/accident. Since it was Iwamura's backpack and probably his bones, the Japanese police will not want to rock the boat and investigate the inconsistencies such as how he could had chopped down trees without an ax or why his parents cannot confirm it is their son's voice on the recording. One of the interesting and disturbing thing to me is how the Japanese authorities always assume remains found in Aokigahara Forest (aka Suicide Forest) is in fact a suicide and not a homicide. It seems to me it would be the perfect dumping ground for murderers or serial killers,
I think the reason why they aren't sure is because it's a recording. Voices can sound very different on recordings sometimes. I have a few from family members that sound nothing like they sound in real life. And the axe could simply somewhere in the forest where it wasn't found yet. Or someone found it, thought nothing about it and just took it. Also, we don't have all information, so there's probably no big mystery at all. Guy got lost, didn't know where he was at all, build an SOS sign, broke his bones and died.
"While it seems a no brainer to us that anyone lost in Iwamura situation just had to go down to the stream and follow it to the nearest town"
On the other hand, a lot of experts say if you're lost you're supposed to just stay put.
@@35mm21so long as you told someone where you were going and when you’d be back. There’s no one searching for you if no one knows you’re missing. But otherwise you’re absolutely right. At least, that’s what they say.
Tiktokers “but the internet has been around since Jesus times, right?!”
No one had private Internet access in the eighties. It wasn't until NSFnet opened up the exchanges in the mid-nineties that the Internet expanded beyond universities and government institutions.
"Sorry we said it was a female with Type O blood. It was actually a male with Type A." "Sure, no problem."
"Sorry, we made another mistake. This is actually a 40,000 year old fossil of a Neanderthal from the Middle-Late Pleistocene era."
Touche'
Np
@@alex15095 LOL
"wait no hold on, it's an alien with a new type of blood we've never seen before: H"
"oh boy i cant wait to go on a hike listening to my favorite anime ost"
welcome to japan
i mean some people consider super-loud metal music as "relaxing", which is way more weird-sounding to me (seriously they're fucking destroying their hearing) than an anime soundtrack on a hike.
Listening to anything on a hike sounds like a waste of energy.
@@vizthex you do realize metal isn't exclusive to america right
He’d have been fine if it was the ‘Berserk’ ost.
Unless the searchers were using metal detectors, it does not surprise me no one found the axe especially after 5 years. The foliage and vegetations in the area would had easily grown over any such items left in the undergrowth.
Yeah there is a reason why forestry tools are usually orange. If they are not, you put them down and can´t find them minute later.
Throwing it out there: the claim that birch wood would be harder to cut through because it's a "hard wood" is incorrect. "Hard wood" refers to wood from flowering trees (angiosperm), "soft wood" is from primarily evergreens like pine (gymnosperm). Just to put this into perspective, balsa wood is a "hard wood".
That being said, yeah, cutting down trees is way harder than people think.
Have you ever heard of the Janka scale? It's a rating method for the hardness of different woods by embedding a steel ball into a board an measuring how much force ( In lbs ) was required to do so. Silver Birch has a Janka rating of around 1,200. Balsa has 67.
@@welldarndiddily3313
But they weren't claiming that Balsa is harder. They were pointing out the misnomer of Balsa being called a "hardwood" as the terminology of "wood soft" and "hard wood" has nothing to do with the actual hardness. I think you misunderstood their comment.
You may be right, but birch is also a hard wood to cut. It is hard and brittle. Easy to split, but hard to cut down. Atleast every birch tree i have ever taken my axe to. The point still stands.
Birch is hard thats why they used for making drum it siund perfect birch are the most popular with mahogany
@@ghoste1008 My point wasn't that
Birchwood isn't hard. But that the assumption that it must bet hard to cut down because it's a "hardwood" is false. Its designation as a "hardwood" has nothing to do with its durability, but rather with the type of tree it comes from.
Sounds to me like a collection of missing people. All who went missing at different times because of the confusing rock
Maybe they should name it the Bermuda Rock.
Or just put a sign on it saying to ignore it as it'll lead you astray.
@@oliverp3545 You'd think after several missing people because of that rock they'd put up a sign.
Edit: I just found out they did indeed put up signs and roped it off. Please ignore what I previously said.
@@FilmsNerf2 TBF it did take years for them to do that (despite it taking a few hours at most and could save dozens of lives down the years) so don't blame yourself for that, it's kind of on them for that.
confungus rock
I cant believe the safe rock had an evil twin the whole time.
You'd think somebody would take the time to chalk "Not the right rock!" on the evil twin.
@@spamllama Maybe the evil rock charmed them into not doing it.
the Unsafe rock strikes again!
Two identical rocks... but not really
🤣
A couple of thoughts.
1. At 3:19 if you pause and read, the SOS sign was made by 'stacking fallen trees'. Fallen trees could mean trees naturally fallen and collected by Iwamura. Not necessarily felled by him.
2. At 3:35 if you pause you'll see two cameras were also found. What clues were found on that camera film?
i think a fallen tree and a chopped down tree have different markings on them - the latter would clearly have axe cuts on them. if there's speculation on japanese media about how could someone get that done to make the sign, maybe "fallen trees" was just a mistranslation, or the question veers toward how could a single person who may be weak from being lost (not having eaten in a while and stuff) moved that many trees
Fallen trees tend to have their roots on them, cut trees don't.
My theory is some random antisocial woodsman might have found the body, said "I don't want to get involved" but felt bad leaving the remains there unreported, and made the SOS sign to attract attention to the area without directly filing a report or going to authorities. Unlikely but it would also explain the missing axe and the creation of the sign, despite the actual body having severe injuries.
Or it was another lost person who tried to save themselves using his equipment, and also never made it. Perhaps there is another body out there somewhere that hasn't been discovered yet.
RIP to some guy that spend all that time making the SOS
At least it ended up saving another group
Meta-Karma
RIP Laura Barns
Something is off that was a ton of energy to use in a survival situation.
@@davidvanderbrook3988 If you're a survivalist then you would be aware, if you weren't then you are more concerned about being found than conserving energy.
Imagine how much creepier this would have been in birch trees weren't even indigenous to the area.
@friendly b52 Don't worry, at that point it's safe to assume it's either an artist being weird or a commercial publicity stunt.
Oh I love this, haha. "Breaking news! An SOS sign made of freshly cut birch trees was found in a South African wildlife reserve."
Now that wouldn't make any sort of sense, you can at least form some conclusions from this story
Get out my head. I was thinking the same thing.
@@megkrish7568 that's the point...
I once got lost (just for 10 minutes lol) in Khamar-Daban mountains (south-East of Russia, Siberia). It was a mountain side with no trees, only some harsh grass and some pine bushes (pine would not grow into trees that high in the mountains. It only forms bushes). Believe it or not - there was no echo whatsoever. I was shouting my lungs out, but I had a feeling as if the sound disappears a few feet away from me. It was DEAD silent. No background noise, no echo, no wind, no nothing.
Okay, theory:
He did meet someone on the trail, and they unknowingly got lost together. He became injured and the other person, still believing they were on the safe ridge, created the SOS sign as a placemarker to tell rescue crews where to look, and then continued on in order to get help.
Eventually this person, still basing their direction off the incorrect idea that they were on the safe ridge, and most likely exhausted from making the sos sign, succumbed to the elements.
Back at the sos sign, losing energy, our guy moved as high up as he could ("I cant go higher") in order to shelter outside of the clearing where he was exposed to the elements.
Knowing he was losing energy, before moving he recorded a shouted SOS message and left it playing in a hollow by his original position (presumably he had been sat against the tree and thought this hollow would keep the tech dry in poor weather), and then crawled his way up to the sheltered spot he had described.. truly believing help would come, see the SOS, and hear his recording.
Eventually he succumbed either to his injuries or the elements, still waiting on the rescue party.
This stuff makes me sad
this is so depressing
how do you know that second person succumbed to the elements ? Maybe they made it out and just went about their life? They made the SOS sign after all and figured someone would see it and help the injured guy they met, why go further with it ? they made it out, walked back to their car and drove home, they had work the next day and got busy with other things and forgot about the stranger they met. Do you remember everyone you meet? no one does. He probably just got distracted and forgot about it
@@stevew278 Chopping up and heaving about logs to make a 20ft SOS sign for someone with multiple broken bones is pretty memorable, and they were already lost and far off track when they left.
Besides which, idk how dumb they would have to be to leave someone in an emergency situation and not alert the authorities at the base of the mountain.
I mean.. its possible, but hardly likely is it?
@@SiriusPunk Maybe theyre not dumb but they didnt want to cause a ruckus, they know the authorities are just going to ask a lot of questions and probably want to take him with them to show them where the guy is, then the news will be at his house to want to hear his story about how he saved the guy, then talk and radio shows will want an interview, all of it is very annoying. I understand him just chopping down the trees and moving on with his life.
Something about this seems to suggest that there's multiple people who have gone missing but the scenario makes it seem as if there's only one.
I agree with you and Ive made a reply regarding to your theory on another user, at the top of your comment.
@@icantthinkofagoodusername5564 if it isn't a bother, could you copy-paste your reply here? I can't find your original reply
@@KrazyFalcon here. I googled the word sasa. It refers to a japanese girl name and a type of bamboo on japan as mentioned earlier. I think the voice is telling someone named Sasa to help him/her.
@SharpiPlays the person calling for help is stuck on a cliffhanger somewhere on the mountain and he cant climb back up because a bamboo tree is blocking their way. The person recorded himself whilst stuck on the cliffhanger after a helicopter not looking for him passed by. He fell and tumble to the bottom. Fortunately, he only suffered an injury to one of their shoulder and leg. He saw a clearing at the other side of the brook with some fallen birch trees. He thought that making an sos sign with the fallen birch trees and long sticks was a good idea then made a hole nearby with the long sticks. A few days later he starved to death as theres no food nearby his sos sign, I think the guy probably has some survival skills and the voice on the audio recordings are masculine so most sentences have the word "he". The blood tests that confirmed their blood type and gender are pretty sus because his parents wants to lie to themselves and cannot accept the death of their son. As you can see I have different theories and replies to this comment section because I have thought of a better explanation today than my past self.
But if there was another person there, couldnt they have just hiked down 8 miles to civilization? Maybe they were injured too. I still feel like they would know enough about the landscape to follow the water to civilization... They said the area wasn't that remote, Interesting...
Audio engineer here. Just wanted to throw in my two cents and say that often recordings taken outdoors can sound deceptively "dry" that is to say lacking much noticeable reverb. In a completely open space, there isn't much for the sound to bounce off of and low foliage can diffuse incoming sound such that it doesn't bounce off the ground. Even a cliff face might not have the appropriate geological shape to create a reverb if the space it faces is very large and open. That recording sounds like it could very well have been taken outside.
especially in a marshy forest too. It soaks up sound incredibly well
exactly what i was thinking, failed bedroom producer here :p
also it was on a cassette recorded on a cassette
player in the 1980s the quality was horrible. plus there was some time his parents heard his voice the last time. memorys can get really foggy over times.
@@user-xo9hq6qz3l If the guy was like me, his parents might not have his voice yelling, I'm not sure my parents could tell it's my voice in a situation like that, hell, even right now I doubt anyone who knows me could do that. There's also that if he had been yelling for a while, the straining on the vocal cords would make him sound similar but different, it could explain the uncertainty.
@@user-xo9hq6qz3l this would be better sound quality. A better noise gate. But this was Japan and they got better walkmans than we did 😁
If I had a tape recorder in a situation like that, maybe I'd record myself shouting for help in case I didn't have strength later.... but I'd definitely record my name, relatives names, what happened to me and how I got in that situation as well as personal messages to family. It seems that he assumed everyone would know who he was....
especially when you have multiple tapes. Make one with all the details of who you are and what happened, and then another with the call for help. Then just put the help recording on repeat.
I think what is more likely is he didn't consider it necessary to send personal messages to family because he thought his rescue was imminent, as he had spotted helicopters he assumed were looking for him. I doubt I'd think to be recording those types of messages either if I believed I was about to be rescued in a few hours.
As for the birch tree, the description "hard wood" and "soft wood" are classifiers that are actually not directly referring to the hardness of the wood
It refers to wood from broad leafed trees vs conifers
One thing I’ll say, in regards to the ‘only 9 miles from civilization’ comment, is that, when you’re there and actually hiking, it can be really unclear just how near/far help might be. My GF and I did a hike in Washington and ended up taking the wrong trail down. It’s notoriously poorly marked. It’s supposed to loop back around to the trailhead, but our path put us on service/logging roads. We had little idea how near/far we were to the trailhead and only a vague direction which way to head in. In this area, the service roads are many, and the area is remote. We ended up walking for about 4 hours (after an extensive hike) before opting to bed down with our meager supplies. It was supposed to be a day hike, so, while we weren’t hopeless yet, there was an underlying fear present. We started to walk again in the morning, out of water, out of food, sleep deprived and exhausted. We opted to stop, considered our options, nearly turned around to head back the way we came (thinking we’d overshot the trailhead or maybe missed some marker). We eventually decided to continue, only to find that we were, at that point, less than a half mile from the trailhead, my vehicle, and our way out. We were close to getting ourselves hopelessly lost, going in circles, and further worsening our chances, despite only ever being a few miles out from our destination.
All that to say, when you’re in the wilderness, especially when you’re unfamiliar with the terrain/local area, it can be incredibly easy to get lost. We weren’t even really turned around, just missed our trail. I’ll end by saying that, in our situation, we would’ve been fine - we could’ve just turned around, done the hike in reverse and gotten our way back, but still - it was eye-opening just how easy it was to get completely lost, even with ‘civilization’ so near.
Just a perspective on why someone might choose not to walk in, what is for them, a random direction.
so true. your story is quite chilling . the worst problem of getting lost is you just wander around in circles, granted having a rivver water flow is good direction idicator
And to add to this even “just turning around and doing the hike in reverse“ isn’t always the easiest thing either. Unless you’re on a clearly marked trail (in which case you wouldn’t be lost) it’s very easy to think you would remember everything but not so easy when you’re actually faced with that decision.
Which trail was it?
A very useful thing to do is take a map and study the sky. Often, getting out of a forest in a hurry is a matter of getting to high ground, seeing the position of the sun to determine what north, south, east and west are, picking the most logical direction for civilization to be in (in most of Washington, that's west) and sticking with it.
One day while walking my dog I decided to take an impromptu shortcut from one forest trail to another to shave off some time on the way back. I know the layout well and guessed it would be a 5 minute trudge through the thicket. Wrong. 45 minutes later I was still in between the paths. I walked and walked and walked and nothing. No sign of a low stone wall or clearing or anything. Luckily for me I had signal on my phone and was able to look up a map along with GPS. 3 minutes later me and my dog where out and on the path I'd spent almost an hour looking for... in an area I've lived all my life. I had been walking in circles over and over again without realising. It freaked me out and I still get chills thinking about it.
I'm getting a feeling that a lot of this gets lost in translation. You can't really trust non-japanese news paper articles about this, and when looking at japanese sources you'd need a professional translation first.
That's definitely fair though the reporter could have also hired a translator so it is possible.
I’m sure a lot of them get professional translators. I doubt they just use google translate, it wouldn’t make any sense lol.
The problem with foriegn sources is that, even after an official translation, details and care are not often taken in using it to be very thorough.
I want more info on his life. Somethings strange here.
@@heysaucemikehere1804 My sister works as a professional translator, and news media very rarely if ever use professional translators. It's common to find publications from major corporations where they just gave it a cursory pass through Google Translate. Being factually correct is no longer much of a priority.
Honestly, him not following the river isn't really suspicious, even if he wasn't injured. It sounds like he wasn't exactly an experienced outdoorsman, so he probably just didn't think to. Also, when you're lost in the woods like he was, staying put and calling for help is the best course of action. It just sounds like he got unlucky
My first impression was that someone found the remains, but didn't wanted to report the finding or get otherwise involved. So what this person did was to create the SOS sign to get aerial attention to the site so that the bones would be discovered eventually. People sometimes have very strange reasons for their decisions.
Thats pretty far fetched, especially because anyone happening upon that would’ve been extremely lost as well, i doubt they would focus their energy on putting an sos for a deceased person.
@@potatopotato9131 Far fetched or not, to me it just seems way more likely that somebody else made the SOS sign. It could have even been made during a second visit at the site. All you need is a person that for some reason did not want to contact the authorities.
That's way too much work to alert authorities, lol.
i know of a very famous case of a missing hiker in america who when found the person who found her placed a anonymous phone call to her location . the person didn't want to get involved . it was determined she died on her own. she left behind some writing. she went off the trail to go to bathroom and gotten lost she was less than 20 feet from the trail.
Chopping all those trees down, dragging them to another location and arranging them to look like an SOS is a hell of a lot of work. I don't think one person could do it.
3:35 "hole large enough to fit a single human".
Ah yes the standard unit of space measurement:
human³
Thanks for making me laugh
But how many bananas³ is that? :D
@@TheMightyZwom approx 397, if you consider the average human as 62,000 cubic cm and the average banana as ~160 cubic cm
@@amistrophy Excellent. Bananas do make a great unit of measurement xD
Human is already a 3d shape... if you cube that, wouldn't you have a higher dimensional object? Like a cube, cubed?
When my parents lived in a California desert they would have hikers who got lost show up on their property, one hiker was a young boy who is severely dehydrated and he had hallucinated seeing helicopters, not saying this is the case here but if the hiker was under duress perhaps he was hallucinating some things
wow that's pretty crazy. thanks for sharing
@རཨེ་མོན་ད། ལོ་རྡེ་ཧྨུན། they have a house with water in it??
@རཨེ་མོན་ད། ལོ་རྡེ་ཧྨུན། because they live in a house with running water lol
@རཨེ་མོན་ད། ལོ་རྡེ་ཧྨུན། hahahaha
@@vladko5333 bruh majority of the world has no running potable water and staying hydrated is a struggle for those people. It would help if you had some perspective
I know I am very late, but I think I might be able to add some context to the area at the very least. I lived in Japan in 2020-2021, and actually hiked/cycled by Daisetzusan Park and its surroundings by myself in August of 2020. This is a very accessible harsh climate in the alpine. The terrain is very steep, the water is predominantly volcanic and undrinkable around Asahikawa, and the weather can change in minutes because of the altitude. It reminded me of my time in Alaska. Even on the main paths there, I once lost all visibility in a minute from cloud coverage and at a separate time, was surprised by a typhoon (due to the weather reports not being accurate and a changed directory one morning). It was August and I was hiking through the snow at times on glaciers and very steep poor terrain following the primary traverse trail. There are ranger stations and backpacking huts, but they can be far between. However, because of the ropeway and the entry area by the centre, plenty of people visit the area. People go missing every year here, with another foreigner having disappeared earlier in 2020 most likely because of the difficult terrain, although that is not unusual for nature areas globally. For most hikes in Japan that I went on, you had a single well-developed trail that was popular, but if you branched out, trail quality plummets and you may find yourself lost looking at decades-old scratched-out Kanji wooden signs. This led me to a few sticky situations myself. My best comparison would be old trails in the Appalachian mountains, where off the main areas, things can get dodgy in trail markings and signage. It doesn't matter how far from everything else you are, you don't know where to go. It's very possible with him venturing off the main path, nobody would hike in that area for some time.
Knowing this, it's entirely likely that he got lost quite easily, especially as I imagine 80s Daisetzusan was even more sparse than today. If he took a wrong path or made a mistake, he very well could have slipped or gotten lost. It mentioned he wasn't an experienced hiker and only got involved the last few months. With both the accessibility of the park and the hazardous terrain, it would be my best guess. People often overpack as well, so it would not surprise me if he did have an ax on him for emergency reasons, although bizarre. As for the broken bones, there are bears and other wildlife in the region. It would be weirder if they were perfectly intact frankly. As for why his name didn't come up in newspapers and Japanese reports, they culturally are very private and the handling of the case was very traditional to Japanese policing.
It was most likely a tragic case of a man lost in "accessible" rough terrain, perhaps hurt choosing to stay in place not knowing the river took him out of the park as he was already lost, and passed away for it. His tapes were music to listen to on the trail, and perhaps a way to record his emergency should he be away from his pack. Most of the odd things were just how he was discovered or how the case was handled. To be clear, such deaths or disappearances are common in similar large nature areas or parks. People die every year in the California Sierras on the PCT (like Mt. Baden-Powell), or various National Parks like Denali. They are touristy, easily accessible, and provide a dangerous gateway into wilderness areas to people who may not be ready. It shows the importance of not hiking alone, or at the very least have a way to call for help (as we can do now with gps sos systems). To be clear, I would highly recommend Daisetzusan National Park, it is one of the only true wilderness areas of Japan, is astonishingly beautiful, and has the nicest people in Japan. But practice safe hiking, let someone know where your going, and have a way to call for help.
This SOS sign was seen in an aerial photo taken by the Geographical Information Authority of Japan in 1987, but nobody noticed it at the time.
Sounds like a great cover up to a murder. Stage a lost hiker as the victim and make a fake recording screaming for help
I was thinking something similar. But imo it wouldn't be smart to leave a giant SOS sign and call for unwanted attention to the area. Or maybe it's a countermeasure to that same idea. It's plausible he was murdered, especially because of the fake recording
@@felipealday9503 I’m thinking maybe that whoever killed him wanted his body to get found. Maybe to send a message to someone else?
I thoguht the same thing
And then hope nobody finds the body before it's completely decayed or eaten by wild animals? That'd be too risky, imo
@@aurorawolfe6060 No because even is the body was found not decayed there would still be no eveidence
In regards to the change of results on the bones- Japan's police are infamous for closing nearly every case, to the point where clearly things are being made up to save face. The college later changing the results to match the missing hikers profile seems a perfect example of something like this- easy way to put a clean close to some weird circumstances.
@@DoubleMonoLR I could see it being police wanting to close the case given that they had no further leads, and facts being fudged. More likely you're right though.
That's possible, but it's also worth nothing that identifying things like sex from skeletal remains is way less precise and accurate than people like to think it is. So the initial results very well could have been a mistake.
@@kidthorazine idk much about that, but can't we identify the sex of thousands of years old skeletons?
Regardless, my point was more in reference to Japan's police having a 99% conviction rate, less about the accuracy of skeletal identification.
@@fishodeath Not with a super high rate of accuracy and precision, it's generally more of an educated guess than an objective result. But yeah, you aren't wrong about Japanese policing, though it is worth noting that they tend to prefer confessions over any sort of serious scientific evidence a lot of the time.
@@fishodeath if that analysis were carried out today it would've been much more accurate, as when this incident happened DNA fingerprinting had basically just been invented. Typically the forensics would measure bone length and pelvis/skull ratios, but this can be challenging if the bones are broken, dismembered, or missing, which is what is likely to have happened here. That being said, the sudden change in forensic assessment is very suspicious.
Someone found Iwamura or got lost with him. At some point Iwamura fell and broke his bones, making the rest of the journey impossible. His able-bodied companion made the SOS sign and called for help, staying with Iwamura for a while. Perhaps the companion left Iwamura alive to seek help or perhaps Iwamura died and his companion feared being blamed for murder, so left and kept the incident secret.
Those trees being cut down couldn't be done by one person. That's exhausting work. I'm guessing about 4 people were required.
4 people means they could've carried him. Yes, it's rough terrain, but with multiple people you could carry a person. And when you have access to wood, you could fixate the broken bones and create a makeshift gourney.
But what if the situation was "Nobody is coming so far. You stay by the SOS sign, we see if we can find someone to help"
I think that someone just got lost after he was already dead, used his stuff to try and save themselves and ultimately succumbed to the same fate as he did and their body just hasn't been found yet. If one person could get lost and stuck there, it's not out of the question to think it could happen a second time to someone else.
Rest In Peace to those that passed away.
"where the helicopter dropped us off"
hes obviously talking about where the helicopter that brought him there landed to get them there in the first place, not any search helicopter.
Do you speak Japanese? What was that Sasa part about?
pls start to discuss on this comment, guys :D
Idk what to think
@@YourSkyliner someone in the comments said sasa meant like hurry up or chop chop
@@YourSkyliner From the line after it I would assume the translation "I cant go up deeply Sasa" has been horribly mangled and he said something like "I cant move away from here so rescue me here"
I don't understand this past week I've been obsessed about watching TH-cam videos with deep voiced narrators and spooky incidents
so true loll,binge watchin like crazy
try LEMMiNO
same, didn't sleep for about 5 nights
All in all, you've been getting a Lemmino overdose!
@@glendyatrizco8372 Lemmino is the king
I don't know if any of you have ever cut logs with an axe before but If you have a good suitable axe, good technique and are in good shape, it is still strenuous work. You will seldom cut one log in one go without taking a break. It's hard work, not to mention carrying and placing the logs. If you are fit enough to do that then you should be fit enough to safety.
The tapes from the anime "minky momo" have their own urban legend about them.
When a toy company stopped sending money as funds to the anime they decided to make it so that minky momo loses her powers. However when the toy company didn't get the message yet they decided to straight up kill her. Right after this episode aired a earthquake warning appeared. Problem is that they didn't have the right to end it right there no they had to make a few more episodes and they acted like they didn't just straight up kill her.
The last episode of Minky Momo premiered on Japanese television on May 26th 1983. Know that date from something? Ye the Kobe earthquake happened the same day the final episode of minky momo aired.
You mean the Sea of Japan earthquake? When I hear "Kobe earthquake" I think Jan 17th 1995. I only remember because it was my mom's birthday. Coincidentally Mar 11 was my brothers birthday.
What killing her has to do with the earthquake?
Okay... so what's the point of the story? That an earthquake warning happened in close proximity to an airing of one episode, and an earthquake happened in close proximity to another? In a country that sits on a fault line? How is that interesting in any way?
Anime. Not even once.
@@DeadAndAliveCat The anime has a tongue-in-cheek reputation for being "cursed" because of the earthquake, and it's connection to this case adds to that narrative. It's just a bit of fun, lighten up.
“Hardwood” does not mean “hard” - this is a common misconception. It simply has to do with the seeds the trees use. Balsa is a hardwood, and is one of the softest woods in existence.
Balsa is second only to your own cock when talking about the softest woods in existence
@@stevew278 Uncalled for. But mildly amusing.
Hardwood has leaves, softwood has needles. Usually the case. Identifying by seeds is a pro move.
Wonder how many others didn't know this.
no
Those two rescued people have got to be the most fortunate hikers in the world!
[ Is anyone else wondering how one man could move so many large logs to create the massive S.O.S. signal while in such dire peril? ]
Logs aren't that hard to move if you really need to, especially those birches seem to be quite "small".
Hmm I definitely feel like there were 2 people there, and the recording thing is kinda scary, how is there no background noise, feels fishy
@@megkrish7568 the mountains can be really quiet. I had to be rescued once and there were hours of just unnerving silence. Without animals around, there's really nothing there to make a sound besides the wind, but even then that's only if it's hitting you directly, don't forget there's still a large mountain in the way.
@@thebigwrinkle6843 Ey sorry to go off track but what happened that you went missing for hours?
@@megkrish7568 if you are up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere the only thing you'll really hear is birds sometimes and the occasional deer call, people are so used to all the noise that humans make that they think the woods are loud too
I do think ppl overthink the tree/ax issue. Most places have down trees especially young birch on exposed mountain slopes. It would still mean rolling or dragging the trees but exludes the need for a tool. Perhaps a closer photo of the breaks/cut marks on the trees would help.
But can you move trees with a broken leg and a broken arm. Just trying to pull yourself along the ground is hard enough, but using your one functioning arm to also pull a tree along would take ages and be incredibly exhausting. If the person who's remains were found was the person who moved the trees into position it must've taken days or even weeks.
The police report said "fallen trees." Every forest will have fallen trees. The letters were 5m tall, but not every tree had to be that long. They said 19 trees were used. Each S would have (5) 2.5m segments, and the O would have 6. I think dead, fallen birch trees of 7'-8' and less could be pulled along by a grown man with one good arm and a broken leg.
This story always makes me sad. He just sounds so desperate. I hope wherever he is now he knows he made a good sign after all because it at least helped somebody else.
I think that it’s “funny” that one of the cassettes had the soundtrack to “Magical Princess Minky MoMo” on it, I say this because that anime seems to have a lot of connections to weird cases in Japan.
For example, RoRo1999 (sadly the girl that leapt off her apartment on stream) was also a big fan of the show and used it as her profile picture.
Another example is there being a murder in Japan where the killer left the VHS on the corpse of his victim. Yet another example is that one of the perpetrators of the 1995 Japanese subway gas attacks had apparently worn an item of Minky MoMo apparel though I cannot recall what specifically. Now I’m not saying that there is any sort of mystical curse or anything but it’s certainly interesting that this specific show turns up connected to a lot of gruesome events.
Also of note is the *multiple* times when the airing of the infamous final episode, in which Momo gets run over by a truck, coincided with a disastrous earthquake.
I wonder how popular it is. If it's super popular it's gonna show up a lot.
@@TheThisIsMe2010 "multiple times when the airing of the infamous final episode" what does this mean?
It feels like there is a word for that "funny" feeling but, I can't figure it out
It's cursed. OoOOoOh
What gets me is that even with the missing tool, the effort to take down and then move those trees. I live near woods and forests full of birch (North American), and I've felled a few by axe. So this makes me question if the area was being logged at some point, and the trees used to make the sign were already on the ground. Best I got.
Yeah that could explain why there wasn't an axe or anything sharp enough near the area, but the autopsy stated that he was extremely weak and physically incapable of even just dragging less than 8 trees to form the sign
@@lizily3317 I wonder how difficult it is to determine if an injury happens posthumously (maybe wildlife caused more injuries to his body after he was dead).
@@elias6570 yeah, perhaps he got injured after he made the sign
@@elias6570 Some other comment mentioned that there were bears nearby.
I paused to read one of the translated articles and it said the sign was made with fallen birch. I wasn't sure if that meant it was being chopped for fire and was already there, but the phrasing made it seem like the birch was already cut (I'm also assuming that birch trees don't just fall down in roughly same size sections)
My crazy take on this story: dude wanted to disappear, so he made it look like he did. The bones? Bet they were both male and female since I believe it said only about 30 bones were found. Two people that didn't have anything to do with anime guy, same as the hikers.
Sometimes family members and loved ones will be in denial and by saying that it’s their family member on the tape that means it definitive that their family member not only died but suffered greatly. The brain does weird things to protect us.
"I can't go up deeply Sasa" - correct translation is "I can't go back up, the sasa is too deep" - Sasa is a kind of thick bamboo grass
Imagine the mood shift during that debriefing though.
Search and Rescue: "If it wasn't for that sign you left up we never would have found you guys."
Hikers: "Uh... what sign?"
S&R: "The SOS sign... you left us?"
Hikers: "Um, we didn't make a sign."
S&R: "Not with like birch trees or???
Hikers: "No, not at all."
S&R: "..."
Hikers: "..."
S&R: "......Fffffuck."
It gives me chills. I'd love to know how everyone felt at the time.
@@JsYTA I felt the same chills down my spine. IT WAS CREEPY!
They realize they had fail somebody out there. Somebody perhaps frustrated of them in the afterlife.
or like "we were never even around that area at all"
"I'm really glad you're okay! Uh, I have to make a phone call. " *runs out of room*
The guy that left the stuff was very clever. He did everything he could have to survive. He just got unlucky.
But couldn't walk down stream for a 2 and half hours to civilization.
@@jonasseorum5471 He was also injured and lost. People like to say that it would be easy to figure out, but without any signs it’s just a matter of guessing which direction to limp towards for most of us.
mostmelon and depending on the time of year he could’ve thought it was just a river made by snow melting and decided to not use it. That’s why he didn’t use the river. It’s not a good theory but time of year might depend on how he reacted, thinking the river was just a large amount of snow melt.
@@amysimon2433 i assumed he had a map
Ya let's see you make that call next time you're lost in the woods with no direction
A theory about the trees: They may have already been cut and then arranged by the lost hiker. Whoever originally cut the trees took the axe with them. Also I'm curious why the rescuers didn't comment on the state of the felled trees. Were they freshly cut or weatherd?
They wouldn't be freshly cut either way. 5 years had passed
Ah yes literally everything in a case contradicting each other somehow, with a rescue actually still happening.
I have a weird feeling none of these things are connected to each other. Like they are coincidentally near each other but iwamura and the sos may have nothing to do with each other. Idk life is crazy sometimes.
It's possible, but remember: there were no other known cases of people going missing in that park between 82 and 87 besides Iwamura himself, in 84. There was no SOS in 82, and there was one in 87. So unless someone went missing and was never reported, or original sos creator both went missing and was rescued off the record, chances are they are linked in some way.
Barely Sociable only briefly mentioned it, but why were the man's belongings in a hole around 55 yards from the skeleton? Especially if "he" had recorded an SOS message on the cassette & still had toiletries & supplies he could use? Not to mention the backpack was also found under tree roots, as if it had been hidden.
Met someone who left him for dead. N buried his belongings so, hopefully, no one would find them. Taking the axe with him
maybe he could've hidden his belongings in a hole/under roots as to prevent wild animals from getting to them? If he was injured he probably couldn't hang his belongings from branches like most other hikers
Or the body was dragged by animalsafter death
@@Matsyir
I'm honestly someone who will tend to believe some of the weirder and less likely scenarios for things like this. I could see something like this happening given some of the details here.
My only issue is that unless they killed the hiker in a way that ONLY damages flesh (i.e. NOT with an axe, as that is extremely likely to leave cleave marks), then I'm not sure how they would've ended them. Possibly medication/chemicals, strangulation (though from what I've heard, this could have effect on the neck vert.), etc.
I was actually wondering if the identified guy lured someone who wouldn't be missed out there somehow to kill them. They just ended up miscalculating somehow and things ended up the way they did. He may have left his belongings behind thinking they'd never be found, in a hole, as they'd be incriminating. Maybe he wanted to set it up like an accident in the woods? I don't know, just going with the idea.
I was a scout for a while, burying backpacks and supplies is standard practice, so it doesn’t get wet or so animals don’t mess up with your stuff its pretty common knowledge for people who do more “rustic” camping like building your own shelter.
Not sure that could be the case there but anything is possible.
Subscribed because I recognize your voice and know that I like your stories and your style of narration.
Stumbled upon this channel by accident. Subbed. Really well done
I work a lot with cassette tapes. Long periods of time, changes in temperature, and physical damage are all factors that can significantly change the audio on a tape. Shifts in pitch are extremely common and certainly would make the voice sound like an entirely different person. 100% sure that's why they didn't recognize the voice.
Best thing to do right now while all the others are partying.
After-party 🤷♀️
all the others? Look at the streets, they are empty. even new york only has like 1 of 100 people it usually has
no one should be partying right now
@@dertythegrower Time square is what Onset of communism looks like when a Scamdemic is used to take away people's rights and freedom
@@1peanut wtf is onset communism
i wonder if my parents would recognize my voice in that kind of distress and distorted after several years in the elements on a tape that had potentially degraded... i think it's more than likely that even if they HAD been able to recognize that kind of strained yelling as their son, the age of the tape and its condition, as well as circumstances of its recording, could have raised enough doubt that they wouldn't have been able to confirm with certainty.
4:59 // EDITED - My husband listened to this again, and the rough translation from what he can hear is: "From the final evaluation, the voice is of a man who wants to call for SOS." The confusion for him (which was also pointed out in a comment below) was that the word for "which person" could also be "German person." They're essentially homophones, where they're spelled essentially exactly the same, but using different alphabets to denote a borrowed word, in this case, "Deutsche." So "which person" looks like どいつ人物 and "German person" looks like ドイツ人物. It's very wacky: even listening to it now, his brain is telling him that they're talking about a German person yelling SOS, (which would explain the weird cadence of their yelling). Just wanted to give more context to my original comment! I'm still curious if yelling the way they do is normal to a native Japanese ear. //
My husband studied Japanese in college and keeps up with it to a degree now. He said at this point, the broadcast announcer is saying something about how they can tell from the voice that this person is German. Which is VERY confusing, but might also explain why the parents couldn't identify their son from the voice alone? Though my husband notes that his yelling in broken, individual syllables is a little weird. It might be easier for a native Japanese speaker to understand (their words being made up of consonant-vowel combo phonemes), but he's never heard of anything like that himself, and it makes it harder for him to understand what's being said, not easier. This could also add credence that the recording is of a foreigner, but who can say for sure? I just think It's cool to see how language informs things you wouldn't even think about.
He's misheard what they said, he heard "dou-itsu jinbutsu" ("the very same person") as "do-itsu jinbutsu" (a german person.")
@@BirdieRumia Ahh, he listened again and agrees, he misheard, so the commentator is saying "he's asking if anyone is there," essentially. Thanks for pointing that out!
So whats the actual translation according to your husband?
@@sanescale it's exactly what BirdieRumia said above! He misheard one word, but everything else I think he got correct. I'll add some more details in my original comment above when he goes over it again.
The television reporters says following:
死者の声から8年。最終鑑定の結果、白骨遺体は男性でSOSの声と同一人物である事が分かった。
_shisha no koe kara hachi-nen. saishuu kantei no kekka, hakkotsu itai wa dansei de SOS no koe to douitsu jinbutsu de aru koto ga wakatta._
"Eight years from the voice of the dead. The results of the final exam are that the skeletal remains are male and SOS voice is from the same person."
“Ironic. He could save others from death, but not himself” -Palpatine
is it possible to learn this power - anakin
@Luis Andrade I now pronounce you Darth, Vader - Yoda
@Hello There I've been expecting you - Mr Griever
I used to be an adventurer like Adventure Alah but I took a lightsaber to the knees
"Dude stop stealing my quotes WTF" -sun tzu, the art of war
I don’t believe for a second that the medical examiner’s got the blood type wrong, let alone the sex of the skeleton which is pretty much day one stuff at medical school.
Based on what I know about the Japanese criminal justice system, it wouldn't surprise me if they were told to change the findings so that this case could be wrapped up cleanly.
Yep, he was told to change his story, and he complied!
Plus everyone has the same blood type in japan, A I think. If was really type O itd have been a sensational national story.
@@playbackproductions1 i don’t think that’s true
@@playbackproductions1 In actuality, Japan is known for having one of the most diverse blood type ratios for any given country. They have a blood type ratio of (roughly) 4:3:2:1 (i.e, 40% are A, 30% are O, 20% are B and 10% are AB). Most countries are far more skewed than that, even despite being less homogenous than Japan.
Thank you for this video. It's the first video in quite some time that was totally new(to me), but it was super interesting and fascinating also! Have a great day! PEACE
It was probably him on the tape. He was in such pain he was delirious and ranting. Pain, dehydration, hunger, fear, and hypothermia probably has an effect on your voice. I am guessing the SOS sign wasn't made by him. If this was an accidental path due to a rock "double" many had wandered it and I'm sure many got lost.
The fact that Minky momos soundtrack was on the tape is somewhat ironic considering Minky Momos history of being incredibly unlucky
Hmm... *perhaps she's involved in this*
I was just about to comment this
This anime girl is fucking cursed.
Yeah. As soon as I heard the name I was like "Ah, ****! Here we go again!".
Hopefully it was the actual Macross OST, because if it was the Robotech OST then it was obviously a suicide. "My Boyfriend is a Pilot" does that to people. Just saying....
This is all Minky Momo's fault.
haha look an anime youtuber
All roads lead to Momo
@Woah Wahoah Dude lmao youre too full of hate brother. embrace the 2d xd
@@raized943 No, he just has respect for the dead. It's sad to see all these twits making fun of the poor dead man.
@@HandOfThemis Sorry, the dead man is not here to take your outraged call. Would you like to leave a message?
I'm addicted to this channel now...and I can't stop.......
"Only 9 miles from civilization."
In the wilderness, on a mountainous terrain especially, 2 miles is going to be a hard trek for the average person, much less 9.
2 miles isn’t hard at all. Maybe for an obese guy, but it’s nothing.
9 miles isn't bad especially if the alternative is chopping down 12 trees and dragging them to the right spot
@@justasingledoor5178 Not if you keep getting lost. The dangers of the wilderness is how little references to your location there are. The trees all look the same, the mud paths all look as though you've seen them. Unless there's a river to follow you can easily walk in circles.
@@theotherone1668 @justasingledoor @ff Lff
I don't think you guys understand. Again, this is roughly 9 miles OFF trail. In mountainous terrain. And yes, it's perfectly doable if you're in reasonable shape, but not when it's not planned. Most people would take a simple bottle of water and not a lot else on this hike (about 2k to the top). By the time you'd notice you're off trail and the sun is setting, you're going to be tired, not interested in going back up, and a long distance from civilization with little to eat or drink. Nevermind probably not having a flashlight, any supplies for overnight like a sleeping bag, and likely won't be thinking straight as it gets dark to just keep going downhill to the river.
9 miles in the mountain is basically a full day of hiking unless you're well acclimated the elevation.
What about the state of decay of the birch in the “S O S” sign? I’m sure modern biology would be able to make that determination but... that sign she didn’t look 5 years old
Yeah, I mean birch usually doesn't decay too fast but if the body had already decayed I'd expect rain and wind to displace the branches. Could've been another hiker/local who found the body but didn't have the ability to recover it and so placed the sign. But then I'd expect them to go to their local police box to report it, but knowing local Japanese police they could've easily just never followed up.
Nah, in a mountainous region, you'd be surprised how slow decay is. I'd expect something like that, especially if they were mostly fresh trees, to last decades. Not many trees nearby to bury it in leaves either
@@jerrell1169 Tell me more about Japanese police, if you will
Dendrochronology of the wood would tell you exactly when they were felled
@@kiq4767 It's indeed a fascinating subject. Their courts have like a 98% conviction rate. Which they frame to seem like it means their police are perfect, which obviously they aren't. Plenty of guilty people go free because they don't even want to risk their precious record by trying them and potentially losing, and plenty of innocent people confess to escape the horrible conditions of their holding cells and threats of putting them in jail forever. They never want to look bad, appearances mean everything to them. It's pretty much a known fact that their suicide rate reports are bullshit, they cover them up all the time. Say it's an accident, or natural causes, or whatever. Japan gets way more credit for their society than they deserve, they are plenty flawed
This case Is so fascinating to me. I've tried finding every video or podcast on this. How were the trees cut down to make the SOS sign? What tools were used? Where are they
Please keep making videos pleaseeeeee we need more ppl like you);
“Sasa” is kinda like “chop chop” or “hurry up” also. Good video
That makes more sense
In what language?
@@dror5815 japanese I think
That would be "saasaa". It's possible he still meant that, but the only transcript I've found of the original tape says ササ, which refers to the bamboo. He was very careful to enunciate every syllable individually, so he would probably say it like "sa a sa a", but the transcript only says "sa sa". Unfortunately, that line of the tape isn't in the video and I can't seem to find the full recording anywhere, either, so I don't know exactly how he enunciated everything, but I assume that he was consistent through the whole tape or that the native Japanese speakers who wrote the transcript could tell the difference.
I don't claim to be an expert, though. I've only been studying Japanese for about a year, so there's a ton I don't know and I'm happy to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable.
Also a girls name
Judging from the distortion, the recording sounds like he had the player's mic very close to his mouth. The built in microphones on hand held recorders were often unidirectional/had a fairly tight range (as they were usually used for taking dictation or recording a lecture where you would want to limit unnecessary environmental noise.) If that's the case, it likely wouldn't pick up any echoes. Also, that might explain why he went sylable by sylable when yelling. He would have heard the echoes and the pauses could have been him waiting for the loudest ones to end before yelling the next one. He likely wouldn't have known that the mic wasn't picking them up until he was done and listening to the playback.
Nice sunday evening content. Thanks!
The lack of noise in the background on the tape recording could be simply explained by the fact that recorders of the day had very primitive sound leveling circuits to automatically prevent loud sounds distorting recordings. With this kind of circuitry shouting like this guy did would reduce the input sensitivity.
We used to use a tape recorder to record song ideas. Many times a loud section of a song meant you'd not hear the following quiet section as the circuitry takes 15 seconds plus to recover.
No better way to spend the night than watching a sociable vid (also editing was dope in this one. Some subtle new transitions and stuff. Very cool)
from the middle of my cabin in the middle of nowhere miles from my neabors... just how I like it
Not as subtle as my girlfriends armpit scruff
@@letmecatchyouslippin2425 Heh, fetishes. Seriously though, was a well edited video. *AHEM* And maybe a few more a bit sooner than last, maybe? Yeah I'm being selfish, but I enjoy the content. Hell I wouldn't be upset if they advertised within the vid itself (ppl can skip by -> if they don't like it). If it ain't the money, don't listen to me. I understand sanity better than most.
who asked
@@mooganify Yo, momma? Got nothing mate. What were you aiming for? I'm confused.
I had a quick read of some JP blogs and, weirdly enough, someone in 2012 posted on 2channel (Japanese version of 4chan) claiming to be a colleague of the guy who died. He answered a few questions by some other posters, but he essentially said that he and some others at the company figured it was him as soon as they saw the news reports.
Apparently, he'd gone to the area for a holiday and stayed at the local hostel. When he didn't return as expected one night, the person in charge wasn't sure what to do, so they checked the chaps belongings for some sort of ID or someone to call. They ended up calling the workplace and let them know that their guy was staying at the hostel but was missing. Because it had been a few days at that point, the guy posting claimed that the company paid to charter a private helicopter to go over the area a couple times but couldn't afford to do more than that, because he said it was so expensive to do so.
There wasn't much more detail than that, they didn't even say anything about calling the police. There was a comment that went along the lines of _It's a shame, but things like this happen a lot really and never get put on the news._ I'm guessing the guy posting was just making it up because I can't imagine you charter a helicopter 2 times and then just leave it at that, it was 5 years later before the police found these remains.
" I can't imagine you charter a helicopter 2 times and then just leave it at that"
Maybe it was a matter of putting up a good show. Sending a helicopter around a few times is a good compromise: you get to show your concern for your employees so that your other employees and their families can feel increased pride and loyalty to your company, but it doesn't require you to pay for a long-term ongoing search (because, once the hype dies down, the only people you'll get who are willing to comb through a national park are kind of expensive).
Hm, interesting.
@@vulpesinculta3238 Japan, especially the business world are all about "saving face" so this seems pretty plausible. The CO could have said "We hired a helicopter to look for our lost worker. By the way it was expensive so no end of year bonus for anyone. Sorry" It is possible the effort was never even made it was all for show with a convenient kick back that the company now has a useful "sorry no money" argument.
I don't know how many times I've watched this one. It never fails to creep me out.
I would like to also point out that there has also been stories of a supposedly “cursed” Anime called Minky Momo or best known as “the curse of Minky Momo” that coincidentally aired at the same time that catastrophic earthquakes happened in Japan. It so happens that the lost hiker who ended up getting lost and losing his life also had VHS tapes of the Minky Momo anime in his bag along with his other belongings. It’s honestly quite terrifying.
I love hiking but I would never hike alone, that’s lowkey scary
not even low key, a lot of people go missing or are abducted and murdered in secluded areas in Canada. Especially in Aboriginal communities as of late, its pretty scary thinking about not only the threat nature poses but also other humans.
What about highkey scary
Its like walking around a city late at night, if you run into trouble you're pretty much on your own.
I've hiked alone before but only for a days worth. And since I never told anyone I was going out (And left my phone at home for the peace) if something had happened to me no one would ever know. They would just think I disappeared one day, my remains miles away down a river I didn't tell anyone I was going to. Gotta love nature.
@@scavenger6576 that’s a good analogy
why does no one consider that the sos sign was made by a separate group of hikers that got lost and that it was incidentally close to where the guys remains were, just like the random hikers they found when they found the sign were incidentally near
Yup. Makes sense. It was clear the area was prone to mistakes. So another group made the mistake and started walking away and never thought twice of it.
I don’t see the mystery:
@@thomaswatkins3686 The mystery is who made the sign and why is there a womans bones under the sign
@@gonfreeccs1834 there wasn't woman's bones under th sign
that was a mistake later corrected
@@gonfreeccs1834 skeletons aren't that easy to assign a sex to if you have no way of telling the chromosomes, ESPECIALLY in 1989. You can't just look at a skeleton and say "This is a woman because of the wider hips" for example, because there are female people with really small and male people with really wide hips too.
@@AJOlaks Japanese police are famous for closing cases as fast as possible and through any means necessary, to save their good reputation. It wouldn't be all too far-fetched to think that they were getting anxious about not being able to find the truth and instigated the laboratories to say that they were mistaken and that the bones now did match the identity of the man. Of course, not saying this is what happened, but that it wouldn't really be too weird of them if it did.
One thing people seem to keep missing.. his belongings were found buried. Why, if he was trying to survive, would he have buried his supplies and the very recorder that he used to save a copy of his 'SOS Yells'.
Best stories ever. Thank you.
This one was crazy! Thanks for another epic video.
Hey swamp dweller love your vids keep up the good work happy new year
Hey man, my 2021 goals is to collab with another content creator. Would you be down? I create documentaries, mostly true crime. I started my channel 5 months ago, and used my phone to record audio and a free app to edit my first 40 videos. I now have a laptop, software and mic, so my video quality isn’t bad anymore. I’m sure you remember what it’s like starting a channel. I’d even be willing to create the entire video if you just tag my channel in the description. Thanks either way. Your channel is nice, I’m also addicted to anything spooky.
Maybe the axe is still there but is buried in mud after all those years. Police need to metal detect the area to find it.
Considering the fact that they closed the case in less than a week base on a supposed mistake determining the gender and blood type of the person, I really doubt they would make any effort to search the area and find more evidence to what happened
It's likely it was a stone hand axe. It'd be hard to find a random rock like that after all these years.
Also there was a 5 year period, what are the chances that in that period other hikers just came across the axe and decided to take it
@@jericho9222 that might be kind of unlikely if it was with the human remains and no one else reported them but still went waaaay off the trail and just took an axe.
He could have had an axe with him and while cutting a tree down it fell on him. That would explain how he managed to cut all the trees and then suffer the injury. After that he crawled back to the SOS leaving the axe in the woods? That’s my guess at least.
Those cassette recorders would have had auto gain on the microphone, meaning that as he was shouting into it, it would turn down the recording volume.which is why there is no background noise.
i love your videos man
I’m literally hiking in Zion National Park for New Years, so thanks for that bro. 😂
But why bro
@@jofuk5137 it’s pretty bro
@@vopogon3248 bro.... I love you bro...
Elizabeth Topf bro
Bring an ax for that SOS, bro.
I like how people in the comments are thinking what could have happened and making theories and stuff. Interesting comments to read.
I agree.
Quite clearly this whole thing is aliens I’ll settle for a government cover up case closed no further discussion needed
@@plugshirt1684 couldn’t agree more, I don’t get why people waste time coming up with these dumb alternatives that make no sense
(/s just in case)
@@petormemes I was expecting pancake recipes.
Yeah true, but keep reading and before long you'll find the "it was a mass cult sacrifice ritual involving birch trees and Bigfoot at a location where an alien spacecraft - that looked, coincidentally enough, like a helicopter - was going to transport the cult members to a hollowed out meteor that was predicted by the Mayan calendar..." :) :) :)
Due to the length of time in between, it's feasible that another hiker could have found the axe and just thought someone had left/lost it and claimed it for themselves
I enjoy the way you wish us a good night at the end of your videos.
Finding a random pile of logs in a clearing isn't all that weird when you think about it since a clear area may indicate that they have been logged. The trees had probably been chopped down by somebody else and placed to dry by someone that would later retrieve them with snow mobile during wintertime; I have taken part in many such operations together with my family. It's possible that whoever logged them was never able to contact police and inform them that they had chopped them down because the investigation was concluded so fast that it didn't matter. Ironically, it may also be the very reason why the police also shut down any further inquiry because they already knew that Iwamura hadn't chopped down the trees himself rather he just took advantage of their proximity. This is also why the axe was never retrieved as the police really didn't need to; the axe is just a red herring in this tale. The likely scenario is that Iwamura spotted the logs while he dragged himself to the clearing every day to call for help and be on the lookout for passerbys or aerial vehicles. He decided to make a SOS sign out of sheer desperation, possibly after spotting a helicopter or a plane in the distance. The human body is capable of immense feats under pressure and when its very survival is threatened. He was a very resourceful and clever individual which just ran out of luck.
I think thats how the person made the SOS sign and they had someone with them. Its possible that the voice was made by their companion, assuming that their companion is stuck on a cliff. As theres no background noise of a helicopter or wind because the other person recorded themselves on the hole where the cassettes were found and they recorded themselves after they saw the helicopter at the sky.
@@icantthinkofagoodusername5564 I don't believe anyone else helped him make the SOS or taped the distress call. If another person was present then that person would instead have seeked help down the valley or reported the lost man. It just doesn't make any sense. Tape recorders can distort voices or people just don't want to admit it's their deceased son out of denial. The mention of a helicopter could be a result of hallucination or a flashback in the final hours of his life.
Good theory on the logs but I wouldn't expect an operation like that to be done in a national park.
I dont know that its a national park.
I forget about the idea that the person would have used noise cancellation on the tape recording but I dont know if its possible.
after he cut down the trees the lorax took out his knees
I apologize sir
You are lost it is said
But you cut down my trees
So now you are dead
Thank you for this. It was worth scrolling this far down.
Yeah, it's super funny to make fun of some poor soul's demise.
@@HandOfThemis if that is what you choose to take away from a little humor to lessen the late night creepiness to avoid nightmares and the like, then that is your choice.
I hope your new year bodes well for you.
@@lifetimesocialdistancer6113 It won't for any of us, hope and wishful thinking will get us nowhere pleasant.
As an EMT, the person who’s bones were found almost assuredly didn’t chop down those trees. Those injuries would make it virtually impossible for them to be able to concentrate through the pain, let alone stand/move in a way that would let them generate the power needed for the task.
Would you say they would be able to make the recording, it seems rather coherent and calm with no sighs or whimping of said injuries?
Interesting and informative. Thanks for the upload. Had never heard of this incident previously. Noticing some of the dates in July, 1989, that was just a few days before my daughter was born. Yet, don't remember hearing of it. I wonder why all the apparent secrecy with redactions? Doesn't seem to make sense for a missing hiker to me.
That recording is CHILLING. Absolutely terrifying.
Made my heart race just listening to it
Not really compared to some other shit, that's like tip of the iceberg in chilling recordings
@@greeboman6592 no reason to gatekeep the chillingness of recordings my guy
@@yourresume373 NAH IVE HEARD WAY SPOOKIER RECORDINGS VRO
@@notlengthy lmao
could this have been a murder that someone tried to cover up? The body could have been dumped there and then the sos sign was made to make it look like an accident. That could also explain the recording. the parents could not recognize the voice because it was, in fact, not him, and there´s no backround noise because they pre-recorded it elsewhere. If someone wanted the victim dead, and they knew that he was going hiking at that spot, they could have planned it out, killed him on the trail and then planted the sign and recording. No one would initially suspect a murder, and the police probably would'nt even investigate it as one. Is this a possible theory?
Damn, that's good
Wow
ohhh this is a VERY good possible theory !!! but i dont understand why the possible murderer would go through the hassle of cutting down 19 birch logs [remember just how much time and work it took to cut only one, shorter tree]. wouldnt it be a lot safer to just leave the place without any trace? plus 'if someone wanted him dead' is a very broad and unlikely thing to happen! sociable talked about how he was just an office worker and considering how he had so much anime instead of more important survival materials [no offense to any weebs of course], doesn't really show that he had a very active life. i may be looking at this from the wrong angle, but it just makes no sense why a murderer with no motive would go through all of that work
@@silphy_ their are also people who just do it without reason,
@iiYonko some sickos kill for sport
He didn't said he was on the cliff. He said, I can't get to the cliff because "Sasha" ( kind of a tree) is dense on the way. So, he insisted to pick him up from there
This is one of the earliest missing person mysteries I ever heard. It's definitely a good one and really gets your imagination running
The Thing that freaks me out the most is that the recording of the man saying he's on a cliff was found hidden in a hole down in the valley, that coupled with the fact that there is no background noise and the family said they can't recognize the voice on the tape makes you wonder
So basically the entire video?
@@Gabriel87100 the thing that freaks me out is this Current subject!
@@dudeofbro3510 why would death by accident be something to be ashamed of? it's an accident
@@dudeofbro3510 dude that makes no sense
Maybe the son recorded someone up the cliff calling for help, someone he couldn't see or reach, and went down the mountain to try to find help, but something happened where he felt the need to bury his backpack...? Hmm