If you follow us on threads, you know we’ve started a little series about the importance of preserving our national parks, lest the folk horrors within them are finally free. It’s become so popular I thought I would expand on it here and get into the nitty-gritty details, which I know you all love.
I know a lot of people might say who cares if there are a few less trees, but the thing about our parks is there’s a lot of strange and interesting folklore—from staircases to nowhere that appear to the cryptids that roam (some hungry for flesh) to the cannibal cults possibly hiding in caves beneath the earth.
Not to mention there are countless stories of people literally vanishing into thin air.
It makes a girl wonder if park rangers are protecting the woods or if they’re really protecting us from the woods.
And what horrors we will witness if these parks are cut down for lumber? What creatures will no longer have a place to live…or to hunt?
Let's find out
Each year, thousands of people go missing in national parks.
Between cryptids, feral people, vengeful lake ghosts, angry forest spirits, and who knows what else; it’s no surprise some people don’t return from the woods.
But, in all seriousness, there are many reasons people go missing in national parks.
Some people are ill-prepared; they don’t study trail maps, pack enough provisions, bring the appropriate gear, or know their own limits. Others choose not to follow the rules, refusing to check in at ranger stations, sticking to marked trails, or camping in unapproved areas.
It’s not particularly hard to go missing in nature, which is why we have park rangers in the first place. They don’t just protect the forests; they protect the people that visit them.
For example, you don’t get a permit to camp in a national park, because of some government money scheme; you get a permit so someone knows exactly where you are, how long you’re supposed to be there, and when they should start looking for you if you don’t show up by a certain date.
Obviously, park rangers do their best to save lives, and while many who are missing in national parks are found, not all are found alive, and some are never seen again.
Now, I know you’re wondering what this has to do with folklore, so what if I told you there were potentially even bigger things to worry about in our parks than cryptids or feral people?
What if I told you there are countless stories of people who have had the misfortune of brushing up against something otherworldly in our nation's many parks?
It's easy to say "It must be aliens", after all, the National Park Service’s collaboration with Michael's Crafts did result in multiple decorative pieces that said "look up", which felt as though they were trying to tell us something.
But, what we often forget is national parks are liminal spaces.
What exactly is a liminal space?
The Oxford Dictionary defines the word liminal as occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold, which means a liminal space is a place that exists between two states or places. This could be a doorway between two rooms or something much larger like a platform in a public transit station.
Hallways, stairwells, bridges, parking lots, airports, train stations, hospitals, and even hotels are all examples of liminal spaces.
To put it simply: it’s a place that isn’t intended for someone to remain permanently, and usually, when we are in these places, we feel that—we feel an uneasiness that urges us to go.
But, why is that? Why do you feel a sense of unease walking down a stairwell or through a parking garage alone?
Sure, there is something off-putting and uncanny about poorly lit, man-made structures, and there is always that innate fear that you’re not actually alone, but what if I told you, some believe there’s something more to it—that these liminal spaces are thinner than the rest of the world.
The idea is that in these spaces the boundaries between realities or worlds become thinner, which is why places like hotels and hospitals tend to experience more paranormal activity than other spaces.
But, what does this ultimately mean?
Well, I’m sure many of you remember the Backrooms era of r/creepypasta.
Original photo of the “Backrooms” posted to 4chan by an anonymous user (May, 2019)
The lore of the Backrooms was predicated on the idea that reality was thinner in liminal spaces, and it was possible to slip or “no-clip” through other worlds if you spent enough time in a liminal space.
But, there’s a caveat: it’s easy to slip into a parallel reality like the Backrooms, but almost impossible to return.
And, I know, national parks don't exactly look like the Backrooms, but hear me out…
National parks are quite literally transitional spaces that bridge both physical U.S. states and the industrial and natural worlds. More importantly, they are specifically intended for us to pass through, but never to stay permanently.
Thus, they are vast liminal spaces, where the chance of slipping between worlds or connecting with something outside of this reality increases.
Let’s get into it.
There have been numerous reports over the years of people losing time in national parks.
Losing time is a phenomenon when either a significant or small amount of time passes, but the individual has no memory of what happened during that period. For example, what might seem like 5 minutes, could actually be 5 hours or what seems like 5 hours to the individual could, in reality, be 5 minutes.
Those who experience lost time in the woods typically report noticing the time before things suddenly go silent and completely still.
Some people report seeing a strange fog or oddly colored lights in the sky before suddenly finding themselves turned around or on a different part of the trail, and realizing hours have passed and they’re miles from where they last remember walking with no recollection of how they got there.
Now, there are many potential explanations for this phenomenon.
Obviously, it could be aliens, fae, trickster spirits, trolls, or a vengeful ghost playing a cruel trick, but there are potentially less supernatural reasons for brief memory loss, and you’ve probably experienced it yourself.
Have you ever started driving and next thing you know you’re at your destination, and can’t quite remember how you got there? That’s a thing called automaticity, and it’s basically when your brain zones out and focuses elsewhere because you’re doing something you’ve done a million times. It can happen while you’re walking, driving, or even talking to someone.
But, here's the thing: people who have experienced automaticity are doing something they’ve done hundreds of times to the point it’s muscle memory; those who have lost time tend to wake up in places they’ve never been before.
More than that, people who have lost time in this manner report never feeling quite the same.
It's been described as feeling as though they experienced something they couldn't quite comprehend—something otherworldly.
But, not all people who brush up against the unknown return...remember all those people who went missing in national parks?
This is a brief disclaimer that these are actual cold cases and we are merely talking about the strange circumstances around them, and the possibility, given the folklore and first-hand accounts of strange things happening in parks, that something particularly strange occurred.
rocky mountain national park
Rocky Mountain National Park (Photographed by Andrew R. Slaton)
On the 4th of July weekend 1938, the Beilhartz family packed their children into the car and took a weekend trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. They were planning to spend the weekend camping, grilling, and fishing with a few family friends.
Now, there are some inconsistencies surrounding Alfred’s disappearance. There are a few different versions of what happened, but I believe this is perhaps the most honest account, and I’ll tell you why a little later.
On July 2nd, four-year-old Alfred Beilhartz, went with his father and a few family friends to wash up in Fall River. Alfred and his father stopped at a spot not too far from camp, and the two family friends continued further upstream for privacy.
Mr. Beilhartz finished washing up first, and Alfred asked if he could walk upstream to meet the two family friends and walk back with them. His dad agreed and headed back to camp without Alfred; however, shortly after Mr. Beilhartz arrived back at camp, the two family friends returned, but Alfred was nowhere in sight.
The group frantically searched the immediate area, screaming Alfred’s name. The two men hadn’t returned long after Mr. Beilhartz, so everyone assumed he couldn’t have made it that far.
But, it was as though Alfred had vanished into thin air. After a couple of hours, Alfred's parents reported his disappearance to park rangers.
And here’s where it gets weird…
Park rangers were called in, and both the woods and six miles of river near where Alfred was last seen were scoured.
Bloodhounds were brought out to try and follow Alfred’s scent, and they managed to track it for about five hundred feet before it seemingly vanished at a fork in the road. Rangers tried to push the dogs to keep trying to pick up any sign of Alfred’s scent in the general area where they’d lost it, but the dogs began to act strange, as though they were scared of something.
Then something else peculiar happened.
It wouldn’t get back to the search team until the following day, but the day Alfred vanished, a couple spotted a child six miles away sitting atop a section of Mount Chapin known as the Devil's Nest.
Obviously, the couple was confused as to how a small child had made it up to a barely accessible area of the mountain and waited for a moment to see if the child’s parents were around. But, almost as soon as they had spotted the child, they heard a shrill noise and suddenly the kid was gone.
Concerned that the child was alone and possibly injured, the couple went to investigate, but there was no sign anyone had been there.
The couple thought it was odd, but went on their way. That is, until they saw the news the following morning, and recognized the child they saw on Devil’s Nest as Alfred Beilhartz.
Rangers were called and the mountain was combed, but there was no evidence Alfred was ever there.
Now, I promised you before we walked through the events of the day Alfred went missing, I would explain why I felt the specific version I told you was a more honest account of what happened that day.
If you’ll recall, park rangers spent a significant amount of time dredging the river, and this actually annoyed the Beilhartz family. They wanted rangers focused on scouring the woods, but given the dad’s account, rangers assumed that even if Alfred briefly wandered off the main path, he likely turned back to continue walking up the river toward the other men.
Rangers were operating under the logical assumption that there was likely a little more time in between when Mr. Beilhartz and the family friends made it back to camp and that if no one saw him on the trail, it was likely because Alfred slipped and fell into the river.
So, why was the family upset they were focused on the river?
Well, the story has changed a bit over the years, going from Alfred being allowed to take a walk by himself to Alfred being only a few steps behind a group and suddenly disappearing. It’s certainly not uncommon for parents of missing children to want to shift the narrative or not tell the full truth when investigations seem to focus on what others could interpret as poor judgment or negligence.
So, while I believe the version of the story I recounted is the most honest; I still don't think it's the completely honest version. Perhaps Alfred’s dad let him play for a bit by himself and told him he couldn’t go beyond where the other men were washing up or said he could walk to a certain point but needed to come back.
Would it have made a difference if rangers spent more time combing the woods or had a better understanding of the timeframe between when Alfred was last seen and when the family realized he was missing? It’s hard to say for sure.
The search for Alfred was called off after ten days.
There was one supposed sighting of a man walking down a highway in Nebraska with a child several days later on July 8th by a woman named C.A. Linch.
Linch claimed that while she and her husband were driving from Big Spring to Ogallala, she’d seen a mysterious man dragging a boy down the highway. The following day she saw a picture of Alfred in the paper and became adamant the boy she’d seen was Alfred. However, she didn’t go to the police with this information; she told her brother-in-law.
Two days later, Linch’s brother-in-law spoke with Denver PD about the sighting, but nothing seemed to come of it. We don’t know if Linch’s husband saw the man or child, and no one else in the area reported seeing a man dragging a child down the highway that day.
Presumably, given Linch didn’t immediately attempt to contact police about seeing a potentially abducted missing child, the veracity of the tip was questionable.
Now, let’s get back to Alfred.
We know he was potentially traced to a fork in the path, before any trace of him vanished, and mere hours later, he appeared at the top of a difficult-to-access spot on a mountainside and subsequently vanished.
Remember when we talked about how parks are liminal spaces?
Well, Alfred’s family had set up camp in a rather interesting location…
They were right at the point where the Roaring and Fall Rivers intersect and become one: a crossroads—another liminal space.
And where did Alfred potentially vanish?
At another crossroads within the area.
It makes one wonder, did a four-year-old really manage to hike six miles and climb a mountain in a few hours? Or could someone really have abducted him and taken him up there?
Could someone in the camping party have done something to Alfred and managed to dispose of a body in record time?
Or could Alfred have made his way to a particularly thin spot within the larger liminal space of the park and stumbled into a parallel dimension?
great smoky mountains national park
Not convinced people are slipping into parallel dimensions in our national parks?
Well, I have a story that’s a bit stranger.
Let's jump ahead a few decades to Father’s Day weekend June 1969, when the Martin family decided to spend the weekend camping with two other families in a backcountry meadow in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Some of the children, including 6-year-old Dennis Martin, wanted to play a prank on the parents and decided they were going to hide in two small patches of bushes north and south of the campsite. Dennis went into the bushes on the north side, and the other children headed into the shrubbery on the south end.
Within minutes, the other children jumped from the bushes on the south end of the campsite, but Dennis failed to emerge.
Based on what his parents reported to the National Park Service (NPS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Dennis had a developmental disability, and his parents kept a very close eye on him. So, when the other children emerged sans Dennis, his father was quick to ask the kids about Dennis’ whereabouts.
The kids told him Dennis was supposed to pop out from the bushes on the north end when they did, but he never did. The Martins and their friends searched the area for hours before alerting the nearest ranger station, and over the next few weeks over a thousand volunteers combed the woods for any sign of Dennis, but once again, it was as though the child had simply vanished into thin air.
Now, there were some complications in Dennis’ case. It did rain that night after the initial search began, potentially washing away evidence. There were also over a thousand volunteers searching for Dennis, and it is possible clues were missed or trampled on given how many people were in one place.
Dennis was never found, but there were a few strange theories about what happened along the way:
Dennis’ parents believed he was abducted by someone, though only a few minutes passed and no evidence of foul play was ever found. Now, this one is not necessarily an impossibility. We only have the Martins’ word regarding the timeframe, so Dennis could have potentially been out of sight for longer.
A park tourist by the name of Harold Key told police that roughly an hour after Dennis disappeared, he heard an “enormous, sickening scream" and saw what he believed to be a feral man running down the trail with some sort of sack or cloth slung over his shoulder. Initially, the man believed the trail was about five miles from the Martin family campsite, but further investigation revealed it was closer to nine miles and the timeframe was a bit off, which made the story difficult to substantiate.
Another theory proposed was that a feral hog or bear somehow scooped up the child, and devoured it without making a sound or leaving any trace.
There is one potential theory circulated after the fact that makes the most sense, though there’s still no evidence this is what potentially occurred. We’ll get into this more in a later edition, but there are hundreds of thousands of miles of unexplored caves, old mine shafts, moonshine tunnels, and underground rivers beneath national parks.
We don’t know exactly where all of them are, so it is possible that Dennis climbed into the bush, stepped on the wrong patch of earth, and fell into one of these caves or an old mine shaft. Family and rangers extensively searched the area where Dennis was last seen, so one would assume if he fell into a hole it would have been noticed, but we can’t completely rule it out.
In 1985, a man reported he had come across the “scattered skeletal remains of a small child” while searching for ginseng in the woods a few years prior. He told authorities he’d declined to report it sooner since harvesting wild ginseng is illegal and he feared potential prosecution. Authorities acted on the tip, as it was about four miles from where Dennis was last seen, but there were no signs of any human remains in the area.
Some conspiracy theorists believe that someone who was on the trip got wind the remains had been found, and hightailed it up to the area to grab the remains before police were able to investigate, but “scattered skeletal remains of a small child” is an incredibly vague statement. Did the man actually see a child’s complete skeleton or did he see the scattered bones of a small mammal that seemed child-sized? And even if those were human bones, they were already scattered about and unlikely to be there after three years.
Could Dennis have been abducted by a feral man? Did he suffer some sort of tragic accident in the backwoods, and found himself in a place where no one could see or hear him?
One thing I did notice that was missing in the investigation was there didn’t seem to be much of an attempt to see what the other children knew. It strikes me as a little odd that Dennis was sent to bushes on the other side of the campsite, while all the other children got to jump from the same bushes.
Did the kids potentially play a cruel prank on Dennis because of his disability? Did they send him to the bushes beside the campsite or did they have him go farther away where a number of things could have happened?
(If the children were not entirely honest and Dennis was potentially gone for much longer or had been sent further away from camp, it might mean there were possibilities the search team didn’t consider because of the short timeframe he disappeared.)
Or did something more peculiar happen in those few seconds between when Dennis stepped into the bushes and failed to re-emerge?
I’ll leave you with one last strange tidbit from the NPS case file:
“[Dennis] was last seen on the Tennessee side of the Spence Field, It should be noted here that the state line between Tennessee and North Carolina runs along the apex of the field along the Appalachian Trail”
Dennis potentially disappeared along the liminal space between Tennessee and North Carolina.
But, Dennis wasn’t the only person to vanish under mysterious circumstances in this national park. There was another bizarre disappearance in 1981, approximately twenty-five miles east of where Dennis was last seen.
Thelma Pauline “Polly” Melton was an experienced hiker who was familiar with the area, and on September 25, 1981, Thelma literally vanished in front of her friends.
According to her friends, Polly had been walking a bit slower than normal that day, and they’d teased her about it a few times. She picked up some speed and started to outpace the pair.
They’d assumed their ribbing had gotten to her and didn’t attempt to catch up. They watched as she made it to the top of a hill, and when the two reached the top shortly after, Polly was gone.
There was no sign of her anywhere on the trail.
Initially, they continued down the path, wondering if she was merely moving too fast for them, but after they picked up their pace and still didn't run into Polly, the women assumed she’d taken some alternative route back to the campground.
They headed to the Airstream where Polly and her husband camped over the summer months, only to find Polly hadn’t returned home. The two women quickly informed their husbands, and the group went back over the route they had taken.
After about an hour or so, they decided the situation was serious enough to alert park rangers. An expansive search ensued, but searchers could find no trace of Polly. There were no footprints leading off the trail or any signs of a potential kidnapping or struggle.
Search dogs were brought in, and similar to Alfred’s case, dogs led rangers to a downed tree just off the path, but couldn’t find any trace of her beyond that point. It was as though she’d stopped there briefly after pushing ahead and simply vanished.
Now, there is one theory as to what could have happened to Polly, though it has never been substantiated.
In addition to her daily hike with friends, Polly volunteered at a local Presbyterian church every afternoon; however, Polly had decided not to come in on September 25th. It was unusual, but not as unusual as the several phone calls she’d made on the church phone while volunteering the day before.
In the four years Polly had volunteered at the church, no one recalled her ever using the phone, which is why it stood out that she’d made several calls that day. Unfortunately, they were never able to determine who Polly was calling, so it’s impossible to know if these uncharacteristic calls had anything to do with her disappearance.
The church’s pastor claimed that Polly had alluded to having an affair, though he could not provide particulars to substantiate that claim. Polly’s friends said they had noticed a male parishioner had been paying extra attention to Polly recently, and they had teased her about it a bit on the last hike.
Polly didn’t deny the man was sweet on her, but didn’t seem interested in talking about it, so the subject was dropped. Her friends said this wasn’t unusual, as Polly tended to be a private person and they had no reason to believe she was seeing him on the side.
But, some believe that Polly, who’d married a man twenty years her senior, whose health had begun to decline, orchestrated a grand escape to run away with this mysterious parishioner and start her life over. There was even a parking lot further down the trail, where she could have asked the man to pick her up in order to feign her disappearance.
The only problem with this theory is that, aside from the affair being an unsubstantiated rumor, it doesn’t appear this mystery man also disappeared—or at least nothing in police records indicate he vanished as well.
And even if Polly had obtained a car and parked it in the lot to escape on her own, she wouldn’t have made it very far. We don’t know the full details of Polly's medical issues, but she'd been unable to drive for a few years.
On top of this, there only seems to be one parking lot in the area, which would be right beside the campground where her husband and friends were staying. If Polly had wanted to make a great escape, she would have risked being seen by plenty of people who knew her.
Similarly, Polly didn’t take anything besides a pack of cigarettes on the hike. She didn’t take any cash or identification, and she’d left all her medication behind, including the medication she needed for nausea and high blood pressure.
A bottle of valium was later reported missing from the trailer by Polly’s husband, but he couldn’t be sure exactly when it had disappeared. Polly had previously taken valium during a bought of depression after the death of her mother in 1977, but she’d been off it for a while and her mood had significantly improved in the following years.
There was concern that Polly had taken the valium to attempt to commit suicide, but again, there was no sign that she’d left the trail to do more than sit on a fallen tree.
However, one strange thing did occur a few months after Polly disappeared:
On April 14, 1982, someone cashed a check made out to Thelma Pauline Melton for the interest on a bank certificate at a bank in Birmingham, Alabama. Unfortunately, we don’t exactly know who cashed the check, as the bank teller had no recollection of the interaction.
And while that might seem like positive proof Polly was alive and well somewhere, it’s hard to believe a woman who completely abandoned her life would risk cashing a check made out to herself, while authorities were still searching for her.
However, Polly’s family in the Birmingham area were obviously aware of her disappearance. Could the check have been an opportunistic relative trying to make a few quick bucks?
There were some alleged sightings over the years in the Florida-Alabama area, but nothing was ever able to be substantiated. Likely because in the 80’s there were plenty of older women with dyed red perms and large glasses out and about. But again, it’s hard to imagine that if Polly disappeared, she would return to two areas where she would be recognized.
At the end of the day, we likely will never know what happened to Polly on the trail that day. It’s certainly possible she made a run for it or that her friends perhaps quietly helped her get away, but I’d have to imagine if the pair knew Polly was still alive, they would have come clean when Polly’s husband was rushed to the hospital the night she went missing, and if not then, at the least when everyone watched as he sank into a deep depression and his health rapidly declined.
But there is one peculiar tidbit about the trail the ladies were walking on that day. The area where the two friends lost sight of Polly sat between two crossroads—two liminal spaces.
What if Polly never left the trail?
What if Polly was annoyed with her friends that day and the constant teasing aimed at her?
What if she sped up and made it over that hill, but found that smoking two packs a day with high blood pressure had left her winded and dizzy? And what if, when she stepped off the path to catch her breath on that fallen log for just a moment, she walked right through a thin place and found herself very far from where she’d been with no way to return?
I suppose the question we have to ask is did both a six-year-old boy and a nearly sixty-year-old woman somehow outwit massive search efforts? And if there was foul play like a random kidnapping, could both of their kidnappers really have avoided leaving any clues behind?
Or could something much stranger have occurred in a place where so many people vanish without a trace every year?
green mountain national forest
Glastonbury area Green Mountain National Forest (2023)
I have one more story for you all about a place called The Bennington Triangle, which is an area around Glastenbury Mountain in Green Mountain National Forest.
As far back as 1873, there have been reports of strange disappearances in the area around Glastonbury, but between 1945-1950, there were at least five people who disappeared from the area in quick succession without a trace.
The first to go missing was Middie Rivers, an elderly hunting guide who was leading a party of hunters around the area on November 12, 1945. As he walked them through Hell Hollow, on the southwest end of Glastonbury, back towards their camp, he got ahead of the group a bit and suddenly disappeared (sound familiar?).
Initially, the group thought he managed to outpace them and presumed he’d made it back to camp before them. I’m not super sure why they assumed a seventy-four-year-old man was somehow able to run back to camp at a speed they were unable to see, but what do I know?
But, when they returned to the campsite, Rivers wasn’t there. The hunters weren’t concerned just yet though. After all, Rivers knew the area and the terrain well. He might have just wanted to be alone.
However, as the sky grew dark and Rivers failed to appear at the campsite, the hunters started to realize something was very wrong. An extensive search was conducted, but Middie Rivers seemed to have simply vanished.
The second person to go missing during this period was Bennington College student, Paula Welden.
On December 1, 1946, Paula told her roommate she planned to take a hike that afternoon. She put on a bright red jacket, jeans, and a pair of sneakers, and hitched a ride out to the park. Paula was seen by several people on the trail that day, including one individual who told her it was getting late and she should consider turning back, considering she wasn’t actually dressed for hiking.
Paula continued down the Long Trail as the sky grew darker and was never seen again.
The following day, when Paula did not reappear in the morning, her roommate alerted authorities and a massive search was underway. But, there was literally no trace of Paula to be found on the trail.
Her parents initially believed that Paula had run away with an ex-boyfriend they didn’t like, but Paula hadn’t taken any money, identification, or even a backpack with supplies or clothes.
In 1949, a man named Jim Tetford was traveling by bus through the area. Multiple witnesses saw him get on the bus, but when the bus pulled into the town of Bennington, Tetford was simply gone. His luggage was still on the bus, and a timetable was sitting on his seat as though he’d suddenly dropped it.
Then, in 1950, within the span of a month, both Freida Langer and Frances Christman vanished while hiking.
Freida and her cousin, Herbert, were camping out near Glastonbury when Freida fell in a stream. She told her cousin she was going to run back to camp to change and pushed him to go ahead without her. Herbert obliged, but after a bit of time had passed, he began to wonder what was taking her so long.
Herbert returned to camp to discover that Freida had never made it back. Once again, a massive search was conducted, but it seemed as though Freida, like those before her, had simply vanished into thin air.
However, unlike the others, Freida’s body was found six months after her disappearance in an area that had previously been searched extensively. What was strange though was that the level of decomposition appeared to be far greater than six months.
We don’t know as much about the circumstances around the disappearance of Frances Christman, but we do know on December 3, 1950, Frances set off on a three-mile hike to visit a friend. She never showed up at her friend’s place, and she’s never been seen since.
Now, it’s easy to say with Paula or even Frances that perhaps they weren’t properly prepared to hike through the Vermont wilderness in the December cold, but Rivers and Frances literally seemed to have disappeared within moments of parting from their companions.
And what about Jim Tetford who literally vanished in a moving vehicle?
The thing is, there have long been reports, dating back to early colonizers, of odd occurrences in the vicinity of the mountain. People have reported strange lights, sounds, and odors, as well as missing time, feral men from the mountain, and attacks from giant humanoid beasts.
Local indigenous tribes have long believed the land around the mountain is both sacred and cursed—a place suitable only for the dead to be buried. There are also tales of a "human-eating rock" on the mountain.
Sure, the stone could be some sort of cryptid, but those of you who are familiar with Outlander know that sometimes rocks can be portals, and perhaps the human-eating rock is not so much devouring people, as it is making them disappear.
Stories aside, the question is what's happening to all these people?
I suppose the answer could still be aliens, but consider that it's equally as possible that someone took a wrong step in a liminal space and slipped into a parallel dimension with no way to return.
And maybe those who merely lost time are the lucky ones or, perhaps, they were unlucky enough to see what lies on the other side of those thin spaces.
Maybe they're missing time because whatever it was they saw was a horror too unimaginable for the human mind to comprehend.
This is the part of our journey where I'm supposed to tell you to always listen to park rangers and stay on marked trails, but I guess, if today has taught us anything, sometimes following the trail can't save you from whatever is lurking within our national parks.
Hopefully, the people cutting down all those trees know they ought to be careful.
We certainly wouldn't want to see them vanish without a trace...
And that's all she wrote...for now.
This was definitely a fun one to write. For those of you who aren’t my mom or the three people I’m friends with who subscribe to this and don’t know my full story, I did work on cold cases in my previous life before becoming the owner of a witchcraft shop, and still enjoy a good unsolved mystery from time to time.
I have one more story from the Smoky Mountains coming up next. It’s the story of a high school girl named Trenny Gibson, who disappeared in front of nearly 40 classmates in the middle of a field trip.
And I think it might prove a theory I have that connects each and every one of these strange disappearances.
Stay tuned for that and more national park folk horrors.
In these times, we all need a bit of joy, so if you enjoy this content and would like to support all the work that goes into this little folklore project, click the link below to contribute:
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Stay cursed, friends.
Resources:
Appalachian Unsolved: Polly Melton Missing in the Smokies by Leslie Ackerson
Bennington Triangle, Vermont by Kathy Alexander
Cold Case New England: Paula Weldon
Denver Hiker May Have Seen Missing Child by The Greeley Daily Tribune
Mystery and Missing: The Tragic Trails of the Bennington Triangle by Sarah J. Blake
Search in Smokies for Lost Boy, Dennis Martin, Produces Lessons for Future Searches by Jim Balloch
The Bennington Triangle: Tales of Mysterious Disappearances by Carlos Morales
The Charley Project: Alfred Beilhartz
The Charley Project: Dennis Martin
The Charley Project: Thelma Pauline Melton
The Haunting of Glastenbury Mountain by Bob Audette
The Strange Disappearance of Alfred Beilhartz in Rocky Mountain National Park
The Vanished: Dennis Martin and the Biggest National Park Search of All Time by Katelyn Keenehan
Thelma "Polly" Melton: Vanished From the Great Smoky Mountains by Michelle Short