The year is 1953 and it is in the early evening when Nation Park Official E. T. Scoyan glances up into the darkening skies just before concluding a long day and prepares to head home. To his amazement he sees an unusual sight. A classic disk shaped UFO appears to be descending from the sky but just above the bizarre aerial machine are US Air Force Fighter jets attempting to force the strange airborne craft down. As he stands in amazement staring upward into the night air he watches as the UFO comes to a complete halt in midair which causes the US warplanes to overshoot and continue flying past. The unknown object now hovering makes a sudden vertical thrust and accelerates out of sight in seconds.

From out of the sky

This is just one of many Project Blue Book cases which was verified by a field interview taken by USAF officers and the details filed away for posterity. E.T. Scoyan apparently made one of many UFO reports that were common during that time frame following the Korean War in an era when such sightings were being spotted all over the US. Yet, it is likely that this strange encounter did not go down in the park records or was forwarded as a monthly activity report to the National Park and Forestry headquarters at the time, however this item did appear in the book by Donald Keyhoe entitled “Aliens in Space,” published in 1973. Donald Keyhoe wrote one of the most viewed articles ever written in US magazine history and is still mentioned today. His first shocking news piece in 1950 preceded a number of his books on UFO’s that were widely influential due to his inside sources of Pentagon Whistle Blowers. Being an ex-US Marine aviator himself who had been an assistant to Charles Lindbergh during World War II.

Blue Book

Unfortunately for us, USMC Major Donald Keyhoe never put together a correlation between UFO’s over National Forests or Parks with other sightings or disappearances. It seemed he was already quite busy marketing his articles and books while retrieving first hand military accounts from the Pentagon. If one were to do some checking there could possibly be some recorded sighting reports of the time that might also have occurred in the same regions and dates as some the Project Blue Book UFO reports. A “Flap” began in 1952 where thousands of UFO sightings were causing a mass hysteria at the time. According to Project Blue Book Director, USAF Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the long awaited outbreak of sightings sprang across the nation and created a sensation.

Two factors

Although many investigators have attempted to tie UFO sightings, Bigfoot reports, and disappearances together in order to establish some kind of intelligible correlation more of these vanishings seem to occur under relatively normal circumstance, that is, until the person goes missing. As in previously mentioned accounts, the two most common denominators are the point of separation and a body of water close by. It seems these are the most frequent consistencies to the 411 Disappearances.

Another UFO sighted

Another such occurrence involving a UFO sighting during that same time frame was the encounter of a night time UFO sighting observed by a Boy Scout Master and his camping group. As reported by the kids who watched, a bright unknown aerial object hovered over the Scoutmaster while a humid mist enveloped the air. The Boy Scout leader reported a strange static electrical effect that caused a weird type of “St. Elmo’s Fire” display as the children watched in shocked amazement. The Forest seemed illuminated by the incident within the proximity of the camp before the radiation ceased. When the incident was reported to Project Blue Book headquarters a field study was performed in short order. Lab tests were run on ground and grass samples taken from the area where the Scout Master was standing. It was found by a US Air Force appointed research facility that some type of intense heat had burned the grass roots while they were still buried in the ground beneath the feet of the Scout Master and that some kind of ionizing gas might have been ignited as it flashed around the adult Scout leader.

Speculation

Would the man have ended up just another mute statistic in the missing category had he not been in direct visual contact with his Boy Scout Troop who were bivouacked just a few yards away from the bizarre sighting? It would hard to say. Yet, it does seem that the disappearances do follow the pattern of someone alone usually succumbing to the unknown. Perhaps, the Scout Master could have thanked his accompanying Boy Scout Troop for not becoming just one more piece of an elusive puzzle that no one has been able to crack for decades.

Hostile wilderness

In Alaska disappearances are common in the National Parks of the Pacific Northwest as many who are either evading the law, trying to live off the grid, or are merely committed to living in isolation from a civilized existence as much as possible come up missing on a regular basis. The rigors of extreme elements that are merciless as the temperatures drop, wild animals roam and present a great danger to most people, and the thousands of square miles of wilderness perhaps never set foot upon by mankind present a formidable obstruction to search parties. Still there are clear cut cases of hikers, vacationers, and well prepared hunters who simply vanish without a trace each and every year and become cold case files in short order.

Those who know

There have been many reports by the native tribes such as the Inuits as well as Eskimo who hunt, drive, snow sled, or boat across huge expanses of frozen tundra, permafrost, and forest who see and experience very strange phenomenon that could very well be responsible for at least some disappearances that do not fall under the categories of eaten by bears, attacked by Cougars, frozen to death, simply lost, or killed in accidents. A number of reports by these indigenous people involve waking up in the middle of the night from inside their vehicles after a long day of driving and hunting and being too tired to drive back. Many of these native people have awoken in the dead of night only to find a large manlike beast covered in hair staring at them through their car or truck window!

Possible deadly candidate

We have been wrongly led to believe that the Sasquatch or Bigfoot hominids are supposedly benevolent, peaceful, and vegetarian guardians of the forest who mildly tip toe about as noisy humans make their way through the woods hunting, trapping, or fishing. We have been led by Hollywood to think that out in the remote wilderness some mild mannered hairy giant somehow related to man is nothing more than a rare species that doesn’t want any confrontation or encounter, but according to Indians living on reservations from Northern California and well into Canada with few exceptions Sasquatch is regarded as a fearsome animal that resembles man, but is potentially aggressive and to be avoided at all cost. One particular tribe uses the word Sasquatch in their own native tongue to represent the equivalent of “Cannibal” and tell of stories of their women and children being carried off while hunting parties are gone gathering game to feed the village.

History of threat

Some tribes do attribute “spirit of the forest” status to Bigfoot rather than necessarily existing as some kind of humanoid species, but most regard Sasquatch as a threat to be seriously regarded in physical form. These same tribes know that they, themselves, are even considered to be game or prey by these creatures if there is a shortage of meat when weather conditions limit access to food. Totem Poles carved by Northwest Pacific Tribes are characteristic only to their regions and have depicted the likeness of Sasquatch for centuries upon their surfaces! Would it not be more than coincidental that they consider these enigmatic, furry giants, as threats? And. If so, would it not be more than just useless speculation to assume that a certain number of the large volume of disappearances could be due to the cannibalistic nature of Sasquatch? Some Americans as well as Native Americans have even speculated that the females of these creatures may actually abduct human children out of grief if they have lost one of their own children due to accidents, illness, or even an attack of some kind.

Summation

Although one can easily see that a huge land mass of American Forests and National Parks along with all the possibilities that could happen from within represents a great challenge to search parties whenever an adult or child go missing. Yet, the reluctance of the US federally controlled park system to cooperate or to make public their statistical data is problematic and it leads to ominous conclusions. Could it be corruption, negligence, or from some manifestation that simply cannot be explained much less stopped? These are the questions that keep people like David Paulides searching the police records trying to decipher the enigma of those who disappeared.