00:00It's a freezing night in Northern California, February 24th, 1978.
00:07A white Mercury Montego snakes down a lonely mountain road in the Plumas National Forest.
00:14Snow drifts along the edges of the asphalt.
00:17The trees loom tall, black silhouettes against the pale moonlight.
00:23Inside the car are five young men, laughing, arguing, tearing open candy bars.
00:30The heater hums. They're talking about the college basketball game they just watched in Chico.
00:36The Gateway Gators, their own team, has a big tournament the next day.
00:41Life feels simple, good, safe.
00:45None of them know they're minutes away from vanishing into one of the strangest and most chilling mysteries in American history.
00:54Their disappearance will baffle police, torment their families, and leave behind a story so eerie that even after 40 years, no one can truly explain it.
01:08This is the story of the Yuba County Five.
01:12Five friends from Yuba City, California.
01:16Ted Wire, 32.
01:19Gentle, kind-hearted, a little slow mentally, but warm and dependable.
01:25Jack Madruga, 30.
01:27An Army veteran, quiet and protective.
01:30Bill Sterling, 29.
01:34Deeply religious, compassionate, almost too trusting.
01:39Jack Hewitt, 24.
01:42The youngest, cheerful, always cracking jokes.
01:46And Gary Mathias, another Army vet.
01:49Bright and energetic, but diagnosed with schizophrenia.
01:53He was doing well, though.
01:56Stable, medicated, focused on basketball.
02:00They weren't troublemakers.
02:02They were the kind of guys who'd stop to help you change a tire or carry your groceries inside.
02:08Everyone in Yuba City knew them as the boys.
02:12Their lives revolved around basketball.
02:16They even had their own team, the Gateway Gators.
02:19That night, they drove nearly 50 miles north to Chico to watch a college basketball game.
02:26They cheered, bought snacks, and left the arena around 10 p.m.
02:32Excited, laughing, talking about how they'd crush their opponents in their own tournament the next day.
02:39But they never made it home.
02:41Two days later, a forest ranger spotted a car parked strangely on a remote logging road deep in the Sierra Nevada mountains, 70 miles from Chico.
02:54It was Jack Madruga's white Mercury Montego.
02:57Inside, police found candy wrappers and milk cartons, folded maps, the keys still in the ignition.
03:08No signs of a struggle.
03:10The car wasn't stuck.
03:12It hadn't run out of gas.
03:14It started perfectly when they tested it.
03:16So why was it abandoned in the middle of nowhere?
03:21And why were they up there at all?
03:24That road led to nothing but snow-covered wilderness, miles from the route home.
03:30None of them were dressed for the cold.
03:33No jackets, no flashlights, no plan.
03:37It was as if they'd stopped, stepped into the woods, and simply vanished.
03:42Police, volunteers, helicopters, bloodhounds, everyone searched.
03:50Night after night, the temperatures dropped below freezing.
03:54Still, there were no footprints, no tire tracks beyond the car.
03:59Nothing.
04:00Ted's mother told reporters he wouldn't leave his friends.
04:04He'd die with them before he left them.
04:07Weeks passed.
04:09The snow kept falling.
04:10The mountains stayed silent.
04:14And then, months later, when the snow began to melt, the nightmare truly began.
04:21June, 1978.
04:24A group of motorcyclists were riding through the melting forest trails
04:29when they stumbled across an old forest service trailer,
04:33a shelter used for snowed-in workers.
04:37Inside, they found horror.
04:39On the bed lay the body of Ted Weyer.
04:43He was emaciated, thin as bone, wrapped carefully in eight sheets.
04:48His beard was long, his feet frostbitten.
04:52He'd lost almost 80 pounds.
04:56Beside him were his wallet, his ring, his watch, and partially eaten canned food.
05:01Investigators realized Ted had survived for nearly three months after they disappeared.
05:09But here's the strangest part.
05:11Inside the trailer were dozens of sealed food rations, propane tanks, matches, fuel, enough to last all winter.
05:21However, none of it had been touched.
05:23They died surrounded by everything they needed to survive.
05:29Not long after, searchers found three more bodies along an 11-mile path between the car and the trailer.
05:38Jack Madruga and Bill Sterling were side by side, frozen in the snow.
05:43A little further on, they found Jack Hewitt.
05:48Only bones remained, scattered by animals.
05:51But Gary Mathias, the fifth man, was never found.
05:56Only his tennis shoes were discovered inside the trailer.
06:00It looked like Gary had borrowed Ted's shoes before leaving, maybe to go for help.
06:06That was the last trace of him.
06:09This is where tragedy turns into something darker.
06:14Why drive 70 miles up a mountain at night in the opposite direction of home with no supplies, no jackets, and no reason to be there?
06:24Why leave a car that wasn't stuck?
06:27Why walk into the wilderness in freezing cold?
06:31And if they found shelter, food, and fuel, why starve to death?
06:37What were they running from?
06:39That same night, a man named Joseph Shones was driving through the Plumas Mountains, and his car got stuck in the snow.
06:48While trying to stay warm inside, he said he saw a group of people, five men and a woman carrying a baby, walking in the glow of headlights from another vehicle parked nearby.
07:01He shouted for help.
07:03No one answered.
07:04A few hours later, as he drifted in and out of consciousness, he saw flashlight beams dancing outside his window.
07:11When he finally freed his car the next morning, he drove past the spot where the Yuba 5's car would later be found.
07:20He swore that the voices and lights he saw belonged to them.
07:24But the woman, the baby, no one has ever identified them.
07:30Over the years, the theories piled up.
07:33Maybe they took a wrong turn, but they'd been near that area before, and they weren't city kids.
07:40Maybe someone was following them.
07:42That would explain why they fled uphill instead of turning back towards safety.
07:46But there were no other footprints.
07:48No tire tracks.
07:50Nothing.
07:51Some pointed at Gary Mathias, his schizophrenia, his medication found at home.
07:57Maybe he had an episode and convinced the others to follow him.
08:01But Gary was known to be high-functioning and loyal to his friends.
08:06If he'd led them into danger, why was he the only one never found?
08:10Others whispered about the government.
08:12Nearby military sites.
08:14Reports of strange explosions that night.
08:17Could they have seen something they weren't supposed to?
08:21There's no proof.
08:22But the lack of answers only makes the silence heavier.
08:26Investigators later realized Ted Wire had survived alone for weeks inside that trailer.
08:33The food cans had been opened with a military-style can opener, the kind Gary Mathias would have known how to use from his army days.
08:41That suggests Gary had been there too, helping Ted, feeding him, maybe trying to get help.
08:49The sheets wrapped carefully around Ted's body suggested someone else was present when he died.
08:55But where that person went, no one knows.
08:59No footprints.
09:00No tracks.
09:02Just snow.
09:03Like he stepped into the storm and vanished.
09:08The families never truly healed.
09:11Ted's mother still set his plate at dinner for years after.
09:16Gary's parents kept hoping he'd just walk through the door one day.
09:20Jack's sister said she believed they were chased to their deaths.
09:24Locals still talk about it.
09:26How the forest feels strange near where the car was found.
09:30Too quiet.
09:31Too still.
09:32Some hikers claim they hear voices, faint, distant, calling names.
09:38One man said he found a small basketball charm buried in the dirt near the road.
09:44He left it there.
09:45The case became known as America's Dyatlov Pass.
09:50Just like the Russian hikers who died mysteriously in the Uro Mountains,
09:54the Yuba 5 were found dead in impossible circumstances,
09:59surrounded by supplies that could have saved them.
10:02But these weren't mountaineers.
10:03They weren't thrill-seekers.
10:05They were just five ordinary guys coming home from a basketball game.
10:11Even decades later, detectives, journalists, and Internet sleuths
10:17still debate what happened that night.
10:19Was it panic?
10:20Was it fear?
10:22Or did someone lure them up that mountain?
10:25And what about the missing trailer keys?
10:29Drive through the Plumas National Forest today, late at night,
10:34and you'll find the spot where the Mercury Montego once sat, half-buried in snow.
10:40The air there feels heavy.
10:42The silence feels wrong.
10:44No one talks above a whisper.
10:48And maybe that's for the best, because some stories don't want to be solved.
10:53They just stay.
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