Latest / Crime and Horror / Top 5 Bingeable SCARY STORIES • Internet Rabbit Holes Edition - MrBallen

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Top 5 Bingeable SCARY STORIES • Internet Rabbit Holes Edition - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Today's video is a collection of five fan favorite stories
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  Speaker 1: that each sparked years of theories, speculation, and debate online. Now,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: these five fan favorites have all been completely re edited
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  Speaker 1: for today's episode, so even if you may have heard
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: or seen some of them before, it will still feel
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: like a brand new viewing experience. And for all you
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: longtime fans of the channel, make sure you pay extra
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: close attention to find that secret image we've placed inside
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  Speaker 1: one of these stories. The first person to comment what
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the secret image is and the timestamp in the comment section,
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  Speaker 1: I will pin that comment to the top of the
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: comment section. Plus, my old pal Siga Lung is making
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: a return in today's episode, so make sure you keep
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: an eye out for him and comment your favorite tidbit
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: that he shares with you. But before we get into
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  Speaker 1: today's five stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: and mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: the right place because that's all we do, and we
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: upload two, three, even four times every week. So if
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  Speaker 1: that's of interest to you, please offer to get the
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: light button a cup of coffee, but don't tell them
• 1:02
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  Speaker 1: you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's
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  Speaker 1: get into today's stories. Around seven to twenty pm on
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  Speaker 1: the evening of December eleventh, two thousand and two, a
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  Speaker 1: police department in a rural English county called Surrey started
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  Speaker 1: receiving all these frantic emergency calls. Now, all of these
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  Speaker 1: calls were coming from drivers on a heavily trafficked highway
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  Speaker 1: called the A three, and they all were saying the
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  Speaker 1: same things. They had seen this totally reckless driver with
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  Speaker 1: super bright headlights that was weaving in and out of
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  Speaker 1: traffic and going at high speeds and nearly crashing into people.
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  Speaker 1: And then a couple of the callers said they actually
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  Speaker 1: saw this car go down the embankment off the side
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  Speaker 1: of the highway, and so it looked like they might
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  Speaker 1: have crashed. And so, of course this police department, after
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  Speaker 1: getting all these calls, decided to send out a couple
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  Speaker 1: of officers to see what was going on. When the
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  Speaker 1: two officers got out to the A three and began
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  Speaker 1: patrolling the area on the A three where all these
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  Speaker 1: calls were saying they had seen this reckless driver. They
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  Speaker 1: didn't see the driver, they didn't see a wreck on
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  Speaker 1: the side of the road, they didn't see any signs
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  Speaker 1: of an accident. I mean there was nothing there. Now,
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  Speaker 1: had only one person called in about this wild, reckless
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  Speaker 1: driver at this point, the officers would have chalked this
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  Speaker 1: up to a mistake or even a prank. But so
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  Speaker 1: many people called in about this one particular reckless driver
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  Speaker 1: on THEA three that these two officers decided to just
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: keep on looking and really see if they can figure
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  Speaker 1: out where this driver went. And so to this point,
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  Speaker 1: the two police officers had been just driving on the
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  Speaker 1: A three to try to find this driver. They decided
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  Speaker 1: they would park their vehicle, get out and walk on
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  Speaker 1: foot on the edge of the highway because there were
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  Speaker 1: these huge forests that lined either side of the A three.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, Surrey, the county in England where this was,
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  Speaker 1: was one of the most heavily forested areas in all
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  Speaker 1: of England, and so these forests on either side of
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  Speaker 1: the A three were very dense. You could not see
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  Speaker 1: very far into them. And so these officers were thinking
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  Speaker 1: that it might be possible that this driver, if they
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  Speaker 1: were driving as recklessly as all the callers made, it
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  Speaker 1: seem like they could have veered off the highway, gone
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  Speaker 1: down the embankment, and then because they were going at
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  Speaker 1: such a high speed, they could have crashed their way
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  Speaker 1: into one of these forests and basically disappeared from view
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  Speaker 1: from the road. That in order to see this crash
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  Speaker 1: in the forest, you'd have to be basically in the forest.
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  Speaker 1: And so these two officers they pulled over, they got out,
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  Speaker 1: and they began walking along the edge of the highway,
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  Speaker 1: staring into the forest, looking for a sign of a
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  Speaker 1: car wreck. And sure enough, after walking for a while,
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  Speaker 1: one of the officers spotted something deep in the woods
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  Speaker 1: that looked almost metallic or plastic, whatever it was. It
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  Speaker 1: wasn't supposed to be in the forest, and so the
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  Speaker 1: officers made their way into the tree line and began
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  Speaker 1: walking through all the trees, and as they got closer,
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  Speaker 1: they realized very clearly there was a car. There was
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  Speaker 1: a wreck in the forest. And so the two officers
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  Speaker 1: they begin running towards the wreck. They're calling for back
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  Speaker 1: upon the radio. They get to this wreck in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of the forest, and they're on the driver's side,
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  Speaker 1: and they look inside the car and there's no driver
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  Speaker 1: in the driver's seat. But they looked through the car
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  Speaker 1: to the passenger side and they saw the front passenger
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  Speaker 1: door was wide open, and on the ground on the
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  Speaker 1: other side of the car was very clearly a body.
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  Speaker 1: And so the two police officers rushed around the car
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  Speaker 1: to get a better look at the body. And when
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  Speaker 1: they did, you know, they couldn't believe what they were seeing.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: It didn't make any sense, like what was this. Now.
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  Speaker 1: To understand why these police officers were so caught off
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  Speaker 1: guard by what they were seeing, we need to go
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: back five months to July sixteenth, two thousand and two.
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  Speaker 1: On that night, a twenty one year old man named
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  Speaker 1: Christopher Brian Chandler finished up his beer at a pub
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  Speaker 1: in West London. And for reference, where this pub was
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  Speaker 1: located was about one hour north of that stretch of
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  Speaker 1: the A three highway in Surrey where the car was
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  Speaker 1: found in the woods. This night, Christopher had gone to
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  Speaker 1: this pub with a close friend of his. This was
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  Speaker 1: meant to be a fun night out. But you know,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: as Chris is finishing up this bier, he began to
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  Speaker 1: feel really antsy because it turned out Christopher was actually
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: wanted by police. In London for robbery, and so he
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: hated staying in one place for too long, and so
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  Speaker 1: the only people who even knew where Christopher was was
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  Speaker 1: the friend he was with at the bar, and then
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  Speaker 1: also Christopher's brother, he knew he was at this particular pub,
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  Speaker 1: and so finally Christopher got so anxious about being in
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  Speaker 1: this pub for too long that he told the friend
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  Speaker 1: he was with that he just wanted to leave, and
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: so he said good night to his friend. The friend
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  Speaker 1: stayed at the pub, and Christopher left, got in his
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  Speaker 1: car and began driving south. But Christopher never arrived at
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  Speaker 1: the place he was trying to go. He just sort
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  Speaker 1: of disappeared and nobody heard from him again. Christopher's brother
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  Speaker 1: eventually would report Christopher missing, but remember the brother knows
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  Speaker 1: Christopher is wanted for robbery, and so Christopher suddenly going
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  Speaker 1: on the lamb and just disappearing for a while was
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  Speaker 1: kind of par for the course, and so the brother
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  Speaker 1: really didn't think this was a big deal. And also
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  Speaker 1: the police felt the same way, because they know Christopher
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  Speaker 1: is trying to elude them and so it makes sense
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  Speaker 1: he would be missing, and so as a result, nobody
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  Speaker 1: really followed up on Christopher's missing person report. Everybody just
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  Speaker 1: kind of moved on, That is until five months later
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  Speaker 1: when all those drivers began calling into the police in
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  Speaker 1: Surrey about seeing this totally reckless driver careening down the
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  Speaker 1: A three who eventually crashed into a ditch. And then
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  Speaker 1: those two officers they went out to that stretch of
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  Speaker 1: A three and sure enough it was Christopher's car and
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  Speaker 1: the body on the ground was Christopher. However, there was
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  Speaker 1: a problem. When the two police officers walked up on
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  Speaker 1: Christopher's car and saw it for the first time, they
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  Speaker 1: were struck by how old it looked, but it didn't
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  Speaker 1: really register with them why that would matter. Stood out
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  Speaker 1: to them that this is a really, really old and
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  Speaker 1: rusted up car. But when they went around to look
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  Speaker 1: at the body on the ground, Christopher's body, they saw
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  Speaker 1: that his body was actually mostly a skeleton, which meant
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  Speaker 1: Christopher did not crash and die on this night December eleventh,
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  Speaker 1: two thousand and two. Very likely he crashed and died
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  Speaker 1: five months earlier, right around the time he disappeared. Now,
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  Speaker 1: the Surrey police, they say that this was all just
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  Speaker 1: one big coincidence that the reckless driver that all these
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  Speaker 1: drivers were reporting that night on the A three must
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  Speaker 1: have not crashed and actually just kind of got away.
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  Speaker 1: And then, just by coincidence, when the police were searching
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  Speaker 1: that area of the A three for the reckless driver,
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  Speaker 1: they happened upon Chris and his car. But remember several
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  Speaker 1: of the drivers who called in that night about seeing
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  Speaker 1: this reckless driver on the A three. They specifically said
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: they saw the car veer off the embankment and crash
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  Speaker 1: down below near the tree line, like this is a
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  Speaker 1: serious someone needs to get out here with an ambulance
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: because probably someone's hurt. And then when the police got
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: out and searched the exact area where this crash supposedly happened,
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  Speaker 1: they find Chris's car that had all the hallmarks of
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  Speaker 1: a car that was driving recklessly on the A three
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  Speaker 1: that veered off and crashed into the woods. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: they found Chris and his car because of these calls,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: but it could not have been Chris, But what other
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  Speaker 1: car could it have been. As of today, we do
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  Speaker 1: not have a good explanation for how this happened, and
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  Speaker 1: so it's been dubbed the A three ghost crash. On
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  Speaker 1: June first, nineteen thirty seven, Amelia Earhart took off from Oakland, California,
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  Speaker 1: on an eastbound flight around the world. It was her
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: second attempt to become the first pilot ever to circumnavigate
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  Speaker 1: the globe. She along with her flight navigator Fred Noonan,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: flew to Miami and then down to South America, across
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  Speaker 1: the Atlantic to Africa, and then east to India and
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Southeast Asia. The pair reached Ley, New Guinea on June
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  Speaker 1: twenty ninth. A couple days later, on July second, Earhart
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  Speaker 1: and Nonan would depart Lay and they would make their
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: way to tiny Howland Island, which was their next refueling stop,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: but they would never arrive. What Airhart was trying to
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  Speaker 1: accomplish at the time was such a big deal, and
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: so when they disappeared, it was heartbreaking and it made
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: international headlines and this huge searches launched for them, but
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: they can't find them, and after two weeks they officially
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: declared they were lost at sea and most likely dead.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Three years later, and three hundred and fifty miles away
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  Speaker 1: from Howland Island, which was the island Earhart and Nonan
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  Speaker 1: were trying to get to before they vanished. A British
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: scientist was on this tiny, little uninhabited island called Nikou Mororo,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: and they made a startling discovery. He found an incomplete
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: skeleton next to what looked like the remains of a campfire,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: and their skeleton was kind of torn all over the place,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: like they had been ripped limb from limb. Because of
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Niku Mororo's proximity to Howland Island, everybody speculated that this
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: has got to be the body of either Amelia Earhart
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: or Nunan. The bones were sent to two doctors in Fiji,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and they unfortunately said, no, this isn't air Heart or Nonan,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: this is somebody else. So those bones were ultimately disposed
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: of because no one could claim them or knew who
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: they were, and everybody just kind of forgot about it
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: until twenty seventeen when a forensic anthropologist decided to manually
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: re examine the measurements of the bones that were taken
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: off of Niku Mororo Island and compare them to real
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: measurements of Amelia Earhart. And they discovered that clearly those
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: doctors in Fiji had made a mistake, because the measurements
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: of these bones match Amelia Earhart almost exactly. So researchers
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: go back to Niku Mororo Island and they go to
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: the area where these bones were found, near that campfire,
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  Speaker 1: and they look around and they find a couple nineteen
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: thirties era bottles, class bottles, and one of them is
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: a freckle cream. And Amelia Earhart had lots of freckles
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: and she liked to use freckle cream to cover them up.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: She was kind of famous for doing that. And so
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: they found that freckle cream on this island near bones
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: that look like they belong to Amelia Earhart. So while
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: some scientists are putting their energy into confirming that, yes,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: those bones were Amelia Earhart, we don't have the bones,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: but we can show you with the measurements and the
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: freckle cream. And there's another picture that apparently shows the
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: landing gear of her plane off of nikum Mororo Island.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: So there's some people that are working on that angle,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: and there's another group of scientists and researchers that are saying, Okay,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: let's assume that that really was Amelia Earhart. Let's figure
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: out what happened to her once she got to Niku
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Mororo Island.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: And the leading theory is horrifying Although Niku Mororo Island
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: is uninhabited by people, it is inhabited by one of
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: the scariest creatures on the planet, the coconut crab.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: They're three feet long, they can carry it at least
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: six times their body weight, and they use their pincers
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: that are as strong as a lion's jaw to rip
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: open coconuts, which is their main source of food. But
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: coconuts are not the only thing they eat. They'll also
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: eat pigs, they'll eat each other, they'll even eat themselves.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: And they're prolific climbers because they need to get up
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: to get to the coconuts. But in some parts of
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: the world they use their climbing ability to climb up
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: and grab birds and break their wings with their pincers
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: and then drag them into their underground burrows where they
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: will eat them too. The few researchers and scientists that
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: have gone out to Niku Mororo Island have said at night,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: thousands of these crabs will emerge from their underground burrows
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: and they'll go looking for food. And they have a
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: really keen sense of smell, and they can smell blood.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: So when one of the crabs goes up and grabs
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: a bird and starts ripping it apart. The thousands of
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: others will come charging over and swarm the bird because
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: they've smelled the blood, and they'll rip it to pieces,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: and they'll all try to get in on the action,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: and so the theory goes. Earhart and Noonan are making
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: their way to Howland Island. They get off tracks somehow
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: and they wind up crash landing three hundred and fifty
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: miles away on Niku Mororo Island on one of the reefs.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Noonan probably dies on impact, and Earhart, who's badly wounded
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: and probably bleeding, she gets onto the island and she
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: makes her way up to that area where that campfire
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: was found, and for some amount of time, Earhart is
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: able to survive off of whatever she had on her
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: in those glass bottles, but in her weekend state and bleeding,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: at some point she probably attracted the coconut crabs, who
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: one night came out and swarmed her, ripped her to pieces,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: and ate her. Today, Niku Mororo Island is only inhabited
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: by the coconut crabs and its protected land under the
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Republic of Kirabody. And so if you want to go
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: You have to get express permission from the Republic of
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Kirabody and they send someone to go with you. And
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: there's no airport on the island, so you have to
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: land on a separate island and then ride to Niku
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Mororo on a boat. But you have to pass through
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Cyclone Alley, which means you can only travel there at
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: certain parts of the year, and even then it's incredibly dangerous.
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  Speaker 1: Slash Bonus h offer dash terms. At around five o'clock
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  Speaker 1: in the evening on June twenty fifth, nineteen ninety nine,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: a man named Ricky McCormick stumbled into an emergency room
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: in Saint Louis, Missouri, with his hand over his chest,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: complaining that he couldn't breathe. He said he had asthma,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: and earlier that day he had been cutting the grass,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: and so maybe that had caused a flare up, but
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: either way, here he was in a lot of discomfort, saying,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: you know, I need help. Ricky was forty one years old,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: and for his whole life he had had heart and
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: lung problems, and so him arriving in this state in
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: the er was actually not all that uncommon for him.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: And so this hospital did what they did with anyone
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: who came in complaining that they couldn't breathe. They immediately
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: took Ricky to a back exam room and they hooked
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: him up to all these monitors to make sure his
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: heartbeat was steady and that his oxygen levels were plenty high.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: And once Ricky was in the exam room getting hooked up,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: he started acting really agitated, and he kept looking around
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: the room like he was scared that someone was going
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: to jump out at him. And he was also sweating profusely,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: and whenever he did speak, he spoke so quickly no
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: one could really understand him. But despite Ricky's odd behavior,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: the heart monitor showed his heart was beating steadily, his
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: oxygen levels were perfectly fine, and when the doctor came
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: in and examined Ricky, even though he clearly saw that
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: something was off about Ricky, there wasn't any sign that
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: there was anything physically wrong with Ricky, and so the
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: doctor and the nurses agreed that whatever was going on
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: with Ricky had to be psychological. And as it happened,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Ricky did have a long history of psychological issues. He
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: was known for making things up all the time, just
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: telling people these crazy stories about himself, like how he
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: was this talented singer and he was about to go
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: on tour, or that he was actually a prince, or
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: that he was studying to be a doctor. I mean
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: things that nobody thought was true, but Ricky would say,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: as if this is just common knowledge, this is who
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I am. And so Ricky's family, for the longest time
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: had just assumed that Ricky was either bipolar or maybe schizophrenic.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Those are both serious mental health disorders that totally disrupt
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: normal thinking. But Ricky, despite being encouraged by his friends
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and family to go get help, never got help for
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: any of his psychological issues. And so Ricky's life had
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: kind of gone off the rails. He had dropped out
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: of high school and not gone back to any sort
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: of schooling, and he had spent some time in jail.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Now Ricky was living in a low income, very dangerous
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: part of Saint Louis, which is a big Midwestern city
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: on the Mississippi River that in nineteen ninety nine had
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: a very serious issue with gang violence. Ricky absolutely hated
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: it there, but he had no way to actually leave
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Saint Louis. In fact, Ricky didn't deep and have his
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: own place. He bounced around from his mother's place, his
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: aunt's place, and his girlfriend's place. Ricky did work, but
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: the work was very sporadic and it was for the
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: most part, just night shifts for random odd jobs. And
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: when Ricky was actually working, he really just spent his
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: time chainsmoking cigarettes and drinking literally gallons of coffee. Back
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: at the er, Ricky, who was still in the exam room,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: had only been there for less than an hour when
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: the doctor came back in and told Ricky that he
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: was okay and he was going to be discharged now.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Ricky immediately said, no, no, I have to be here tonight.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: I need to stay here. You need to admit me.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: But the doctor just kind of ignored what he said
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: and handed him the discharge paperwork. Fifteen minutes later, when
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: a nurse came back into the exam room to get
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: this paperwork from Ricky, she would walk in and see
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Ricky still sitting on the exam bed kind of fidgeting around,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: looking down at this paperwork on his lap that immediately
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: she saw he had not filled out. He had just
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: signed his name at the bottom, and when she walked in,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Ricky looked up at her, and he kind of shrugged
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: his shoulders and looked at her and was like, I
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: don't know how to read or write. Can you help me?
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: And so the nurse immediately felt bad for Ricky. I mean,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: he's got dirty clothes on, he looks thin and frail.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: He's clearly very down on his luck. There's some issues
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: happening with this guy, and he can't even fill out
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: his discharge paperwork. And so she said, no problem. She
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: sat down with him and together they filled out his paperwork.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: And then afterwards, when she walked him out of the
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: exam room back to the front of the hospital, Ricky
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: turned to her and said, you know, instead of going home,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: can you just let me stay here in the lobby
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: just for tonight. And this nurse, who knew she was
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: not allowed to do this, she looked around and saw
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: it was not a busy night there, and so she said, okay,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: as long as you don't bother anyone, you can stay here.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: And so Ricky thanked her repeatedly and then walked over
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: to the corner, kind of far away from the front
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: desk and far away from the front door, and he
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: sat down and folded his arms and then he just
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: stared at the front door. And so this nurse assumed
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: that Ricky actually must be homeless, especially based on, you know,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: how he came in and how he was acting, and
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: so she figured, you know, he needs a place that's
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: warm to stay tonight. And so the nurse went back
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: to her station, and over the course of the next
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: several hours, she would periodically look out into the lobby,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: expecting to see Ricky kind of curled up asleep in
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: the corner. But every time she looked out there, Ricky
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: was still sitting upright, arms folded, staring at the front
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: door of the hospital, as if he was expecting someone
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: to come in at any moment and he needed to
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: be ready. And so she thought this was unusual, but
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: she decided not to intervene. She just let him sit
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: there and do his thing. Later that morning, at eleven
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: thirty am, when the nice nurse who had allowed Ricky
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: to stay in the lobby was leaving her shift, another
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: crew of nurses came in and right away they noticed
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Ricky was just sitting in the corner for no apparent reason.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: And when they walked up to him to ask if
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: he was okay, you know, what are you doing here?
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: What can we do for you? Ricky, instead of trying
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: to talk to any of these nurses, just got up
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: and walked out of the hospital. After leaving the hospital,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Ricky walked to a nearby pay phone and he called
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: his girlfriend, Sandy, And when Sandy picked up the phone,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: she immediately recognized her boyfriend's very familiar voice. But she
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: also picked up that he sounded really tired and kind
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: of out of it, and so when she asked him,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: you know, are you okay? What's going on? Ricky would
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: tell her that he had just spent the night in
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the hospital, but he didn't clarify that he had spent
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: the night in the lobby of the hospital, not admitted
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: as a patient at the hospital. But to Sandy, it
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: really didn't matter because already this was raising red flags
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: for her because this was actually the second time that
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Ricky had gone to the er just that week. Just
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: a few days earlier, Ricky had been released from a
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: different hospital in Saint Louis after telling doctors there that
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: he had had these chest pains and he couldn't breathe,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: and so he had been admitted for a couple of days,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: but ultimately they determined that there really was nothing wrong
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: with him, and they too believed whatever was happening with
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: him had to be psychological, and so he had been released.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Sandy had been growing increasingly worried about Ricky because over
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the last several weeks, Ricky had begun acting really paranoid,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: to the point where anytime he was in her apartment
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: and somebody outside the apartment just walked down the hallway,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Ricky would jump as if he was worried whoever was
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: out there was going to barge in at any moment.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: But whenever Sandy asked, Ricky, you know what's going on?
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Why are you so paranoid, he refused to elaborate. So,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: feeling very concerned about Ricky, on this phone call, Sandy
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: would say to Ricky, please come to my apartment and
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: let me take care of you. If you're not feeling well,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: I'll make you feel better. Just please come to my
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: apartment right now. But Ricky said no, he did not
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: want to go to Sandy's apartment. He told her instead
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: he was going to walk to a nearby gas station
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: to get a bite to eat, and then afterwards he
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: would give Sandy a call, and so the two of
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: them agreed to this plan. They hung up, but then
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Ricky did not call Sandy. Later, a worker at the
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: gas station where Ricky said he was going would later
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: tell authorities that Ricky did come into the gas station
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: and he got a hot dog on that day, the
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: twenty sixth, and then the next day, this same worker said, yep,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: we saw Ricky again on the twenty seventh. He came
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: in here, he got a bite to eat, and then
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: he left. But after that nobody saw Ricky, not his aunt,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: not his mom, not his girlfriend. He didn't show up
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: in any other emergency rooms in Missouri. He just disappeared.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: On June thirtieth, So three days after Ricky was last
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: seen at this gas station, a woman was driving her
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: car twenty miles north of Saint Louis on this highway
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: when she looked out into this cornfield that butted up
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: against the highway and she saw kind of in the
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: middle of it was this dark shape that looked totally
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: out of place, and so she was intrigued enough that
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: she actually pulled over on the road. She got out
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: and began walking into this cornfield to see what this
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: thing was. And when she got up to this thing
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: and saw what it was, she froze in horror, and
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: then she screamed, turned around and ran back to her car,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: and she flew to the nearest gas station. She grabbed
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: a payphone and she called nine to one one. When
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: the police arrived at this cornfield, they too walked out
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: towards this dark thing, and then finally they saw what
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: this thing was that had scared this woman. It was
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: a dead person who was lying face down. Their body
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: was very badly decomposed, and in fact, their body was
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: just kind of falling apart, like the fingers of this
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: person's body had just kind of crumpled off of their hands. Now,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: based on what this person was wearing, they appeared to
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: be male, but there was no way to tell how
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: this person died or really how long they had been
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: dead for. But despite the advanced decomposition, authorities were able
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: to get a good fingerprint, and it would turn out
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: that this body belonged to Ricky McCormick. The day after
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Ricky's body was found, the police would come out and
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: say they were treating his death as a homicide. This
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: area along this highway in this cornfield was actually a
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: fairly commonplace for murderers to dump their victims, and it
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: was very unlikely that Ricky had gotten there by himself.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: He didn't have a car. In fact, he didn't even
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: have a driver's license. There was no public transportation that
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: could have brought him to the spot. And if Ricky
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: had decided to walk to this area for some reason,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: it was a solid fifteen miles from where he lived
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: and worked. Also, Ricky's body was way too decomposed relative
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: to when he had last been seen alive just three
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: days earlier, and so there was a theory that perhaps
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: he was killed somewhere else and then kept indoors in heat,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: and that had accelerated his decomposition, and that at some
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: point whoever had killed him had moved his body and
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: dumped it in this cornfield. And so on that first
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: day of the homicide investigation, July first, the police put
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: eighteen detectives, so a ton of detectives on this case,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: and they also appealed to the public to come forward
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: if you had any information about what could have happened
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: to Ricky McCormick. But just a day later, on July second,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: the police came out and made an announcement that you
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: know after looking at all the evidence and looking at
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Ricky's body again, it did not appear in fact that
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: he had been murdered, but instead he must have died
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: of natural causes. This is a guy that had lung
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: and heart problems and so that is likely what killed him.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Case closed and so after this announcement, all of the
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: evidence in Ricky's case was bundled up, put into storage,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: and people just kind of forgot about it. Six months later,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: the Federal Bureau of Investigation the FBI got a tip
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: that involved Ricky McCormick. They were working on a case
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: in Saint Louis, Missouri, about this major drug dealer who
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: apparently was ordering hits on his rivals, and a confidential
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: informant came forward and told the FBI that this guy,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Ricky McCormick, had gotten wrapped up with this major drug dealer.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: But they didn't really know what role Ricky was playing
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: with this drug dealer. It was just kind of a
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: rumor on the street that, you know, Ricky was involved somehow.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: This did not make any sense to the FBI because
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: they're thinking, why would this big time drug dealer who
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: really was a mover and shaker in Saint Louis get
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: involved with this guy, Ricky McCormack, who was obviously deeply
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: mentally ill and borderline homeless. I mean, what role could
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Ricky play for this drug dealer? But the FBI still
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: did follow up on this tip because it was very credible,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and when they spoke to the local police who had
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: investigated Ricky's death, they got Ricky's file, which meant they
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: got all of the evidence. And immediately the FBI realized
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: the local police had overlooked a very strange piece of
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: evidence found in Ricky's pocket. This strange evidence was quickly
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: sent to FBI headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, and it landed
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: on the desk of a forensic analyst named Dan Olsen.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Dan was relatively new to the FBI, but he was
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: highly disciplined and very methodical, and so when he received
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: this piece of evidence, he got to work right away
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out what it was. You know, what
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: it meant in relationship to Ricky and the drug dealer,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: and you know, maybe does it answer the question of
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: how these people are connected. But despite his best efforts
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: and calling in the experts and using every computer program
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: to analyze this evidence, he just could not figure out
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: what it meant. At the same time that Dan was
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: doing this, the big drug dealer who was the target
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: of that big FBI investigation in Saint Louis was arrested
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: on gun and drug charges, and so the big case
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: was now over, and suddenly trying to figure out what
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: connection Ricky McCormick had to this drug dealer was kind
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: of irrelevant because the drug dealer was behind bars and
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Ricky was already dead, and so the FBI kind of
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: put a pause on trying to figure out what this
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: evidence was. And so Dan, even though he was really curious,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: now he was fully invested in trying to figure out
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: what this thing was. He realized he had to give
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: it up to and move on to something else, and
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: so these strange evidence went back into storage and once
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: again everyone just kind of moved on from Ricky. But
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Dan never really forgot about this mystifying piece of evidence.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: It was always in the back of his mind. Twenty
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: two years later, Dan Olsen had now become very senior
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: at the FBI. He was actually in charge of their
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: cryptanalysis and racketeering unit. Basically, he was in charge of
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: the people at the FBI who specialized in code breaking,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: meaning they were the people that would pull any sort
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: of secret messages embedded inside of evidence. And so at
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: some point after taking over this unit, Dan pulled out
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: of storage this strange piece of evidence connected to Ricky McCormick,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: and he said, you know what, I just need to
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: know what this means. I have to figure it out.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: I've never been able to. It's haunted me ever since.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: And so Dan went public. He went to the media
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: and he asked the world to take a look at
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: this mystifying piece of evidence and come forward if you
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: had any idea what it means. When Ricky was discovered
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: in that cornfield, the local police quickly emptied his pockets,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: and in his pants pocket were two documents that contained
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: an incredibly complex cipher or code. It was basically thirty
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: lines on each piece of paper with different symbols and
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: letters and capital letters. I mean, it looked like total
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: gibberish to the untrained eye, but to people like Dan
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: and his code breaking team, these symbols and letters could
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: mean there was a secret message hidden inside of these
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: documents if you could break the code system. But of
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: course no one could ever break that code. So how
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: in the world does a guy like Ricky who is
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: basically functionally illiterate and can only write his name. He's
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: clearly mentally ill and he's not really in touch with
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: reality all the time. How does a guy like that
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: come to be in possession of these complex ciphers? And
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: if he didn't write these ciphers, because that's possible, maybe
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: somebody else gave them to Ricky. Well, why would anyone
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: who came up with this very complex cipher and trust
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: a guy like Ricky to be the one to carry
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: these things around? I mean, presumably they contain confidential information
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: that's been very carefully hidden inside of the cipher, and
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: so why give it to Ricky? He's such a liability.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: And also, what happened to Ricky in that cornfield? I mean,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: we don't even know how he got there, We don't
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: know how he was killed. All we know is that
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: he had these ciphers in his pocket when he was found.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: And so many people believe, including law enforcement, that the
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: answer to you know, what happened to Ricky and what
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: was his connection to this drug lord in Saint Louis.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: If any or you know what was he up to,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: will all be solved if we can just figure out
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: what these two ciphers mean. But as of right now,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: no one has solved the riddle of what these two
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: ciphers mean. All we know is that Ricky McCormick, a
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks before he died, became increasingly paranoid and
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: was so scared of someone or something that he was
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: likely running into these hospitals just to hide out. But eventually,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: whoever or whatever Ricky was scared of very likely caught
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: up to him and killed him. But until we cracked
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: these ciphers, we very likely will have no idea what
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: actually happened to Ricky McCormick. Today, the FBI has set
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: up a special website where you can look at these
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: two ciphers that Ricky had in his pocket and if
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: you're able to crack them, because someone's going to eventually
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: you can tell the FBI through this website and potentially
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: helped solve Ricky's murder. At five am on September thirtieth,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, a sixty one year old man
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: named Shian Ti Yeshung finished getting dressed inside of the
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: bedroom that he shared with his wife in the city
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: of Beijing. China. After he finished getting Sheen reached down
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: and scooped up his backpack off the floor that was
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: already packed, and then he carefully walked around his bed,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: trying to be as quiet as possible, and then as
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: quietly as he could, he kind of tiptoed around the
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: bed to his wife's side to give her a kiss goodbye.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Sheenne was going to be heading out to a local
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: mountain that day for a day hike, and so Sheen
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: he gets next to his wife and he bends down
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: to kiss her, and right as he does that, he
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: accidentally wakes her up. And so his wife opens her
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: eyes and she looks up at him, and Sheen just says,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: you know, I love you. He gives her kiss, and
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: he tells her, hey, I'll be back tonight before midnight.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: And so his wife, she kind of groggily said okay,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: and she grabbed his hand and squeezed it and she
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: told him that she loved him, and then she fell
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: back asleep, and moments later, Sheen had left the bedroom
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: and walked out the front door. Sheen's home was only
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: a couple of blocks away from the train station, and
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: since he needed to ride a train and then also
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: a boss to get to this local mountain that was
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: about an hour and a half journey away. The train
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: station was his first stop, and so Sheen as he
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: walked towards the station, he was all smiles. I mean,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: he was really excited about this day. So Xen was retired,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: but he had spent his whole life teaching geography at
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Beijing Number five Middle School, and he was a very
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: passionate teacher. But the thing he was most passionate about
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: that he routinely really pushed on his students in some
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: ways more than geography was his love of nature. In fact,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Chen loved nature so much that when he was not teaching,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: he basically spent all of his off time out in
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: nature going for hikes. I mean, that was his thing.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: And today Xienne was especially excited about his hike because
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: he was hiking one of his favorite trails. It was
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: located on Mount Melfung, which is a mountain located thirty
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: miles to the northwest of where Chen lived. And this
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: mountain was quite famous because of all the sacred and
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: ancient temples that kind of dotted the mountain all over
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: the place. And then also there were all these beautiful
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: roses like the flower that would bloom all over the
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: mountain in the summer, and so it's just this totally
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: strikingly beautiful place. And normally Xien would actually hide up
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: this trail and then actually camp out on Mount Melfung,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: mostly because on the summit there was this incredible view
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: of downtown Beijing, and at night the view is like
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: spectacular with the city all lit up. But on this
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: particular day, jenne knew an overnight's day was not possible
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: because he had to be back home by the next
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: day because it was his mother's ninetieth birthday and he
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: was very close with his mother and he was not
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: going to miss that. And so Jen eventually made it
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: to the train station. He bought his ticket, he boarded
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: his train, and then he sat down in a seat,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: and as soon as he did, he opened up his
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: bag and pulled out a stack of papers. For this hike,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Jen had packed himself some food and water inside of
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: his backpack. He also packed a newspaper called the Beijing
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Youth Daily, and he brought along his diary. But his
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: diary was a little bit unique Xen because he loved
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: nature so much and didn't like the idea of wasting anything.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: What he would do when he was a teacher at
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Beijing Number five Middle School. He would just take scrap
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: paper and start writing on that, and he would come
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: pile all his scrap paper into these sort of diaries
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: that he would keep. And so the reason he did
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: that was primarily because he was so in love with nature.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: He hated the idea of wasting anything. And so Xen
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: passed the time on the train by writing in his
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: diary aka his stack of scrap paper, and also reading
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: this newspaper. And Jen knew he really needed to read
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: the entire newspaper pretty quickly because by the time he
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: got to the mountain, he was going to do what
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: he always did, which is he would bring a newspaper
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: with him on a hike, and as he walked, he
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: would take out a page periodically and tie it to
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: a tree, kind of marking his way. That way, when
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: he turned around and came back down, he would have
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: his path marked, because Xen did not always walk on
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: a clearly marked trail, and so this was his way
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: of not getting lost. And so Jen would ride the
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: train car and then he would get off and he
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: would board a bus, and then finally, right around seven am,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: that bus would come to a stop in the tiny
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: village of chen Feng, which is located right at the
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: base of Mount mial Fun. So Jienne grabbed his backpack,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: he hopped off the bus and then began walking through
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: the village towards the mountain. And then by about seven
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: twenty am, so not long after Jeanne had left the bus,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: he was almost up to Mount Mieo Phong when he
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: pulled out his cell phone and he called his cousin.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: It was a brief conversation and all Jienne really wanted
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: to do was just to make sure his cousin was
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: going to be around the next day for Jeanne's mother's birthday,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: and the cousin said he would, and so Jeanne told him, Okay,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: I'm going hiking today and I will see you tomorrow,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: and then he hung up, and then only a couple
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: minutes later, Jenne disappeared into the beautiful forests of Mount
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Mieo Phone. So Jenne's wife did not expect to hear
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: from Jeenne at any point that day because she knew
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: he would have terrible cell phone service up on the mountain,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: but she did expect her husband to be home on time.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: He had told her that morning before he left that
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: he would be home that night before midnight, And if
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: you knew Jenne, you knew this guy was never late.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: He said, I'm going to be someplace at a certain time,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: he would be there. So when ten pm rolled around
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: that night and still Jen was not back yet and
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: he had not called, Jenne's wife was actually not worried
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: because she was thinking, Okay, well it's ten he'll be
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: home in the next couple of hours because he said
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: he'd be here by midnight tonight, and he will be
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: here tonight, And so she went to bed expecting to
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: wake up and see Jenne in bed with her in
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: the morning. But the next morning when she woke up,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Jen was not in bed, so he did not come home,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: and so his wife immediately was very concerned and began
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: calling Jenn's family, and nobody knew where he was, and
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: so that day the family went to the police and
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: they reported Jenne missing. The local police immediately organized a
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: search for Jenne. However, they knew this was going to
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: be a very challenging search. Mount Miopung is not some
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: enormous mountain by any means. It's a decent sized mountain,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: but you know, it's really known for having these paths
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: that twist and turn all over the place, so it's
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: pretty easy to get lost. And then also there's a
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of sheer cliff faces kind of all over
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: the place, so if you're not paying attention, you could
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: literally just walk off a ledge. So in short, this
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: is a dangerous and confusing place. And at the same
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: time that the search was happening out on the mountain,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: the police were also in contact with Gen's cell phone
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: service provider to see if they could track down Gen's
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: cell phone, because obviously, if they could find that, they
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: might find GN two. But the only way a cell
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: phone can be tracked is if the cell phone is on,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: because when it's on, it connects to the nearest cell
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: phone tower, and that's how these service providers are able
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: to tell where these phones are. They look to see
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: which tower it's connected to. But when Gen's cell phone
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: service provider looked for his phone, they quickly determined his
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: phone was off, so unless the phone came back on again,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: they would not be able to locate the phone. However,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: they were able to pull all of Gen's cell phone
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: signal history up until his phone was turned off, and
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: what they found in this signal history is the day before.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: So the day Gen went missing, his cell phone was
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: on at four pm that evening and he received a
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: phone call at four pm, and the service provider was
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: able to see that when this phone call came in,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Jienne's cell phone was not where they thought it would be.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: It was not high up mounta mia Fung. It actually
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: was near the base of the mountain. And when police
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: reached out to the person who had called Genn at
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: four pm, they discovered it was just a friend of
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Gienne's and his friend said that Chen said he was
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: coming down the mountain now and he'd be home soon.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: So this new information did basically line up with what
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Sheen had told his family he'd be doing that day,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: you know, just a quick day hike, although again they
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: kind of expected it to be a little bit longer.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: It seemed a little odd he'd be down the mountain
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: by four pm. But still this basically lined up with
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: what they thought he was doing. However, this new information
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: did not help explain what happened to Jenne, like why
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: was he missing The expectation was he must have gotten
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: lost or heard or something up on this mountain. You know,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: maybe he's strand somewhere and can't go anywhere. But now,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: based on this phone call, it sounded an awful lot
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: like Jenne was not even on the mountain when he disappeared.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: So where was he? Police had already checked all the
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: bus stations and train stations in the area, you know,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: to see if maybe Jenne took a different way home
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: or something. But when they went to all these different stations,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: there was no evidence that Jenne had been to any
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: of them. And there was another problem. Members of Jenn's
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: family told the police about Jenne's habit of tying newspapers
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: to trees to mark his trail as he hiked, and
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: the family told the police that Jenne did this every
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: single time he hiked, and his wife told the police
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: that for sure she knew her husband had brought along
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: a copy of that newspaper. So by all expectations, there
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: should be markers up on that mountain, literally leading searchers
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: to wherever Jenne went. But after an entire day of
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: searching Mount mel Fung, they didn't find a single newspaper anywhere.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: For the next several days, this big, big search for
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Jen continued, but nothing was found, that is until October seventh.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: So one week after Jen had finished, on that day,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Xien's cell phone service provider noticed that Chien's cell phone
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: had suddenly turned back on, and the phone was not
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: on or near Mount Milfong. Instead, it was located thirty
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: six miles away from the mountain at a train station
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: called Beijing West Railway Station. Now, the cell phone was
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: only on for a couple of seconds, but it was
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: on long enough for the provider to confirm that it
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: really was in that location, and so the police immediately
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: dispatched a team to go to Beijing West Railway Station
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: and see if they could find Jienne. But when they
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: got there, Jien was not there. His phone was not there.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: You know, they looked at all the security footage, there
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: was no sign of Chienne. They searched the surrounding areas. Nothing.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: And on this day, at basically the same time that
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: police are at this railway station trying to make sense of,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: you know, what's going on with the cell phone on,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: a villager from Chenfang Village, which is that little village
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: that sits at the base of Mount mio Fung came
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: forward with a very strange story. He said, on the
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: day that Jien disappeared, this villager was at his little shop.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: He sold walnuts to hikers that were making their way
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: towards Mount Mealfung. It was basically like snacks for the hike.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: And he sees this guy walking up through the village
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: towards the mountain, and he looked exactly like Jienne. Because
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: now Jien's face was on the news and this villager
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: had seen it, and so he felt like he had
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: seen Jienn. And so this villager said, you know, this
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: guy who looked exactly like Jienne, he walked up and
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: actually stopped at this villager's shop to buy some walnuts.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: And this villager and this man who looked like Jienne,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: they just chatted for a few minutes, and at some
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: point this guy, this guy who looked like Xien, asked
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: the villager, you know, hey, these are great, but where
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: else can I buy walnuts? I want to buy other
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: types of walnuts and bring them back to my family.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: And so this villager was like, oh, yeah, well, the
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: best walnuts in all of Beijing are actually located about
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: thirty miles away at the base of another mountain. It's
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: called Tiatoa Mountain, and there are vendors over there who
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: sell the best walnuts. So that's your answer right over there.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: And then after the villager said this, this guy who
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: looked just like Jen, it's like everything changed for him.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: It's like his expression changed, his tone changed. It's like
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: he's been given this information that's changed his life, you know,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: about these walnuts, and he says to the villager, Okay,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go there right now, and without saying
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: anything else, this man just turned and began quickly walking
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: away from the walnuts, back through town, back towards the
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: bus stop, so away from Mount Miao Thong. In theory,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: this guy is going to the bus to what commute
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: thirty miles to this other mountain, Tiatoa Mountain, to get
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: these walnuts. I mean, the villager does not know this guy,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: but even he felt like this is bizarre. This guy
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: comes up, he's buying snacks to go hike Mount Mialfung.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: He seems really excited about it, and I offhandedly mention
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: these walnuts and he's like, boom, I'm out of here.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go thirty miles to this other mountain to
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: get these walnuts. It just seemed weird. And then when
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: police spoke to Hien's family about this new information, they
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: would learn that Xien did not have a special interest
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: in walnuts, and neither did his family. And even if
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: there was a reason why Xien just really wanted these walnuts,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: he would not have had time in that day to
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: take the bus thirty miles to Tiatoa Mountain, get these walnuts,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: go thirty miles back and hike up Mount Mialfung because
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: he can't stay the night. He needs to come back
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: tonight in order to go to his mother's birthday party
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: the next day. So it just made no sense. But
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: this walnut thing was basically the only lead police really
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: had because everything else was a dead end, and so
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: they decided to shift their search area from Mount Milfung
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: to Tiatoa Mountain, and pretty much right away they saw
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: something that gave them hope that Xien could be here.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: They found Paige Is from the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: tied to trees on the mountain, and when they looked
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: more closely at the newspapers, they found the publication date
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: of this newspaper lined up with the copy that Jenne
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: would have had with him on the day he vanished,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: and so of course the searchers just began following this
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: trail of newspapers, hoping Jenne would be at the other end.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: For two days, searchers very diligently followed this trail up
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: the mountain. It kind of wound around, and they went
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: pretty slowly because as they're moving, you know, they're constantly
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: checking everything around. They don't want to miss any clues.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: But finally, after two days of following this trail, they
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: eventually found something. The newspapers led them to a campsite. Now,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: the campsite was abandoned, but there was a bed of hay,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: there was some used water bottles, and some toilet paper,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: and so just from the looks of it, this campsite
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: looked relatively active, like somebody had been staying here recently
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: for at least a day or two, and so it
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: seemed pretty likely based on everything else, that this was
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Jenn's campsite, And pretty quickly after searching the campsite, they
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: found something that virtually guaranteed that this was his campsite.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Authorities found this plastic bag that was sitting next to
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: the bed, and inside of the bag was a piece
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: of scrap paper from Beijing Number five Middle School, and
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: on this scrap paper was a note, and the note
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: said Jenne had indeed hiked up Tiatoa Mountain on September thirtieth.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: This would have been the day that he left, so
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: the day he disappeared. And then on his way down
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: he said he got lost and was forced to spend
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: the night out here, and so that explained the campsite.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: And then on October first, so that would have been
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: the day after he spent the night out here, he
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: said he was going to attempt to follow the ridge
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: line down the mountain to a nearby village to safety.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: And this note ended with the phrase leaving this note
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: here just in case, loved to everyone who passes by. Now.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: At first glance, this note was like amazing news because
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: suddenly it seemed totally possible that Jen was just fine.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, the way the note was written, it sounded
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: like he was least healthy and safe. Albeit I'm sure
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: he was not happy to be stuck up on a mountain,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: but you know, he loved being in nature, and so
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: he seemed okay, and then he had a reasonable plan
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: for how he was going to get out of there,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: you know, follow the ridgeline, go down to a village,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: go to safety. But as the police analyzed this note,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: they noticed that some things were off about it. First
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: of all, this note basically directly contradicts other facts of
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: this case. Remember, cell phone records prove Jen got a
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: phone call at four pm on the day he went
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: missing from his friend, and his friend would report that
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Jen told him that he was coming down Mount Meo
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Fung and he'd be home soon. But according to the
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: note they found, that was not possible. Because the note
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: said Jen at four pm on September thirtieth, the day
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: he went missing, he would have been on Tiatua Mountain,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: either hiking up or being in the process of getting lost,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: and you know, ultimately making that campsite where he camped
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: out for at least one night. And so, in addition
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: to this factual discrepancy with this note, another issue with
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: the note was just the way it was written. Now,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Jenne's wife had a chance to look at the note
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: and she would say, that is my husband's handwriting. But
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: the note contained a bunch of very strange language choices
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: that just didn't make sense for Jenne to be using.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: For example, this note, which really should have been a
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: first person point of view. You know, Jen has gotten lost,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: he's by himself. He's writing to the world kind of
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: letting somebody know what's going on with him, and so
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: it really should have been written in the first person.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: My name is Jenn. I am lost. Here's what I'm doing.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: But the note was written in the third person. Jenne
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: got lost on the mountain, and so he is going
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: to camp out for the night and tomorrow he's going
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: to make his way out to safety. But despite being
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: written in the third person, it did sound like somebody
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: was talking about themselves. It did not feel like somebody
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: else was attempting to document what Jen was doing. But
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: by far the weirdest part of this note was the
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: tone shift that happened about halfway through. So the first
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: half of this letter was written, albeit in the third person,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: but it was grammatically correct and sort of formal, like
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: you would expect from a very well educated retired teacher.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: But once you get to that second half of the note,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: the grammar started being really awkward, and then the very
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: final line which says love to everyone who passes by.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: That actually sounds totally awkward in Chinese. So love to
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: everyone who passes by is the translation into English, and
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: that basically makes sense to us, Like, that's not an
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: awkward phrase, but if you put it back in Chinese,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: it's so awkward. It would be like if I tried
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: to say to you, I take the bus to work,
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: but instead I said to work take bus right, Like
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it that way, and it would immediately
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: seem very awkward for anybody who knows me if I
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: wrote or said something like that. And so this last
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: line stood out so much that actually police and friends
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: and family of Xienne assumed he must have left in
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: there as like a secret message or a code like
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: a distress signal, especially when you consider the other weird
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: factors around this note, but nobody could figure out what
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: it meant. The day after this note was discovered, a
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: searcher was up in the vicinity of Jenne's campsite on
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: Tiatoa Mountain and they were walking around, kind of retracing
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: their footsteps, looking for new places to search. When they
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: turned a corner and up ahead, they noticed there was
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: this tree kind of hanging out over this rocky cliff,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: and dangling from the tree was something gray that looked
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: sort of out of place, and so the searcher, you know,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: sensing this could be a clue of Jenn's whereabouts, he
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: yelled out for other searchers in the area that he
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: had found something, and then he took off running towards
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: this thing to see what it was. And when he
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: got up to the tree, he looked up and he
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: saw it was a pair of sweatpants that had clearly
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: been intentionally tied to this branch in the tree. And
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: so the searcher he reached up and grabbed one of
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: the pant legs and kind of tugged on it, and
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: when he did, all these white things began falling out
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: of pants and landing on the ground. And when the
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: searcher stopped and looked down to see what they were,
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: he couldn't believe it. It was a whole pile of
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: human bones. However, they were not Jenn's. In fact, nobody
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: ever figured out who these bones belonged to or why
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: they were stuffed inside of pants and tied to a
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: tree on this mountain. But the discovery of these bones
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: would open up a whole new mystery, because after these
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: bones were found, all the searchers came over and basically
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: just began combing the area near these bones, and the
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: police began uncovering body after body after body. They found
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: two more sets of human bones stuffed into pants and
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: tied to trees, and they found the other bodies at
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: the foot of a cliff, and also inside of this
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: well and inside of this cave, and so in total,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: authorities found ten sets of human remains in the vicinity
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: near Jenn's campsite, but none of the human remains belonged
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: to Jenne. Officials were only able to identify a few
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: of the bodies, and they were not able to figure
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: out how they died or whether or not foul play
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: was involved. But the discovery of those bodies did mean
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: one thing for Jien's case. It meant, you know, all
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: these people had previously gone up Tiatoa Mountain before Xien
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: went up and vanished, and when these other people went
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: up the mountain, clearly something horrible happened to them. Have
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: we don't know what it is. Is there a killer
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: on the loose, Is there some animal or creature out there,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: that's taken people out. I mean, we don't know. But
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: what started to happen since Chen went missing and his
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: story was all over the news in China is that
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: all these other hikers who've been on Tiatoa Mountain before
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: have begun sharing their experiences when they hiked up Tiatoa Mountain,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: and some of their stories about what they've seen on
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: that mountain are horrifying. One person said they were walking
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: up the mountain. They had their partner with them, who
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: was a little bit farther back the trail, and so
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: they're kind of walking up on their own. And the
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: first person and as they're walking up the trail suddenly
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: sees this guy just kind of come out of nowhere
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: wielding an axe, and he walks up to this person
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: and all he says is are you alone? And the
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: hiker's like, no, my partner's back there. They're coming up here,
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: what's going on? But the axe man he basically acted
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: like he didn't even hear their answer, and he just
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: asked it again, are you alone? And the hiker was like, no,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: my partner's back there, and the axe man again just
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: said are you alone? Are you alone? Are you alone?
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: And this ax person kept doing that until the hiker
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: and their partner just turned and ran. And then another
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: hiker shared a story about how they were walking up
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: a trail on Tiatoa Mountain and at some point they
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: lifted their head up and he saw a little ways
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: up the trail, kind of off the trail, so in
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: the tree line were all these people, like this group
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: of strangers, just standing there motionless, kind of half behind trees,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: like they were kind of trying to hide themselves, but
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: also not and they were just staring at this hiker, unmoving,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: not speaking, just staring. And so the hiker, you know,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: they look up and they see this, and they were
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: so unnerved so quickly that they just turned and left.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: And they have no idea who those people were. And
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: so obviously we have no way of verifying these other
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: hiker stories about what they saw on Tiatoa Mountain, but
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: when you combine their testimony with Gen's story, it really
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: makes you wonder what's going on up there. The official
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: search for Gene was called off at the end of October,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: so roughly one month after he vanished, but unofficially the
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: search for Gienn continues to this day. However, they still
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: have not found his body, and basically no real progress
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: has been made. At twelve thirty pm on March seventh,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, a police officer named along with his partner,
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: were driving in his police cruiser near the Spanish Fork
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: River in Utah when suddenly a police dispatcher came on
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: over the radio, and this dispatcher was speaking very urgently
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: and said, Hey, a fisherman has just called in to
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: say that he spotted what looks like in upturned suv
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: partially submerged in the Spanish Fork River right underneath the bridge,
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: and whoever is closest to this bridge get over there
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: and see if there's anybody inside the vehicle that can
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: be saved. And so Officer Bedos and his partner they
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: knew they were very near this bridge, and so immediately
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: they banged a U turn. They drove to the bridge.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: But from the road they looked down and couldn't see
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: any suv. But they saw there was some firefighters and
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: paramedics that were also converging at the spot on the road,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: and everybody's getting out and running down to the river bank,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: and so Bedos and his partner did the same thing.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: They got out and they ran down, and then finally
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: when they got to the river bank and they saw
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: underneath this bridge, sure enough, there was this red suv upturned,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: partially submerged, and he noticed right away that none of
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: the doors had been opened in this suv, and so
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: it meant whoever was driving this vehicle when it flipped
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: over very likely was still inside. And so Officer Beddos
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: and his partner and the other first responders just jumped
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: into this icy cold river and began making their way
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: closer and closer to this upturned suv, which again it's
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: not fully submerged. It's like a third of the way underwater.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: So if you were sitting in the seat inside of
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: this vehicle and you were an adult, your head would
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: basically be in the water if you were still strapped
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: into the seat. And as they're making their way towards
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: this suv, when they got close enough, they began hearing
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: a woman inside of the vehicle screaming, Hey, we're in here,
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: come over here, help. But when Officer Bedos and the
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: rest of the first responders actually reached the suv, the
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: water was so murky and it basically completely covered up
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: the windows that they weren't really able to look into
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: the vehicle. They could just hear this woman yelling, but
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: that was it. And then when they tried to open
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: up the doors, they couldn't do it because the roof
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: had begun to cave in, and so the actual framing
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: of the door wouldn't open. And so all these first responders,
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: it's like the adrenaline's pumping and they're like, come on,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: we got to push this thing up onto its side
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: so we can get in. And so all these first
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: responders are pushing and pushing, and slowly but surely they
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: began to raise the side of this vehicle up until
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: the windows suddenly were clear, and Officer Beddos and the
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: others were able to look into the car, and they
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: saw there was a woman in the driver's seat, and
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: there was a baby in a car seat dangling upside
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: down in the back seat, still strapped in, and so
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: Bedos began screaming, there's a baby in here, there's a
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: baby in here. And suddenly it was like everybody got
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: extra strength, and they pushed this vehicle all the way
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: up onto its side, and then one of the firefighters
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: climbed up onto the side of the car, which now
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: was the highest point of the car, and he reached
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: in and he clipped these straps holding the baby, who
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: had been upside down dangling there, cut the straps and
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: pulled the baby out and handed the baby over to
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: Officer Bedos, and then the firefighter began doing the same
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: thing to get the woman out. But Officer Bedos at
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: this point, he just took this baby. He turned away.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: He figured the first responders will handle this woman, and
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: he's going to take this baby to safety because he
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: couldn't even tell if the baby was alive or not.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: So he's tradling this baby. He's rushing back through the
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: water back to the river bank, and then he hands
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: the baby over to the paramedics, and right as he does,
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: he sees this little baby begins to move its arms
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: and flicker its eyes, and he wanted to weep out
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: of relief that this child was okay. They put the
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: baby onto a stretcher, They put the baby in the ambulance,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: and they whisked the baby away to the hospital where
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: this baby would survive. But after the baby had been
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: taken away, Officer Bedos turned his attention back to the
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: suv and back to the woman to see how she
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: was doing, but he could tell right away from the
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: way people were acting. All the other first responders that
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: were still dealing with the crisis in the water. The
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: way they were acting indicated that something is off here. Well,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: it would turn out fourteen hours earlier. So at around
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: ten pm the previous night, a twenty eight year old
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: woman named Jennifer Gorsback had just left her father's house
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: in Salem, Utah, and in her car was her little
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: eighteen month old baby, Lily, who was in the back seat.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: And after Jennifer pulled away from her father's house and
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: her father's on the porch wait to her, she began
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: driving towards her home. But something happened around ten thirty
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: pm that night. We don't know what, but something caused
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: Jennifer to careene off the road on that bridge and
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: flip over and land in the water. Maybe she fell
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: asleep at the wheel, or an animal jumped out, we
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: don't know, but we know at ten thirty she kreens
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: off the bridge and she lands in that river. And
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: then for fourteen hours she and her baby remained upside
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: down in that river until finally Officer Bedos and the
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: other first responders came rushing over to open it up
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: and get them out of there. And if you recall
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: all the first responders, Officer Bettos included, heard Jennifer screaming
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: that they were in the car, come save us, please.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: But what they would find out is that could not
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: have been Jennifer, because Jennifer was killed on impact when
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: the car fell into the water. Only Lily survived the crash.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: And then the Lily who's nearly hypothermica, she's upside down
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: with water like two inches away from her head for
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: fourteen hours or she dangled there and when she was
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: pulled out, according to doctors, was like a couple of
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: minutes before she would have died from hypothermia. And so
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: without that voice, Lily almost certainly would have died. Because
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: it was the sound of that voice that really encouraged
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: all these first responders to find the strength and get
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: that car up on its side and then get the
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: baby out of there. We don't know whose voice that
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: belonged to, but for sure it saved Lily's life. And
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: again baby Lily would make a full recovery. And to
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: this day, Officer Beto's and the other first responders, they
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: know what they heard, and they do not have an
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: explanation for it. Thank you so much for watching. Let
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: me know what you thought of today's episode in the comments.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: And remember, we have hundreds of videos for you to
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: binge right now. But if you're looking for a recommendation
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: for me of that one video that's worth your time,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: well it's this one right here, So give it a watch,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: all right, until next time, Zia