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Thank you for your reply Firefighting is a noble career and I'm sure that you've made a lot of people's lives better and safer, but I don't see how that's relevant to this particular discussion. I should say, I'm from the UK and nothing in our fire service's experience would necessarily be relevant but I accept that your services are different so I may be wrong. You seem to accept that there wasn't a kidnapping ( I say "seem" because it looks like your paragraph may be a case of "even if you accept this is true, how do you explain this?" and I don't want to put words in your mouth or suggest you accept/concede something that you don't). That said, I disagree completely with your evaluation. You say 'you're telling me there is nothing strange about 1000s of people searching for a 5 year old boy that had a five minute head start and cannot find him?' but that's not what happened. He went missing at 4:30pm. His father and a few other people started searching for him within 3-5 minutes (the details are sketchy). They were searching in terrain that, outside the field and off the trail, which is the terrain he went missing, is reported as being dense forest ('so thick is the green growth of trees that a squirrel could go from Gatlinburg to Cherokee, N.C some 30 miles over the mountain, without ever having to touch ground' - The Tennessean 6.20.1969), ('[Dennis] became separated after plunging into the thick tangle of forest and underbrush, home of black bears, wild hogs, and snakes' - Kingsport Times 6.16.1969) He wasn't reported missing to the Rangers for 4 hours, at 8:28pm. Some few people (no reports I have found state a firm number) searched during the night, during which there was significant rainfall. The first actual, co-ordinated search started at 5am the next day. According to the NPS report, this consisted of somewhere between 50 and 80 people (it's not clear whether 'leaders' were included in the count of searchers or were additional). In any event, some 12+ hours after he went missing, fewer than 100 people were looking for him (assume the higher number of 80 and add in family, who let's assume weren't counted as 'searchers' by the NPS). This is a million miles away from 1000s looking for him within 5 minutes. Assume he could move a conservative 1mph, over 12 hours, that would give a potential search area of 452m2. Slightly smaller than Los Angeles City limits, but covered in dense forest, rivers, caves and crevices. It would be a minor miracle if they did find him! The number of searchers for 6.16.1969 was approx 300, 6.17.1969 was 365 etc. The only day over 1,000 was 6.21.1969, a full week after his disappearance. As for the Green Berets - from the NPS report '[Ranger Mike] Myers also contacted U.S. Forest Service District Ranger on the Nantahala, who in turn made contact with Col. Kinney, commanding the Special Forces troops in that area. Col. Kinney requested and obtained permission from the Third Army Headquarters at Ft Benning, Georgia, to transfer 40 Special Forces to the search area. - 6.15.1969 I can't see anything suggesting that the Green Berets 'kept adding to their force.' They seem to have added 22 men on 6.18.1969, although I admit the seem to have had 71 by 6.25.1969 33 left the search on 6.25.1969 with the remaining 38 leaving the next day. It is mentioned in the NPS report and news papers that they were 'in the area' and familiar with the type of terrain in the area due to having been deployed in Vietnam. I understand that Green Berets don't get involved in SAR on a regular basis, but if they're available, and if this, as was obviously the case, caught the public imagination, why not? Are you willing to suggest why you think the Green Berets were involved? Absent another, better, theory, I don't see why the logical reason put forth shouldn't be accepted.

I don't "know" anything. I am open minded and have formed my opinion based on the account of thousands of others personal accounts.

Great catch, and you're right - the Minnesota Iceman was probably more authentic looking.