Missing 411

[wiiawiwb]

On 8/20/2025 at 4:38 PM, NorCalWitness said:

Paulides is a con man. I am surprised to see you prop him up. That is all. 

 

Have you personally visted the site of any Missing 411 case?

[Huntster]

2 hours ago, wiiawiwb said:

 

Have you personally visted the site of any Missing 411 case?

 

I haven't, but I did visit the site of a missing friend (and at the invitation of the Alaska State Troopers with a request to search a particular area). It was a classic Alaskan disappearance, and his remains were eventually found..........although in a spot where he should have been found by initial search parties.

[MIB]

4 hours ago, wiiawiwb said:

Have you personally visted the site of any Missing 411 case?

 

Yes, Wednesday last week.   Why?

[Huntster]

https://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/news/missing.htm

 

[OldMort]

Yosemite Search and Rescue has issued a breakdown and description of all of its responses for the year 2024.

 

Granted, they are not a law enforcement agency but at least we get a better idea of what is going on in the park and why.

 

For the record, I do not buy any of Paulides' "Yosemite Cluster" hypothesis at all.

 

Yosemite Search and Rescue 2024 rescue, death numbers released

[wiiawiwb]

On 9/12/2025 at 3:22 PM, MIB said:

 

Yes, Wednesday last week.   Why?

 

I think it is instructive to go to a Missing 411 site, walk the area, and spend time there, especially at night. I've been to one of the sites several dozen times and stayed many nights in the both the location where the person went missing and neighboring areas. I've also spoken to SAR group members that were involved, which was very helpful.   

 

I found Paulides' presentation to be spot on accurate--as in hitting the bullseye. 

 

The area is very strange and I personally know others who have also have spent time there, especially at night, and felt the same way. I've heard very interesting things and know people who've also heard or seen strange things both day and night at that particular spot and the surrounding region. 

 

It's a favorite area of mine but is also the only place I've ever been that is strange enough to have me on high alert, day or night, the entire time I'm there. 

[MIB]

6 hours ago, wiiawiwb said:

I found Paulides' presentation to be spot on accurate--as in hitting the bullseye. 

 

Interesting.   So far as the cases I've been able to dig into personally, the further I dig the more off-the-mark he is.    I would like to believe what he has to say but it simply does not hold up to scrutiny.   Most of the reports I've dug into have been in the Crater Lake cluster along with a couple in Idaho.    I'll try to give him the benefit of the doubt in other places.

[Explorer]

2 hours ago, MIB said:

 

Interesting.   So far as the cases I've been able to dig into personally, the further I dig the more off-the-mark he is.    I would like to believe what he has to say but it simply does not hold up to scrutiny.   Most of the reports I've dug into have been in the Crater Lake cluster along with a couple in Idaho.    I'll try to give him the benefit of the doubt in other places.

 

I agree with MIB's assessment. For the few cases that I dug deeply (that originally seemed bizarre and mysterious), I concluded that there were better prosaic alternative explanations that did not require an unknown agent.

 

In addition, Nick Kyle, who produces the Missing Enigma YouTube channel has done a terrific job examining many of Paulides' 411 cases in depth and has also arrived at prosaic explanations. 

 

I am not suggesting that all Paulides' 411 cases have prosaic explanations, but just the ones that I have looked at in depth and the ones that Nick has shown on his channel.

Nonetheless, I wonder about the quality of all the ones that have not been examined in depth by others. 

I am also a skeptic of his claims as OldMort stated above.

 

https://www.youtube.com/@TheMissingEnigma/videos

 

Edited Wednesday at 06:02 PM by Explorer

[MIB]

There is another aspect to Paulides.   We have to remember that he claims .. and his bigfoot books Tribal Bigfoot and Hoopa Project support this .. that he is the one who brought Melba Ketchum into the bigfoot world.   He continues to support the authenticity of her "study" yet it is a clear hoax from purchasing the journal which still has never published a second paper to providing DNA strings which do not add up to what she claims they add up to to any number of shady shenanigans intended to suppress evidence of her misdoing.    Until he separates himself from that quackery, I don't trust his judgement or his claims.   If he is even half as smart as he claims to be, he KNOWS exactly what he's embracing.  We are rightly judged by the company we choose to keep.  I feel the same about Scott Carpenter and Steve Isdahl, the difference is, even beyond those two, Paulides should know better.

 

MIB

[wiiawiwb]

On 9/12/2025 at 1:04 PM, Huntster said:

 

I haven't, but I did visit the site of a missing friend (and at the invitation of the Alaska State Troopers with a request to search a particular area). It was a classic Alaskan disappearance, and his remains were eventually found..........although in a spot where he should have been found by initial search parties.

 

This is one of the puzzling issues Paulides has illuminated over the years regarding his Missing 411 reports. An area will be methodically grid-seached several times yet the missing person will ultimately be found in that grid.  I was a SAR member for years and when you grid-search an area several times, you can take it to the bank there is nothing there. How the missing person ended up in that location no one knows which makes those cases particularly perplexing.

[Trogluddite]

On 4/19/2024 at 9:01 PM, VAfooter said:

Just found this recently, even though it is a few years old.

 

https://www.strangeoutdoors.com/mysterious-stories-blog/jordan-grider

 

So tragic accident, unprepared camper, or something more sinister? Based on what I read, I do not think the wolves attacked him while he was still living.

 

That was an interesting case, thank you for posting it.  Sounds like a prepared camper with an accident that could not be handled alone.  

 

On 8/2/2025 at 2:16 PM, Redbone said:

sorry to bump an old thread, but I found this video to be interesting and informative.

 

Never apologize for bumping an old thread - that's far better than having six threads on the same topic IM(not so)HO. 

 

On 9/12/2025 at 1:04 PM, Huntster said:

 

I haven't, but I did visit the site of a missing friend (and at the invitation of the Alaska State Troopers with a request to search a particular area). It was a classic Alaskan disappearance, and his remains were eventually found..........although in a spot where he should have been found by initial search parties.

18 minutes ago, wiiawiwb said:

This is one of the puzzling issues Paulides has illuminated over the years regarding his Missing 411 reports. An area will be methodically grid-seached several times yet the missing person will ultimately be found in that grid.  I was a SAR member for years and when you grid-search an area several times, you can take it to the bank there is nothing there. How the missing person ended up in that location no one knows which makes those cases particularly perplexing.

 

I think both of these comments on grid searches are congruent, not contradictory.  While repeated grid searches of the same area should turn up something, an initial search may have a lower degree of confidence as to thoroughness.  Several of the much more experienced members of my team often told me that you never got above 75% confidence in a search and even 50% was rare because when you are searching a large area with dense underbrush/growth/rockfields/downed trees/etc., it's harder than most people realize to spot a relatively small object (like a human body) in those circumstances.  For example, on one search that had at least 100 searchers in a NY state park, the body was missed during the first search because (most likely) the subject had jumped off a cliff to commit suicide and ended up deep in a crevice between boulders.  The searchers at the section had used drones and were on foot, but I understand it particularly hazardous and probably half of the time they were concentrating on not becoming someone who needed rescued themselves.  Also, there had been some snowfall after the subject's disappearance.  Remains were found in the spring.  

 

In my experience in New York, the DEC-ran searches focused on expanding the search area if initial searches were unsuccessful rather than going back over the same ground. 

 

[norseman]

On 1/14/2026 at 10:42 AM, MIB said:

There is another aspect to Paulides.   We have to remember that he claims .. and his bigfoot books Tribal Bigfoot and Hoopa Project support this .. that he is the one who brought Melba Ketchum into the bigfoot world.   He continues to support the authenticity of her "study" yet it is a clear hoax from purchasing the journal which still has never published a second paper to providing DNA strings which do not add up to what she claims they add up to to any number of shady shenanigans intended to suppress evidence of her misdoing.    Until he separates himself from that quackery, I don't trust his judgement or his claims.   If he is even half as smart as he claims to be, he KNOWS exactly what he's embracing.  We are rightly judged by the company we choose to keep.  I feel the same about Scott Carpenter and Steve Isdahl, the difference is, even beyond those two, Paulides should know better.

 

MIB

I agree. But you cannot throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

I definitely think there are strange disappearances on national forests.

 

Dennis Martin and Travis Walton come to mind.

 

And despite my misgivings of Matilda and Ketchum DNA studies? I am thankful Paulides has brought this to our attention.