Greetings all, My granddaughter led me here.
Told me it's a place where people who enjoy the spooky and
the supernatural come to get their fix.
She is helping me share my own story.
Thought you folks might be tickled by it.
These events came back to me at a recent family reunion.
For fun. The Last of Us awake that night
went in a circle and swapped our scariest moments stories.
It was a good time and his family members shared UF OS and
creaky addicts and near death experiences.
A trick floorboard in my mind popped up, exposing something my
subconscious had long kept hidden, perhaps for my own good.
So when their eyes all turned to Grammy Kay, likely expecting
tales of past era poverty or teenagers with tattoos or the
trials of childbirth, I leaned in and recounted to them the
time I found a lost man in the woods.
It caused quite a stir with the family and at the insistence of
my darling granddaughter, I share it with you now.
This is something that happened when I was in my 20s.
I won't embarrass myself by telling you how long ago that
was, but suffice to say I am quite a bit grayer above the
ears these days. My first husband, Ronald, was a
Ranger and for five years we lived together on BLM land.
Our regular Backcountry excursions instilled in me a
passion for the out of doors that was uncommon for a lady
back then. Women might be found on a long
walk or at a National Park with their husband and children in
tow, sure, but I was partial to taking a knapsack and charging
into pure, isolating wilderness, often spending two or three days
at a time following trails or inventing my own.
Those excursions were often my greatest peace, especially after
Ronald passed in our 6th year together.
It was about a year after Ronald's passing and I was
setting out for a 2 day trek in the Pacific Northwest,
Washington or Oregon I think, though that detail still remains
beneath the floorboards. The trail looked attractive on
the map as it followed a river through a vast mountain valley
that separated two small towns. I believe it had once served as
a supply route between the towns before the road system came,
after which it was merely a recreation trail, though not one
to be taken lightly. The locals would warn all but
the most avid outdoorsman to avoid the route, as there was a
point in the valley that required a difficult river
fording. This Ford occasionally took the
lives of the cocky or the unprepared, sending their bodies
bobbing downstream to be recovered by the town at the
other end, but I reckoned I was avid enough.
A friend dropped me off at the trailhead as I had left my car
parked in the town at the other end of the valley.
I was immediately put to task by a steep hike up to a mountain
saddle and a precarious descent down the other side.
It was past midday before I was rewarded with even terrain in
the valley below. I managed the infamous river
crossing cautiously and without incident, then resumed the trek
on the opposite bank. The trail followed the river a
few more miles before it leaned away, sending me from high grass
and wildflowers into a forest of evergreens.
The sun was beginning to angle towards the western range as the
trees closed in behind me, shrouding my world in a gentle
emerald dim. I made my way over the soft
earth beneath the trees, grateful for the shade after a
day exposed beneath the summer sun.
The air was muted by a mossy quiet, and the limbs of the
Evergreen sliced the light into haphazard bars of gold.
It was a dense, verdant old growth forest, the kind that
feels like a cathedral, proud and reverent and secretive.
I have always loved and sought such places.
The trail took me downhill, and the shade grew darker still.
There came a point where the pine needles under foot fully
obscured the path, and I paused, carefully peeking around
evergreens to spot where it might pick up again, trying not
to lose my place. I had my compass and map, but
only food enough for a day and a half, and didn't want to be lost
in the boondocks if I could help it.
This was all before the age of the satellite phone, mind you.
After a few moments of unsuccessful scanning, I decided
to backtrack to see if there was perhaps AY in the trail I had
missed. I turned 180° to find myself
looking into the eyes of a man some 10 or 12 feet behind me.
I had no clue how long he had been there.
My brain, in the panic of the moment, skipped right past
surprise and landed directly on bewilderment.
Oh goodness, hello. I spit out, mostly on impulse.
I am sure he could see the shock in my face, but he gave no sign
of it. Sure, easy to get lost out here,
isn't it? He replied in simple, even
tones. His appearance was the perfect
outdoorsman, practically out of a sportsman's magazine of the
day. Work boots and canvas pants held
up with suspenders that ran over a Navy double breasted shirt.
The Plaid cuffs of his sleeves were rolled up above the elbow
and the sleeping bag strapped atop his rucksack poked up from
behind his head. Yet despite his textbook
appearance, he didn't feel like a woodsman to me.
His bearded face was middle-aged, but the skin was
deeply creased and drooping at the neck and jowls as if much
older. Beneath wild black eyebrows were
grayish eyes that seemed unable to focus on any spot in
particular. Splotches of sweat darken the
pits and neckline of his shirt, and he gave off a rank odor that
disgusts me even in memory. He offered me a strained, toothy
smile, as if he had heard descriptions of smiles but was
trying it out for the first time.
It certainly could be. I replied with exaggerated
politeness, recentering myself internally.
Sorry for my surprise, I didn't hear you come up behind me.
The man ignored the comment. Are you lost out here too?
He asked. His expression remained polite,
earnest. But behind the foggy Gray eyes,
I detected something else, something I couldn't put a word
to. Instinctively, I began to take a
mental inventory of what weapons I had at my disposal.
The best I could come up with was my Swiss Army knife, which
was unfortunately tucked into the bottom of my knapsack.
I could hear Ronald's deep, stern voice echo in the back of
my head somewhere saying you should be packing a gun,
Christie, you never know what you'll run into.
I shooed Ronald's ghost and it's I told you so away and turn my
focus back to the man. Certainly not lost.
No. I responded carefully, not
wishing to make myself any more vulnerable than I already was.
But you said too. Are you lost out here?
The man rocked on his feet, his eyes scanning vacantly in my
direction. Yes, lost people wander out
here, get lost, he replied. His voice was gravelly,
delivered in flat, dead tones. But sometimes I find them, find
them wandering through the forest, stepping and breaking,
trying to find their way. So I help them take them back to
the river so they can follow it out.
I can help you too. Help you find the river.
At that, he set his empty eyes upon me, truly locking his with
mine. His expression transformed into
something equal parts pained and furious, as if I had betrayed
him in some horrible, intimate way.
A primordial part of me awoke, and a wave of adrenaline
screamed to Sprint into the maze of Evergreen surrounding us.
But a firm, clear voice of instinct told me to stand still.
So like a mouse being fixed upon by a house cat, still, I stood.
Well, I'm not lost, though I am sure this trail can be a bit of
trouble for some. I certainly appreciate the offer
though. I said in the most friendly
tones I could muster. Few sunbeams were making it
through the trees overhead and knew I needed to move things
along. But I think I better get moving
while I still have some light. I have some friends hiking in
from the other end expecting to meet me at camp tonight, so I
can't afford to get two off of schedule.
This was a lie, of course, but I wanted him to think others would
be coming along soon, that I was expected.
But inside, I wished more than than ever that Ronald was with
me again. The man practiced his
disconcerting smile once more, and his eyes blissfully
unfocused. Yes, still have some light.
He echoed in his staccato. The walkers get lost making
little circles in the forest. If you lose the way, I'll lead
you to the river. In the tension of the moment, I
didn't process his words, but it was clear that something
insidious glared out from behind them at me.
Oh, of course, thanks, I'll keep that in mind.
Happy trails. I practically shouted, eager to
detach, and commenced a rigorous power walk in the direction I
had left off at, unsure if I was continuing on the true trail or
not. After a few dozen paces, I began
blessedly to see indications of the path and took back to it.
A few minutes of concerted near jogging later, my heart thumping
in my ears and my pack thumping against my back, I slowed to a
walk and watched over my shoulder to see if the strange
man was following me. I had put in some considerable
distance, and in the greenish dark murk of the forest I saw
nothing but ferns and evergreens.
Then coming around far back on the trail, there he was, not
necessarily following, I suppose, but walking in my same
direction, staggering down the path about 60 yards behind me.
He moved awkwardly, almost drunken, like someone learning
to walk on a prosthetic. In the moment my eye caught him,
his head snapped up, and even from that distance I could feel
cold Gray eyes locked to mine, and I knew then it wasn't a
coincidence I was being followed.
I whipped my face forward and picked my pace.
The last miles of that day were hiked briskly and stressed.
No matter how much speed I put into my pace, the man would
always somehow catch up behind me down the trail.
Despite his disjointed walk. I would lose him for five or 10
minutes, then catch some sight or sound of him persisting ever
forward. And so I had no peace, never
breaking, often run, jogging, but never able to get more than
a few minutes of isolation before I would hear his feet
cracking branches along the path, or see his dark silhouette
come around a bend in the trail far behind me.
The last tangerine rays of sun had faded from the forest floor
when I realized I would have to stop.
I was losing the last of my visibility, and although I was
tempted, I knew that hiking in the pitch was foolish.
Using my torch to find my way around would make me a beacon to
the man in the night, but on the other hand, hiking blindly would
mean almost certainly losing the trail, getting me no closer to
escape, and could mean injury or death if I was unlucky.
And I was not feeling lucky. Instead, I resolved to make my
way as far off trail as I dared, quietly set up camp, and wait
for the first light of Daybreak to serve as a starter pistol for
a mad dash to the end of the valley.
I didn't love the plan, but no better ideas came to me.
So I crept past the tree line, quiet as a fox, and gingerly set
up my one man pup tent behind a couple interlocked evergreens
that stood vanguard between my camp and the direction of the
trail. The spot was encircled by ferns
and brambles, the best cover I could find.
From amber dusk to pale moonlight, I had just enough
light to see what I was doing as I moved quietly on sore legs and
blistered feet. I didn't bother with dinner or
coffee or any of my rituals typical of a trip to the
Backcountry. I scarcely remember drinking
water. What I do remember is laying
atop my sleeping bag, unwilling to constrict myself within it,
fully dressed, with my Swiss Army knife clutched in my fist,
the blade out and ready. I spent my time breathing
evenly, staying silent and listening.
After a couple hours, I began to calm.
The man had never been more than about 15 minutes behind me down
the trail, so if he was a tracker, he would have long
since traced me to camp. If not a tracker, I suspected he
had already overshot my camp, making a successful backtrack to
my location near impossible. I was just beginning to form an
estimate as to how long before Daybreak when I heard movement
in the woods. It was the snapping cracking of
something moving ponderously over the forest floor, probably
20 to 40 yards away. I prayed for the first and only
time that it was a bear. The only other thing in those
woods heavy enough to make that much noise would be a ungulate,
which tend not to move so sporadically or loudly.
My every muscle froze as the intermittent creaking and
snapping move towards my camp. I held my knife to my chest like
a cross, watching the moonlit side of my tent wall for a shape
to take form. Then, after a light snap some 10
yards to my left, the woods went silent.
I laid there, tense as a plank of wood, terrified to so much as
breath. I stared at the shadows of the
ferns and tree boughs that the moon cast against my tent wall,
waiting for one of them to transform into the shape of the
man and lunge, but no phantom assailant came.
The shadows slowly lengthened and dissipated as the moon moved
through the heavens up above, but I remained fixated on the
bluish wall of my pup tent, counted breaths, and waited.
It must have been hours before I dared to turn my head away from
the direction of the snapping in the forest.
The moon by that time had angled in the sky towards the other
side of camp, and as I righted myself, I saw on the opposite
wall of my tent the shadow of the man.
He loomed above the canopy, perfectly still, perhaps just an
arm's reach away. I was taken with panic, and in
the Wan, late evening light the silhouette's head turned ever so
slightly so as to look directly down at me.
Little Walker, I knew you'd get lost.
Let me help you find the river. The man's voice had changed.
It was no longer the masculine voice I had heard delivered in
gravelly staccato on the trail earlier.
It was vaguely feminine, sweet and melodic, every word dripping
with acid. It was the voice that would come
from a spider if a spider could speak, and when I heard it, I
knew I was going to die. I'm not lost, I thought, or
perhaps I whispered it. Either way, I remember it took
all I had to make the words come.
I know where I'm going. At that, the man reached out and
pressed his palm against the upper wall of the tent,
imprinting a black handprint against the fabric.
If you are here, then you are lost, replied the voice from
inside. The man and the Lost belonged to
me. The handprint against my tent
spasmed, and I watched as the head of the silhouette convulsed
and rolled back. Black shapes emerged from where
the man's mouth was, slender tendrils that twisted and
unfurled upward from the man's throat coiling and writhing in
the air around his head, making a grotesque shadow puppet show
out of the moonlit wall of my tent.
In the terror of the moment, my impulse was to scream, but
somehow, in the hot foam of fury and indignation that I should
die at the will of this incomprehensible thing, the
scream choked out in the form of words.
I am not lost. I surged up and in a
miraculously clean cut, sliced the tense fabric from the canopy
to the floor in the direction of the man's shadow.
The hand pulled away and I sprang outward blindly, prepared
to sink the Swiss Army knife into anything it might find
purchase. But before I could clear my
exit, I heard a man's hey yo from the trees not far off camp.
It was a deep, soulful bellow that rattled me and carried like
wind around the evergreens and brambles.
I knew the sound in my heart. It was Ronald's voice, the call
he would make when we would hike together in the wilderness to
ward off bears. Only now it came with such force
that I felt it in and around me, a wave of feeling and a foghorn
of sound. In that same moment, I heard the
garbled, vicious words of the thing speak.
I know not what. And by the time I was righted to
my feet outside the tent, ready to attack, there was only
silence. I scanned the shifty darkness of
the woods, watching the trees and shadows around me like a
hare watches the skies. My heart was pounding, my body
still ready for the fight, but I was alone.
No man, no silhouette, no creature, no Ronald.
Just a woman, alone in nature, panting through the adrenaline
and fear. After some time, I shook off my
dread, stuffed my ruined tent back into my knapsack, retrieved
my torch, and carefully picked my way back to the trail in the
dark. From there, I began the route
again, holding my torch out like a night watchman, eyeing the
tree line while being careful not to lose the beaten path.
Occasionally I thought I heard movement far back behind me on
the trail, but the light of my torch never caught anything in
the shadows of the forest. A few miles later, daylight
began to trickle through the canopy of the evergreens.
An hour or so after that, I noticed the trees becoming
smaller, farther apart, and the rush of the river in the
distance became the soundtrack to my walk.
By the time the trail rejoined the river, the woods were well
behind me and I soldiered on through open valley in a stupor.
At some point I reached the meagre town where I had left my
car parked. By the time I realized I was
walking on pavement, I was practically at Town Center.
I am sure I drew disconcerted looks from the locals at the tap
house when I staggered in a mess of matted hair and sunken eyes
with my knapsack bulging and half zipped, but I took no
notice. It had always been my and
Ronald's tradition after coming back out of the Backcountry to
celebrate with a bourbon and a beer.
I ordered two of each as I knew he had joined me for a final
hike but that it was on me to drink on his behalf.
The barmaid took my order with the pouty indifference of
someone who had served stranger orders to stranger patrons and
went to task. I had finished both bourbons and
most of the second beer when a commotion broke me from the
solitude of my thoughts. The excitement was directed at a
tiny television mounted in a corner behind the bar, and the
pouty barmaid turned up the volume at a request.
It was the county news station where a pallid man in a sports
jacket was breaking a press release from the Sheriff's
Office. The news ticker read Sheriff
recovers body of drowned hiker. The camera cut to the sheriff,
explaining that the man was a hiker from Canada who likely
drowned while attempting to Ford the river in the Valley Pass.
He had been dead for three days before washing into town on the
High River later that morning. Several bar patrons issued tuts
and low whistles, the dirge of the cynical and unsympathetic,
while the sheriff issued a tired warning that the river fording
was dangerous and not be attempted by those without
proper training and experience. My thoughts went to the man, to
the confident Pilgrim of nature. He must have been perhaps too
confident, even until a few days ago, when he got himself lost in
some very old woods where he weaved and wandered through the
evergreens hunting for a trail until something found him,
something that took him to the river where it takes all its
lost travelers. But I was never lost.
On the night of November 14th 2015, two Welsh brothers named
Andrew and Mark Middle were out camping in the cloaky Nog Forest
in northern Wales. They were there to watch the
2015 Wales Rally, an annual off road car racing event about
which both brothers were extremely enthusiastic.
So enthusiastic in fact that they opted to camp out in almost
sub zero temperatures to maintain the perfect vantage
point to watch the powerful vehicles hurdle past them.
Given the cold, the brothers naturally needed to maintain a
campfire to keep warm, and as anyone who has had to keep a
campfire going overnight knows, it requires a lot of firewood.
The brothers had collected an ample stack of dry kindling that
afternoon, but as the night set in and a brisk November chill
set in, they found their supplies of firewood dwindling.
Apparently it was Mark's turn to go out and collect some, so he
grabbed his flashlight, threw on his woolly gloves and hat, and
set off into the pitch Black Forest to gather firewood.
It's more than likely that given the time of year, the forest
floor was very cold and damp during the night, and we can
quite safely assume that Mark Middles search for sufficiently
dry kindling took him much further from his campsite than
he would have liked. Then, before he knew it, all the
trees started to look the same, and among the dense verdant
foliage he realized he'd lost sight of the warm glow of his
campfire. Realizing he was lost, Mark
called out to his brother, who immediately responded.
Then all Mark had to do was follow the sound of his
brother's voice, and he'd soon be back at camp.
Yet the Klokenog Forest is so dense and wild in places that a
few blind footsteps might send him crashing into the dirt
below. So to ensure this didn't happen,
Mark shone his flashlight on the ground beneath him to make sure
that he was clear of trip hazards.
Back at camp, Andrew Middle was only mildly concerned about his
brother calling out to him. Although it was very dark, Mark
hadn't walked far and he would most definitely be able to find
his way back to camp from the sound of his voice.
What followed was a variation on the famous pool game Marco Polo.
Mark would call out to Andrew and Andrew would call back until
suddenly Mark went quiet. Then, through the pitch
darkness, Andrew quite clearly heard his brother in a voice
that sounded both astounded and horrified.
Say, Oh my God. Andrew recognized the fear in
Mark's voice immediately and asked his brother what the
problem was. Mark stayed quiet for a second,
staring in disbelief at the object at his feet, then called
out to his brother. I think you better come and see
this. Andrew grabbed his own
flashlight and rushed out to find his brother, white as a
sheet and staring at the ground. Andrew then looked down to see
what he was looking at, then muttered his own exclamation of
Jesus Christ. Half buried in the earth, caked
in Moss and filth was a human skull.
Mark and Andrew quickly made their way back to their campsite
and immediately contacted the police.
Emergency services received the call at approximately 8:35 PM
and by 9 that night, a local police officer had arrived at
the scene to confirm the discovery.
The officer was quickly followed by a forensics team who
sequestered the area off before searching for additional human
remains. Hidden just beneath the earth,
the team discovered a complete human skeleton that they
believed had been deposited there between the years of 1995
and 2005. It was only then that the middle
brothers were informed of something truly horrifying, that
the ground they'd been camping on had once been used by
notorious serial killer Peter Moore as a dumping ground for
men he had murdered. They hadn't just pitched their
tent on any old patch of forest, they'd made a camp on a
veritable graveyard. What followed was a five week
long investigation that involved combing missing persons
databases, pathological examinations and intensive DNA
profiling. It was determined that the man
died from blunt trauma to the head and that he had been
murdered in an unknown location between 2004 and 2010.
The victim was said to have been a well built man in his 60s at
the time of his death, standing between 5 foot eight and five
foot 10. Some items of clothing were
found near the body, consisting of a dark green Pringle jumper
and some dark red decomposed Marks and Spencer underwear, but
it could not be confirmed that they were associated with the
victim. Numerous attempts to identify
the man via his DNA and teeth were unsuccessful, and in March
of 2017, police confirmed that they had approached Peter Moore
with questions regarding the man's identity.
Moore claimed that the body did indeed belong to one of his
victims, A46 year old mature student at Aberystwyth
University, who had disappeared in 1996.
Moore refused to reveal the victim's name, but journalists
identified a Roger Evans of Bradley near Stoke on Trent as a
mature student who had indeed gone missing in 1996.
However, police later announced that this theory had been
discounted due to conflicting dates, and to this day, the
identities of both the victim and his murderer remain a
complete mystery. However, the prevailing theory
is that Peter Moore is indeed the man's killer and simply fed
the police a string of false information in order to throw
them off the scent. Moore was famous for claiming
that his murders had actually been committed by a fictitious
homosexual lover he nicknamed Jason after the killer in the
Friday the 13th movie series. He might have found a great deal
of satisfaction in finally having deceived those that sent
him to prison on a whole life order.
The identity of Moore's apparently murderous lover was
never uncovered, and despite jurors having decided that his
claims were a complete fiction, they might have been very, very
wrong. Moore was not only aware of
someone who had gone missing in the year following his string of
killings, but the victim was found mere yards away from where
Moore's other victims had been found.
There's a very good chance that Moore was indeed involved in the
murder in some capacity, but if he didn't personally murder the
victim, who did? Is it possible that Moore wasn't
lying when he spoke of this Jason character?
Is it possible that he'd been part of some kind of kill team
back in 1995 when he committed his crimes?
Or did the body simply belong to Moore's uncredited 5th victim 1?
His record will forever remain untainted by thanks to a well
thought out deception. As frustrating as it may be,
these are questions that might never be answered.
And with more rapidly approaching his 76th birthday,
the time to get concrete answers is quickly running out.
So next time you're camping and you're out collecting firewood,
be careful where you tread. Instead of finding something to
warm your bones, you might find something that will make your
blood run cold. On April 5th, 2017, 22 year old
Californian cyclist Jacob Gray set off from Washington State's
Port Townsend intent on cycling through the Olympic National
Park. The bike he was riding was a
specialized Hard Rock that some believed was slightly too small
for Jacob. He was just an inch below 6
feet, yet the bike had sentimental value as it was a
promotional model that his father had won at a contractor's
show raffle. Attached to the rear of the bike
was a used red and yellow child trailer, one that Jacob had
loaded with camping gear before setting off into the wilderness.
Jacob was later sighted in Indian Valley and along Crescent
Lake on April 5th. On the morning of April 6th, a
woman drove past him as he rode down the Soul Duke Hot Springs
Rd. Later that afternoon, she
noticed his distinctive red and yellow trailer on the side of
the road. It wasn't a good place to camp
or stash a bike for long, as it was highly visible among the
foliage. Jacob was nowhere to be seen,
but little did the woman know, Jacob would never be seen again.
A few hours later, his abandoned gear was found by Park Rangers
who noted something odd about the setup.
A bow was lying on the ground next to the abandoned bike and
trailer, and not only were arrows jammed into the dirt near
the bike itself, but arrows seem to have struck the red and
yellow trailer which held Jacob's possessions.
The Ranger in question, a man named John Bowie, then proceeded
to search the immediate area, believing the bike's owner may
have stopped in the nearby spring to collect water.
But again, Jacob was nowhere to be seen.
Bowie then contacted a fellow park Ranger and asked him to
recheck the area the following morning.
He expected the bike's owner to have returned to remove his
gear, but the frame and trailer were still there on the morning
of April 7th. A park Ranger then searched
Jacob's abandoned gear and found a list of phone numbers, which
identified the gear's owner as Jacob.
He then contacted one of the people on the list, who turned
out to be Jacob's sister, Mallory.
Once Jacob's parents were informed of his abandoned gear,
the grave nature of the situation became clear.
At that point, Jacob Gray officially became a missing
person. The next day, the Clallam County
Sheriff's Department combed over the area, using around 30
different deputies and sniffer dogs to try to track down the
missing cyclist. Even with all the manpower, they
failed to locate him. A few days later, the Sheriff's
Department enlisted the help of volunteer trackers from the
Olympic Mountain Rescue. This team of dedicated
specialists was much more adept at tracking the movements of
missing people. As they searched, they made a
series of curious discoveries. They found compelling evidence
that someone, most likely Jacob, had swapped a pair of hiking
boots for running shoes before walking to the edge of a nearby
river. There, they appeared to have
slipped and fallen, leaving a distinct mark on a mossy rock
about 30 yards downstream. There were signs that this
person had managed to pull themselves out of the river,
eliminating the prospect that Jacob had drowned before being
carried downriver. They doubled down on this theory
by having team members search the log jams further down the
river, but no trace of anybody was found and the search
continued. Yet, despite the ongoing
efforts, on April 14th, the status of the search for Jacob
Gray was changed to that of a limited continuous search.
This meant that Rangers were no longer looking for a living
person, as it was believed to be impossible for Jacob to have
survived almost two weeks without protection from the
elements. Search and rescue teams moved on
to other tasks, leaving the search for Jacob to be headed up
by volunteers only. This was extremely demoralizing
for Jacob's family, but they refused to give up, and over the
coming months they personally organized at least a dozen
searches of the Olympic National Park.
Flyers were posted on park kiosks and gas stations in the
Port Angeles area, and a team consisting of Jacob's friends
and relatives handed out leaflets to people hiking
through the park. This culminated in a huge
hundred man search along the Seoul Duke River in July of
2017, but only a pair of Burnside brand shorts in Jacob's
size were recovered, a pair that matched an item he'd been given
as a Christmas gift the previous year.
This briefly renewed the family's hope of finding Jacob
alive, but over the year that followed, the lack of any
additional findings meant that the searches had to be scaled
back and a grim acceptance set in that they'd never see their
beloved Jacob alive again. More than a year later, on
Friday, August 10th, 2018, a team of biologists ventured into
the Olympic National Park to study marmots.
They found themselves atop a Ridge above Whole Lake, and it
was there that they made a horrifying discovery.
Along with his clothing, some of his gear, and his wallet, the
team of scientists found what remained of Jacob Gray's
lifeless body. This spot was more than 15 miles
from where Jacob had abandoned his bicycle.
So what exactly prompted the young man to abandon his things
before climbing up so far into the mountains?
Despite the discovery of a bow and arrows near his abandoned
bicycle, and after identifying Jacob via his dental records, a
coroner argued that there was very little evidence of foul
play. He had a cigarette lighter,
insulated clothing, and plenty of food with him at the scene
where the body was found. Yet it was soon determined that
the only rational explanation was that Jacob had somehow
succumbed to hypothermia, as during the April he went missing
the terrain had been covered in a thick blanket of snow.
However, this completely ignores the fact that Jacob's remains
were little more than skeletal. By the time they were found,
there could have been any number of fatal wounds to Jacob's
biodegradable tissues that would have been impossible to
identify. It's also worth noting that when
lost in the wilderness, most people know well enough to head
downhill instead of climbing them.
The last thing you want to do is end up stranded on a mountain
when you could hike down to more temperate climates.
But a person being pursued by someone or something might well
climb up a mountainside in order to escape something chasing
them, especially if that thing had previously fired at them
with a bow and arrow. There's something else worth
noting, too, and that involves the items found in the vicinity
of Jacob's skeletal remains. He was carrying a Bible with
him, it seems, when he abandoned his bicycle.
He grabbed only what was completely essential for his
survival, the lighter, the food, and the warm clothing.
What would possess him to bring the Bible along?
It's possible that he wished to use the pages as kindling, yet
despite how badly degraded they were by the elements, the
Bible's pages showed no signs of being ripped or torn.
Just what was it about a Bible that Jacob saw as being
essential to his survival? What was chasing him that he
believed a holy text might be a salvation?
There have been many that argued that Jacob's intention was to
take his own life, and that carrying the Bible with him was
an attempt to counterbalance the mortal sin that he perceived
himself to be doing. But this raises the question, if
Jacob intended on taking his own life, why bother bringing so
much survival gear on a trip that would ultimately end in his
death? It's entirely likely that Jacob
wanted one last biking trip before going through with the
ACT, but that theory completely ignores the fact that a bow and
arrow were found at the site of his abandoned vehicle.
It's not out of the question that Jacob brought these items
along with him and intended to use them as part of a
survivalist style exercise. Yet if that was the case, why
were arrows shot into the ground at an angle which would suggest
they were being fired at Jacob? And if he was being attacked, he
could have at least tried using the bow to defend himself.
Only he didn't, which leads us to believe that an attacker was
wielding the bow. But what kind of psychopath
stalks through the forests of Washington hunting for human
game? Who could have terrified Jacob
so much that he'd have preferred to risk the freezing
mountainside rather than risk walking back down into the
woods? Did Jacob really get lost in the
woods, as some people contend? Or rather, was he stalked,
attacked, and then chased up the mountain by someone who still
walks among us today? From the very start, I was not a
child of the city of the concrete, or of the predictable
paths of Lima's bustling streets.
My first breath was drawn in the humid air of the Peruvian
capital, yes, but my soul, my very essence, was carved out in
the vast, untamed expanse of the Amazon jungle.
My parents, both dedicated German biologists, had traded
the sterility of lab work for the Wilds of Panguana, a
research station they established deep within the
hearts shadow of the rainforest. Even as a toddler, I was more
familiar with the calls of macaws and the chattering of
tamarins than the sounds of cars and chatter of crowded
marketplaces. My playground was the dense
undergrowth, my playmates the creatures and plants my parents
studied. My father, Hans Wilhelm, taught
me the language of the earth, soil under our feet, the
intricate ecosystem we were part of.
My mother, Maria, an ornithologist, taught me to look
up, to observe the life that thrived in the canopy above and
to respect the delicate balance that kept it thriving.
Life at Panguana was not just about survival, it was about
living in consonance with nature.
Every day brought new lessons that no conventional school room
could ever hope to impart. I learned to navigate the
labyrinth of the jungle not with a compass, but by reading the
sun's position, the vegetation's density, and the river's flow.
My father often said the jungle speaks to those who listen, and
listen I did. I knew which plants could heal
and which could harm, which berries were an invitation to
dine and which were a forewarning of danger.
My education was unconventional. Sure, there were no blackboards,
no rows of desks, no school bells to command the start and
end of learning periods. Instead there was the ever
changing environment around us, the constant cycle of life and
death, growth and decay. My parents were strict, though,
ensuring I wasn't just a child of the wild but also equipped
with the knowledge from books. They imported textbooks on math,
science and literature from Germany, and I studied by
Lantern light, the nocturnal sounds of the jungle a constant
backdrop. As I grew older, the necessity
of formal education beckoned me back to Lima.
At 17, I returned to take my school's leavers exam at Lima's
German School. The city was a stark contrast to
my jungle home, its edges sharp. It smells acrid, its noises
jarring. I missed the Symphony of the
Amazon, the scent of rain on leaves, the soft, forgiving
earth under foot. But I adapted as I had been
taught. I passed my exams with flying
colors, my results a ticket back to my verdant sanctuary.
Yet, as I prepared to leave the city once more, a part of me
lingered over the sights from high rise buildings, the buzz of
electric lights, and the undeniable pulse of human
innovation. On December 23rd, 1971, with my
exams behind me and my future sprawling wild and green before
me, I was ready to return. I was ready to go home to
Panguana. Little did I know, as my mother
and I boarded the plane back to our jungle, just how drastically
our plans would change. We were flying on borrowed time,
on wings, not just of hope but of impending fate.
The morning was overcast as we made our way to the airport, the
sky a heavy Gray blanket that seemed to press down on the city
of Lima. My mother was quiet, a rare
solemnity about her that mirrored the unease clawing at
my own insides. My father's warnings about
Lanza, the airline notorious for its LAX safety standards, echoed
in my head, but our options were limited.
It was the only way to get back to Panguana in time for
Christmas. The plane was older, its
interior worn and smelling faintly of mildew and stale air.
As we ascended, the city fell away, replaced by the vast
expanse of the Amazon. I pressed my face against the
small window, watching the world transform below.
My mother, perhaps sensing my unease, squeezed my hand.
It's just another adventure. She whispered, trying to infuse
the moment with a levity I knew she didn't feel.
Then, without warning, the adventure turned nightmare.
About an hour into the flight, the aircraft shook violently.
A deafening boom, like the sky itself splitting, reverberated
through the cabin lightning. The pilots lost control, and the
plane began a sickening nose dive.
Screams filled the air, a cacophony of terror that matched
the roaring in my ears. I remember looking at my mother,
her eyes wide with fear. And then nothing but a blinding
white flash. I awoke to a silence, profound
and unsettling. Disoriented, I found myself
still strapped to my seat, miraculously intact amid the
wreckage strewn across the jungle floor.
The plane had disintegrated around us, scattering debris
like a child's discarded toys. I was alone, utterly and
terrifyingly alone. No sounds of rescue, no cries of
other survivors. Just the deep, omnipresent hum
of the jungle, the realization that I was the sole survivor,
weighed on me with a crushing grief.
My mother was gone, and with her, any semblance of the world
I had known. But survival, my father's voice
instructed, my mother's eyes implored, was paramount.
I checked myself for injuries, a broken collarbone, cuts,
bruises, and a deep gash on my arm that throbbed with the beat
of my panicked heart. Drawing on the lessons of my
childhood, I fashioned a sling from part of my seat cover,
wincing as I maneuvered my arm into a less painful position.
My first task was to find water, then shelter.
Every step was agony, but the jungle, which had once been a
playground, now presented itself as a labyrinth of potential
threats and scarce resources. Days blended into a continuous
loop of survival tasks. I found water in a stream, its
coolness a small mercy. Food was harder to come by, but
I managed to gather some fruits and nuts, mindful of the
teachings on which plants were safe.
Nights were the hardest. The darkness brought new sounds,
menacing and close, and the pain of my injuries and the itch of
insect bites made sleep a fleeting escape.
Each day I pushed forward, driven by a singular need to
survive, to honor my mother's memory by living the skills my
parents had instilled in me once academic exercises were now
matters of life and death. I navigated through the dense
foliage, avoiding natural hazards, each step a testament
to the harsh lessons taught by the wild.
I was a child of the jungle, yes, but never before had it
demanded so much or exacted such a painful toll.
The 9th day dawned just as cruelly as the eight before it,
with the relentless sun filtering through the dense
canopy, mocking my desolation. My body was a map of bruises and
bites, my clothes tattered to shreds and my spirit teetering
on the edge. I stumbled through the
undergrowth, my thoughts a chaotic whirl of pain and
despair, when I broke into a small clearing and saw
salvation, a missionary camp, deserted but promising shelter,
and perhaps more. My heart surged with a mix of
relief and anxiety as I approached the camp.
The place was empty, left in a hurry, but it was stocked.
I rummaged through the supplies, finding antiseptic bandages and,
mercifully, a small cache of food.
My first act was to tend to my wounds.
The gash on my arm was infected, maggots thriving in the
festering mess. The pain was blinding as I
cleaned it with the antiseptic, each wipe a new level of agony.
It wasn't enough. In a moment of desperation I
found a can of gasoline. I knew the risks, but the
maggots had to go. Pouring the fuel over the wound,
I screamed into the empty forest as the pain erupted, but the
maggots writhed and died. Exhaustion overtook me and I
collapsed onto a cot, sleep enveloping me like a dark,
silent wave. It was in this state of
vulnerable slumber that the missionaries found me.
I awoke to faces blurred by my disorientation, voices that
seemed both alien and divine. They had returned to resupply
and instead found a barely alive jungle girl, a survivor.
Against all odds, with efficient care and whispered prayers, they
arranged for my evacuation. A helicopter churned the air
above as I was hoisted aboard, the jungle receding below me, a
tapestry of green that had been both a cradle and a Crucible.
The hospital in Lima was a blur of white walls and clinical
smells, a stark contrast to the earthy tones of the jungle.
My father was there, his face a canvas of relief and sorrow.
We grieved together for my mother, for the life we had
lost. My recovery was slow, marked by
the physical scars that healed and the emotional ones that
lingered. Driven by a need to confront the
tragedy, I joined the efforts to locate the crash site.
The government had organized search parties, and I guided
them through the jungle, my intimate knowledge of the
terrain proving invaluable. We found the wreckage, a
graveyard of twisted metal and lost lives, including my
mother's. The closure was painful yet
necessary, her remains repatriated to Germany for a
burial that was both an ending and a beginning.
In the years that followed, I embraced MyHeritage, studying
biology like my mother before me.
I returned to Panguana not just as a survivor but as its
steward, continuing the research my parents had devoted their
lives to. The jungle had tested me, forged
me in its relentless Crucible, and I emerged not unscathed but
undeterred. Werner Herzog's film Wings of
Hope later chronicled my ordeal, linking our fates, his decision
to cancel his seat. On that, I'll fated flight and
my miraculous survival. It was a story of what ifs and
happenstances, a reminder of how closely life skirts the
precipice of death and how profoundly it can be altered by
the simple twist of fate. Back when I was in university, I
joined The Walking and Hiking Society.
In stark contrast to its rather dull name, they organized some
of the most exciting trips abroad the university had to
offer. Every year they organize trips
to some of the best hiking spots in the world.
During my second year, the destination happened to be the
Carpathian Mountains. For those who don't know, the
Carpathians run through several Central European countries, but
the vast majority of them are in Romania.
The Carpathians are home to some of the wildest forests in all of
Europe and are also home to rather frightening wildlife,
including brown bears, wolves, and lynxes.
Definitely creatures you wouldn't want to encounter
during an early morning bathroom break.
However, it wasn't the wildlife that made our Carpathians trip
so creepy. It was a group of people we ran
into after getting ourselves lost in the Rodney Mountains
National Park. You're never really lost in the
woods, not if you're a good enough navigator.
If you have a map and a compass, some food and some water, you
can always push on until you figure out where you are based
on landmarks and whatnot. That's why when the leader of
our hiking group, a young professor we called George, said
we might have taken a wrong turn down one of the trails, we
weren't panicking. In fact, it felt quite exciting
thinking that we were venturing into the unknown.
After all, you never improve your skills unless they're
actually tested, and there's never any real growth without
true discomfort. We knew we had to cross one
particular mountain, and the key was finding this one particular
mountain pass. As you can imagine, that's easy
enough to do. All you have to do is find the
spot where the mountains dip low enough and Bob's your uncle.
There's your way through. So it was simply a case of
finding an elevated position, finding where the range dipped,
then just orienting ourselves towards it.
Easy peasy lemon squeezy, I thought.
Then off we marched in the direction of the pass.
There was just one little problem, and that was the issue
of sustenance. Because we all focused on having
an ultra light kit, we'd take in minimal food and water, with us
planning to stop off at various little villages along the route
to take on supplies. Given that we'd missed one of
our village stops due to getting ourselves a bit lost, we ended
up running out of our substantial food supplies.
This wasn't a huge problem, as we still had a few cereal bars
and glucose gel packs to keep us going, and finding fresh water
from mountain streams was surprisingly easy.
But on the day before we plan to navigate the pass, we were all
starting to feel pretty hangry as a result of the shortage.
At one point we all decided to take a break, while George and
another member of the group decided to scout the area to see
if they could find any sources of food, wild or otherwise.
About two hours after they departed, they returned with
some good news. They'd spotted what looked like
a small village up in the mountains, one that wasn't on
our maps but was definitely populated as there was smoke
coming from various chimneys. The plan was to show up, be very
polite and offer them some cash in exchange for whatever food
they could give us. We didn't care if we had to pay
over the odds for it, we were that hungry and would have paid
triple the going rate for a decent hot meal.
So that was all it took to get us moving again, and with the
promise of full stomachs, we found ourselves with renewed
energy to walk a few miles up to the mountain village.
It was definitely a bit nerve racking.
I mean, what if they weren't friendly or just straight up
refused to sell us anything despite us offering them a
fistful of cash? If we took the gamble and it
didn't pay off, we'd have a terrible time crossing the
mountain pass. A person can go a long time
without food and we had enough water to last us, but we'd
definitely be in a bad way once we got to the next village after
the pass. Passing out from hunger is bad
enough at the best of times, but pass out and tumble down the
mountainside and that could be the end of you.
So you can imagine how elated and grateful we were when we
reached the village and they were actually quite welcoming to
us. I say quite because as much as
the bloke we offered money to seemed over the moon to have us
trudge into his village, some of the other villagers seemed less
than impressed by our presence. I really don't mean this to
sound too mean or ungrateful, because they literally saved our
butts out there, but a lot of them just didn't look right, if
that makes sense. I wouldn't have been surprised
if there was a bit of inbreeding going on, to put it that way,
And some of them had this far away glassy look in their eyes,
like there wasn't too much going on between their ears if you get
my drift. So as much as we were happy to
be eating some proper food for the first time in like 24 hours,
we were quite keen on getting out of there too.
We were offered goat milk and goat meat, a few baked potatoes,
pretty basic food like that. And my God did it taste amazing
even with what little seasoning they used.
After that we spent about an hour just relaxing and digesting
with full on food babies until we realized in a bit of a panic
that sunset was fast approaching.
But then when it came to asking the village headman to help us
find the mountain pass, he casually refused and kept making
hand gestures that we interpreted as tomorrow or in
the morning. A quick show of hands showed
that almost no one was focused on bedding down in the village
overnight. And given that some of the other
girls complained that some of the village boys had been giving
them some rather unsavory looks, they'd rather take their chances
camped out on the mountainside than stay in the village
overnight. And given how we could literally
hear wolves howling on the preceding nights, that was
really saying something. So that's how we ended up
packing up our gear, thanking the village head guy after
giving him a big chunk of change, and heading off into the
twilight to find somewhere to camp.
Once we walked a fair distance away from the village, we all
started setting up our little tents and whatnot, got a few
fires going, and after warming ourselves and laughing about the
close call we had, we all tried to get some sleep before the
busy day ahead of us. We really did need to get all
the sleep we could get, as traversing the mountain pass was
going to be a heck of a lot of work, even with the food in our
bellies. It turns out no one would get
any decent sleep on account of the visitor we received in the
middle of the night. I remember being shaken awake by
the girl I was sharing a tent with who told me in this really
shaky, scared voice to put my boots on.
The next thing I know, I can hear George, the professor
leading our group, calling out to someone.
He was saying things like, do you speak English?
Are you from the village? We're leaving in the morning and
we don't want any trouble. Whoever he was talking to wasn't
saying anything back, and it was around then that I put my boots
on and stuck my head outside of the tent to see if I could get a
look at the person. Only it wasn't just one person.
It was about four or five different people standing on a
rise above our campsite, shining flashlights down onto US.
At least, I think it was only that many because that's how
many torches they were shining down on us.
There could have been a lot more that we couldn't see.
We didn't know who they were or what their intentions were.
We had no idea if they were from the village or not, if they
intended to rob us and take the rest of our money or something
even worse. Like I said, there were a few of
the village boys who seemed to have taken an unhealthy liking
to some of the girls in our group, and my own personal worst
fear was just that they'd found our camp and were intent on
dragging one or two of us away for you know what?
Thankfully, a few of the guys came out of their tents to see
what was going on. The torches switched off and we
heard the sound of boots on rocks.
Then silence, meaning whoever it was had retreated, and we all
breathed this collective sigh of relief.
But like I said, sleep didn't come easy after that.
And that's if you were able to get any sleep at all.
At first light, we packed up our things and headed off in the
direction of the mountain pass. It was seriously tough on next
to no sleep, but thankfully the food in our bellies and the fear
in our chests motivated us sufficiently to make it all the
way to the other side. By the early afternoon, we were
all elated. By the time we made it across
and down onto the lush green fields on the other side, it was
like a little slice of paradise right before our eyes.
And the best thing was we could clearly see quite a large
village just a mile or two away, one that would certainly have
access to food and more importantly, alcohol.
I personally needed a strong one after the day we'd had, and
luckily there was a small bar in the village square that was only
too happy to provide us with these big bottles of plum Brandy
they called Palinka. The owner of the bar was quite
proficient in English too, which certainly made our lives easier,
and he ended up asking us about our trip.
Obviously one of the first things we told him about was our
run in at the mountain village and how it started out as a
rather nervy encounter that turned into a seriously creepy
midnight confrontation. When we told him, he gave us
this rather bemused look before telling us that we must have
been confused. According to him, there were no
villages around the mountain pass and that they'd all been
demolished during the communist era, with the occupants being
moved on to collective farms. We all sort of gave each other
these funny looks as if to say, well that can't be right, before
informing him that he was mistaken If the government had
deported all those mountain people, it looked like they'd
moved right back up there as soon as the Iron Curtain fell,
so to speak. The conversation then moved on
to us asking why the government had done something so cruel as
to deport entire villages away from their homes.
And shockingly, the bar owner seemed to have very little
sympathy for them. He launched off into some speech
about it being the best thing for them, how they were all
illiterate and they needed to be dragged kicking and screaming
into the modern world. We thought this was a bit harsh,
honestly. I mean, everyone is entitled to
live the way they want to, at least that's the way I see it.
But he disagreed. He said if we knew the truth
about what they did up there, we wouldn't be so sympathetic.
Then, without a hint of jest or hyperbole to his words, he tells
us that they're cannibals and that they eat the weakest of
their own number in order to conserve resources.
Not only that, but they steal the breast milk of their
pregnant women to distribute among the men of the village.
That's when one of us piped up that one of the first things
they shared with us was meat and milk.
Of course they'd claimed it was goat milk, but none of us had
ever drunk it before, so how would we know the difference?
The man looked absolutely horrified when we told him this,
then promptly walked away from our table before disappearing
behind the bar. Our group looked equally
horrified, at least until a few of the older members spoke up
that the bloke was either seriously misinformed,
horrifically bigoted, or was just playing some elaborate joke
on us that he could share with his regulars for a good old
laugh. This one guy named Adrian was
saying something like there was absolutely no chance that they
were a bit backwards. But cannibals?
No bloody chance. And I'm very much inclined to
agree with him on that. We were in Romania, not some
random isolated island, and given the grinding poverty they
were suffering, it was almost an impossibility that they'd share
anything as precious as milk with us, even if they were
bloody paying. After all, there were tons of
goats trotting around the village, plenty of females with
swollen utters too. So I can almost categorically
say that we didn't engage in cannibalism, nor did we drink
any of the women's milk, so to speak.
The only thing that really still scares me to this day is the
gang of mysterious people who we encountered, the ones who shone
torches down on us from the ridgeline above.
No one with any innocent intentions just rolls up on a
camp of sleeping people like that.
They didn't say a word to us, didn't greet us in Romanian, and
you'd think they'd at least say something to us to ensure their
good intentions, even if it was in a language we couldn't
understand. After all, it's all in the tone
of voice and not so much exactly what you're saying.
It makes me wonder what would have happened if there hadn't
been so many of us, if it had been just all girls or the lads
hadn't come out of their tents for an unintentional show of
force. Sometimes I don't think they
were just curious about us. Sometimes I think that they had
something very, very bad in mind for us and we're all extremely
lucky that they didn't go ahead with whatever they were
planning. I don't think it was the nicer
guy who fed us either. I don't think it had anything to
do with him. I think it was the younger lads
who had been ogling the girls in our group and I think they'd
have been monsters given half the chance.
All in all, it was a wonderful trip, just one that was slightly
marred by a rather unpleasant nocturnal encounter.
The people we met in Romania were, for the most part, some of
the kindest, most welcoming people one could ever wish to
meet. But there were a small few, and
I say this in no uncertain terms, that might have done
things to us that meant we never made it home alive.