Five friends set out on a weekend getaway deep in the woods — but what begins as fun quickly turns into a living nightmare. Strange whispers, missing time, and unseen forces haunt their every step. As the night grows darker, they realize they are part of something far more sinister than they could ever imagine.
The Unsolved Nightmare of Five Friends is an original American horror story (2025) from Dark Files: Midnight Tales, blending supernatural mystery, psychological terror, and real unsolved legends.
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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.
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.
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