| Title | : | Missing 411: North America and Beyond |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1480237620 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781480237629 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 472 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2013 |
"Missing 411" books.
Missing 411: North America and Beyond Reviews
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[library]
So here Paulides doesn't so much show his hand as throw it wildly all over the table. He quotes a story from
Jacques Vallee's Passport to Magonia about a woman who experiences what she thinks is an alien abduction on May 20, 1950, "near the Loire." There are no identifying details given, nor any way to corroborate the story, and yet Paulides says, in apparent sincerity, "We have no reason to disbelieve the story from France" (369). Now, I suppose that if you aren't instantly put on your guard by the fact of Dr. Vallee's being a prominent ufologist, that may be true. But even so, I am inclined to be suspicious of a story received second-hand about "a woman" whose strange experience "near the Loire" actually provides no proof of anything. (I think it's more likely that, if the woman was real, she was struck by lightning than that she was abducted by some kind of alien robot.) And even if it does, it is completely unverifiable and therefore only hearsay, which isn't evidence at all.
This is a persistent problem with Paulides, in that he doesn't seem to have any feel for what constitutes proof, so he makes up his mind on a case-by-case basis depending on whether or not the facts line up with the theory he still insists he doesn't have. Most of the time he's a champion of listening to the victim and believing the victim's story--unless the victim's story suggests a mundane explanation, like an abduction by a human being, in which case he switches tacks and accuses law-enforcement of posing leading questions (see, for example, the case of Beverly Kay). I can't decide whether he's genuinely un-self-aware and naive (which seems so very unlikely for a former police officer) or carefully disingenuous in the service of his franchise.
He continues to be a bad writer in desperate need of a copy-editor--at least someone who can make sure that he has the victim's name right consistently through the case-narrative. And I have some more specific comments:
1. It's not actually surprising or remarkable that there are "clusters" of missing persons in national parks & wilderness areas. Those are places where people are most likely to get lost and also most likely not to be found. He wants so badly for the explanation to be Sasquatches or aliens or the Little People (or all three), that he looks straight past mundane explanations and in fact seems to have suppressed from his own narratives the fact that people get lost without any occult help. (I'm using the word "occult" in its less common senses of "beyond the realm of human comprehension" and "hidden from view" and in its verb form, "to conceal or cause to disappear from view.") He quotes the Bangor Register from October 26, 1826, "It is said to be a common thing for people to be lost in the wilds of Nova Scotia" (qtd 356) and says, "I read this line multiple times. It appears that the disappearance of people in Nova Scotia while in the wild wasn't uncommon. [Like many undergraduate student writers, Paulides frequently mistakes repetition/paraphrase for meaningful analysis.] A pretty sobering statement that begs the question: why were these people disappearing?" (356). Note (1) the substitution of "disappearing" for "to be lost", (2) whether deliberately or not, he is forcing an occult interpretation on a simple statement of fact. Nova Scotia in 1826 being, as it was, mostly a trackless wilderness, was a place where people were going to get lost. Just as people continue to get lost in Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings and the Superstitions and, and, and ... One of the things that frustrates me greatly about Paulides is that some of his cases are genuinely weird and inexplicable--like kids who are within sight of a destination when they leave their parent and yet somehow fail to reach it, only to be found (most often dead) miles away in a different direction. But because he can't or won't filter (aside from his "criteria" which are a heap of non-causative correlations), the signal to noise ratio is frankly lousy.
And that wouldn't bother me if he were simply doing what he claims he's simply doing: presenting a compilation of missing persons cases from national parks & wilderness areas. I'd even be okay with his conspiracy theory about the National Park Service. ("Okay" not being a synonym for "in agreement with.") But that's not what he's doing and we know that's not what he's doing because he constantly, obsessively alerts readers that "something unusual happened" (10), even though we have no actual idea of what happened at all. Paulides does have an agenda, no matter how many times he says he doesn't. (Another trait he shares with undergraduate student writers is the mistaken belief that saying a thing is true proves that it is true or that saying you have proved something is actually the same as having done so. Which: nope.) And his agenda does nothing but foul up the evidence about missing persons cases he could be presenting.
2. Cross-referencing a different area of interest, Paulides claims Ted Bundy has been "eliminated" from suspicion in the disappearance of Ann Marie Burr, but he doens't say eliminated how or by whom, and in fact
the most recent article I found on Ann Marie's disappearance does not dismiss Bundy as a suspect.
(My personal feeling is that Bundy denied so vehemently that he killed Ann Marie that--like Gertrude--he's probably guilty. Being as he was a psychopath (or sociopath or person with antisocial personality disorder), Bundy might be offended by a false accusation, but he wasn't going to be horrified. He was horrified by accusations that were true, but were things he was too ashamed of to confess. See, passim, Keppel's The Riverman.)
3. "I try to steer clear of words that exaggerate a situation" (53). Yeah, right. Ditto his claim to have a "common sense test" (283).
4. "This area of the Oregon Cascades is not as steep, as high, or as rugged as mountains in Colorado, Idaho, or Montana, yet there appears [sic] to be more missing people that are never found here than makes logical sense" (46). Actually, it makes perfect sense. Because they aren't as difficult, people can get farther. And the farther you get from roads & civilization, the more likely you are to be lost and never found.
5. QUESTION, SAR & forensics: can a cadaver dog find someone who's sunk in quicksand? Given how many of Paulides' cases involve swamps, it seems like a good thing to know. (I assume the answer is yes, that the scent of the decaying body will be detectable, but I don't actually know.)
6. QUESTION, psycho-behavioral: Paulides asks in the case of Mary Jane Barker: "why would Mary Jane ever leave the safe confines of her yard, enter a vacant home, and climb into a dark closet?" (250). Well, why would a child climb inside a refrigerator and close the door? Neither makes sense to an adult, but the second is certainly a well-established phenomenon. (There are things about Mary Jane Barker's death that are genuinely puzzling, but that's not one of them.) In general, there are a lot of things Paulides presents as mysterious and/or suspicious and/or occult that I think might be readily explained by someone with a better knowledge of the psychology of children under five than I happen to possess.
7. Also re: Mary Jane Barker: "The coroner made a statement that Mary Jane had not been molested, and news articles specifically stated that Mary Jane was fully clothed. I believe the mere statement that she was fully clothed was odd, and something I rarely if ever see in any article about any disappearance" (250). This is a perfect example of "naive or disingenuous?", because the explanation for the mention of her being fully clothed is right there in the previous sentence. Right. There.
8. And his repeated puffed-up this-is-so-suspicious stance about coroners/pathologists ruling out homicide, when he was a detective (although I admit I don't see any statements that he worked homicide). He must know the flow chart of homicide Y/N => suicide Y/N => accident Y/N => natural causes. Ruling out homicide is an automatic step in determination of cause of death. If I know that, he has to know it.
9. He tries so hard for the investigative journalist's technique of asking the telling questions that no one has asked, but when there actually is a question like that, he boots it. For instance, in the disappearance of Colin Gillis--where Paulides is all over the "real" questions: "why did Colin walk away from a social gathering in the wee hours of the morning, and why was he walking in a direction away from his parents' residence? [...] how did Colin's driver's license end up on the highway?" (271), the question unanswered by Paulides' precis of the case that I find most disturbing/important is: what did the passing motorist, the last person to see Gillis, see that disturbed him so much--"'It wasn't like someone walking with a purpose straight down the road with a coat on. As I passed by I recognized it was something out of the ordinary, something that I didn't think it was safe to stop'" (270)--that he didn't stop, but did call the police?
10. I submit the possibility that people often go missing when they're picking berries, grapes, pine nuts, mushrooms, etc., because that's the most common reason for non-hikers to go to wild areas, rather than that by picking berries they are somehow marking themselves as targets. Paulides often mixes up cause and effect like this. Another example is the correlation between missing persons and bad weather, where he's trying to claim the disappearance triggers the bad weather, while I'm guessing that, as bad weather is actually not an uncommon occurrence , it's the bad weather that causes a lost person to be less likely to be found.
11. THE BLESSED WORD "COINCIDENCE"
12. There are way more than ten in his top ten most unusual disappearances. He says a case is in his top ten (or is the "most unusual, "most bizarre," "most puzzling," etc. he's ever researched) so often that it loses all meaning.
13. For a third time like undergraduate student writers, Paulides doesn't actually understand how close reading works. In the case of the disappearance of James Carroll in 1916, he quotes the New Castle News: "Several theories are advanced as to the cause of the disappearance of the child. One theory, which is believed by some people, is that the boy was abducted. In support of this contention it is reported that the footprints of a grown person were found near the home of the Carrolls" (qtd 281). And then tries to whip up some sound and fury: "This is an interesting statement--it specifically stated 'footprints' and not 'tracks,' 'boot marks,' etc." (281). Now what Paulides is trying to imply is that the use of the word "footprints" means bare footprints, and that therefore the child was abducted: by a Sasquatch. However, I would suggest strongly that the unmarked state of "footprints" in this case is almost certainly "shoe prints," and that if they were the prints of bare feet, the article would say that. Sound and fury . . . signifying nothing.
14. Instead of asking the same questions over and over again about how far a two-year-old is (a) likely to travel, (b) capable of traveling in a given time, doing some actual research might be the smart choice here.
15. Statistically, his sample is so horribly skewed that trying to make it look important that two people in his sample disappeared within a week of each other, or within ten miles of each other, just emphasizes Paulides' lack of knowledge of either statistics or probability theory.
In 2016, 800,000 children were reported missing. Only a fraction of those are unresolved disappearances, but since Paulides jumbles together "found alive," "found dead," and "not found," that's not actually important. What matters here is that that's about 2200 children reported missing every day. (That's out of 73.6 million children in the US in 2016, so actually about 1%, and "reported missing" includes children who are found within hours and with nothing having happened--I myself was a "missing child" for a couple of hours one evening when I was in my early teens, due to poor communication and my not having a watch. But I digress.) With the sample size thus adjusted, you can see that there's nothing remarkable about any coincidence of time and place in the cases that meet Paulides' "criteria."
And this comes full circle back to my original complaint: there is no rigor in Paulides' study. I don't fault him for being an amateur, but I do fault him for not being an auto-didact. He's not learning as he goes, not improving, just making the same mistakes on repeat. And that's disappointing. -
I think everyone needs to read this book. It's so compelling it's inspired me to write my own book, fiction, based on some of the cases in there. It is clear that Paulides has done tireless research and presents only the facts. He doesn't speculate and only shares what is a fact. There are times he questions things which engages our own critical thinking, but that's as far as he goes with anything. Some of these cases are quite disturbing. 5 stars, all the way through.
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i guess that people get eaten by big foots/sasquatches is more possible than alien abduction
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More baffling stories about disappearances, this time including some outside of North America. Here are just a couple of highlights:
On May 17, 1951, 9 year old Roger Shaddinger disappeared while on a family fishing trip to Adler Creek in Truckee, CA. After a 28-hour search, a S&R volunteer found the boy (alive) -- Roger said he had been hiding from "The People" who he thought were going to hurt him. While some articles at the time implied the boy was hiding from searchers, this is a theme that has been mentioned in other cases when missing persons are found. Very peculiar.
Linda Arteaga (age 53), who disappeared from a wooded area near St. Joe, AR, on September 22, 2012, while out walking with her brother, was missing for 5 days. When finally found, an article on her disappearance had this to say: "She claims that she wasn't the only one out there. I would see people. I'd ask for help and they'd act like they didn't even hear me, says Arteaga. She says she remembers them looking right at her and not saying a thing. These people were hiding in bushes. They were weird people, very weird, Arteaga says. I supposed she could have had some toxic ingestion that may have caused, a hallucinogen, in other words, but you know, she's been very consistent with that story, and today in her mental examination, she seems very oriented and appropriate in conversation, says Dr. John Sorg of North Arkansas Medical Center."
I found this story particularly disturbing, especially after reading the two previous Missing 411 books -- it brought to mind the young woman who went missing while hiking the Appalachian Trail who claimed that she was hiding because men who meant her harm were chasing her.
Perhaps these are all cases of people hallucinating after eating berries or mushrooms while lost? But perhaps there is something much stranger happening out in the woods than we are aware of . . .
I would also like to address reviews of the authors' other books that take him to task for his analysis of the facts in missing person cases -- one mentioned that it was "obvious" Mr. Paulides was not Search and Rescue personnel, based solely on his interpretation of common factors such as people being found partially or completely nude, or being without one or both shoes. Mr. Paulides mentions in this book that he was invited to speak at the North America Search and Rescue Association (NASAR) conference in South Lake Tahoe in June 2012 -- it seems unlikely to me that Search and Rescue personnel would be interested in hearing him speak if they disagreed with what he had written in his books and on his website, and it seems as though the reviewers making those statements have probably not actually read these books.
Another thought provoking book in the Missing 411 series -- I have no theories on what is happening in these cases, but it makes for a very interesting read. -
This is another of Paulides's fascinating books that look into disappearances of people in rural or remote areas. Like the other books, it explores these mysteries, which range from the almost "typical" to the utterly bizarre and chilling. I will never feel quite the same about being out hiking.
The addition of cases from other countries, especially the case noted from France, is especially enjoyable. My one issue with the book is the editing. In some of the stories, inconsistent dates or other continuity errors make it difficult for the reader to follow timelines or other facts of the cases. I do recommend reading all of the "Missing: 411" books, especially if one is interested in unsolved mysteries or the great outdoors. -
This is the third of four books of Paulides that I have read and like the others, it has not disappointed.
He added more "clusters" to the Western and Eastern editions, and also included foreign countries as well that also seem to have some issues with persons disappearing. Paulides also has added updates on some other cases.
One thing for certain is that this definitely makes you think before heading off into the great wilderness. I know that there were two cases last year that were almost right of one of these books: the woman was an author doing research, disappeared and perished. The second was a man and son that split with the father disappearing.
Funny how it followed some of the patterns that Paulides has described in these books. It raises lots of important questions with lots of missing answers. Makes you more aware of just what you are doing when you go on a excursion. -
I very much enjoy the Missing 411 series and how it is haunting with a touch of realism. There's just a lot of strangeness on this Earth and many unsolved mysteries and I think that Paulides does a good job of documenting some of those happenings.
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I am very fascinated with stories of people who have vanished and were never found. Mr. Paulides writes about hundreds of stories that I have never heard of, and it is very interesting.
However, there are a couple of issues I have with the book.
1. There are quite a few grammar mistakes. Not a big deal, but something that should be avoided in a professional publication.
2. The author I think sometimes tries too hard to find connections between stories that are obviously not connected - for example, saying that two children disappearing 30 years and 50 miles apart are somehow connected. That is quite a stretch to reach for.
3. So many of the stories are so similar, they almost seem redundant. I know that the point is to show similarities in stories, but it gets a little monotonous.
4. While obviously there is nothing better than a happy ending, where the person is found safe and sound, I think the books should focus more on people who were never found, or were not found alive. It's wonderful when a small child is found safe, but when half of the stories are the same premise (child disappears - while not being supervised properly - and is found hours or days later) over and over again, it's not nearly as fascinating as stories that really are mysterious.
The author tries a little too hard to make stories mysterious that are often not. Sometimes a coincidence really is just a coincidence, and I don't believe that every story that seems a little unbelievable has some huge mystery behind it.
All in all, it is an interesting read. -
David Paulides has embarked on a field of research that few have ventured, and he has put together a data trail that sheds the light of mystery on the great outdoors. There have literally been hundreds and maybe thousands of disappearances of people in the forests and wildernesses in North America, and other parts of the world that can only be characterized as suspicious.
Conventional logic seems to be defied in trying to put together a practical rationale to explain these cases, and one is only left to ponder unthinkable possibilities for their causes. A majority of the cases point the finger at some form of abduction by a third party or some kind, but what is it? What kind of entity leaves no footprints? What sort of abductor can take some of these people and leave no trace of their gear, clothing or any evidence they were there? What is the reason for so many children being abducted and some found later in impossible locations? The reflection on these questions and many more will leave your head spinning when you read this third installment in the Missing 411 series. I recommend everyone read this series, especially if you enjoy spending your free time in the outdoors. -
This is the third or fourth book in the series. So far, I’ve read them in order. I don’t know if I’m getting older and more sentimental, but this book had the saddest, most haunting stories so far. The story of Paul Wayment and his son Gage is one of the most tragic stories I’ve ever read. I still think about them from time to time. Out of all the tragic stories, that one brought on the tears.
At the end of the book, the author has a section of multiple disappearances where he discovered that more than one person disappeared in almost the same area around the same time. If the park services had let people know about the disappearances, maybe the others would have been more cautious. It may have saved more lives.
He also has a section of updates at the end of the book where some people have been found dead or alive who were written about in previous books. -
I bought this and read it 3 years ago after listening to a radio interview by the author. It is one of 4 books about strange disappearances and the other 3 concentrate on the USA. I found it a compelling and gripping read, a lot of the accounts are very creepy and bizarre and have put me off any idea of hiking in the US! The accounts are simply documented with no conjecture as to what may be the cause of these strange disappearances, though he does list the similarities. You'll find these listed as used and new at an extortionate price, as I found out as I was thinking of getting the others in the series, but they are available on the author's website for a much more affordable list price.
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Interesting book. I devoured it in a day. However, I found the numerous editing mistakes to be distracting.
This is a book about researching and reporting details. The errors detract from the validity of the content. It's unfortunate that this is the case. I found myself questioning the accuracy of the details instead of focusing on the unusual occurrences themselves. -
Three books written by David, and all on the same subject.....people going missing....incredible how this could happen and with such similar patterns. Read it!
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Mindboggling, fascinating, infuriating!! Can't wait to read the next in the series!
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Another good one. Lots of great mysteries, but the editing is not that great.
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Sometimes I wish we could even do half star ratings, this one would get a 2.5 from me.
I knew what this book was going to be going into it but I became peeved by a few small things that happened throughout and in general the whole thing didn’t keep me as entertained as I thought it would 🤷🏼♀️
Apparently, especially in the 50’s it was completely normal to let your 2-4 year old child play unsupervised and unwatched. That’s a detail, not on the author, that also ticked me off and it didn’t factor into my rating.
I think Dale Gribble would get along great with David Paulides though. I think a lot of the coincidences he points out are reaching. Because someone goes missing 30 years or some random number after someone else like some odd amount of miles away from the location the first went missing, the two incidents must be related somehow? Like dude, it’s a stretch most of the time.
Another thing that bugged me was whenever the incident was about a young YOUNG child, like 2-4 years old, it would be mentioned that after the kid was found (if found) they wouldn’t be able to give any details about what happened to them. Like, you are talking about a kid that has only been walking and talking for a couple/few years now and just had a potentially traumatic experience, how much detail would you expect to get from them ?
Anyway, this guy wrote a lot of these books, I may pick one up again in the future if I see it in a freebie or mark down bin 🤷🏼♀️ -
Este es el tercer libro que escribe Paulides sobre el mismo tema: la desaparición de personas de todas las edades, desde 18 meses hasta los 80. La gente desaparece en los mismos lugares como lagos, montañas o bosques, algunas nunca aparecen y otras son descubiertas a kilómetros del último lugar en donde fueron vistas. Los casos más misteriosos son los de los bebés de 18 meses a 3 años, los que se apartan de sus casas y son encontrados a muchas millas de distancia en las salientes de alguna montaña y exhaustos, deshidratados y a punto de morir por la exposición a los elementos. ¿Cómo pudieron estos niños subir a una montaña cuando recién han aprendido a caminar? ¿Cómo, hombres y mujeres, que han paseado en esos lugares durante décadas, conociéndolos como la palma de su mano, puedan desaparecer para siempre sin dejar huella? Estos son los casos que el autor ha recopilado dentro de la zona que se especifica en el título del libro, en múltiples estados de Estados Unidos, de Canadá y algunos de Australia. Interesante, rara y misteriosa crónica.
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Interesting, but I started to lose the will to go on after the 500th time somebody clearly just doing their job was marked as "suspicious" for just doing their job.
I'm in no way fully doubting any of the stories, a lot of these disappearances are certainly very odd, but the lingering sense of paranoia at everybody in authority in this book really makes it hard to take seriously.
Please let park rangers walk in the woods. They are there to patrol the park. The trail is not the whole park. They are allowed to go off the path. It is, in fact, part of their job. -
Not a book to enjoy as such, since it features so many missing children. I think this is one of the largest books that Mr Paulides has written to date. It features many strange cases. One story that stood out for me was a lady who had a terrifying experience in France. In some ways it reminded me of a story of a forestry worker in Scotland, who had an experience but it was many years after the French lady's story.
Not that I'm any expert on missing people but there really are some very strange cases in this book. -
Ah, I forgot to review this one. All I really want to say is that I absolutely, unironically love that this book starts off like, “Here are the facts. Draw your own conclusions.” And with each page, the author grows more comfortable until he is fully telling you that cryptids hop through portals of time and space to abduct toddlers and be-bramble them on clifftops.
Objectively a bad book, but it scared the hell out of me and made an all-night drive go quite quickly. -
This was another good book in the series and some cases can really make you stop and think as there seems to be no reasonable explanation for some of the missing people.
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Fascinating read!
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Good book but a bit depressing at points. I wished there was more ideas or theories in thr conclusions.
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I am very interested in this topic but this particular book was painful to read.
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Makes you stop and think if you love the forests and national parks.
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I hate that I wasted money on this book. What a hot mess. Apparently a person can throw random words together with no structure or context and be labeled an author.
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The missing persons cases presented are extremely summarized. The author is going into his study looking for a specific set of circumstances, presents them, and moves on to the next case. The cases are typically a half page to a page long. Not enough detail for me and this became a major slog. I looked several of these cases up myself to get a full picture.
