Missing 411 : The UFO Connection

Scaramanga

Scaramanga

Senior Member
Yes....some of us actually buy these documentaries. I guess someone has to waste some money...so we can see what its all about.

It's another in the style of ' I'm remaining non-commital...but its aliens' pieces that David Paulides is well known for, though in 90 minutes it really doesn't cover that many cases. The entire thing is eyewitness testimony, miles from nowhere, and it mostly relates to UFOs stealing our elk and other animals. Paulides manages to turn a few wild stories in the woods into a full scale conspiracy where both aliens and the government are investigating ( and covering up ) prion diseases in wild animals. That is the essence of the documentary. Oh...and some people go missing too. But despite it being a Missing 411 the whole missing thing is really a secondary element.

The stories are interesting, but ( and this is my main gripe against Paulides ) we are treated to his 'profile points' more times than I care to remember. And I just find it incredibly annoying and unscientific when he argues the profile point ' case is close to water'. I mean, is there anywhere in the national parks and the sort of places that people go to hunt that isn't close to water ? Or there is 'close to rocks and boulders'. Once again this is so vague that one could apply it almost anywhere. How close is close ? The same applies for his 'clusters' of missing people. Given the number of people who go missing it is not at all hard to 'cluster' them as someone who misses out on one cluster can be fitted into another....if one gives no a priori definition of what the range of a cluster is.

So this is really not finally a commital 'it is UFOs' documentary from Paulides....despite it being in the title. It's just more of the same old 'I'm not saying it's aliens...but its aliens'. Nothing to see here. Move along.
 
you really gotta give more specifics (quotes, screengrabs, exact numbers, exact locations, exact claims) for things most people cant access. or try to maybe find some shorts on youtube to highlight some claims and alleged evidence he gives.

(note: i thought all the missing were due to bigfoot, that's what all the 411 docs ive seen seem to say. and yea they are always around boulders etc, the claims i hear ...Youtube shares alot of the 411 stories...of why the boulders are important is allegedly the people cant hike there on their own ..so bigfoot must have carried them)

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Is this a coincidence, or did you just listen to the latest Squaring the Strange podcast that talked all about this?

And yes, like deirdre said, you need to fill people in and supply content. I knew what you were talking about, only because of the aforementioned podcast. Otherwise, I'd be lost.
 
NorCal Dave said:
Squaring the Strange podcast that talked all about this
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do they discuss all the cases?

i briefly watched 2 guys watching the movie (but got bored as they chatted too much..and not linking because they made a joke about how aliens like to fold clothes like the Chinese)

they said:
Film starts off talking about skinwalker ranch

1st case: missing man. clothes folded by the beach (um...)
pistol up in the bush
dogs locked in trailer
suspicious FOIA paragraphs blocked out and authorities refused to search the bush.

2nd case: multiple witnesses (didnt say how many) saw spaceship abduct an elk. 7 days later they found an elk dead with no injuries.

elk abduction.png
 
Missing and unidentified persons were a hobby of mine for a few years. If someone who watches these things can provide us with names of the missing, research into the circumstances of their disappearance can be done. Specifically, research that points to non-bigfoot or alien explanations.

I've never paid money to see these films. My understanding of them is that they say that a lot of people go missing in national parks near water and rocks, as mentioned above. There's some level of supernatural explanation given for this. I vaguely recall reading that the creator of these documentaries was talking to missing persons' families. I think one of the cases was a young boy who wandered off and was most likely taken by a mountain lion, and his parents were being told something else by the documentarian.

Obviously, there'sbetter explanations for disappearances. People go missing all the time in the boonies. A lot of people don't know how to handle the wilderness, and so they die. People fall off rocks and their remains get scattered by scavenging wildlife. Lots of people do not understand how rivers work, and then they drown in and their bodies are never found. It happens anywhere civilization is not, and it also happens where civilization is.

I'm happy to dig in if someone who watches these things can get me some names.
 
tinkertailor said:
I'm happy to dig in if someone who watches these things can get me some names.
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Cases covered include: Charles Gustafson, Mark Strittmater, and Carl Higdon.

will listen to vid and try to get locations etc.


add:
2:30 Missing Persons:
Charles Duane Gustafson, Hunter (old) Medicine Bow National FOrest
74 yrs old
Ocotber 10th, 2006 with nephew and cousin
Charles go lost first day of hunting and a logger found him. They still all split up the 2nd day.
1677385946469.png



Mark Anthony Strittmater ,Hunter (old) Medicine Bow National FOrest
15:30 age 44 October 19th 2019. reported missing next day


more info provided starting 13:00 for Charles and
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Abductions:
elk in Washington 1999 (seems to have been only reported to UFO investigators) story 18:00

2:50 Carl Higdon October 25, 1974 Medicine Bow National FOrest typical abduction story only he shared a room on spaceship with 5 elk.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6LCz175is4


edit for misspelled name
 
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oh they found him last october. wonder if that's in the 411 movie
@tinkertailor i spelled his name wrong originally...sorry bout that.

Article:
Remains found earlier this month in the Sierra Madres belonged to a Rawlins hunter who went missing three years ago, the Carbon County Sheriff's Office said Wednesday.

The remains were confirmed as Mark Strittmater's through an examination that included known dental records, the sheriff's office said.
...
The remains were found in what the sheriff's office described as a heavily wooded area about 325 yards from areas that had been previously searched.
Authorities say there is no evidence of foul play.



add:
Article:
339 AM MDT Sat Oct 19 2019

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT
TONIGHT TO NOON MDT SUNDAY...

* WHAT...Snow expected. Total snow accumulations of 3 to 8
inches. Winds gusting as high as 55 mph.

* WHERE...Rocky Mountain National Park and the Medicine Bow
Range and The Mountains of Summit County, the Mosquito Range,
and the Indian Peaks.

* WHEN...From midnight Saturday night to noon MDT Sunday.

* IMPACTS...Plan on slippery roads and hazardous travel
conditions. Areas of blowing snow could significantly reduce
visibility.
 
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deirdre said:
you really gotta give more specifics (quotes, screengrabs, exact numbers, exact locations, exact claims) for things most people cant access. or try to maybe find some shorts on youtube to highlight some claims and alleged evidence he gives.

(note: i thought all the missing were due to bigfoot, that's what all the 411 docs ive seen seem to say. and yea they are always around boulders etc, the claims i hear ...Youtube shares alot of the 411 stories...of why the boulders are important is allegedly the people cant hike there on their own ..so bigfoot must have carried them)

View attachment 57929
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Paulides has his own Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@canammissingproject

...where one can see hundreds of his videos, and which also give quite a few trailers and interviews on the Missing 411 : The UFO Connection. Alas he has also lately gotten into politics and has now added various 'factual news' videos that are primarily political comment.


But yeah, sorry for being a bit vague. In fact I watched the documentary about a week ago...and very little stood out from the run of the mill Paulides material so I don't even think this documentary was really worth making...let alone watching.
 
Scaramanga said:
and very little stood out from the run of the mill Paulides material so I don't even think this documentary was really worth making...let alone watching.
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watched it this morning. How's this for a profile point: aside the two female 'family' members, every person in that movie demonstrated LESS level headed thinking than the MUFON guy at the end. :)

What stood out to me is that the handful of cases were some of the least mysterious 411 stories ive heard/read over the years. the few family/friend interviews all had pre-UFO stories, so i guess that is why they allowed their loved ones to be in this film vs. every other case of truely mysterious disappearances.

Some new [alleged] info provided by Paulides and girlfriend, Stittmayer had only taken a light jacket, his rifle, and a light day pack with him from his truck. His big pack was left in the truck. No mention of water or boulders, but gfriend says he once thought a ufo was following him in that general area. He knew a snow storm was coming in that night and expected home (but obviously he never made it back to his truck after his day hunt). GF says cell phones not working up there (although he did text her at 11am after trying to hunt 3 different elk.

@tinkertailor the only other case really was Ray Salmen, hunter, over 65 years of age (they didnt give a specific) disappeared on shores of Lake Harrison, Vancouver BC. Dogs left behind in camper which was locked. pistol found in a meadow a ways up the mountain, rifle and clothes near the shore line. Zodiac raft still at campsite according to wife. He was supposed to pick up his friend (by raft) on Monday, Sunday afternoon the friend heard 3 shots. wife says he taught her 3 shots meant s.o.s.
also big party with "kids" not so far from his campsite, 1 group went to police to report their headlights being shotout (timeline details, like all details a real investigator would ask was vague in movie), i assume this is why police were searching for Ray at the time to ask him about the incident. cell phones not working at Lake. Wife didnt seem to ask RCMP many questions/push for answers. Allegedly the offical report opines he was injured and got in the water to swim back to his camp and must have drowned. I'm guessing the "bush" was too dense which is why RCMP said it was "unsearchable" (and would explain the theory he got in the water to swim back to camp). His wife saw ufo lights (sounds more like 1 light) on the mountain across the lake once when she was at that site with him. She knows it wasnt loggers because Ray told her there were no loggers over there.
 
oh as far as "claims' made he did say the #1 Profile Point is canines cant pick up scent (but then he kinda debunked this..he kinda debunked lots of things inadvertently...by making it sound like dogs not brought in immediately. )
"in 97% of the cases i researched, one of the profile points is canines brought to the scene can't pick up a scent trail. Trackers can't find tracks from last known location"

the only other 'claim' i noticed was Paulido says mad cow disease [uk] "killed hundreds of people". (the dead elk they found 7 days after the hispanic, non english speaking workers (so possible translation issues) saw 1/4 mile away being abducted, was determined to have prion disease by authorities). PSA: apparently youre not supposed to eat any meat from deer. elk now before testing as prion disease is kinda rampant.
 
deirdre said:
watched it this morning. How's this for a profile point: aside the two female 'family' members, every person in that movie demonstrated LESS level headed thinking than the MUFON guy at the end. :)

What stood out to me is that the handful of cases were some of the least mysterious 411 stories ive heard/read over the years. the few family/friend interviews all had pre-UFO stories, so i guess that is why they allowed their loved ones to be in this film vs. every other case of truely mysterious disappearances.

Some new [alleged] info provided by Paulides and girlfriend, Stittmayer had only taken a light jacket, his rifle, and a light day pack with him from his truck. His big pack was left in the truck. No mention of water or boulders, but gfriend says he once thought a ufo was following him in that general area. He knew a snow storm was coming in that night and expected home (but obviously he never made it back to his truck after his day hunt). GF says cell phones not working up there (although he did text her at 11am after trying to hunt 3 different elk.

@tinkertailor the only other case really was Ray Salmen, hunter, over 65 years of age (they didnt give a specific) disappeared on shores of Lake Harrison, Vancouver BC. Dogs left behind in camper which was locked. pistol found in a meadow a ways up the mountain, rifle and clothes near the shore line. Zodiac raft still at campsite according to wife. He was supposed to pick up his friend (by raft) on Monday, Sunday afternoon the friend heard 3 shots. wife says he taught her 3 shots meant s.o.s.
also big party with "kids" not so far from his campsite, 1 group went to police to report their headlights being shotout (timeline details, like all details a real investigator would ask was vague in movie), i assume this is why police were searching for Ray at the time to ask him about the incident. cell phones not working at Lake. Wife didnt seem to ask RCMP many questions/push for answers. Allegedly the offical report opines he was injured and got in the water to swim back to his camp and must have drowned. I'm guessing the "bush" was too dense which is why RCMP said it was "unsearchable" (and would explain the theory he got in the water to swim back to camp). His wife saw ufo lights (sounds more like 1 light) on the mountain across the lake once when she was at that site with him. She knows it wasnt loggers because Ray told her there were no loggers over there.
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Paulides assumes that the '3 shots' fired were an SOS signal. But we don't know for certain that there were actually 3 shots ( its easy to imagine so in retrospect ) or just general gunfire. Throw in the fact that the kids in the camp nearby were complaining about random gunfire shooting out their headlights. It is bizarre that Paulides thinks this may have been Stittmayer trying to get attention.....yet no assumption is made that there may have been a third party ( independent of kids and Stittmayer ) causing trouble.

The whole case smacks of foul play. Stittmayer leaving his truck with the dogs locked inside and taking little but a rifle and a small pack suggests to me he left to deal with some incident or trouble....expecting to be gone for just a few minutes. He may have had to run from the source of trouble....and so on. Quite where UFOs fit into all this is beyond me.
 
Scaramanga said:
Paulides assumes that the '3 shots' fired were an SOS signal.
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i didnt get the impression he assumed that. sounded more like he was arguing against that (it doesnt really fit into the ufo abduction theory).

Scaramanga said:
.yet no assumption is made that there may have been a third party ( independent of kids and Stittmayer ) causing trouble.
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i know. i thought that too. and i thought bear. which might also explain the pistol in the meadow...im picturing him throwing the pistol at the bear when it ran out of bullets :) far fetched i know, but i would. (his wife said he had several rifles and several pistols with him at the camp)

Scaramanga said:
The whole case smacks of foul play.
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that's certainly a possibility but his friend mentioned going to look for goldmines, and i also wondered if he decided to scout some areas alone and if the underbrush was dense (according to RCMP) he might leave the dogs as they'd slow him down or get hurt.??

lots of scenarios can be imagined (besides aliens, that the party of kids didnt see )

Scaramanga said:
Quite where UFOs fit into all this is beyond me.
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ufos dont fit into any of the missing people scenarios, like i said i think he was limited in what stories he could include because families didnt give permission? I don't think you really need family permission, but if you have half a conscious... you'd have respect for the families (which i think he does) and not use dead or lost loved ones in your bigfooot/ufo money maker movies.

Interesting George Knapp saying (is that what you heard) that HE and his pentagon buddy approached Paulides with the idea Paulides' missing people might be connected to their UFOs.
 
deirdre said:
Charles Duane Gustafson, Hunter (old) Medicine Bow National FOrest
74 yrs old
Ocotber 10th, 2006 with nephew and cousin
Charles go lost first day of hunting and a logger found him. They still all split up the 2nd day.
1677385946469.png
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A content warning before I begin: the websites I link here sometimes include images of unidentified dead, their belongings, and other stuff that is hard to look at/read. None of them are salacious or speculative, but they're tough to process. The links I post should be safe, but exploring the website may bring up graphic and sad stuff.

Note about Charles: There was another elderly man who went missing with "Charles Gustafson" in his name, but he was found ok. His name is JOHN Charles Gustafson and he went missing in Wisconsin. Different case, muddies search results.

One thing I'm consistently noting in the various articles I'm reading about these cases that posit some kind of supernatural reason for a disappearance is that they often have slightly different, more detailed information than the official sources. This is the kind of thing you see a lot in speculative true crime circles, and generally if someone isn't a family member and doesn't quote their sources for extra info, there's a good chance it's speculation/bunk.

Here's Charles' profile on NAMUS, a US national database for missing and unidentified persons: https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/78
The circumstances of his disappearance are as follows:
Unknown. Charles was last seen at approximately 6:55am in the Medicine Bow National Forest, eight miles south of Arlington, WY at the road junction of 111 and 129 in Carbon County, WY. He was elk hunting with family members when they separated to hunt in different directions. Charles was to return to camp that evening but never arrived.
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This 2013 news article about unrelated remains found near-ish the location Clarles disappeared says that Charles' rifle was found later: https://www.saratogasun.com/story/2013/09/25/news/remains-found-in-snowy-range/1354.html
"I am not ruling it out, that it might be Charley," Colson said. A fisherman discovered Gustafson's rifle near Arlington in the Rock Creek Area a few years ago.
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This 2006 article mentions that there was some disorientation going on: https://www.inforum.com/newsmd/beltrami-man-missing-after-hunting-trip
Gustafson is reported to be in good health. However, his hunting partners said he may have had trouble orientating himself with the area due to the high altitude, Colson said.
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I'm not seeing anything even remotely unusual here. There's several cases associated with the Missing 411 phenomena that are very similar: older person goes out in wilderness and disappears. The details that are included are ones that point to unusual circumstances, like "Oh, but he had been to this hunting spot before!" and "Oh, but he was trained in wilderness survival in the past!" The fact that they take place next to water or rocks is added for added spookitude, but how many national parks are known for water and pretty rocks? A lot, I bet.

Not having read the books or seen the movies, I can say I notice a lot of similarities to various aspects of true crime culture in general from the cases I've read about, especially in the focus on middle-class and white victims/missing. Not trying to get political here, but paranormal/mystery/true crime enthusiasts never really focus on marginalized people who go missing every day in different settings. Loads of people go missing everywhere, but it's more interesting to people if it's a person who is perceived as not being likely to be a crime victim. It's really unfortunate, but the pattern continues with Missing 411.
 
Scaramanga said:
Paulides assumes that the '3 shots' fired were an SOS signal. But we don't know for certain that there were actually 3 shots ( its easy to imagine so in retrospect ) or just general gunfire
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was trying to look up if the dogs were starving (ie. WHEN did he go missing, since no cell phone service) and shell casings were found at the little beach where they found his clothes and rifle. This article also mentions sketchy people he has run into in that area before.




Ray Salmen (dogs in camper, by lake, guy)

june 12th was wednesday..so shot heard and police went out sunday june 9th and search started
monday 10th

ps add: im going to assume (from this 2nd article)the pistol was actually IN his backpack, so my throw it at a bear idea i'm discarding.
Article:
We believe that he has been at this camp site since May 28th."


Article:
The retired millwright drove up with his two small dogs from his home in Kitsilano to fish and hike
...
The Mounties believe Salmen drowned sometime after going on a hike high up in the bush above his campsite and injuring himself.

Somehow, the mishap left him trapped on a small beach wedged along the shore's steep terrain. He was roughly 400 metres north of his campsite. Unable to climb out, he took off his boots, socks and pants and likely tried to swim around a rocky bluff to another clearing but slipped under the surface.

"Whether he fell off a cliff, or climbed down, we don't know," said RCMP Cpl. Len Van Nieuwenhuizen, the media relations officer for the Upper Fraser Valley Regional Detachment.

Before Salmen entered the water, police believe he was in such distress that he used his rifle to fire six shots. His younger brother Bob, a fellow hunter, said it was common for Salmen to carry a gun in the wilderness in case of a run-in with a bear or another wild animal. One of the bullets smashed the headlight of a Nissan Pathfinder, some 500 metres away and directly in sight of the small beach. Another two shots struck the side of a camper in a neighbouring campsite.

The number of shots was significant to his brother and friend, Dr. Tony Otto, who hunted with Salmen and is the Salmens' family doctor. It is common knowledge among hunters, they say, to fire a burst of three shots when in trouble.

..
Police pieced the scenario together after finding Salmen's backpack in the bush and his shoes, socks, pants, rifle and shell casings on the small beach — a discovery only made by an RCMP helicopter crew which spotted balloons caught up in trees where Salmen sought refuge.
 
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Mendel said:
wonder if the proliferation of GPS via smartphones has made a dent in that statistic?
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Where there is service, sure. Many national parks/forests don't have cell service here. In the case of elderly folks, there could also be degenerative cognitive issues, like dementia. I did read somewhere that Gustafson had a history of disorientation, but the source was unofficial and borderline speculative so I didn't include it.
 
If the word "wilderness" appears in the case description for any disappearance, no claims of disorientation, UFOs etc are needed. All you'd need to do is something simple, like stumble and break an ankle, and you're going to be in deep trouble. It doesn't even need to be a deep wilderness miles from help. I hike a lot in the Cuyahoga Valley, running between Akron and Cleveland, and there are many dozens of places where you'd be out of sight or earshot of a hiking trail used by hundreds of people every day. No amount of "experienced hiker" rhetoric will change the fact that it's incredibly easy to get stranded without help, and at my age I find it prudent not to go alone into isolated areas.

It seems to me that there's a strong desire on the part of the producers to sensationalize mundane stories for profit and publicity. From the accounts here it seems that a very large grain of salt should be taken with these tales ...especially if all we know about the cases is what we are told. If we are not on-the-ground investigators with personal access to witnesses and facts, it's doubtful that we can add to the stories. In other words, I'm skeptical about our ability to do meaningful skeptical research.
 
deirdre said:
PSA: apparently youre not supposed to eat any meat from deer. elk now before testing as prion disease is kinda rampant.
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Well damn, guess it's a good thing I'm a pretty ineffective deer hunter. I know it as CWD:

External Quote:
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal illness of cervids, which include white-tailed deer, black-tailed deer, mule deer, elk, moose, and caribou. The disease is caused by mutated proteins known as prions,
https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/diseases/chronic-wasting#health-safety

Scaramanga said:
The whole case smacks of foul play. Stittmayer leaving his truck with the dogs locked inside and taking little but a rifle and a small pack suggests to me he left to deal with some incident or trouble....expecting to be gone for just a few minutes. He may have had to run from the source of trouble....and so on. Quite where UFOs fit into all this is beyond me.
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Not necessarily. IF he was camped for a week or so and went out to elk hunt for an hour or two in the morning and/or evening each day he's not going to take the dogs. His rifle and a small pack with some snacks and supplies would be sufficient. If he was within hiking distance of his camp and he managed to get an elk, he might field dress it then return to camp to get whatever he needed to bring the elk back.

What's more strange is that he is out camping and elk hunting and there seems to be people all over the place. Kids partying, people camped next to him. You'd think the elk would have moved on to quieter surroundings.
 
Ann K said:
In other words, I'm skeptical about our ability to do meaningful skeptical research
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technically mb is about investigating specific claims [of evidence]. BUT we need someone interested enough to do proper OP threads and spell out the claims [preferably of evidence]. (not really picking on this OP, as mods havent been asking people to adhere to guidelines so newbies likely have no idea what the guidelines are)

Obviously these type documentaries rarely give anything resembling evidence. The only 'evidence' provided in this "documentary" were a few official reports flashed on screen where the type says stuff like "Sasquatch Spaceship" that [claim?] proves the authorities take UFOs seriously.
1677466952211.png



and little claims like "deorr Kunz" was "right next to his parents and when they turned around he was gone." well... the least amount of time i've heard his parents say was 10 mins from mom and 20 minutes from dad...but their story kept changing so really we have no idea how long deorr was out of sight.
If "right next to" means 10 minutes walk distance away like mom said, i guess technically the claim of "they turned around and he was gone" could be sort of true and the only explanation is an alien ship came and sucked him up. But to me a ten minute walk is pretty dang far away.
 
NorCal Dave said:
he's not going to take the dogs.
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Strittmater didnt have dogs, that was Ray Salmen. we just have too many cases at once and the names are getting jumbled. I didnt get the impression from movie that Salmen was hunting, let alone elk. his wife did mention he usually carried his rifle in case he ran into bears. (and i only remember that because of my bear theory before i watched the show)
 
tinkertailor said:
Where there is service, sure. Many national parks/forests don't have cell service here.
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You don't need cell service for GPS, but you need to remember to download an offline map beforehand.

The question is, does that have a measurable effect?
 
Mendel said:
You don't need cell service for GPS, but you need to remember to download an offline map beforehand.
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we might need a seperate thread on these and how to use them, they sound interesting but apparently you can use them wrong?

Article:

Hiking With A GPS? Mountain Rescuers Who Might Have To Find You Say, 'Get A Map!'


...
The other reason though is the one causing concern: More people are relying on GPS programs — like Google Maps — for directions.

One problem with using these apps is unreliable data, says Wesley Trimble with the American Hiking Society.

"Most trail applications out there use a variety of base layer maps," Trimble says. "These layers are crowdsourced a lot of times, and then people upload GPS tracks of places that they've been when there's really no way to verify whether or not those uploaded tracks are on designated trails."
 
deirdre said:
we might need a seperate thread on these and how to use them, they sound interesting but apparently you can use them wrong?

Article:

Hiking With A GPS? Mountain Rescuers Who Might Have To Find You Say, 'Get A Map!'

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Repeated stories I've seen, which might just be aimed at boomers who want to sneer at youngsters over their morning coffee, have implied that the younger generations don't know how to read maps any more. If so, even "Get A Map!" won't work.

"Over two-thirds of under-25s are reduced to dribbling wrecks when confronted with paper maps" -- https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/most-under-25s-cant-read-a-map-because-they-rely-on-sat-navs/ (2013)
"Millions of millennials have never read a paper map, new research claims." -- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...als-smartphones-ordnance-survey-a8932976.html (2019)
"Three-quarters of UK adults can't read a map" -- https://www.theguardian.com/travel/...heres-how-to-get-better-ordnance-survey-study (2022)

I can't tell an edible mushroom from a poisonous one. Some life skills just fade out of relevance for the general public over time. Occasionally, that's regretful, but not often enough for anyone to be bothered about changing anything. Fussing too much about risks that are very rare is wasteful, and therefore counterproductive; from an evolutionary perspective our laziness is working just fine.
 
Apps like Google maps support intentional downloading of offline maps of areas, they also download and cache the local mapping of the area at various resolutions while you do have signal if you use the app, it's highly likely if you used Google maps recently enough when you had signal you would have enough mapping cached to navigate back to a road or to a river or some other place where you would be findable. Vector terrain mapping data is not a huge amount of data.
 
deirdre said:
we might need a seperate thread on these and how to use them, they sound interesting but apparently you can use them wrong?
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I've used the app Gaia GPS for years. It lets one download relevant sections of USGS topo maps on to a phone to use with no cell service.

I agree a Maps thread might be useful, maybe in Practical Debunking. So much of debunking depends on where someone was or where something occurred. I still get frustrated on Google maps when I forget how to do something simple, like distance between 2 points. I think part of the problem is that Google or Apple maps are geared towards commercial promotion and hand holding-type directions.
 
jarlrmai said:
it's highly likely if you used Google maps recently enough when you had signal you would have enough mapping cached to navigate back to a road or to a river or some other place where you would be findable.
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arent downloaded maps the exact same thing as paper maps? (although i agree your battery can die).

the only downside to paper maps is they dont tell you the vital thing, which is :
*you are here



PSA: don't eat ANY mushrooms if lost in the wilderness.

PSA: for typical "trail hikers": if lost, DON'T MOVE!!! That's why so many people in the missing 411 series are found "in places already searched". Its not because aliens dropped you back off. it's because you kept walking away from the search parties.
 
Mendel said:
You don't need cell service for GPS, but you need to remember to download an offline map beforehand.
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I know that people in the nomadic/van life community often use devices that use satellites to text love ones, alert emergency services, and provide GPS coordinates of current locations.

I think in most of the Missing 411 cases you have people who are visiting national parks, so they may be confident outdoorsman or newer enthusiasts. I think the latter may assume that Google Maps will do.

My dad was an old-school backpacker in the '70s and '80s, back when it was all topographic maps, compasses, and the like. He has a ton of stories where he'd be in national parks and run across people who had no clue what they were doing, and he had a few close scrapes with danger himself. Come to think of it, all of his "I almost died in the wilderness" stories involve water (near drowning) and rocks (falling off of them).

Plus, at least in the high Sierra, the higher you hike, the less trees there are, the more granite there is. There's your rocks.

Ann K said:
In other words, I'm skeptical about our ability to do meaningful skeptical research.
Click to expand...
I hear you, but the problem is that there are swathes of people who believe this stuff. When I was really in to researching missing persons, I often interacted with true crime people who would normally never come to paranormal conclusions, but we're intrigued by the mystery of Paulides' spin on these stories. Some of them eventually went deep into UFO belief. I see this as a "gateway drug" into a rabbit hole.

I think the way to take these down is to find a few 411 cases that are seen as extra spooky/mysterious, put them in their own threads, and focus on finding rational explanations. Maybe a "People Debunked" thread on Paulides himself, too.
 
tinkertailor said:
Maybe a "People Debunked" thread on Paulides himself, too.
Click to expand...
i wonder though (aside from is "open minded" as he calls it) ponderings and connecting-the-dots philosophy, how much the movie editors are more at fault. The movie(s)** uses alot of "insinuation" techniques to not technically "lie" per se but to trick most viewers into assuming they meant a certain thing.

** most these types of "documentaries" use such editing techniques.
 
This might be as good a place as any to post the supposed Map of Mysterious Disappearances Clusters that is handed around freely on woo forums, supposedly showing that there is a correlation between disappearance clusters and cave formations, from which it is argued that people are being abducted by underground civilizations/monsters/etc. (Perhaps the aliens live in caves now?)
You'll note that the resolution of the upper image is poor enough that the key cannot be read, making it impossible to check on the assertyion that it is a map of mysterious disappearances at all, nor to follow up on any of the cases posted on the map and see how mysterious they actually were, or if they even happened. After several years of trying, I've stopped asking them for a copy of the upper map that is high enough resolution to be able to actually read it. I was never able to find it by image searches, either. But perhaps one of you with an interest in this has a copy, or has Super Goole-Fu superior to mine and can find it?

Anyway, here 'tis. Source is getting posted over and over again on many woo fora.

(Additional note, at one time the common version of the upper map lacked the black dots, which were added later -- I suspect somebody added black dots for cave systems, which makes the map match the cave systems map more closely, for some reason...)

411.JPG
 
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JMartJr said:
This might be as good a place as any to post the supposed Map of Mysterious Disappearances Clusters that is handed around freely on woo forums, supposedly showing that there is a correlation between disappearance clusters and cave formations, from which it is argued that people are being abducted by underground civilizations/monsters/etc. (Perhaps the aliens live in caves now?)
You'll note that the resolution of the upper image is poor enough that the key cannot be read, making it impossible to check on the assertyion that it is a map of mysterious disappearances at all, nor to follow up on any of the cases posted on the map and see how mysterious they actually were, or if they even happened. After several years of trying, I've stopped asking them for a copy of the upper map that is high enough resolution to be able to actually read it. I was never able to find it by image searches, either. But perhaps one of you with an interest in this has a copy, or has Super Goole-Fu superior to mine and can find it?

Anyway, here 'tis. Source is getting posted over and over again on many woo fora.

(Additional note, at one time the common version of the upper map lacked the black dots, which were added later -- I suspect somebody added black dots for cave systems, which makes the map match the cave systems map more closely, for some reason...)

View attachment 57967
Click to expand...
I notice that it follows the areas of mountains far more closely than it follows the caves. It's almost as if it's easy to get lost or injured by falling off a mountain, a fate that the clever prairie farmers of the Great Plains seem to be able to avoid.
2A50EA8A-1D02-4441-AC3B-55AE4BE50BB0.jpeg
 
it's paulides map that can be purchased for $17. a map of specific people/places he chooses to study
Article:
the issues associated with people who go missing in the wilds of North America
...

missing people who vanished in the wild, many under highly unusual circumstance



EiWT0s0VgAAJN3B.jpg



so if he is studying people who go missing in wild areas where bear and wolves live, then why wouldnt that also be where the caves are? (although i agree with Ann and the 'cluster' correlate more with mountains).

Article:
It is worth mentioning that the vast majority of the disappearances that occur within national parks, even the ones where the person is never seen again, don't fall into the Missing 411 category. This is because there is a set of characteristics that define a Missing 411 disappearance from any ordinary disappearance.
...
What exactly do I mean by clusters? Well Paulides in his extensive research of people who disappeared found that there seems to be certain areas where people disappear, and the people who disappear in such areas tend to have something in common.

For example in one area, people who are male and in-between a certain age and have high IQ are the ones who tend to disappear. Likewise in another area, it can be women with learning disabilities that are the ones that disappear.
 
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JMartJr said:
But perhaps one of you with an interest in this has a copy, or has Super Google-Fu superior to mine and can find it?
Click to expand...
it is in fact a missing411 map (used in their books?), and they used to sell it on their bigfoot store:
Article:
North America Cluster Map-Version 2

Link to Purchase http://www.nabigfootsearch.com/Bigfootstore.html

This is a unique product for our organization to release. This has been a working project for several years and only recently came together as a possible retail product. The victims are color coded that indicate if they were a sheepherder, farmer, male or female. The newest addition to this map is that the number of clusters have been elevated to 59.

Release Date: September 1 2018

Best version I could find:
Article:
missing-from-parks-map-1024x682.jpg

Edit: better version:
unheimlich-mystery-podcast-missing411-cluster.map.jpg

My guess at the legend: green=dairy(?) farmers, red=women, blue=men, yellow=sheepherders

There are a bunch of reddit threads on it, with people now pointing out that the map fosters bad conclusions:
External Quote:
These are missing people cases specifically for national parks - not all missing persons. The other is caves - which tend to be in national parks.

The missing persons map only shows people that went missing in national parks. And only the orange dots represent missing people. The other dots do not.
A cave cartographer wrote a blog post on it:
Article:
The top image is titled "North America Cluster Map" and is produced by the Canam Missing Project / Missing 411. I cannot comment on the methods used to produce the map since they aren't stated. For this reason I am immediately suspect that this is conveying real information. [..]

The bottom image was seemingly produced by Texas Parks and Wildlife as a support image for the webpage here. Some of their methods can be inferred by the documentation on the associated website. However, there are still design flaws that I will cover later.

[...]

Mixing elements without a key or proper labels is a pretty serious flaw in the map design. This is just another strong example of why people shouldn't get information from memes.


If a student turned this map into me as a project they had worked on, I would reject it entirely [...]

4) Where did they even get the data? As someone who has been caving for more than a decade and making state level density maps for a a few years, I would really like to know where their cave data came from. I have high level contacts across the United States and am generally a respected caver and I had to plea, debate, beg, sign contracts, and kiss butt to get the data for the handful of states I've managed to map (read more here: The Origins of Data, and the Future of State Cave Surveys).

The data on the bottom map doesn't match old public datasets on caves, like the GNIS data (which has since retired collecting cave entrance location data). It vaguely matches my data (which is likely the most complete cave entrance location collection within the USA). It best seems to match polygon data of karst areas provided by the USGS. But again I wonder where the points came from?

5) Where is the analysis? There are tools in modern GIS packages to compare datasets. Why can we not make an empirical analysis of the data and provide that?

6) Methods? The data on methods from the original post are suspect. The best guess I can make is they used Photoshop to layer the data.

7) Conclusions. Given the vast number of flaws found in this meme it is clear that it doesn't represent what it claims to represent. Can we stop sharing it now?
 
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Thanks for the info, all. I still hope to someday see a readable version of this map, but hope is dwindling. I don't want to send them any of my money, for assorted reasons.
 
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JMartJr said:
I tend to forget that libraries do stuff like that, in this Internet age...
Click to expand...
its on the back cover of "missing 411, devil in the details". (amazon etc have back cover pic) but you need the book as online seems he is really watching copywrite reprintings.

The first line of the white key says "populated places" ..whatever that means. but i can't read anything else.

He does have youtube videos on his individual "clusters" but he talks too much about unrelated stuff imo.

but for example in "The Hunted" movie he picks his big 3 for the "Santa Fe" cluster and they are nothing burgers really.
just relistened to it and took notes. then added some online info. None of these seem strange to me in anyway. so what he picks and chooses as "a cluster"...is just random, imo.
the Hunted
Article:
this documentary explored some of the paranormal aspects of spots where there have been clusters of disappearances dealing with hunters.


23:00 there can be from 3 to 70 or 80 people in a cluster
santa fe cluster:
focus on 3 [assuming the ones he thinks are movie gold]:

75 yr old Audry Kaplan (july 30, 2014)
w/ husband, mushroom picking, separated near Aspen peak. days later, aug 4 searcher (way off grid area) dead naked in fetal position, face in creek. (but items near by). coroner hyp0thermia. Palides says she was way off grid and her face in creek, ...which sort of it was from pics but you know once you die you probably stop holding your head up and dont breath in water. coroner says no drowning.

Article:
She separated from her husband and left the trail to search for mushrooms around 10:30 a.m. When she didn't show up by 12:15 p.m. her husband and others went looking for her. Torrential rains, fog and cold nighttime temperatures in the low 40s enveloped the area that following Friday, making search-and-rescue efforts difficult.

-----------
same general area 61 Melvin Nadel sep 6,2009 (elk mountain)knee injury. ek hunting. supposedly he hates to walk. (so thats the big 'how could he get lost' thing.
disappeared from blind, allegedly dog found no scent past the blind.

don't know where Palides got the "blind" idea.

Article:
At 4:30 p.m., Nadel left the campsite. He told his friends he would not travel far and would be back by nightfall, but he never returned and has never been heard from again.

He left his 2001 Jeep Cherokee with the New Mexico license plate number HKJ664 near the campsite with most of his gear locked inside, including his backpack, cellular phone and GPS unit. He normally carried the GPS with him while he hunted to keep from getting lost.

Dogs tracked Nadel's scent for about 50 yards from the camp, down the trail he said he would use. His loved ones stated he had become lost once before and after that experience, he preferred to stick close to the campsite.


--------------------
stanley vigil age 54
nov 7th 2017 hunter (about 10 mi from Nadel)

stanley jumped out of vehicle (before they camped) to chase a deer. immediately fog and heavy rain hit the area. 7 day search canines cant pick up scent, no tracks.
Found 5 months later, body on Pecos river. skull injuries 2 broken ribs. 9 miles from hi spoint of separation.

Article:
He jumped out of the truck and began tracking the animal, which she said was not unusual for their hunting party.

The group waited but within five minutes snow and fog spread through the area, diminishing their field of view to about 10 yards, Darcy Vigil said. After 15 minutes, she said the alarmed hunting party started calling her brother's name, honking and firing shots in the air. They heard a shot fired back but farther away.

Stanley Vigil never returned.
...
State police said Monday afternoon they are still investigating whether foul play was involved and could not provide more information.
...
She said her brother knew Barillas Peak, and said searchers found a game surveillance camera showing that after 33 hours he had made it to the base of the mountain. She said he had gone to ask for help at a trailer near San Juan and then disappeared.
 
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