00:01Chris Kremers and Lisan Froon
00:03In March 2014, two Dutch students, 21-year-old Chris Kremers and 22-year-old Lisan Froon, arrived in Boquete,
00:13Panama.
00:14They were there to learn Spanish and volunteer with children.
00:17On April 1, they decided to go for a day hike on the popular El Pianista Trail.
00:23They were last seen that afternoon, smiling in photos at the trail's summit.
00:28They were supposed to turn back. They didn't.
00:32Instead, they continued past the trail's end, descending into the dense, unmarked jungle on the other side of the Continental
00:40Divide.
00:42That evening, the first of many frantic, failed emergency calls were made from their phones.
00:47For the next ten days, the phones were periodically turned on to check for a signal, a digital diary of
00:54dwindling hope.
00:55Then, silence.
00:59Two months later, a local woman found Lisan's blue backpack by a riverbank, miles from where they were last seen.
01:07Inside, neatly packed and dry, were both phones, a camera, sunglasses, and cash.
01:14The discovery only deepened the mystery.
01:17The camera contained over 90 bizarre photos taken in the dead of night on April 8, a week after they
01:24vanished.
01:25Most were pitch black, but some showed flashes of the jungle canopy, a strange arrangement of sticks and rocks on
01:32a boulder,
01:33and, um, a close-up of the back of Chris's head.
01:38Then came the bones.
01:40A single boot, with Lisan's foot still inside, was found in the river.
01:45Further upstream, searchers found a pelvic bone and a rib belonging to Chris.
01:50Her bones were described as being almost perfectly clean, as if they had been bleached.
01:56Lisan's remains, in contrast, still had bits of flesh attached.
02:01No complete bodies were ever recovered.
02:04The official cause of death was ruled an accident, but the details don't add up.
02:09Why was the backpack so clean?
02:12What were the night photos for?
02:14And how do two young women just vanish, only to reappear as a collection of scattered, strangely preserved bones?
02:22Mostly Harmless, Vance Rodriguez
02:26In July 2018, hikers on the Nobles Grade Trail in Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve
02:32noticed a foul smell coming from a yellow tent pitched just off the path.
02:37Inside, they found the emaciated body of a man.
02:41He had no wallet, no ID, and no phone.
02:45But he did have a backpack, notebooks filled with code, and $3,500 in cash.
02:53He was a ghost.
02:56For two years, he remained unidentified.
02:59The online true crime community, captivated by the mystery, dubbed him Mostly Harmless,
03:05a name he had apparently used on the trail.
03:08He was a man who had walked out of society and into the woods, leaving no trace of who he
03:14was.
03:15The autopsy only added to the confusion.
03:18He had died of starvation, weighing only 83 pounds.
03:22But his tent was full of food.
03:25He had money to buy more.
03:26He was found just a few miles from a major highway.
03:30He could have walked out at any time.
03:33He didn't.
03:34It wasn't until 2020 that the internet finally cracked the case.
03:39A former co-worker recognized a photo and identified him as Vance Rodriguez,
03:45a 44-year-old software developer from Louisiana.
03:48Friends and family came forward, painting a picture of a brilliant but troubled man
03:53who had struggled with his mental health.
03:56He had simply walked away from his life, seeking solitude in the wilderness.
04:01But the central question remains unanswered.
04:04Why did he starve to death?
04:06Did he choose to?
04:08Was it, you know, a form of protest, a final act of renunciation?
04:13Or did some unknown medical condition prevent him from eating?
04:17The official cause of death is listed as undetermined.
04:21He was a man who had the means to survive.
04:24But for some reason, he chose not to.
04:27Or couldn't.
04:28He died alone in a tent, surrounded by the very things that could have saved him.
04:33A paradox in a yellow tent.
04:37The Garish Chung Family
04:39On a hot August day in 2021,
04:42a young family went for a hike in the Sierra National Forest in California.
04:47John Garish, a 45-year-old British software engineer,
04:51his 31-year-old wife, Ellen Chung,
04:54their one-year-old daughter, Miju,
04:56and their dog, Oski.
04:59They were experienced hikers, familiar with the area.
05:03They set out on a popular eight-mile loop trail.
05:06They never came back.
05:09When they didn't return, a massive search was launched.
05:12The next day, their bodies were found on the trail,
05:15just one mile from their car.
05:18John was found sitting on the trail,
05:20with Miju and the dog beside him.
05:23Ellen was found a short distance up a steep incline,
05:27as if she had been trying to climb for help.
05:30There were no signs of trauma, no foul play, nothing.
05:34They had simply sat down and died.
05:38The case baffled investigators for months.
05:41They explored every possibility.
05:44Lightning strikes, carbon monoxide from old mines,
05:48toxic algae in the nearby river, even murder.
05:51The area was treated like a hazmat zone.
05:54But every theory led to a dead end.
05:56The autopsies were inconclusive.
05:59The family's death was a complete mystery.
06:03Finally, after two months of intense investigation,
06:07the sheriff announced the cause of death.
06:09Hyperthermia and probable dehydration.
06:13The temperature on the trail that day had soared to 109 degrees Fahrenheit.
06:18The family had only brought a single 85-ounce water bladder with them,
06:22which was found empty.
06:24They had been caught in a deadly heat trap on a steep, exposed section of the trail,
06:29with no shade.
06:30A whole family, wiped out by a beautiful day that turned deadly.
06:35A tragic reminder that even the most familiar trails can kill you.
06:40Jerry Largay
06:42In 2013, 66-year-old Jerry Largay was living her dream,
06:47hiking the Appalachian Trail.
06:50She was a retired nurse from Tennessee,
06:52and she had been planning this trip for years.
06:55On July 22nd, she was hiking a remote section of the trail in Maine.
07:00She stepped off the path to go to the bathroom.
07:03She never found her way back.
07:06For 26 days, Jerry was lost in the dense Maine wilderness.
07:11She tried to text her husband for help, but the messages never went through.
07:15She kept a journal, documenting her dwindling food supply and her fading hope.
07:21When you find my body, she wrote in a final entry,
07:25please call my husband George and my daughter Carrie.
07:28It will be the greatest kindness.
07:31Two years later, in October 2015, a forestry worker stumbled upon her campsite.
07:37Her skeletal remains were found inside her sleeping bag in her zipped-up tent.
07:42She had died of starvation and exposure, just a 30-minute walk from the trail she had lost.
07:49The most tragic part?
07:51Search parties had come within 100 yards of her campsite,
07:54but the dense forest had hidden her from view.
07:58She was on land used by the U.S. Navy for survival training.
08:02A place where soldiers learned not to die in the wilderness became her grave.
08:06Jerry Largay's story is gut-wrenching.
08:09A wrong turn, a moment of disorientation, and a dream trip turned into a 26-day nightmare.
08:17She did everything right.
08:18She stayed in one place, she rationed her food, she tried to signal for help.
08:24But in the end, it wasn't enough.
08:27She died alone, writing a final love letter to her family,
08:31a ghost in the woods that no one could find.
08:35Barbara Bullock
08:36On July 18, 2007, 55-year-old Barbara Bullock went for a hike with a friend, Jim Raymaker,
08:44in the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana.
08:46They were on the Bear Creek Overlook Trail, a scenic path that leads to a stunning viewpoint.
08:52They reached the overlook, and Jim walked a few feet away to get a better view of the canyon.
08:57He turned his back for less than a minute.
09:00When he turned back, Barbara was gone.
09:03She had vanished.
09:05No scream, no sound of a fall, no trace.
09:09Jim searched the area, calling her name, but there was no response.
09:13He hiked back down and alerted the authorities.
09:16A massive search was launched, with helicopters, infrared cameras, and search dogs.
09:20They found nothing.
09:22Not a scrap of clothing, not a footprint, not a single clue.
09:25Barbara Bullock had simply disappeared into thin air.
09:30Investigators considered every possibility.
09:32Did she fall?
09:33The canyon was steep, but searches of the area below the overlook turned up nothing.
09:38Was she abducted?
09:39There were no signs of a struggle.
09:41Did she wander off on her own?
09:44Unlikely, given her experience and the fact that she left her wallet and keys in her car.
09:48Her husband said she had a fear of heights and would never have gone near the edge of the cliff.
09:54To this day, Barbara Bullock's disappearance remains a complete mystery.
09:58How can a person vanish from a wide open space in broad daylight with a witness just a few feet
10:04away?
10:04A woman went for a walk with a friend and, in the blink of an eye, was gone.
10:09Forever.
10:11The Dyatlov Pass Incident
10:13In the winter of 1959, a group of nine experienced hikers set out on an expedition in the Ural Mountains
10:21of the Soviet Union.
10:22Led by 23-year-old Igor Dyatlov, they were attempting a difficult trek through a remote, unforgiving landscape.
10:30They never made it back.
10:32When the group failed to return, a search party was sent out.
10:35What they found has become one of the most enduring mysteries of the 20th century.
10:40Their tent was found abandoned on the slopes of a mountain ominously named Kolat Siakl, or Dead Mountain.
10:48It had been cut open from the inside.
10:51The hikers' belongings, including their boots and winter coats, were left behind.
10:56Footprints in the snow showed that the group had fled the tent in a state of panic,
11:00some of them barefoot or in socks, into the freezing darkness.
11:05The bodies were found in two groups.
11:07The first five, found near a makeshift fire under a cedar tree, had died of hypothermia.
11:13But the last four, found two months later in a ravine, had suffered horrific injuries.
11:19One had a crushed skull.
11:22Two had major chest fractures.
11:24And one woman was missing her tongue and eyes.
11:28The injuries were described as being consistent with the force of a car crash.
11:33Yet there were no external signs of trauma.
11:36Let that sink in for a second.
11:38Massive internal damage, but no bruises on the outside.
11:43The Soviet investigation concluded that the hikers had died from a compelling natural force.
11:49But, um, what was that force exactly?
11:53Theories have ranged from an avalanche to a secret military weapons test,
11:57from an attack by the local Mansi people to, you know, an encounter with a Yeti.
12:03In 2019, a new investigation suggested that a rare type of avalanche, a slab avalanche,
12:10could have forced the hikers from their tent and caused their injuries.
12:14But even that theory doesn't explain everything.
12:17The Dyatlov Pass incident remains a chilling, unsolved mystery.
12:22A story of nine lives lost to an unknown terror in the heart of the Russian winter.
12:27A story of nine lives lost to an unknown terror in the heart of the U.S.
