In my experience, feds tell you that they're feds, unless you're a member of a group they're investigating. Then they'll usually try to get an informant to join or turn a member.
@@userequaltoNull I don't have a whole lot of experience with them, but I have had them show up at a friend's place asking about me. They seem pretty open about what they are except in the situation I mentioned before. A lot of it seems to be intimidation oriented especially if they don't like your politics and interests. That's Canada though, things may be different in other countries.
As a Scandinavian the phrase “If you hear someone call your name in the woods… No you didn’t!” really resonates with me. We got tons of folklore about what might be out there and while most of it is probably hogwash it doesn’t change the fact that a lot of the forest around here is more or less untouched and each year tens of thousands of people go missing. Sure the vast majority is eventually found (alive or otherwise…) but each year there are about 60-70 people that are just… Gone. Some of which disappeared in truly bizarre circumstances that makes you wonder if the old tales maybe got a kernel of truth in them..
Interestingly I'm a person of Scandinavia descent that grew up a few hours from the Appalachians. I've always wanted to see the mountains in Sweden/Norway to see how they compare.
@@jordanlr1577 the mountains of appalachia were once part of the same chain that exists in the north of Ireland and Scotland too. Interestingly, the bulk of people that live in appalachia descend from Irish and Scots from the same mountainous areas. I've seen the Highlands and mournes (Nireland) and they take on a more rounded appearance due to a recent glaciation period however the bulk geology underneath the rounded soil definitely compares to pics of appalachia (I've never been would love to visit)
Even traffickers probably would not pursue a potential victim for 12 days in the woods. Time is money, especially to them, and they missed a lot of potential kidnappings to try and get one girl with the sense enough to flee from them into the wilderness.
@@FlameDarkfire how many traffickers, roughly, do you think are active in the US? Cause so far we've got 365 kidnapped and trafficked women every year from 2 traffickers.
Something like this kinda happened to a lady in Texas a few years ago. She was on the phone with 911 telling them she was being chased into the woods until she lost service. Her remains were found this past July.
This one's a spooky one considering it wasn't just some monster that may or may not exist, but because she actually heard men chasing her. Glad they found her alive
@@jandt9784 bro you one of those people on anime sites to go into comments and be like "MaRK aS SpOILer" dont read comments until video is over moron. comment sections are for the content of this video, which will inherently be ONLY spoilers.
You would have to be in quite a phase of fear to ditch your backpack that has supplies in it to be able to run faster. I don't think I've heard this missing 411 before thanks for sharing it.
You would think, but panicked people (who are normally very smart) can do some pretty stupid things, in hindsight. There's reasons the Military trains people so hard.
@@mollylollipopsMe too, I vaguely remember a story about a female being chased, but it sounded like it could have been a creature or something. I very well could be wrong.
She probably did get chased by someone real at some point, but they likely gave up and left a long time before she was found. The poor lady was probably so terrified though that she refused to come out of hiding even at threat of starvation.
It's also said that she ate wild berries. Maybe she was being chased at first but then started hallucinating after she ran into the forest and ate the berries.
@@richardmoore609 An experienced hiker like her would know what berries/mushrooms/leaves etc. are actually edible. Though I doubt that she would hallucinate for multiple days from eating poisonous berries. And if she was at first surviving off of the food the found, she would have still been capable of trying to patch herself up and later (even paranoid) at least attempted because she would have known the possibility of infection and what not. She could have been followed at first, but yeah, later gotten more paranoid/come across more such people (a few human traffickers would not wait around for days but with multiple groups across the entire area...).
robert hansen in alaska hunted women for sport. i’m an appalachian native. we are not all crazy hillbillies, but if someone wanted to act something like this out… our woods would be a good place.
yeah thats what came to mind for me too, like there are predatory people out there, there are people who would hunt people for sport before hurting them, or hunting them just because they get off on scaring people, or even just scaring someone bc they think its funny and not pursuing them further, add to that a young woman by herself is an easy target for all kinds of people, it seems feasible yk. was she necessarily being hunted the whole time? potentially less likely but when you are scared for your life not to mention cold and malnourished and dehydrated and sleep deprived, you are not exactly gonna make the most rational choices
Hansen did hunt women for sport but only after he had lured city sex workers into his airplane and flown them out to his 'hunting cabin'. He didn't find women already in the woods.
@@anastasiawhite605that's nuts. DAE think serial killers,.esp rapists, have reduced in numbers now compared to the 60s-80s because of the instant gratification of all the p0Rrn online and the many many new ways they can get caught or are they just so much better at NOT getting caught because o5f all the news😅
Cool fact: the Appalachian mountains are part of the same mountain range as the mountains in the Lake District in England and also the Scandinavian mountains. They were broken up when continents drifted apart. Having been to the lake District, time moves very strangely there.
I've never heard of the mountains in Scandinavia being part of this, but I do know that the Little Atlas mountains in Morocco were part of the same range before the continents drifted apart.
My great grandparents lived in WV and would tell stories about cougars being able to cry like women and babies and smart enough to lure people out of their little cabins, they would just jump on the roof and make creepy sounds just waiting and lurking, thinking 'come out'. My cat likes to sit on the hood of my neighbors car and it's kinda cute we laugh about it, a 140lb cat sitting on the wood cabin roof... not so cute and that's something that really is not out of the ordinary, cats can make weird sounds and they will attack people.
And the even more disturbing thing is that a lot of those noises are mating calls. It's the cougar equivalent of a human woman standing on a rooftop screaming "Eff me, I am turned on, this is my location and I want to get pregnant".
I remember watching videos of people near areas where cougars are known to live recording the loud cries of them. They definitely sound woman-like and near human.
Cougars are in the Appalachia Mountains But they are hardly ever seen. I’ve heard them but never saw one. Only bobcat I’ve ever seen was roadkill. Cats don’t like being seen unless they want to. Lived in these mountains most of my life and I like to go in woods.
I know some guys who were out hunting and rescued a woman who had had terrible things happen to her. She ran off into the woods and almost fell into their hide. They not only brought her to the cops (which was ghastly for all concerned because she thought they would be helping the attacker), they recognised the attacker and after he got out of jail, made certain he couldn't live locally again. Apart from talking with the cops and maybe some therapists, those two guys refuse to discuss what happened. The terror of the woman has scarred them mentally for life. It's not something it's easy to talk about
As someone that lives in Tennessee surrounded by woods... never stay in the woods if everything is deathly quite. It means something isn't right and you shouldn't be there. Whether you do or don't believe in cryptids you should take that advice, it could mean there's a predator out there and all the other animals know to shut up and get away from there. Also like mentioned in the video, I wouldn't go out if it was raining. Some of the strangest or creepiest things have happened when I was out in the woods during a light drizzle.
Basically anyone with any woods experience knows about the "deathly silence". And its named that VERY SPECIFICALLY. Prey animals almost unanimously go quiet and still when a known predator or something strange is in the area. Hell its a trope in movies. You would think more people would know about it and not ignore such a thing.
its crazy how quickly they just excused this as just "paranoia", of course, she could have been a little, but wow. what she described with the men on the walkie talkies is terrifying, this would have freaked me out so badly, and im not a paranoid person.
@@ivansyomkin2156 Walkie talkies are commonly used by people who work in remote areas. Forest rangers, contract workers logging, certain drug operations. My unit used to provide fake locals for Special Operations trainers. My former platoon mates were exactly the kind of jerks who'd fuck around with people. They once said they found a marijuana field in the area they were set up in. This is hardly an unbelievable story.
regardless of if someone was intitiallu chasing her, got her off trail, then she became paranoid due to exposure/hunger/etc. the way they shrugged it off so easy is why it’s so questionable. nobody was doing there jobs
Sure, but on the other hand, how do you search that, they'd be left with nothing to track, yes they were incredibly dismissive, but if they weren't, people would want them to search more, wasting money and resources on a fools errand.
The cops doing their jobs? In Appalachia? There's only two kinds of cops out here- well-meaning lazy morons and thugs who signed up because they might get to shoot someone. The latter usually get to the position of Sheriff.
well yes they're going to be very dismissive of the situation because it sounds completely made up. Especially when you work in law enforcement and you know how traffickers, kidnapper and rapists work. They don't chase you for 12 days into thick Woods. Yes you will find certain types of foods along the trail, but you're not going to see packages of donuts and pound cake deep in the woods. Where nobody is ever going to be around. When the more likely scenario is, she got lost in the woods and was too embarrassed to say she was lost, so she made up a story.
@@borjaslamic That's how serial killers rack up horrifically high body counts, if you shrug off something like this as too hard to investigate then you basically admit those woods are a lawless zone for whatever depraved individuals to make their playground .
@13:34 I’m willing to bet the “cache” of cake and donuts she found wasn’t for hikers, it was a bait site for bears. I live in the blue ridge mountains and have 4 bait sites full of similar stuff
@@Ramzey44that’s what I thought but like wouldn’t they just take the food and leave? lol or are you hanging some donuts on the tree and sitting behind a bush and waiting??
@@DeecentAnimal it’s mainly about creating a pattern for them. Once a week or so you would go out and refill the spot with bait, so the bears know to always go there for food. That way even when there isn’t bait there they will still come by and check it out
to be honest a lot my interaction with police has kind of been "unless you have all the evidence we need to convict somebody on you, were not gonna bother investigating" so hearing the cops didn't do anything doesn't exactly shock me
As a woman I would 100% rather run into the woods and die than be captured and possibly r*ped. I believe that there is a possibility that she was being chased and when she kept evading the men they got frustrated and angry with her and continued to hunt her even though it would be unlikely, I do not doubt the danger of men. Even if they stopped chasing her after a few days I believe she would’ve been scared and paranoid and that’s why she did not try to seek help.
Thank you for so eloquently explaining why people write these things off. I, as a man, am several times more likely to be r*ped than you. I am equally likely to be raped by a woman as you are by a man. Citation, number of men "made to penetrate"(which isn't a crime, so is tracked by the cdc) vs female victims of forced penetration by male perpetrators(fbi). And I feel zero paranoia about it. This is not a biological, nor logical perspective you have. It is a neurotic one that was trained into you. Men are not out to r*pe you.
Pains me to hear this, Eloise is extremely strong and blessed, there is more to this story, I think they chose not to investigate for a reason but we may never know
A fair number of people here make a good point. She likely did keep running out of fear and mistook search groups as the people from the trail. The police likely didn't follow up because they pieced together that the people from the woods were members of the search parties looking for her, and trying to find any evidence from a hiking trail would've been pointless if the suspects didn't leave anything behind.
Yeah, but they could have said that, and even pointed out some of the possibilities and that all the search parties would have scared off the men and confused the evidence too much for them to do anything instead of just saying they didn't believe her.
There's similarities to the Nancy Morgan case who was abducted and found dead in the Appalachian mountains. Years later someone confessed to being involved but never followed up on. It was a local group of men being predators and criminals who did similar things to many other women. Law enforcement knew them but didn't care. They had strong communication ties and people feared repercussions (like arson). It was investigated in "Met her on the mountain". I believe both can be true, a group of men chasing her initially and her being too scared to be found after. And it's entirely possible locals knew who was involved very well
I’ve lived in eastern Kentucky all my life and I spent a lot of my childhood wondering off into the woods usually with friends but not always. I can confirm that there are often construction equipment in the middle of the woods. Logging or clearing for water lines/electrical, or deep soil sampling. I could believe some guys being contracted to do a job, often paid by the day, in the woods on a break and wanting to mess with a lone girl on the trail. They maybe move a little farther every day on their job or just more familiar with the woods because they’ve been out there for a while and probably have maps. Appalachia can be such a beautiful place but it’s also very desolate and remote, making it turn creepy very quick. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard a similar experience of a young woman being chased into the woods by some assholes thinking they’re so funny.
This totally makes sense. I was thinking maybe hunters, campers, or park service employees with... disgusting intentions. My friends and I have been harassed and threatened by men while hiking or camping many times - had to be a shield for my roommate in a camp bathroom, knife out, and scream at the top of my lungs to get ANY help the worst time. That perv left in the back of a cop car 💅 Very proud of Eloise for surviving and the hunter for getting her to safety.
There are so many true stories of women who have been stalked/chased by men during hikes or runs. The first one that springs to mind is athlete Kari Swenson who was stalked and captured by a father and son "Mountain Men" back in 1984. When a rescue team was out searching for her, a friend of hers Alan Goldstein found her tied with chains to a tree. He approached her and Alan, not knowing that the father was keeping watch at a distance, shot and killed Goldstein. When the son came running to see what had happened, he "accidentally" shot Kari in chest. Don and Dan Nichols (father and son) then fled and five months after a manhunt in the mountains of south western Montana, were captured by law enforcement. It was made into a TV movie and more recently, was featured in an episode of Investigation Discovery's "Your Worst Nightmare".
So, just going off what I've been told by people I know who have lived in the area, I think she probably had a run in with moonshiners. Yes, they still do that in those areas, and they can get VERY aggressive about people coming around their stills. What happens is they will have people set up a distance away from the site with radios to keep watch for feds. As for what followed her after that, idk, I doubt highly that they followed her that far from their site. As for why local law enforcement wouldn't look it to the incident, half of them are in the moonshiners pocket, and the other half are the moonshiners.
I like this theory the best out of all the ones people have floated but wouldn't those 'shiners have to be a special kind of stupid to set up their still within easy, accidental wandering distance off a major national hiking trail?
Back in the eighties my dad got run out of the woods in the western part of Virginia, but he didn't figure it was about moonshining. He believed that somebody was protecting what was probably a field of marijuana they were growing in a clearing.
@@lilyw.719 I had friends who ran into the same thing. They were doing the Robin Sage school, which is a military training operation for Special Forces. These military ops can be held off base in extremely wide ranges. Police and locals are informed about these training exercises. My unit were roleplaying locals who were to be trained as guerilla fighters, but my friends liked to say avoiding work was just "getting into character". They said they found a secret marijuana field, and apparently this was not uncommon. They were told they'd be fine as long as they avoided it, but they told me they planned to go back and raid it one day...🙄
@@Seamstrixshe was on the trail, why mess with her if she's just la-de-dah hiking on the trail and showing no sign of searching for stills? That's what this theory crumbles on.
Maybe in 1989 that was a problem. But having hiked in this area for over 20 years, including off trail, I can assure you this stereotype is grossly exaggerated
I remember when he called you a Fed on the podcast. Absolutely love it and hope to make the next one as I have a question I think you’d be able to answer
Dude you've spoken before about being in boy scouts, don't you remember the survival training on wilderness panic? People can become paranoid incredibly quickly in the woods and just take off running in a direction, they tend to only stop once they're totally exhausted. It's a fairly well known phenomenon and isn't very controversial. This is literally part of why search and rescue is so hard, even on a bright sunny perfect day people can panic as soon as they realize that they're lost and go into an unending anxiety spiral.
I grew up in Appalachia & there are many strange things about those mtns. Though i lived near an entire family that had no running water, electricity etc. So that's definitely a thing. Besides there are criminals &... other things out there too imo.
To be completely fair, I have some family that live in a hand built wood and tin cabin with no running water and the most advanced piece of technology they own is a radio from the early 80s; rotary phone, manual wood heating, hand carve their daily essentials like bowls, chairs, etc out of wood and deer bone, in a major university town in the Midwest. Some people are just weird.
Yes. Don't dismiss the fact that many criminals go underground to avoid prosecution in remote places like the far north. Not everyone decides to stay in their city or a different one.
Fear can do strange things to the brain. I believe she might have been chased off the trail, maybe even followed for a time, but I don't think she was pursued for the entire 12 days. It's more likely to me that she was in survival mode and once she started running, every sound turned into a potential threat and she believed she had to keep going or risk being caught. It's disappointing that the police put so little effort into figuring out what happened, but I'm glad she was found safe.
This one is so scary because it isn’t paranormal. Reminds me of the story of the two men who picked up people who’s car broke down and dropped them off in woods to hunt them.
My mom hiked the Appalachian Trail back in the day, and even helped create the Benton Mackaye trail. She's told me some major creepy stories about hiking in the area in the 70s/80s. The most disturbing was that she and three fellow hikers were coming out of a several day trip, about 1/2 mile from the trailhead. They come around a bend, and walking towards them were two men and a young woman clearly in distress. Her group immediately froze, and then a guy she was hiking with planted himself in the middle of the trail, in the way of the oncoming group. As they approached, my mom said they very clearly heard a pistol slide being racked . Her friend tensed up, paused, and then stepped to the side. The approaching men just kept walking, passed my mom's group, and continued down the trail. My mom's group immediately called the cops as soon as they could, but never got contacted by the local cops to give statements
Spoilers* I think that the people who think she was paranoid were correct tbh. Think abt it, she was abt to be picked up by traffickers, ran into the forest and was followed by them for hours, then when ppl started searching, she ran from them. This would explain why she said they looked like hunters and construction workers, traffickers looking like hunters to fit in, and the search and rescue team using search and rescue helmets and gear. Would also explain why the cops wouldn't open an investigation.
Yeah tbh this could've been a psychotic break, those happen to real sane people onset of schizophrenia is between 20-30 and people have schizo episodes or breaks for a couple of days and then never have them again.paranoia and audio hallucinations are actually quite plausible
@@garrett3055 that’s not paranoia necessary, it’s just the kind of thing that women are taught to do. You never tell someone on the phone or at the front door you’re alone, even if you have to completely pretend. I used to fake call people and have full blown conversations with no body while I walked home so that if anyone creepy walked past they’d think twice about attacking me, my friend regularly takes pictures of people and sends them to all of her mates (usually men) if they walk too close behind her for too long or give her the creeps just in case something happens. It’s literally the world we live in. Not to say she wasn’t paranoid but that is necessarily something only someone who is delusional would do
It’s situations like this that, even as a large man, make me stay away from bright hiking colors, and carry my EDC gun and sometimes a rifle in the woods. I want to be able to evade easily and fight if needed
I get that’s it’s weird that they didn’t investigate further but what would you expect from a small police headquarters back then to do? Literally comb through the woods and track down something that definitely isn’t there anymore? I get the frustration but it’s ridiculous to think that the police would even find anything after roaming around the woods for a day.
Living very near the Appalachian Trail all my life, I can tell you that there are places and people that are better to avoid. My guess would be that the police knew or suspected who did this and knew that it was a situation that was better for all involved to just let it alone. An aside... I believe it depends on what part of Appalachia you're in as to how it's pronounced. Southern Pennsylvanian's say it ap-a-LAY-sha / ap-a-LAY-shen.
Or the police already spent a bunch of time in the woods looking for her and didn't see anything suspicious, so they saw need to investigate further after the fact.
I think anyone who's experienced paranoid delusions before can attest to how they can come out of nowhere, for no reason, with no precursors or signs, and how intense and unforgiving they can be. Quite honestly, as someone who's experienced paranoid delusions and supports a lot of people who struggle with paranoid delusions, based on your description of the situation, it really does just sound like she was a victim of her own overactive mind.
I was thinking this exactly. I have heard of numerous cases of people who go missing for days at a time and were very close to the searchers. I think a lack of food and water maybe even factor in the pain she was in from hurting herself that she was going through a very vivid hallucinations.
Except that she had no history of mental illness. If what your saying is true, then anything anyone experiences can be chalked up to paranoid delusions.
I figure I can add how it's possible to be both dark enough to lose someone and light enough to see a possible creature, sometimes in low light the trees can obscure the sun enough to make patches dark hide say a deer or bear, but parts of that beautiful Appalachian sun streak through to illuminate the many squirrel making their way to grab mast from the ground and trees. It's wild to see. I recommend taking a good morning hike to see it. I'm know it's not isolated to Appalachia, but anywhere with dense hard and soft woods left to their own devices.
This is definitely one of the most interesting missing persons cases I have ever heard. I've seen videos about it for years now but it never ceases to be chilling and fascinating because there are so many things that don't add up and usually when this many things don't add up we don't get a live person recovered
Thank you for the scale, I struggle with scale and general in-head measurements of things beyond the eyeline. Can we also have a video on the sin-eaters of apalachia? I love the varied modern mythology of the area. Thanks guys
It’s a miracle that she made it out alive. Her story could very well get us closer to finding out the truth behind many other disappearances, but of course it was dropped by the police instantly lol
Sounds like paranoia... If people searched for her jt makes sense she thought rescuers were traffickers.. Unless she did something HORRIBLE traffickers wouldn't spend days on one person...
Perhaps. Yet women HAVE harmed themselves sometimes severely, to get another person in trouble. There have been more than a few cases of this happening only for later investigations to prove the accused attackers innocence.
@@trailblazer632?? that's not a symptom of being a woman, that's like, one crazy person. men are also capable of being crazy people. that's not a woman thing. however, being demeaned, not believed, and called hysterical is something specifically women are targeted with. hope this helps.
@lunecakes who said it was a symptom of being a woman? I said that its happened and its not nearly as rare as it should be nor as you might think. Its not the "myth of hysteria"
@@trailblazer632 im saying that it is far, far more likely for women to have been victimised and then to be later discredited and not believed than it is for them to have harmed themselves in an attempt to do someone in. i find it disingenuous to take a comment about hysteria (which is a recognised medical myth btw) and say "uhm, actually, sometimes women lie."
@lunecakes its actually not that much more likely. As it turns out women make false accusations a lot. About as often as men do if not slightly more often. Its part of the reason the whole "me too" movement got so much push back. Its become more and more clear over the last couple decades that false accusations of abuse are WAY more common than most people thought.
The Foothills Trail is absolutely gorgeous. I am fortunate enough to live near it and hike it often. It seems like many people think the FT and AT are the same. They are two different trails
4:36 that girl in the picture is not a “feral” person living In Appalachia. She was kept locked in a room in the dark by herself since she was a baby, by her father because she was autistic. When they found her she couldn’t speak and was scared of everyone. I love your channel but I think it’s disrespectful to use the photo of this girl with a term that she is not associated with, after all she had gone through. That look on her face is not feral, it is that of someone locked away and abused for 12 years.
To add...I believe it was called "operation broken shield" in New Orleans that can give you a real idea of how messed up some police departments were in the 90's. I could tell you some stories
Are you misremembering? Google pulls up nothing for operation broken shield except a arma op and this one website with a couple of sentences of something in tennesse which is found nowhere else.
Speaking of Appalachia, my grandparents used to live in WV (my mom’s side is from WV and my dad’s side if from Ohio). My WV grandparents have so many stories about Appalachia including a story about seeing a pterodactyl in the woods
I also don't believe that Eloise made that story up for attention. It doesn’t make any sense. I believe that she actually was being chased. Maybe not by human traffickers, but surely by people who got something out of the chase. Maybe thrill? There are very twisted and weird people out there and a trail like that, where people sometimes hike alone is perfect for chasing and scaring or even murdering people. Maybe these people stopped the chase after a certain point, but Eloise was still too scared to leave her hide? Totally possible in my opinion. And the cops probably didn’t want to investigate further because she was found alive and tracking these people down would be a whole lot of work. So they simply didn’t.
I've seen a detailed report about this case. It's likely that Eloise developed a type of paranoia, sometimes called "primal fear". The men she hear (if real) could have been searchers.
@@TheMattTrakker no, he's being kind and respectful to this woman's case because despite what might have actually happened this woman's fear was absolutely real. She was positively terrified for her life and being respectful is common curiosity and empathy. It's not "simping", it's called having compassion and understanding, you should try it instead of dismissing the kindness that is being shown for this woman's case.
Growing up I lived right next to a reservoir that I spent hours and hours a day on. There are days when it just felt different and days when you knew you just shouldn’t be there.
“She heard men behind her on the trail using walkie talkies talking about kidnapping a girl up ahead of them. Then a sixth sense kicked in…” bruh, hearing has got to be like 3rd sense on the list.
The men were talking about her. They were talking about how they would wait for her to pass so they can go to their illegal hunting spot. The men were poachers, bear poachers. That cashé of donuts was illegal bait for bears, they absolutely love the stuff. They weren't chasing her. Hearing them talk about her jus triggered a primal response that u can't blame her for. She's a survivor n one hell of a strong person to b that determined to live. I've seen people who gave up n were jus ready to get it over with days before she did. Truly a badass.
I was amazed in the beginning of your documentary that you mentioned several of the various peoples in Appalachia. In particular I am a descendant of Welsh immigrants who came to the U.S. and settled in the area. The family line consisted of copper and tin miners in Wales and then they came here and continued the mining tradition! Excellent research!!
"Feral People" I remember a story where a guy just lived in the woods for like 20+ years, stole from all the local community houses, and no-one knew he was out there until he was caught. Oh they knew stuff was getting stolen, but they were completely unaware of who the "Wild Man" was, most probably believed it was a racoon or something. Definitely possible for a group of people to live in isolation and NOT get found.
I remember a story about a man and his daughter who lived in a public park in Portland, Oregon for years until they were caught. I watched a video recently on Stealth Camping (its getting harder with more people getting everywhere). Heaven knows graduating Army Ranger School often means stealing food from locals while living in the wild.
I'm glad she's safe now, and I wouldn't put it past someone to just want to terrorize hikers by stalking and harassing them for fun if they live nearby and have time on their hands. I've lived in pretty rural areas and people will 100% go out on roads, tailgate people for miles just to scare them. It's shitty but it happens. People suck tbh
every time i hear you go off on law enforcement, families, and/or attorneys for not doing their job or taking accountability i just hear the homelander theme in the background playing as you rant its amazing i love it
Huge respect for not plugging the sponsor til the end, I pay for premium and it's infuriating to pay to have the ads removed, and still get them shoved downy throat in the beginning and middle of the video
“Country Roads” was actually inspired by western Maryland, but was meant to be about Appalachia in general. The use of West Virginia in the lyrics was entirely intentional. If you ever come to West Virginia and say the song is about western Virginia, you will become the next Missing 411 case.
I grew up in the West Virginia Appalachians; it really is a wild wonderful place. I remember many times either hiking or kayaking hearing human but yet unhuman screams it’s amazing the sounds animals are able to make.
I don't think men can really ever understand the generational fear/trauma (pretty much instinctual at this point) that women have about being isolated with potentially volatile men. As soon as you mentioned men's voices behind her on the trail I don't think I could ever fully explain the sensation of my heart and stomach dropping. "I'm not afraid of God, I am afraid of men" Isn't a just a really good tiktok audio, it can be so fucking real.
yeah i consume a lot of true crime/missing 411/otherwise creepy content and even still watching this made my stomach drop in a way i cant explain but just such a deep instinctual fear. ive been followed by creepy and/or volatile men (for just minutes, the thought of hours or days is beyond horrifying) and its fucking scary to feel and know you are so vulnerable in that situation and you are just trying to survive in any possible way you can and in anyway that feels instinctual
💯 or that some men do not give up. In 1989, martial g(rape) was still legal. No cell phones. No internet as we have now. You'd be better off telling people you were attacked by bears or even bigfoot than men for all the support you'd get for being so "foolish" as to go hiking in the first place.
Men are far more likely to be the victims of violent crime than women are. Not even joking because the subject matter isn't funny. And if you're afraid, do what every man is expected to do and get the capability to defend yourself in some shape or form. For almost every woman in my zip code, that means learning how to safely carry and use a gun.
@@theConquerersMama Reading or watching older romance films and stories, whenever I hear a man being encouraged to persist until she finally gives in, gives me chills.
@Badficwriter people today do not get how romanticized stalking behavior was. Frightening/neghing/slapping as fore play. That if a woman was "moody" she just needed a good F. I am glad that the vibe is slowly changing in my life time. And that's before you even get into sick minds. The average guy who was genuinely, nice and empathetic got this constant messaging. And it was considered romantic. And that the woman owed a man for the amount of effort put in. My hubs and I met at work. We actually enjoyed each other but we're never single at the same time. A lot of our courtship, him asking me out for three years before I said yes would be grounds for termination. Granted in our case everyone around us cheered when we finally got together and quickly married but had I not been interested for any number of reasons the normalized pressure of it was intense. And not unique I that time period. I am not even going to go into all the "crushes" I had from customers in the 80/90s who thought professional friendliness was an onvitation/entitlement to more and would get weird. The law did absolutely nothing about that. If you were lucky a caring manager might but it didn't protect you after work.
I found you from your Donner Party video. I have binged all of your videos. Including my favorite ones of showcasing your impressive musical talent. I digress, you touched on the fact that the recount of her 12 days alone in the wild was dismissed by law enforcement officials. Which made me remember that police have that “24-48” hour statement they always try to spew when someone is reported missing. There is no law nor even a rule regarding that. People who are calling law enforcement to report some one they care for missing should be acknowledged immediately. We know our family and friends better than any officer ever will. And it sets the tone for the situation that they may not actually take it seriously from the start. Anyway, I enjoy your account. Looking forward to more content.
I've had my own experience of woods going dead silent and something very odd happen lucky never went missing but I don't go hunting without my dog anymore
I’m gonna be honest with you. I love Appalachia and I’ve spent a long time there and my wife’s family is from there. In some areas of Appalachia those “wrong turn” movies aren’t far off. There’s a lot of that region that I wouldn’t go with 6 guns and a bear
As one of those Scottish Appalachian you've mentioned, I love that you're talking about it. My kinfolk are from Mount Airy, NC. I bet what the guy saw and heard was a mountain lion.
I went hunting with my stepfather when I was six or seven. It was barely light out. I started hearing two men talking about twenty feet away, and I even saw them standing next to a white pickup truck. My stepfather saw and heard none of it. Another time, I saw a stage, wizard, animals, and furniture all made out of branches, but I think I was just very sleepy.
I just want to sincerely thank you for trying to speak about the Appalachian area and its people with kindness. I was born in WV and live here now, and I really feel like we do get stereotyped quite often as all being inbred illiterate barely human ppl. I truly appreciate when anyone doesn’t sensationalize the area and its people. Thank you again and much ❤ from WV
Your jokes have me cracking up at work lmao I’m supposed to be professional at my desk and I’m just laughing quietly like a crazy person because you don’t want to look like a fed for saying Appalachia wrong 😂
As a kid we used to hike the Appalachian for a few miles and one of our stops was Table Rock, I had a chill run down my spine when you mentioned it in the video
Since Eloise said the men had walkie talkies, it leads me to believe that they actually knew what they were doing somewhat. It suggests an amount of preparation, of planning. I've been into true crime for a while now, and I think the cops were covering something up. I'm leaning towards the guys who chased her being either law enforcement or related to them in some way. The cops do tend to cover up the scandals in their departments.
I seriously doubt it. The guys may not have planned it at all- a group of people hunting or hiking carrying walkie talkies isn't exactly rare, especially if they're hunting because it allows them to let each other know the other person's/group's location so they can "drive" deer or so they just don't freaking shoot each other. It could easily be a group of assholes out hunting and drinking (it was November, which is the start of deer season in most places) and when they saw a woman alone, decided to "have fun". The different reports could simply be different media coverage- if one person decides they heard something and prints it, then others inevitably do the same. This is especially true for witness statements. All it would have taken was for her to say something like "I thought they were X but maybe they were Y, I don't really know". Since no one caught them then the hunter/construction worker thing doesn't matter much. More likely, cops in the area didn't want citizens going out and harassing every hunter they saw or deciding to pull some vigilante justice. I know "cops are horrible " is a super popular attitude to have and many do keep quiet about shitty behaviors their coworkers display. However this wasn't some movie. There's not some entire police force that goes out hunting women together on the Appalachian Trail for shits and giggles. And it would take the entire force knowing about it and being cool with it for it to work. The idea that you believe any largish group of people can keep something like that totally quiet for decades is completely ridiculous. But believing in mass conspiracy makes for better drama, right?
@@spyrofrost9158 Look, in small towns, local governments are notoriously corrupt. When there are so few people, the uncaring attitude of the general public to local politics leads to coverups of rapes, murders, theft, or general misconduct by the local elites (government, law enforcement, and press) and their family/friends/children. It's not like that in all small towns, but when you have so few people, so poor and so isolated from the outside world, corruption flourishes.
I don't necessarily think all cops are bad. However, blowing off very specific things she claimed occurred after being found alive after 12 days being missing makes me question what their reasoning was for taking that stance about it. It isn't a hard stretch to imagine police, fire, rescue involved, all having hunting in common, maybe even growing up together? It makes me want to look into missing people around that area around 1989...
3:12 Aaaaah yes the Flatwoods Monster. One of the weirder looking cryptids from around the U.S. Interestingly, the Flatwoods Monster, or at least it’s odd physical description, became incredibly popular in Japanese media, arguably far more than it did in the U.S. I believe there’s a few good videos on its proliferation throughout Japanese culture on this here platform, might be worth a look for anyone else interested in cryptids and how they’re portrayed in media!
The Appalachian mountains are definitely kinda spooky. Went on a hike the other day - my car is the only one in the lot that isn't a ranger vehicle - and about 3 miles up a mountain I hear a small child yell "no" and it sounded like the kid was right next to me. There were also no animals I saw the entire 8 miles, though I did hear the very distinct sound of something like an axe striking a tree (again, it's just me and my dog out there, and it's government land as far as you can see). I've never experienced dead silence in the mountains. It's super creepy. I mentioned it to my coworkers and they all have stories (either their own or from people they know) who had similar happen in this same park. I gotta find me a hiking buddy that isn't my dog.
Fun fact! The appalachian mountains once were the one and same mountain range that we have in scandinavia and scotland! I spent my 25th birthday there, walking with my childhood and best friend with the mountains next to us all along. The place is called Undersåker, very close to Sweden’s most famous ski resort, Åre. Where I learned how to ski as a small child.
I think the "hear someone calling your name" is just your brain being silly. I have heard my name being called out by nobody multiple times in my life even in my own appartement. It's spooky but the cause is probably just a lack of sleep or too much stress or something like that.
I used to constantly hear my parents angrily calling my name as a kid! Wasn’t ever actually real though and it was mainly an inconvenience. I’d pester them a ton when they’d never called me or I’d ignore them actually calling me cause I’d think that I was imagining it! I guess it could have been scary but it was for years and nothing bad has happened on account of that so lol
My question is... if she truly believed she was being chased by unknown men... what made her decide to embrace an unknown hunter for rescue? She would've surely thought he was one of them.
Seems like she knew who was following and seeing that the hunter wasn't one of them asked for help, she said she knew she was being searched but was afraid to make the ones following her knew her location. I understand the paranoia angle to a point but find it a lie for the police not do their jobs because she could differentiate between who was the "good and bad guys" and a person suffering a psychosis or paranoia probably couldn't.
I live in the Appalachian Mountains in SWVA. I'd NEVERRRRR go up to those trails & they're not far from me in every direction. In fact, people were murdered up there & at one point in my life, the murderer lived about 800 ft up the road from us. They only gave him an ankle bracelet. There was a book written about it. But I've heard of horror stories about it up there, no thank you!
What was there to investigate? They had just spent all that time combing the woods and apparently didn't see anyone else or anything suspicious. I guess you can take a second look, but with no clues, no suspects, and no one with a motive that trail is going to go cold pretty quickly.
I think the bigger issue is the search party would have likely trampled any evidence. And the issue is they waited 24hrs and then said "nah she's nuts." Did they get a statement? Did they get descriptions? Did they check the book she signed to see if anyone matched her description? Did they check into any construction in the area? There's a lot they could have done
If you have ever spent the night in the deep forest ALONE.. you know in the middle of the night you hear ALL kinds of weird things. I once went alone on a fishing trip and camped beside a small stream ..The whole time i was trying to sleep i heard children playing outside my tent.. and cars driving by and there was NO road for miles. People talking and partying. It was the bubbling of that creek that was creating those sounds... I think.!!! I had to force myself not to get paranoid and try to rationalize what i was hearing . If i was a woman out there alone i have no doubts i would have freaked out and been running from shadows. Even the trees rubbing together with a slight wind can sound like men talking. Its incredible what the human mind can muster in the middle of a long night alone in the woods. That being said. There is for sure more in heaven and earth than we imagine or can even conceive.
I'm skeptical on this one, I think maybe she did get spooked by some people on the trail, but after a few days began to become sort of schizophrenically paranoid. If you dont even try to let yourself be found after almost 2 weeks in the woods, I think you've had some sort of psychotic break.
You don't need a schizophrenic episode to become excessively paranoid if a group of men start using walkie talkies and talking about you on a remote and otherwise uninhabited trail. I mean hell, there's a friend of mine locally who was shot at for several minutes and nearly killed by a group of poachers who were annoyed he was disrupting their hunt on HIS property. There are many credible tales of human hunting in the Appalachian Range and other places. I wouldn't know who to trust if I were in her shoes.
I had to go back and relisten to the intro since you had me cackling at "Last time I pronounced it App-uh-lay-tian, Wendigoon said I sounded like a fed." Oh man.
Great video, as always. I just can't get behind the "feral human" idea, though. I don't think it could be said that we had "feral himans" even 50, 000 years ago during Paleolithic hunter-gatherer times. I mean, those people created art, culture, and language it takes a great deal of intelligence and knowledge to survive in the wild, that far off if the grid (literally and figuratively speaking); and it is hard to imagine a multiply- inbred, diminished IQ person being successful. People, during hunter-gatherer times, also tended to live in, at least, small clans. It was easier to survive that way. I respect other people's opinions on the matter, but I happen to think this the most unlikely suggested theory for the 411 phenomenon.
This for sure. Even those who are very inbred with severe mental and physical disabilities have to be looked after by their family and friends. It's doubtful that someone who is that messed up could survive for long on their own in the wild like that. People who are expert hikers and explorers are very well known for their common sense and presence of mind. It's what keeps you alive out there. Someone who doesn't have that isn't likely to make it for long in the mountains.
There have been cases of feral ppl being discovered, but as you point out, the catch is either that they were very young and not in the wilderness for very long, or they were being intentionally kept in the middle of nowhere by someone who provided for them. The main examples I know of are a young boy who fled into the African forest when his father killed his mother, and he survived for quite some time with a group of monkeys. When he was found and brought back to civilization, he was quite feral, and interestingly, had developed hair all over his body, except for his buttocks, like a monkey. It thinned back out to normal body hair locations the longer he stayed with his mother's relatives, so scientists theorize it had to do with his diet while he was in the forest. The other case is from Southeast Asia, where a young woman wandered out of the jungle and into a little village. She was feral to the point of having little to no understanding of language, and was very withdrawn and wary of humans. I forget if there was a shackle with a broken chain on her wrist, or if she just had injuries that made it obvious that there had been a shackle she got free of, but it was apparent that someone had been keeping her chained up in the jungle for most if not all of her life. One of the men from the village stepped forward claiming to be her father, saying she'd gone missing as a kid and never been found. His family took care of her for a while, but then one day she vanished again, and to my knowledge, that's the last anyone ever knew of her. Needless to say, her "father" was beyond suspicious, but sadly, nothing was ever done to properly investigate him.
Yeah, I think people really Overdramatise what a "Feral Person" is. The Human body is incredibly fragile, and the human senses are incredibly weak. It would be nearly impossible for a person to survive with the kinds of mental defects that are often attributed to feral people. However I Do think it would be possible for 1 man, of entirely reasonable physical and mental health, to survive out in the woods alone, suffer a variety of disfiguring injuries, get Muscle Atrophy in his vocal cords due to underuse/malnutrition, and go somewhat insane from intense social isolation, yet still survive for a good 5, 10, maybe even 20 years.
@@datdabdoe1417 A father and daughter were discovered living for years on a public park in Portland, Oregon. They were intelligent though. Eventually, they vanished again, but there is scuttlebutt that the girl re-entered society. People donated money for them. The thing is, every psycho who kept human prisoners or hunted humans that I have heard of, like Robert Hansen of Alaska, lived civilized. The savagery thing was what they did secretly. The crazy off-the-grid people seemed to prefer to live on their own or are too frightened of others to approach them. There was one case of wanna be "Mountain Men" who kidnapped Kari Swensen to be a sex slave, but she survived and pointed out that these men were not competent at living off the grid. It was performative feral living, but really stealing and going into town occasionally.
In TN not far from this and our woods are honestly terrifying. The state tries to lie abt what wildlife we have but there are bears, black mt lions, regular cougars, etc that have been caught on tape. Also a near extinct species of wolf called the red wolf which gets confused w coyotes bc of their similar coloring.
Saying “I don’t want to sound like a fed” is exactly what a fed would say
Lore Lodge? More like, PsyOp Lodge 🙃
In my experience, feds tell you that they're feds, unless you're a member of a group they're investigating. Then they'll usually try to get an informant to join or turn a member.
@@chemistryofquestionablequa6252 I've never met a fed. Anything you want to tell us???
@@userequaltoNull I don't have a whole lot of experience with them, but I have had them show up at a friend's place asking about me. They seem pretty open about what they are except in the situation I mentioned before. A lot of it seems to be intimidation oriented especially if they don't like your politics and interests. That's Canada though, things may be different in other countries.
Lol
As a Scandinavian the phrase “If you hear someone call your name in the woods… No you didn’t!” really resonates with me. We got tons of folklore about what might be out there and while most of it is probably hogwash it doesn’t change the fact that a lot of the forest around here is more or less untouched and each year tens of thousands of people go missing. Sure the vast majority is eventually found (alive or otherwise…) but each year there are about 60-70 people that are just… Gone. Some of which disappeared in truly bizarre circumstances that makes you wonder if the old tales maybe got a kernel of truth in them..
Interestingly I'm a person of Scandinavia descent that grew up a few hours from the Appalachians. I've always wanted to see the mountains in Sweden/Norway to see how they compare.
@@jordanlr1577 the mountains of appalachia were once part of the same chain that exists in the north of Ireland and Scotland too. Interestingly, the bulk of people that live in appalachia descend from Irish and Scots from the same mountainous areas. I've seen the Highlands and mournes (Nireland) and they take on a more rounded appearance due to a recent glaciation period however the bulk geology underneath the rounded soil definitely compares to pics of appalachia (I've never been would love to visit)
You should make a channel and tell these stories!
@@jordanlr1577 so Sweden, Norway, Denmark?? Lol Scandinavia isn’t an ethnicity 🤣🤣🤣
@@xConoooR1 My ancestors were Swedes. I just didn't specify because Scandinavian cultures for a group within the larger European group 🤷♂️
Even traffickers probably would not pursue a potential victim for 12 days in the woods. Time is money, especially to them, and they missed a lot of potential kidnappings to try and get one girl with the sense enough to flee from them into the wilderness.
The only reason I could see them continuing the pursuit is if she knew information about them that they couldn't risk.
@@RedDragon91 was about to comment this.
Another potential scenario, is that someone was paying for her, specifically.
How many kidnappings do you think a pair of traffickers pull off every 12 days?
@@MDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMD probably at least 1 a day
@@FlameDarkfire how many traffickers, roughly, do you think are active in the US? Cause so far we've got 365 kidnapped and trafficked women every year from 2 traffickers.
As a wv native I’ve always been told “if you say apalashia I’ll throw an apple atcha”
I'll throw an apple asha* FTFY /s
Lol
Oh such a good response I might of got hit with the apple before I figured it out.
Is it apple-"at-cha", "eye-cha", "ash-uh, or "eight-cha"?
@@chaoticignorant483at-cha
Something like this kinda happened to a lady in Texas a few years ago. She was on the phone with 911 telling them she was being chased into the woods until she lost service. Her remains were found this past July.
The Brandon Lawson case, too. Most likely drugs if you ask me but there's still unanswered questions.
@@13crazydaisies in that part of the state, I'd bet it's drugs also. Wouldn't be surprised if some of the local LEOs are involved in what happened.
Wow I wonder what she was actually going through
That is the Lawson case
Oof
This one's a spooky one considering it wasn't just some monster that may or may not exist, but because she actually heard men chasing her. Glad they found her alive
Spoiler alert
I actually didn't know this one lol
@@jandt9784 bro you one of those people on anime sites to go into comments and be like "MaRK aS SpOILer" dont read comments until video is over moron. comment sections are for the content of this video, which will inherently be ONLY spoilers.
@@jandt9784 it's... In the thumbnail
Yeah….the fact that she heard them using walkie-talkie radios…..adds an extra layer of creepiness.
You would have to be in quite a phase of fear to ditch your backpack that has supplies in it to be able to run faster. I don't think I've heard this missing 411 before thanks for sharing it.
Mr.ballen did a video on it 2 yrs ago
@@spankygfunk11 I've watched all his missing 411 vids its been so long since I've seen them. Thanks 💟
You would think, but panicked people (who are normally very smart) can do some pretty stupid things, in hindsight. There's reasons the Military trains people so hard.
Panicked people do unhinged shit all the time.
@@mollylollipopsMe too, I vaguely remember a story about a female being chased, but it sounded like it could have been a creature or something.
I very well could be wrong.
She probably did get chased by someone real at some point, but they likely gave up and left a long time before she was found. The poor lady was probably so terrified though that she refused to come out of hiding even at threat of starvation.
Or maybe she got lost at night, was ashamed to admit it and added the pursuers to her story.
@@jeanismael1753 she was a very experienced hiker she didn’t just get lost
An experienced hiker with delusions ?
It's also said that she ate wild berries. Maybe she was being chased at first but then started hallucinating after she ran into the forest and ate the berries.
@@richardmoore609 An experienced hiker like her would know what berries/mushrooms/leaves etc. are actually edible. Though I doubt that she would hallucinate for multiple days from eating poisonous berries. And if she was at first surviving off of the food the found, she would have still been capable of trying to patch herself up and later (even paranoid) at least attempted because she would have known the possibility of infection and what not. She could have been followed at first, but yeah, later gotten more paranoid/come across more such people (a few human traffickers would not wait around for days but with multiple groups across the entire area...).
robert hansen in alaska hunted women for sport. i’m an appalachian native. we are not all crazy hillbillies, but if someone wanted to act something like this out… our woods would be a good place.
yeah thats what came to mind for me too, like there are predatory people out there, there are people who would hunt people for sport before hurting them, or hunting them just because they get off on scaring people, or even just scaring someone bc they think its funny and not pursuing them further, add to that a young woman by herself is an easy target for all kinds of people, it seems feasible yk. was she necessarily being hunted the whole time? potentially less likely but when you are scared for your life not to mention cold and malnourished and dehydrated and sleep deprived, you are not exactly gonna make the most rational choices
Same with the Western Deserts and the Rocky mountains, ppl who have the motivation will absolutely go through with it :/
Hansen did hunt women for sport but only after he had lured city sex workers into his airplane and flown them out to his 'hunting cabin'. He didn't find women already in the woods.
@@anastasiawhite605that's nuts. DAE think serial killers,.esp rapists, have reduced in numbers now compared to the 60s-80s because of the instant gratification of all the p0Rrn online and the many many new ways they can get caught or are they just so much better at NOT getting caught because o5f all the news😅
I imagine very few of ya’ll are crazy. I expect being out in the country does good things for one’s mental health, not bad.
Cool fact: the Appalachian mountains are part of the same mountain range as the mountains in the Lake District in England and also the Scandinavian mountains. They were broken up when continents drifted apart.
Having been to the lake District, time moves very strangely there.
I've never heard of the mountains in Scandinavia being part of this, but I do know that the Little Atlas mountains in Morocco were part of the same range before the continents drifted apart.
Yep. Used to live there. Noone disappears there though 😎
Good one. Thanks 😊
That's so cool I love learning stuff like that
My great grandparents lived in WV and would tell stories about cougars being able to cry like women and babies and smart enough to lure people out of their little cabins, they would just jump on the roof and make creepy sounds just waiting and lurking, thinking 'come out'. My cat likes to sit on the hood of my neighbors car and it's kinda cute we laugh about it, a 140lb cat sitting on the wood cabin roof... not so cute and that's something that really is not out of the ordinary, cats can make weird sounds and they will attack people.
And the even more disturbing thing is that a lot of those noises are mating calls.
It's the cougar equivalent of a human woman standing on a rooftop screaming "Eff me, I am turned on, this is my location and I want to get pregnant".
@@atashgallagher5139 XD
I remember watching videos of people near areas where cougars are known to live recording the loud cries of them. They definitely sound woman-like and near human.
Cougars are in the Appalachia Mountains
But they are hardly ever seen.
I’ve heard them but never saw one.
Only bobcat I’ve ever seen was roadkill.
Cats don’t like being seen unless they want to.
Lived in these mountains most of my life and I like to go in woods.
@@atashgallagher5139 There are hot cougars in your area
The fact that this happened in my back yard and I literally know the man that found her but have never heard about this is absolutely crazy.
lmao just another Tuesday
I know some guys who were out hunting and rescued a woman who had had terrible things happen to her. She ran off into the woods and almost fell into their hide. They not only brought her to the cops (which was ghastly for all concerned because she thought they would be helping the attacker), they recognised the attacker and after he got out of jail, made certain he couldn't live locally again.
Apart from talking with the cops and maybe some therapists, those two guys refuse to discuss what happened. The terror of the woman has scarred them mentally for life. It's not something it's easy to talk about
Im here in upstate SC as well. I love the foothills trail, especially the Jocassee Gorges
As someone that lives in Tennessee surrounded by woods... never stay in the woods if everything is deathly quite. It means something isn't right and you shouldn't be there. Whether you do or don't believe in cryptids you should take that advice, it could mean there's a predator out there and all the other animals know to shut up and get away from there. Also like mentioned in the video, I wouldn't go out if it was raining. Some of the strangest or creepiest things have happened when I was out in the woods during a light drizzle.
Could you please give us a story or 2 about what unusual occurrences you have experienced while in the rain?
I'm genuinely curious,ty!
Basically anyone with any woods experience knows about the "deathly silence". And its named that VERY SPECIFICALLY. Prey animals almost unanimously go quiet and still when a known predator or something strange is in the area. Hell its a trope in movies. You would think more people would know about it and not ignore such a thing.
its crazy how quickly they just excused this as just "paranoia", of course, she could have been a little, but wow. what she described with the men on the walkie talkies is terrifying, this would have freaked me out so badly, and im not a paranoid person.
When you have paranoid delusions you can very easily misinterpret the men talking as being about you, or even see and hear things that aren't real.
@@ivansyomkin2156 Walkie talkies are commonly used by people who work in remote areas. Forest rangers, contract workers logging, certain drug operations. My unit used to provide fake locals for Special Operations trainers. My former platoon mates were exactly the kind of jerks who'd fuck around with people. They once said they found a marijuana field in the area they were set up in. This is hardly an unbelievable story.
Crazy how you accept everything you hear
Pro Tip: Call the Appalachian Trail the AT so you can avoid having to say Appalachian.
No, he got it right with the second pronunciation. It isn’t that damn hard to pronounce right.
He said it right when he said Appalachian and not Appalachian.
@@Impuritan1 It’s a regional thing. In the southern part they say it one way and the northern part they say it a different way.
That's just uncultured.
Say it “Ape-allah-shian” to assert dominance.
regardless of if someone was intitiallu chasing her, got her off trail, then she became paranoid due to exposure/hunger/etc. the way they shrugged it off so easy is why it’s so questionable. nobody was doing there jobs
Sure, but on the other hand, how do you search that, they'd be left with nothing to track, yes they were incredibly dismissive, but if they weren't, people would want them to search more, wasting money and resources on a fools errand.
The cops doing their jobs? In Appalachia?
There's only two kinds of cops out here- well-meaning lazy morons and thugs who signed up because they might get to shoot someone. The latter usually get to the position of Sheriff.
well yes they're going to be very dismissive of the situation because it sounds completely made up. Especially when you work in law enforcement and you know how traffickers, kidnapper and rapists work. They don't chase you for 12 days into thick Woods. Yes you will find certain types of foods along the trail, but you're not going to see packages of donuts and pound cake deep in the woods. Where nobody is ever going to be around. When the more likely scenario is, she got lost in the woods and was too embarrassed to say she was lost, so she made up a story.
@@borjaslamic That's how serial killers rack up horrifically high body counts, if you shrug off something like this as too hard to investigate then you basically admit those woods are a lawless zone for whatever depraved individuals to make their playground .
The police were involved in the trafficking ring, it’s unfortunately not uncommon
@13:34 I’m willing to bet the “cache” of cake and donuts she found wasn’t for hikers, it was a bait site for bears. I live in the blue ridge mountains and have 4 bait sites full of similar stuff
Y?
@@DeecentAnimal to attract bears so you can reliably hunt them
@@Ramzey44that’s what I thought but like wouldn’t they just take the food and leave? lol or are you hanging some donuts on the tree and sitting behind a bush and waiting??
@@DeecentAnimal it’s mainly about creating a pattern for them. Once a week or so you would go out and refill the spot with bait, so the bears know to always go there for food. That way even when there isn’t bait there they will still come by and check it out
@@Ramzey44 ah now I see!
to be honest a lot my interaction with police has kind of been "unless you have all the evidence we need to convict somebody on you, were not gonna bother investigating" so hearing the cops didn't do anything doesn't exactly shock me
As a woman I would 100% rather run into the woods and die than be captured and possibly r*ped. I believe that there is a possibility that she was being chased and when she kept evading the men they got frustrated and angry with her and continued to hunt her even though it would be unlikely, I do not doubt the danger of men. Even if they stopped chasing her after a few days I believe she would’ve been scared and paranoid and that’s why she did not try to seek help.
Thank you for so eloquently explaining why people write these things off.
I, as a man, am several times more likely to be r*ped than you. I am equally likely to be raped by a woman as you are by a man.
Citation, number of men "made to penetrate"(which isn't a crime, so is tracked by the cdc) vs female victims of forced penetration by male perpetrators(fbi). And I feel zero paranoia about it. This is not a biological, nor logical perspective you have.
It is a neurotic one that was trained into you. Men are not out to r*pe you.
Not just raped but sold and raped continuously for the rest of your life probably
Same here.
Pains me to hear this, Eloise is extremely strong and blessed, there is more to this story, I think they chose not to investigate for a reason but we may never know
This is the whole "would you rather be in the woods as a woman, with a man or a bear?"
A fair number of people here make a good point. She likely did keep running out of fear and mistook search groups as the people from the trail. The police likely didn't follow up because they pieced together that the people from the woods were members of the search parties looking for her, and trying to find any evidence from a hiking trail would've been pointless if the suspects didn't leave anything behind.
Yeah, but they could have said that, and even pointed out some of the possibilities and that all the search parties would have scared off the men and confused the evidence too much for them to do anything instead of just saying they didn't believe her.
@@indigo0977 I prefer they're just honest. Her story is unbelivable. The end.
There's similarities to the Nancy Morgan case who was abducted and found dead in the Appalachian mountains. Years later someone confessed to being involved but never followed up on. It was a local group of men being predators and criminals who did similar things to many other women. Law enforcement knew them but didn't care. They had strong communication ties and people feared repercussions (like arson). It was investigated in "Met her on the mountain". I believe both can be true, a group of men chasing her initially and her being too scared to be found after. And it's entirely possible locals knew who was involved very well
I’ve lived in eastern Kentucky all my life and I spent a lot of my childhood wondering off into the woods usually with friends but not always. I can confirm that there are often construction equipment in the middle of the woods. Logging or clearing for water lines/electrical, or deep soil sampling. I could believe some guys being contracted to do a job, often paid by the day, in the woods on a break and wanting to mess with a lone girl on the trail. They maybe move a little farther every day on their job or just more familiar with the woods because they’ve been out there for a while and probably have maps. Appalachia can be such a beautiful place but it’s also very desolate and remote, making it turn creepy very quick. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard a similar experience of a young woman being chased into the woods by some assholes thinking they’re so funny.
This totally makes sense. I was thinking maybe hunters, campers, or park service employees with... disgusting intentions.
My friends and I have been harassed and threatened by men while hiking or camping many times - had to be a shield for my roommate in a camp bathroom, knife out, and scream at the top of my lungs to get ANY help the worst time. That perv left in the back of a cop car 💅
Very proud of Eloise for surviving and the hunter for getting her to safety.
Dumbest comment here
change the some assholes to men lol you guys are so afraid generalizing men
@@radishfest x to doubt
There are so many true stories of women who have been stalked/chased by men during hikes or runs. The first one that springs to mind is athlete Kari Swenson who was stalked and captured by a father and son "Mountain Men" back in 1984. When a rescue team was out searching for her, a friend of hers Alan Goldstein found her tied with chains to a tree. He approached her and Alan, not knowing that the father was keeping watch at a distance, shot and killed Goldstein. When the son came running to see what had happened, he "accidentally" shot Kari in chest. Don and Dan Nichols (father and son) then fled and five months after a manhunt in the mountains of south western Montana, were captured by law enforcement. It was made into a TV movie and more recently, was featured in an episode of Investigation Discovery's "Your Worst Nightmare".
Omg so did she survive?
Yeah I wanna know too please. I don't understand the quotes around accidentally. It implies he wanted to actually kill her but didn't before then?
Lot more women who are paranoid because of narcissism and consuming true crime
Finally a missing 411 case I haven’t heard a million times, love you guys ❤
So, just going off what I've been told by people I know who have lived in the area, I think she probably had a run in with moonshiners. Yes, they still do that in those areas, and they can get VERY aggressive about people coming around their stills. What happens is they will have people set up a distance away from the site with radios to keep watch for feds. As for what followed her after that, idk, I doubt highly that they followed her that far from their site. As for why local law enforcement wouldn't look it to the incident, half of them are in the moonshiners pocket, and the other half are the moonshiners.
I like this theory the best out of all the ones people have floated but wouldn't those 'shiners have to be a special kind of stupid to set up their still within easy, accidental wandering distance off a major national hiking trail?
Back in the eighties my dad got run out of the woods in the western part of Virginia, but he didn't figure it was about moonshining. He believed that somebody was protecting what was probably a field of marijuana they were growing in a clearing.
@@lilyw.719 I had friends who ran into the same thing. They were doing the Robin Sage school, which is a military training operation for Special Forces. These military ops can be held off base in extremely wide ranges. Police and locals are informed about these training exercises. My unit were roleplaying locals who were to be trained as guerilla fighters, but my friends liked to say avoiding work was just "getting into character". They said they found a secret marijuana field, and apparently this was not uncommon. They were told they'd be fine as long as they avoided it, but they told me they planned to go back and raid it one day...🙄
@@Seamstrixshe was on the trail, why mess with her if she's just la-de-dah hiking on the trail and showing no sign of searching for stills? That's what this theory crumbles on.
Maybe in 1989 that was a problem. But having hiked in this area for over 20 years, including off trail, I can assure you this stereotype is grossly exaggerated
I remember when he called you a Fed on the podcast. Absolutely love it and hope to make the next one as I have a question I think you’d be able to answer
Dude you've spoken before about being in boy scouts, don't you remember the survival training on wilderness panic? People can become paranoid incredibly quickly in the woods and just take off running in a direction, they tend to only stop once they're totally exhausted. It's a fairly well known phenomenon and isn't very controversial. This is literally part of why search and rescue is so hard, even on a bright sunny perfect day people can panic as soon as they realize that they're lost and go into an unending anxiety spiral.
That doesn’t fit his narrative though. The dude has no idea what he’s talking about or he’s a blatant liar
I grew up in Appalachia & there are many strange things about those mtns. Though i lived near an entire family that had no running water, electricity etc. So that's definitely a thing. Besides there are criminals &... other things out there too imo.
How is cabin style living strange?
Lots of people in cities live without power and water and have crime lol, that's not an Appalachian exclusive
To be completely fair, I have some family that live in a hand built wood and tin cabin with no running water and the most advanced piece of technology they own is a radio from the early 80s; rotary phone, manual wood heating, hand carve their daily essentials like bowls, chairs, etc out of wood and deer bone, in a major university town in the Midwest. Some people are just weird.
@@Leo-wh1st ya that’s pretty common, I live in northern Alberta.
Yes. Don't dismiss the fact that many criminals go underground to avoid prosecution in remote places like the far north. Not everyone decides to stay in their city or a different one.
Fear can do strange things to the brain. I believe she might have been chased off the trail, maybe even followed for a time, but I don't think she was pursued for the entire 12 days. It's more likely to me that she was in survival mode and once she started running, every sound turned into a potential threat and she believed she had to keep going or risk being caught. It's disappointing that the police put so little effort into figuring out what happened, but I'm glad she was found safe.
What exactly do you want the police to do? How long should they do this? How much should they spend in this investigation to satisfy you?
This one is so scary because it isn’t paranormal. Reminds me of the story of the two men who picked up people who’s car broke down and dropped them off in woods to hunt them.
My mom hiked the Appalachian Trail back in the day, and even helped create the Benton Mackaye trail. She's told me some major creepy stories about hiking in the area in the 70s/80s.
The most disturbing was that she and three fellow hikers were coming out of a several day trip, about 1/2 mile from the trailhead. They come around a bend, and walking towards them were two men and a young woman clearly in distress. Her group immediately froze, and then a guy she was hiking with planted himself in the middle of the trail, in the way of the oncoming group. As they approached, my mom said they very clearly heard a pistol slide being racked . Her friend tensed up, paused, and then stepped to the side. The approaching men just kept walking, passed my mom's group, and continued down the trail.
My mom's group immediately called the cops as soon as they could, but never got contacted by the local cops to give statements
Fake story from someone's only experience with firearms is Hollywood. It's laughably bad like the pReddit everyone claps stories.
Never underestimate the laziness of the police. If they can get away with not investigating, they absolutely will.
Im glad workin w/ @wendigoon gave you guys a bump. You deserve it, your content is really entertaining.
Spoilers*
I think that the people who think she was paranoid were correct tbh. Think abt it, she was abt to be picked up by traffickers, ran into the forest and was followed by them for hours, then when ppl started searching, she ran from them. This would explain why she said they looked like hunters and construction workers, traffickers looking like hunters to fit in, and the search and rescue team using search and rescue helmets and gear. Would also explain why the cops wouldn't open an investigation.
Possible clusterf*ck
Yeah tbh this could've been a psychotic break, those happen to real sane people onset of schizophrenia is between 20-30 and people have schizo episodes or breaks for a couple of days and then never have them again.paranoia and audio hallucinations are actually quite plausible
Agreed. I’d be damned leery of anybody looking for me if I’d nearly been picked up by traffickers on the trail.
She started her hike paranoid. She logged 2 people in the book.
@@garrett3055 that’s not paranoia necessary, it’s just the kind of thing that women are taught to do. You never tell someone on the phone or at the front door you’re alone, even if you have to completely pretend. I used to fake call people and have full blown conversations with no body while I walked home so that if anyone creepy walked past they’d think twice about attacking me, my friend regularly takes pictures of people and sends them to all of her mates (usually men) if they walk too close behind her for too long or give her the creeps just in case something happens. It’s literally the world we live in. Not to say she wasn’t paranoid but that is necessarily something only someone who is delusional would do
It’s situations like this that, even as a large man, make me stay away from bright hiking colors, and carry my EDC gun and sometimes a rifle in the woods. I want to be able to evade easily and fight if needed
"Wendigoon told me I sounded like a Fed" is the sickest burn I've heard today.
I get that’s it’s weird that they didn’t investigate further but what would you expect from a small police headquarters back then to do? Literally comb through the woods and track down something that definitely isn’t there anymore? I get the frustration but it’s ridiculous to think that the police would even find anything after roaming around the woods for a day.
Living very near the Appalachian Trail all my life, I can tell you that there are places and people that are better to avoid. My guess would be that the police knew or suspected who did this and knew that it was a situation that was better for all involved to just let it alone. An aside... I believe it depends on what part of Appalachia you're in as to how it's pronounced. Southern Pennsylvanian's say it ap-a-LAY-sha / ap-a-LAY-shen.
In Kentucky we say it that way too
Even though NH isn’t part of Appalachia, we do have the mountains and we also say it the way you do.
A Copperhead Road situation?
Or the police already spent a bunch of time in the woods looking for her and didn't see anything suspicious, so they saw need to investigate further after the fact.
I think anyone who's experienced paranoid delusions before can attest to how they can come out of nowhere, for no reason, with no precursors or signs, and how intense and unforgiving they can be. Quite honestly, as someone who's experienced paranoid delusions and supports a lot of people who struggle with paranoid delusions, based on your description of the situation, it really does just sound like she was a victim of her own overactive mind.
I was thinking this exactly. I have heard of numerous cases of people who go missing for days at a time and were very close to the searchers. I think a lack of food and water maybe even factor in the pain she was in from hurting herself that she was going through a very vivid hallucinations.
Glad to find this take in the comments. Sounds a lot like the things I've seen before.
I’m a firm believer in the paranormal, but in this case I really think you’re right. Poor girl.
Except that she had no history of mental illness. If what your saying is true, then anything anyone experiences can be chalked up to paranoid delusions.
@@scottsmith4622mental illnesses that can cause delusions like this typically don't manifest until someone's early 20's.
I figure I can add how it's possible to be both dark enough to lose someone and light enough to see a possible creature, sometimes in low light the trees can obscure the sun enough to make patches dark hide say a deer or bear, but parts of that beautiful Appalachian sun streak through to illuminate the many squirrel making their way to grab mast from the ground and trees. It's wild to see. I recommend taking a good morning hike to see it. I'm know it's not isolated to Appalachia, but anywhere with dense hard and soft woods left to their own devices.
This is definitely one of the most interesting missing persons cases I have ever heard. I've seen videos about it for years now but it never ceases to be chilling and fascinating because there are so many things that don't add up and usually when this many things don't add up we don't get a live person recovered
Thank you for the scale, I struggle with scale and general in-head measurements of things beyond the eyeline. Can we also have a video on the sin-eaters of apalachia? I love the varied modern mythology of the area. Thanks guys
It’s a miracle that she made it out alive. Her story could very well get us closer to finding out the truth behind many other disappearances, but of course it was dropped by the police instantly lol
Sounds like paranoia... If people searched for her jt makes sense she thought rescuers were traffickers..
Unless she did something HORRIBLE traffickers wouldn't spend days on one person...
"she was paranoid" "she was delusional" this is routed deeply in misogyny and tge myth of hysteria, thank you for calling that out !
Perhaps. Yet women HAVE harmed themselves sometimes severely, to get another person in trouble. There have been more than a few cases of this happening only for later investigations to prove the accused attackers innocence.
@@trailblazer632?? that's not a symptom of being a woman, that's like, one crazy person. men are also capable of being crazy people. that's not a woman thing. however, being demeaned, not believed, and called hysterical is something specifically women are targeted with. hope this helps.
@lunecakes who said it was a symptom of being a woman? I said that its happened and its not nearly as rare as it should be nor as you might think. Its not the "myth of hysteria"
@@trailblazer632 im saying that it is far, far more likely for women to have been victimised and then to be later discredited and not believed than it is for them to have harmed themselves in an attempt to do someone in. i find it disingenuous to take a comment about hysteria (which is a recognised medical myth btw) and say "uhm, actually, sometimes women lie."
@lunecakes its actually not that much more likely. As it turns out women make false accusations a lot. About as often as men do if not slightly more often. Its part of the reason the whole "me too" movement got so much push back. Its become more and more clear over the last couple decades that false accusations of abuse are WAY more common than most people thought.
The Foothills Trail is absolutely gorgeous. I am fortunate enough to live near it and hike it often. It seems like many people think the FT and AT are the same. They are two different trails
4:36 that girl in the picture is not a “feral” person living In Appalachia. She was kept locked in a room in the dark by herself since she was a baby, by her father because she was autistic. When they found her she couldn’t speak and was scared of everyone. I love your channel but I think it’s disrespectful to use the photo of this girl with a term that she is not associated with, after all she had gone through. That look on her face is not feral, it is that of someone locked away and abused for 12 years.
To add...I believe it was called "operation broken shield" in New Orleans that can give you a real idea of how messed up some police departments were in the 90's. I could tell you some stories
Are you misremembering? Google pulls up nothing for operation broken shield except a arma op and this one website with a couple of sentences of something in tennesse which is found nowhere else.
@@funniestdudeontheweb found it, its operation shattered shield. Try that.
@@bongwatercrocodile315 ..I love that one website calls the corruption an "often troubled" police department.
Speaking of Appalachia, my grandparents used to live in WV (my mom’s side is from WV and my dad’s side if from Ohio). My WV grandparents have so many stories about Appalachia including a story about seeing a pterodactyl in the woods
please tell the pterodactyl story I beg you
@@ametista8180 Guantanamo Cuba story of people seeing one. I also know someone who saw one in the same area in the 1960's.
I also don't believe that Eloise made that story up for attention. It doesn’t make any sense. I believe that she actually was being chased. Maybe not by human traffickers, but surely by people who got something out of the chase. Maybe thrill? There are very twisted and weird people out there and a trail like that, where people sometimes hike alone is perfect for chasing and scaring or even murdering people. Maybe these people stopped the chase after a certain point, but Eloise was still too scared to leave her hide? Totally possible in my opinion. And the cops probably didn’t want to investigate further because she was found alive and tracking these people down would be a whole lot of work. So they simply didn’t.
I've seen a detailed report about this case. It's likely that Eloise developed a type of paranoia, sometimes called "primal fear". The men she hear (if real) could have been searchers.
12:35 that "sixth sense" is called. Being a woman walking alone.
Thank you, LL, for being so respectful of this lady and her case. This is a huge example of why I respect your channel so much.
Cuz he simps?
@@TheMattTrakker no, he's being kind and respectful to this woman's case because despite what might have actually happened this woman's fear was absolutely real. She was positively terrified for her life and being respectful is common curiosity and empathy. It's not "simping", it's called having compassion and understanding, you should try it instead of dismissing the kindness that is being shown for this woman's case.
Growing up I lived right next to a reservoir that I spent hours and hours a day on. There are days when it just felt different and days when you knew you just shouldn’t be there.
“She heard men behind her on the trail using walkie talkies talking about kidnapping a girl up ahead of them. Then a sixth sense kicked in…” bruh, hearing has got to be like 3rd sense on the list.
I am from western PA, in the Appalachians. Worked at local newspapers for 30 years, definitely heard some interesting stories. Love your channel.
The men were talking about her. They were talking about how they would wait for her to pass so they can go to their illegal hunting spot. The men were poachers, bear poachers. That cashé of donuts was illegal bait for bears, they absolutely love the stuff.
They weren't chasing her. Hearing them talk about her jus triggered a primal response that u can't blame her for. She's a survivor n one hell of a strong person to b that determined to live. I've seen people who gave up n were jus ready to get it over with days before she did.
Truly a badass.
That second to last line of yours makes me wonder if you've been chasing people through the woods. Or other places.
im so glad i found your channel! Thanks wendigoon!. Very interesting, again.
I was amazed in the beginning of your documentary that you mentioned several of the various peoples in Appalachia. In particular I am a descendant of Welsh immigrants who came to the U.S. and settled in the area. The family line consisted of copper and tin miners in Wales and then they came here and continued the mining tradition!
Excellent research!!
Your chair angle of presentation is amazing
So... some other noticed, too😎
"Feral People" I remember a story where a guy just lived in the woods for like 20+ years, stole from all the local community houses, and no-one knew he was out there until he was caught. Oh they knew stuff was getting stolen, but they were completely unaware of who the "Wild Man" was, most probably believed it was a racoon or something. Definitely possible for a group of people to live in isolation and NOT get found.
I remember a story about a man and his daughter who lived in a public park in Portland, Oregon for years until they were caught. I watched a video recently on Stealth Camping (its getting harder with more people getting everywhere). Heaven knows graduating Army Ranger School often means stealing food from locals while living in the wild.
¡Gracias! How she survived that much days being wounded and without help?
And what happen with the pack she found out of the trail?
Yes I was wondering if she decided to eat it also
I'm glad she's safe now, and I wouldn't put it past someone to just want to terrorize hikers by stalking and harassing them for fun if they live nearby and have time on their hands. I've lived in pretty rural areas and people will 100% go out on roads, tailgate people for miles just to scare them. It's shitty but it happens. People suck tbh
every time i hear you go off on law enforcement, families, and/or attorneys for not doing their job or taking accountability i just hear the homelander theme in the background playing as you rant its amazing i love it
I’ve lived in the Appalachian area all my life and really loved this video thanks pal
Huge respect for not plugging the sponsor til the end, I pay for premium and it's infuriating to pay to have the ads removed, and still get them shoved downy throat in the beginning and middle of the video
Also, when in the wilderness, always carry a weapon. Wild animals are not friendly to intruders.
“Country Roads” was actually inspired by western Maryland, but was meant to be about Appalachia in general. The use of West Virginia in the lyrics was entirely intentional. If you ever come to West Virginia and say the song is about western Virginia, you will become the next Missing 411 case.
I grew up in the West Virginia Appalachians; it really is a wild wonderful place. I remember many times either hiking or kayaking hearing human but yet unhuman screams it’s amazing the sounds animals are able to make.
Mate I love your missing 411 story's. These are cool as I live in Australia and we have our Shere of similar story's. Keep up the good work.
I don't think men can really ever understand the generational fear/trauma (pretty much instinctual at this point) that women have about being isolated with potentially volatile men. As soon as you mentioned men's voices behind her on the trail I don't think I could ever fully explain the sensation of my heart and stomach dropping. "I'm not afraid of God, I am afraid of men" Isn't a just a really good tiktok audio, it can be so fucking real.
yeah i consume a lot of true crime/missing 411/otherwise creepy content and even still watching this made my stomach drop in a way i cant explain but just such a deep instinctual fear. ive been followed by creepy and/or volatile men (for just minutes, the thought of hours or days is beyond horrifying) and its fucking scary to feel and know you are so vulnerable in that situation and you are just trying to survive in any possible way you can and in anyway that feels instinctual
💯 or that some men do not give up.
In 1989, martial g(rape) was still legal. No cell phones. No internet as we have now.
You'd be better off telling people you were attacked by bears or even bigfoot than men for all the support you'd get for being so "foolish" as to go hiking in the first place.
Men are far more likely to be the victims of violent crime than women are. Not even joking because the subject matter isn't funny.
And if you're afraid, do what every man is expected to do and get the capability to defend yourself in some shape or form. For almost every woman in my zip code, that means learning how to safely carry and use a gun.
@@theConquerersMama Reading or watching older romance films and stories, whenever I hear a man being encouraged to persist until she finally gives in, gives me chills.
@Badficwriter people today do not get how romanticized stalking behavior was. Frightening/neghing/slapping as fore play. That if a woman was "moody" she just needed a good F.
I am glad that the vibe is slowly changing in my life time.
And that's before you even get into sick minds. The average guy who was genuinely, nice and empathetic got this constant messaging. And it was considered romantic. And that the woman owed a man for the amount of effort put in.
My hubs and I met at work. We actually enjoyed each other but we're never single at the same time. A lot of our courtship, him asking me out for three years before I said yes would be grounds for termination.
Granted in our case everyone around us cheered when we finally got together and quickly married but had I not been interested for any number of reasons the normalized pressure of it was intense. And not unique I that time period.
I am not even going to go into all the "crushes" I had from customers in the 80/90s who thought professional friendliness was an onvitation/entitlement to more and would get weird. The law did absolutely nothing about that. If you were lucky a caring manager might but it didn't protect you after work.
I found you from your Donner Party video. I have binged all of your videos. Including my favorite ones of showcasing your impressive musical talent. I digress, you touched on the fact that the recount of her 12 days alone in the wild was dismissed by law enforcement officials. Which made me remember that police have that “24-48” hour statement they always try to spew when someone is reported missing. There is no law nor even a rule regarding that. People who are calling law enforcement to report some one they care for missing should be acknowledged immediately. We know our family and friends better than any officer ever will. And it sets the tone for the situation that they may not actually take it seriously from the start. Anyway, I enjoy your account. Looking forward to more content.
I've had my own experience of woods going dead silent and something very odd happen lucky never went missing but I don't go hunting without my dog anymore
Oh my gawd thank you for existing! I'm on a binge.
I’m gonna be honest with you. I love Appalachia and I’ve spent a long time there and my wife’s family is from there. In some areas of Appalachia those “wrong turn” movies aren’t far off. There’s a lot of that region that I wouldn’t go with 6 guns and a bear
As one of those Scottish Appalachian you've mentioned, I love that you're talking about it. My kinfolk are from Mount Airy, NC. I bet what the guy saw and heard was a mountain lion.
Trail gifts? That sounds like a Fey trap
Yeah, that’s definitely how you get trapped into debt with an archfey.
No, trail magic is a known thing amongst hikers.
@@jenniferj5324 it's most likely also a mutation of older traditions
I’m from NC and everyone I know or have ever met pronounces it “app-uh-latch-in.” You are saying it perfect!
"Wendigoon said I sound like a fed" I'M DYING
It's true
Thank you for pronouncing our mountains correctly. I live in the Blue Ridge part of Appalachia. ♥
I went hunting with my stepfather when I was six or seven. It was barely light out. I started hearing two men talking about twenty feet away, and I even saw them standing next to a white pickup truck. My stepfather saw and heard none of it.
Another time, I saw a stage, wizard, animals, and furniture all made out of branches, but I think I was just very sleepy.
SOunds like r/glitchinthematrix but they discount childhood tales.
I just want to sincerely thank you for trying to speak about the Appalachian area and its people with kindness. I was born in WV and live here now, and I really feel like we do get stereotyped quite often as all being inbred illiterate barely human ppl. I truly appreciate when anyone doesn’t sensationalize the area and its people. Thank you again and much ❤ from WV
Your jokes have me cracking up at work lmao I’m supposed to be professional at my desk and I’m just laughing quietly like a crazy person because you don’t want to look like a fed for saying Appalachia wrong 😂
As a kid we used to hike the Appalachian for a few miles and one of our stops was Table Rock, I had a chill run down my spine when you mentioned it in the video
Since Eloise said the men had walkie talkies, it leads me to believe that they actually knew what they were doing somewhat. It suggests an amount of preparation, of planning. I've been into true crime for a while now, and I think the cops were covering something up. I'm leaning towards the guys who chased her being either law enforcement or related to them in some way. The cops do tend to cover up the scandals in their departments.
Waa waa cops bad.
I seriously doubt it. The guys may not have planned it at all- a group of people hunting or hiking carrying walkie talkies isn't exactly rare, especially if they're hunting because it allows them to let each other know the other person's/group's location so they can "drive" deer or so they just don't freaking shoot each other. It could easily be a group of assholes out hunting and drinking (it was November, which is the start of deer season in most places) and when they saw a woman alone, decided to "have fun". The different reports could simply be different media coverage- if one person decides they heard something and prints it, then others inevitably do the same. This is especially true for witness statements. All it would have taken was for her to say something like "I thought they were X but maybe they were Y, I don't really know". Since no one caught them then the hunter/construction worker thing doesn't matter much. More likely, cops in the area didn't want citizens going out and harassing every hunter they saw or deciding to pull some vigilante justice.
I know "cops are horrible " is a super popular attitude to have and many do keep quiet about shitty behaviors their coworkers display. However this wasn't some movie. There's not some entire police force that goes out hunting women together on the Appalachian Trail for shits and giggles. And it would take the entire force knowing about it and being cool with it for it to work. The idea that you believe any largish group of people can keep something like that totally quiet for decades is completely ridiculous. But believing in mass conspiracy makes for better drama, right?
@@spyrofrost9158 Look, in small towns, local governments are notoriously corrupt. When there are so few people, the uncaring attitude of the general public to local politics leads to coverups of rapes, murders, theft, or general misconduct by the local elites (government, law enforcement, and press) and their family/friends/children. It's not like that in all small towns, but when you have so few people, so poor and so isolated from the outside world, corruption flourishes.
I don't necessarily think all cops are bad. However, blowing off very specific things she claimed occurred after being found alive after 12 days being missing makes me question what their reasoning was for taking that stance about it. It isn't a hard stretch to imagine police, fire, rescue involved, all having hunting in common, maybe even growing up together? It makes me want to look into missing people around that area around 1989...
There are many reasons people working in the woods would have walkie talkies
Lol I had to rewind a bit because it sounded like Wendigoon called you something very different and very funny lol
3:12 Aaaaah yes the Flatwoods Monster. One of the weirder looking cryptids from around the U.S.
Interestingly, the Flatwoods Monster, or at least it’s odd physical description, became incredibly popular in Japanese media, arguably far more than it did in the U.S. I believe there’s a few good videos on its proliferation throughout Japanese culture on this here platform, might be worth a look for anyone else interested in cryptids and how they’re portrayed in media!
I really appreciate the opening to this video & debunking the stereotypes of hill people.
The Appalachian mountains are definitely kinda spooky. Went on a hike the other day - my car is the only one in the lot that isn't a ranger vehicle - and about 3 miles up a mountain I hear a small child yell "no" and it sounded like the kid was right next to me. There were also no animals I saw the entire 8 miles, though I did hear the very distinct sound of something like an axe striking a tree (again, it's just me and my dog out there, and it's government land as far as you can see). I've never experienced dead silence in the mountains. It's super creepy. I mentioned it to my coworkers and they all have stories (either their own or from people they know) who had similar happen in this same park. I gotta find me a hiking buddy that isn't my dog.
Fun fact! The appalachian mountains once were the one and same mountain range that we have in scandinavia and scotland! I spent my 25th birthday there, walking with my childhood and best friend with the mountains next to us all along. The place is called Undersåker, very close to Sweden’s most famous ski resort, Åre. Where I learned how to ski as a small child.
I think the "hear someone calling your name" is just your brain being silly.
I have heard my name being called out by nobody multiple times in my life even in my own appartement.
It's spooky but the cause is probably just a lack of sleep or too much stress or something like that.
Sounds like something a mimic would say
I used to constantly hear my parents angrily calling my name as a kid! Wasn’t ever actually real though and it was mainly an inconvenience. I’d pester them a ton when they’d never called me or I’d ignore them actually calling me cause I’d think that I was imagining it! I guess it could have been scary but it was for years and nothing bad has happened on account of that so lol
@@trashcan2748 sounds like you have auditory hallucinations my guy
@Husckle2 What is tanglewood?
@@Chipsnrips I do 😂
I give you props for all the respect you show all the different places you cover, Appalachian people are some of the most mocked people in the US
My question is... if she truly believed she was being chased by unknown men... what made her decide to embrace an unknown hunter for rescue? She would've surely thought he was one of them.
Seems like she knew who was following and seeing that the hunter wasn't one of them asked for help, she said she knew she was being searched but was afraid to make the ones following her knew her location. I understand the paranoia angle to a point but find it a lie for the police not do their jobs because she could differentiate between who was the "good and bad guys" and a person suffering a psychosis or paranoia probably couldn't.
Well, it is something a person would do if they were being followed rather than just paranoid. Suggests fair reasoning and judgement.
I live in the Appalachian Mountains in SWVA. I'd NEVERRRRR go up to those trails & they're not far from me in every direction. In fact, people were murdered up there & at one point in my life, the murderer lived about 800 ft up the road from us. They only gave him an ankle bracelet. There was a book written about it. But I've heard of horror stories about it up there, no thank you!
What was there to investigate? They had just spent all that time combing the woods and apparently didn't see anyone else or anything suspicious. I guess you can take a second look, but with no clues, no suspects, and no one with a motive that trail is going to go cold pretty quickly.
People are so quick to blame the police all the time
I think the bigger issue is the search party would have likely trampled any evidence. And the issue is they waited 24hrs and then said "nah she's nuts." Did they get a statement? Did they get descriptions? Did they check the book she signed to see if anyone matched her description? Did they check into any construction in the area? There's a lot they could have done
@@MinusFiveStars_ lame response
@@Pixelkip But it's true
Hmm I wonder why. Almost like the police are notorious for not wanting to do their jobs :)
So growing up Cherokee we were told to never look up in trees at night and especially if it's moving and there's no wind lol
If you have ever spent the night in the deep forest ALONE.. you know in the middle of the night you hear ALL kinds of weird things. I once went alone on a fishing trip and camped beside a small stream ..The whole time i was trying to sleep i heard children playing outside my tent.. and cars driving by and there was NO road for miles. People talking and partying. It was the bubbling of that creek that was creating those sounds... I think.!!! I had to force myself not to get paranoid and try to rationalize what i was hearing . If i was a woman out there alone i have no doubts i would have freaked out and been running from shadows. Even the trees rubbing together with a slight wind can sound like men talking. Its incredible what the human mind can muster in the middle of a long night alone in the woods.
That being said. There is for sure more in heaven and earth than we imagine or can even conceive.
Also keep in mind that sound can travel in weird ways. Certain terrain can carry sound quite a ways.
This video blew my mind in the first ten seconds. Bravo!
I'm skeptical on this one, I think maybe she did get spooked by some people on the trail, but after a few days began to become sort of schizophrenically paranoid. If you dont even try to let yourself be found after almost 2 weeks in the woods, I think you've had some sort of psychotic break.
You don't need a schizophrenic episode to become excessively paranoid if a group of men start using walkie talkies and talking about you on a remote and otherwise uninhabited trail. I mean hell, there's a friend of mine locally who was shot at for several minutes and nearly killed by a group of poachers who were annoyed he was disrupting their hunt on HIS property. There are many credible tales of human hunting in the Appalachian Range and other places. I wouldn't know who to trust if I were in her shoes.
@@klpaah Someone suggested the mysterious cache of donuts in the middle of the woods was actually bait for bears. Poachers seems the best explanation.
I had to go back and relisten to the intro since you had me cackling at "Last time I pronounced it App-uh-lay-tian, Wendigoon said I sounded like a fed."
Oh man.
Great video, as always.
I just can't get behind the "feral human" idea, though. I don't think it could be said that we had "feral himans" even 50, 000 years ago during Paleolithic hunter-gatherer times. I mean, those people created art, culture, and language it takes a great deal of intelligence and knowledge to survive in the wild, that far off if the grid (literally and figuratively speaking); and it is hard to imagine a multiply- inbred, diminished IQ person being successful. People, during hunter-gatherer times, also tended to live in, at least, small clans. It was easier to survive that way.
I respect other people's opinions on the matter, but I happen to think this the most unlikely suggested theory for the 411 phenomenon.
This for sure. Even those who are very inbred with severe mental and physical disabilities have to be looked after by their family and friends. It's doubtful that someone who is that messed up could survive for long on their own in the wild like that.
People who are expert hikers and explorers are very well known for their common sense and presence of mind. It's what keeps you alive out there. Someone who doesn't have that isn't likely to make it for long in the mountains.
There have been cases of feral ppl being discovered, but as you point out, the catch is either that they were very young and not in the wilderness for very long, or they were being intentionally kept in the middle of nowhere by someone who provided for them. The main examples I know of are a young boy who fled into the African forest when his father killed his mother, and he survived for quite some time with a group of monkeys. When he was found and brought back to civilization, he was quite feral, and interestingly, had developed hair all over his body, except for his buttocks, like a monkey. It thinned back out to normal body hair locations the longer he stayed with his mother's relatives, so scientists theorize it had to do with his diet while he was in the forest.
The other case is from Southeast Asia, where a young woman wandered out of the jungle and into a little village. She was feral to the point of having little to no understanding of language, and was very withdrawn and wary of humans. I forget if there was a shackle with a broken chain on her wrist, or if she just had injuries that made it obvious that there had been a shackle she got free of, but it was apparent that someone had been keeping her chained up in the jungle for most if not all of her life. One of the men from the village stepped forward claiming to be her father, saying she'd gone missing as a kid and never been found. His family took care of her for a while, but then one day she vanished again, and to my knowledge, that's the last anyone ever knew of her. Needless to say, her "father" was beyond suspicious, but sadly, nothing was ever done to properly investigate him.
Yeah, I think people really Overdramatise what a "Feral Person" is. The Human body is incredibly fragile, and the human senses are incredibly weak. It would be nearly impossible for a person to survive with the kinds of mental defects that are often attributed to feral people.
However I Do think it would be possible for 1 man, of entirely reasonable physical and mental health, to survive out in the woods alone, suffer a variety of disfiguring injuries, get Muscle Atrophy in his vocal cords due to underuse/malnutrition, and go somewhat insane from intense social isolation, yet still survive for a good 5, 10, maybe even 20 years.
@@datdabdoe1417 A father and daughter were discovered living for years on a public park in Portland, Oregon. They were intelligent though. Eventually, they vanished again, but there is scuttlebutt that the girl re-entered society. People donated money for them.
The thing is, every psycho who kept human prisoners or hunted humans that I have heard of, like Robert Hansen of Alaska, lived civilized. The savagery thing was what they did secretly. The crazy off-the-grid people seemed to prefer to live on their own or are too frightened of others to approach them. There was one case of wanna be "Mountain Men" who kidnapped Kari Swensen to be a sex slave, but she survived and pointed out that these men were not competent at living off the grid. It was performative feral living, but really stealing and going into town occasionally.
In TN not far from this and our woods are honestly terrifying. The state tries to lie abt what wildlife we have but there are bears, black mt lions, regular cougars, etc that have been caught on tape. Also a near extinct species of wolf called the red wolf which gets confused w coyotes bc of their similar coloring.