Cold Case

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Story 1.

Footprints in the Snow

On the morning of the 8th of May 1965, a man by the name of Carl Robert Disch, working at Bird Station in Antarctica, mysteriously disappeared.

Search parties were hastily assembled, but could find no trace of him, except for a single set of footprints in the snow.

Cold, vast, and desolately beautiful, Antarctica sits as a stark reminder to all mankind that nature does indeed conquer all, for she is far too formidable a force in this part of the world for humans to contend with.

It is the only significant landmass on Earth that harbours no permanent inhabitants, and remarkably, one that remained unexplored until little over a hundred years ago.

Given the brutal conditions there, it is not difficult to understand why.

It is the coldest, windiest, and bizarrely the driest continent on the planet.

Despite the fact that Antarctica is almost perpetually covered in snow, it receives very little rain or snowfall and is in fact classed as a desert.

The snow that does exist there has built up over hundreds of years, as it is far too cold to ever melt.

For this reason, Antarctica has claimed dozens of lives lives and devastated many more.

Those who have visited this strange region often have polarizing views regarding its allure.

Some appreciate the isolation, others are driven mad by it.

One's existence there seems to fluctuate between endless and sometimes insufferable silence and the deafening sounds of colliding icebergs and howling blizzards.

Save for some stunning mountain ranges and glaciers, the landscape is often featureless.

No trees or permanent wildlife exists in this part of the world, resulting in vast expanses of brilliant white snow.

It is no wonder that Antarctica is perceived as either a place of serene calm and beauty, or a harsh and remote cabin fever-inducing nightmare.

Over the past century, Many dark tales have emerged from this unique continent, from infamous disappearances, murders, and even the frenzied killing of pets, to stories regarding pyramids under the ice and the possibility of ancient cities buried beneath the permafrost.

It is a place of many mysteries, mysteries it seems unwilling to surrender.

One such haunting tale, which has endured for more than 50 years, occurred on a cold dark morning back in 1965.

A year previous to this, 26-year-old Carl Robert Dish, Dish, a young man from Monroe, Wisconsin, had joined the staff at Boulder Laboratories, working as an ionospheric physicist.

As part of his role, he was asked to join a research team in Antarctica, a daunting prospect to say the least, but he agreed and soon found himself assigned to Bird Station, situated almost 600 miles from the geographic South Pole.

Over the next six months, he would spend most of his time working in in the Central Radio Propagation Laboratory, and his job required him to work long hours at the Radio Noise Building, a small hut strategically positioned just over a mile northwest of the main complex.

Despite the distance, the two buildings were connected by a hand line, a length of rope which helped guide the researchers during harsh weather or when visibility was poor.

Dish himself had made this journey dozens of times, so was familiar with the terrain and the navigational processes involved.

However, on the morning of the 8th of May 1965, he would set out from the radio noise building for the very last time, and walk off into the wilderness, never to be seen again.

Dish left the small hut at 9.15am during nautical twilight, heading for the main complex.

The winds were up, but he was fully attired in Antarctic clothing, which in theory would have provided adequate protection from the freezing cold temperatures, which had dropped as low as minus 44 degrees Fahrenheit.

The trek should have taken him no longer than half an hour.

Nevertheless, when Dish had still not reached his destination by 10am,

his colleagues became sufficiently concerned to assemble a vehicle search party and deploy it along his intended route.

They found no sign of him, however.

Further investigation revealed a set of footprints over by the radio noise building.

These were discovered at 11.30 and began at the bottom of the ladder attached to the hut.

But rather than leading south along the hand line, as they would have expected, they headed west towards the skiway, a landing area where supplies were flown in.

Colleagues followed his trail downwind for a distance of approximately 4 miles towards the southwest corner of the station's outer perimeter, at which point the search party needed to return to base to refuel.

At the time, his co-workers noted how his tracks appeared purposeful, with consistent long paces, as opposed to an uncertain, stop-start kind of progression.

This suggested that wherever Dish was heading, he was moving with intent, as opposed to the apprehension one might expect if lost or confused.

Once the vehicles had been refuelled, The team moved back out to the corner of the skiway.

Unfortunately, a three-hour search of the area yielded nothing, as by this time, the heavy gales had blown snow over the rest of the tracks, causing them to disappear.

Not only this, but the blustering 30-knot winds had also covered the tracks of the search party, making a safe return extremely difficult.

They eventually made it back to base at 6.15pm that evening, and by 7pm, an extensive search of the supply line, the emergency Jamesway and fuel dump was undertaken, all to no avail.

An hour or so later, his colleagues formed a human chain in order to search the route leading from the base, all the way down to the skiway where his tracks had disappeared.

Despite difficult weather conditions and limited visibility, cloodlights were lit over the station and flares were launched every 30 minutes, until a point when visibility became so poor that these measures were deemed ineffective.

The following day, a third vehicle search party was assembled, and this covered the one mile wide by nine mile long area leading from the base to the skiway and beyond.

Despite finding occasional unblemished tracks moving in a southwesterly direction, they once again abruptly disappeared approximately four miles southwest of the radio noise building.

On the 10th of May, two days after the disappearance, an extensive search began at 7.40am.

This consisted of an eight-man party, two vehicles, a Jamesway, provisions provisions and fuel.

The search began at the main complex, moving in a southerly direction and making perpendicular sweeps to the east and west.

The search party marked their progress with flags and continued for 12 miles beyond the perimeter of the station, but nothing was found.

On the 12th, the northeast and southeast sectors of Bird Station were searched.

The weather was favourable, but darkness severely hampered their visual range.

Over the next two days, visibility worsened to the point that due to the harsh winds and fog, no search was possible.

By the 14th, 35 square miles of area had been covered, but despite this extensive search, Carl Robert Dish was never seen again.

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In the following weeks, on account of the time he had been missing, combined with the brutal weather conditions he would have been exposed to, he was presumed dead.

A memorial service was held by friends and family back in his hometown of Monroe, and another by his colleagues at Byrd, marking the beginning of a mystery which for well over 50 years has tragically endured without a sense of closure, as it's not so easy to explain.

The questions that were asked back then are still being asked today.

Why did Dish deviate from his usual route?

Was it a mistake on his part or was it intentional?

And how did a physically fit, experienced and intelligent individual seem to vanish without trace?

A number of theories have evolved over time in an attempt to explain what might have happened.

Some reasonably straightforward and others requiring more of an open mind.

But one thing all these supposed explanations have in common is that not one of them is without its flaws.

Perhaps the most popular theory regarding Dish's disappearance is the previously mentioned weather conditions.

It is conceivable that when he left the radio noise building, a combination of the blizzard, poor visibility and the monotonous white landscape caused him to lose his sense of direction, and wander off to the west instead of south towards the main complex.

Once he had ventured a short distance, it would have been very difficult to regain his bearings.

However, Dish had made this short journey more than two dozen times before.

Given his experience, it is unlikely that he would miss the hand line and deviate so far off his route.

After descending the ladder attached to the radio noise building, the rope would have been right there in front of him.

Even despite the low visibility, there is no way he could have missed it.

Furthermore, if he had simply lost his way, why would he have continued to walk in a straight line for at least four miles?

Why would his tracks not have indicated a more uncertain behaviour?

And could he not have used those tracks to retrace his steps back to the radio noise building?

After all, if the footprints were still visible when the search party found them, he certainly should have been able to see them and follow them.

This begs the question then, was his straying off the beaten track intentional?

An alternate explanation to Dish's disappearance suggests that he might have suffered a mental breakdown.

It is rumoured that he had been mistreated or even cheated during a card game just moments before he left.

He apparently threw his cards down onto the table and told his colleague that he was going to visit his friends at the pole.

A similar anecdote references the fact that Dish was part of a two-man team.

and that his co-worker was an incredibly boring individual whose monotonous voice could have driven a man insane over a long enough period of time.

Considering how tedious certain shifts might be in this line of work, it is not hard to imagine the situation being compounded by spending days on end with someone you find insufferably dull.

It is considered that, much like the example of the aforementioned card game, Dish had simply had enough, left the building, and walked away to clear his head.

But surely, a man of his experience would have known that pursuing such an action would have been suicide considering the hostile environment, unless things had really gotten out of hand and he set off that morning with no intention of returning.

But then why suicide?

Whilst it is understandable that trivial issues might get blown out of proportion in such isolated conditions, it is difficult to understand why someone like Dish would react in this way.

He was a successful young man with his whole life ahead of him after all.

In either case, the lack of a body is problematic, problematic, as you would expect to find at least something if either scenario was true, unless of course he fell into a deep crevice, which is entirely possible, given that they are a common feature across the Antarctic landscape, but perhaps there could be other reasons for this.

Unsurprisingly, theories have also been put forward which suggest a supernatural element.

Researchers have long contested the fact that the footprints seem to come to an abrupt stop in the middle of nowhere.

Those sceptical of such notions attest that further footprints had been covered over with fresh snow, whilst those more inclined to look for otherworldly explanations argue that the tracks just stopped, as though Dish had simply vanished or was lifted into the air.

Whilst the former is more plausible, it was allegedly reported by several people involved in the search that unusual lights and noises were seen and heard in the vicinity.

both before and after Dish's disappearance, though the source of this activity was never determined.

Was he distracted as he exited the radio noise building, and did he follow someone or something that might have caught his attention?

Perhaps he saw these unusual lights over the skiway, and thought he was looking at an unscheduled supply drop.

If this was the case however, an unscheduled supply drop would have been a big deal, and he surely would have reported this activity before setting off.

Furthermore, we could not find any official source regarding reports of this strange phenomena, which leads us to believe these details could be embellishments that have been added over time.

Another unusual element to this story is that Gus, Dish's husky, went missing a few days later.

It is theorised that he went looking for his master, but this small detail would later become linked to one of the more bizarre explanations surrounding this case.

It is claimed that in 1971, a message arrived at a research center in the Antarctic via the AA2 weather circuit.

The author claimed to be none other than Carl Robert Dish, and the communication read,

To the world I am dead.

They believe that my body is but a pinpoint frozen here to the surface of this white continent.

I say to you, I, Carl Dish, live.

Do not for one moment think that it was a mistake.

Everything was planned.

They pushed me, tormented me, and bored me with their shallow lives.

He went on to say that he had enticed his dog away by using tinned oysters soaked in barbecue sauce and talked about the intense loneliness he now felt.

The endless singing of the wind almost drives me mad.

I begin to long for human companionship.

Whilst this is intriguing to say the least, It would be almost impossible for anyone to survive so long in such brutal conditions, especially being as poorly equipped as he had been.

As a result, it is generally accepted that this message was a hoax.

One final possibility that is rarely considered is that Dish may have defected to the Soviet Union, or at least may have been abducted by them.

As far-fetched as this may sound, there is in fact a story regarding a British Royal Navy commander attached to a survey group in Antarctica, who disappeared in very similar circumstances during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

It turned out that this man had secretly been working for the Soviets and that they picked him up just before his cover was about to be blown.

Dish did go missing during the height of the Cold War after all, and as a specialist in his field, he would have been a valuable and therefore attractive asset to either side.

This could also explain the strange lights and weird noises, if indeed those things did occur.

The problem with this theory, however, is the locality of Bird Station.

It was roughly 400 miles from the nearest coastline and that is a massive distance to cover during an Antarctic winter.

So unless his rescuers

had a secret base nearby, this explanation is also unlikely.

Despite the assortment of theories, it seems that not one of them is sufficiently watertight to draw a definite conclusion.

What makes this case so intriguing is the contrast between the minimal amount of information available on the disappearance and the vast range of possible explanations put forward, despite none of those explanations standing up to intense scrutiny.

Given the evidence, it seems most likely that Carl Robert Dish knowingly committed suicide.

A combination of the secluded conditions, dealing with the same individuals day in, day out, The unbearable weather and depressing lack of daylight may have all conspired together to push this young man over the edge.

Antarctica is a strange place, which does strange things to people, and he would not be the first, and certainly not the last person to succumb to its dark gravitas.

And even though his colleagues reported that he seemed fine within himself, The unfortunate truth is that some individuals are just too good at hiding how they really feel.

Of course, we cannot say that this is what happened with any certainty.

The more time that passes, the more the details seem to fade, not unlike a certain set of footprints.

Perhaps there is something poetic in that.

This beautifully desolate continent certainly has a way of keeping its secrets.

May Carl Robert Disch be at peace, wherever he is.

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Story 2.

The Boys from Yuba City

On a cold night in February, five young men inexplicably left the safety of their car and struck out into the woods in the dead of night.

It would be months before their bodies were found.

Known as America's own Dyatlov Pass incident, we're left wondering what happened to the boys from Yuba City.

A nauseating, sickly sweet smell hung in the air as the riders pulled off the main trail and entered the deserted camp.

It was early June in 1978 and the late afternoon sun was bathing the stunning Californian wilderness in an iridescent light and warmth.

They had been traveling all day and had decided to pull over for a rest and to investigate the curious cluster of abodes tucked away in a cul-de-sac just beyond the tree line adorning the mountain road.

In front of them sat a large trailer which was surrounded by four smaller ones.

It was a US Forestry Service station.

Its location was not unusual.

Many more like it dotted the landscape in this part of the world, strategically placed to help the Forestry Service carry out their duties in all kinds of situations, such as search and rescue, or fire spotting.

Most of them are staffed, but in the more remote regions, many of them sit unmanned and are only used when needed, as was the case with this particular camp.

The sickly sweet scent was more pungent now that the riders had removed their helmets.

A couple of them had recognised it immediately.

It was the smell of death.

They reasoned that maybe a dead animal was lying close by, rotting in the heat of the afternoon, and stinking out the whole area.

It was enough to make one of them gag and they briefly considered leaving until one of the men noticed that a window in the larger trailer had been broken and decided to go and investigate.

Looking in through the pane of broken glass, he could not see anything of interest, just a number of cupboards and work surfaces seemingly untouched.

Surprisingly, The door to the trailer was unlocked, and after some deliberating, the rider decided to enter, but nothing could have prepared him for what he discovered inside.

Lying on a bed at the rear, under eight winter blankets and a swarm of blowflies, lay a dead body.

What none of the men present that day realized was that they had just stumbled upon what would become a truly heartbreaking enigma, which you, the listener, has probably never heard of.

Authorities en route to the scene already had a hunch regarding the identity of the deceased individual, and upon arrival, their worst fears were confirmed.

It was the body of one of five young men who had gone missing earlier that year in February.

But much of the evidence in front of them just didn't seem to add up.

In fact, as the full story unfolded, it would turn out that hardly anything about this case made sense at all.

And in time, what we would be left with is a thought-provoking mystery which has come to be known as America's very own Dyatlov Pass incident.

With that in mind, we take you back to the very beginning, the early evening of Friday the 24th of February, 1978.

The day had been chillier than usual for the residents of Oroville in Northern California.

It was 5.30pm

and 25-year-old Gary Dale Mathias was sat at his kitchen table eating dinner.

Between gulps of his meatloaf, he looked out of the window at the empty street in front of his house with an eager expression.

He must have felt tremendously excited about that night's prospects.

For several days, he and a group of friends from the nearby town of Uba City had been planning to watch a basketball game at the California State University in Chico.

Even though a light snowfall had been forecast that evening, Matthias assured his mother and stepfather that he would not need his windbreaker, since he would be home once the game was over.

Earlier that evening, 32-year-old Theodore Earl Weir had come rushing downstairs for dinner, which he consumed at an alarming rate.

A few minutes later, he heard the sound of a car pull up outside and honk.

Weir instantly rushed out of the door after insisting to his grandmother, Imogen, that he too would not be needing his coat that night.

In the driveway, he found Jack Anton Madruger, 29, sitting behind the wheel of a 1969 Mercury Montego.

In the passenger seat sat his other friend, Jackie Charles Hewitt, who was 24, and sitting in the back was 27-year-old William Lee Sterling.

Weir jumped in the vehicle and he and his friend set out for Oroville, where they picked up Gary Mathias.

From there, they headed out on a two-hour long journey towards Chico on what promised to be an eventful evening of sports and cheerful exuberance.

Each of them was an avid basketball fan, and they loved to watch both local and televised games whenever they got the chance.

They even played as part of a team themselves, the Gateway Gators, and in fact, had a match set for the very next day, the 25th, the latest in a series of regional tournaments which would qualify them for the upcoming Paralympics.

They were promised a free trip to Los Angeles if they won the game.

An aspect which made this case especially poignant was the fact that all five men were either intellectually disabled or suffered from mental health issues.

They attended the Uber City Gateway programme, a vocational rehabilitation center, where they learned trades whilst playing on the centre's basketball team.

Ted Weir was the oldest, yet had the mind of a child and had a natural friendliness about him, which he often shared with the deeply religious Bill Sterling.

At his family's insistence, he had recently quit a job working at a snack bar due to concerns that he was unable to handle the high-pressure workload.

Jack Hewitt, on the other hand, was the shortest of the group, standing at 5 feet 9 inches.

His head drooped slightly and he found it difficult to respond clearly in social situations, but when comfortable, he had a natural cheerfulness and got along famously with his friends.

Weir and Hewitt were described as inseparable and went almost everywhere together.

The older man took protective care of his younger friend and would often make phone calls on his behalf.

Jack Madruga had graduated high school and served in the army in Vietnam.

but was discharged after a medical evaluation.

Although not diagnosed as intellectually disabled, he was generally considered slow by his acquaintances.

Despite this, Madruga was competent enough to possess a state driver's license and loved driving his cherished Bontego almost as much as he loved playing basketball.

Like Madruga, Gary Mathias had also enlisted in the army and had been stationed in West Germany.

But following a drug-related breakdown in 1973, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and honourably discharged.

For this reason, he had been taking prescribed medication for nearly five years.

In that time, his condition had improved greatly and he had even managed to hold down a job, working for his stepfather's landscape gardening service.

Finally, completing the group was Bill Sterling.

Like Ted, he also had the mind of a child.

and rarely left the house for anything other than church, basketball or attending the programme.

Ted would often phone Bill to read him bizarre newspaper articles or repeat amusing names found in the phone book, which both of them found highly amusing.

Sterling also devoted time at the local hospital, reading Bible verses to patients on the wards.

During the ride, the five friends talked amongst themselves.

Conversation was largely centered around their upcoming match.

Their parents had laid out their kit on the evening of the 24th, ready for their big game the next day.

Sadly though, they would never get to play it.

For that night, a mysterious sequence of events would seal an inexorable fate in which none of them were ever seen alive again.

When all five boys failed to return home that evening, their worried families contacted each other and the police for any word on their whereabouts.

It was unheard of for the boys to vanish without saying anything.

None of them were the outgoing type and would often spend their nights at home.

Although Gary Mathias tended to stay out late with older friends, this was out of character, even for him.

When the police issued a bulletin for the missing boys, it was not long before the news arrived in Chico, where the first pieces of the puzzle began to come together.

Several witnesses confirmed seeing them at the basketball game, and one or two believed they had seen Madruga's Montego leaving the parking lot after its conclusion.

A cashier at a local store reported seeing them come into his shop just before closing time.

They purchased several snack items, bottles of milk and soda, and then left almost as quickly as they had arrived, just as snow was starting to fall.

Police immediately began a countrywide search, headed by Yuba Police Lieutenant Lance Ayres.

Ayers had known the boys for years, having gone to high school with Ted Weir and his brothers, and felt personally connected to all five.

He worked extensively to find any trace he could and instructed the search to broaden into the surrounding areas near the Feather River mountain range.

This decision eventually paid off when the news filtered back that Madruga's Montego had been discovered.

To Air's surprise, the car was located on a road in the Plumas National Forest, 70 miles away from Chico on the 28th of February.

Snow had fallen in the time since the disappearance, which had almost buried the vehicle, but oddly enough, they found it had been left perfectly parked.

Inside, they discovered a number of snack wrappers strewn over the seats.

There were also four maps folded neatly in the glove compartment.

The car itself was in good condition, but the keys were missing.

forcing the officers to hotwire the ignition in order to drive it back to nearby Oroville.

There was even a quart of petrol left in the tank, which confused the police as it was more than enough for the boys to have driven home on.

With mechanical failure and lack of fuel ruled out as a reason to abandon the vehicle, authorities wondered if it had gotten stuck in the snow, but this also turned out not to be the case.

Further attempts to search the area were halted by another snowstorm later that night, and the search was reluctantly delayed until the spring.

For Ayers, the investigation became an obsession, and with each passing day and no word on the boys, he became increasingly determined to find them.

To this end, he and their families pursued every angle they could, even offering rewards for information on their whereabouts.

Phone calls came in daily, but most were unconfirmed sightings by unsure citizens, ranging from as far as San Francisco, Arizona, Ontario, and one which even claimed the boys were spotted in Florida.

With each frustrating phone call, Ayres was becoming convinced that no one would ever see them again.

And just when that possibility was seeming more and more likely, a breakthrough finally occurred on the 4th of June, when he received a phone call from the group of motorcyclists at the US Forestry Service camp.

The body found inside the trailer was identified as that of Todd Weir, who looked to have died from exposure, despite having been wrapped in several layers of blankets.

Initial reports also showed that Weir's 200 pound frame had shed more than 80 pounds, tragically hinting that he may have starved to death.

But when investigators took a closer look at the scene, they were baffled.

Weir's shoes were missing, and frostbite had ravaged his exposed feet.

The length of his unkempt beard suggested that he had been alive for the better part of eight weeks, but for some reason, he had never once tried to leave the bed.

The officers found several empty packets of Army C rations scattered about the floor, which suggested he had eaten at some point.

They also found an unlocked metal cabinet in the same room, containing dehydrated, easily prepared food sitting untouched, enough to feed a small group of people for a whole year.

When Ayres examined the scene, He was stunned to find that no one had attempted to build a fire.

There were boxes full of matches and plenty of paperback books and magazines which could have been used as fuel.

Even more astonishing, the propane tank behind the trailer was in perfect working condition, yet no one had turned it on.

This would have provided heat for a few weeks at the very least.

The following day, Plumas County Police found the body of Jack Madruger 11 miles from the trailer near the road leading back in the direction of the car.

All signs indicated he had died on the way and that his body had fallen victim to animal predation.

He had been dragged almost 10 feet to a nearby stream, with most of the flesh on his right arm gone, his hand clutching his favourite watch, and his eyes and two fingers missing.

On the other side of the road, in a thickly wooded area, police also found several bones scattered about, which later analysis proved belonged to Bill Sterling.

Sterling's body had also been eaten by forest animals, and his remains were spread over an area of 50 square feet.

Several articles of clothing matching what he had worn the night he disappeared also confirmed his identity.

When word reached Yuba City that three of the five boys had been found dead, the news was devastating.

Two days later, Jack Hewitt Sr.

joined the search.

despite Ayers' pleas not to, and tragically located a backbone and the same Levi jeans and shoes his son had been wearing the night he vanished.

The following day, an assistant sheriff discovered Jack's skull and the family dentist confirmed his identity using the boy's dental records.

Throughout this, Gary Matthias' whereabouts remained unknown and this worried investigators since he had been taking prescription medication for his schizophrenia.

Four months had passed since the group's disappearance, and if he was still alive, they couldn't begin to imagine what sort of state he was in.

Matthias' shoes were discovered in the trailer, suggesting to police that he had been there with Weir and had swapped them out for his friend's much larger leather shoes once Frostbite had swollen his feet.

To this day, Matthias' body has never been found.

Police speculated that the boys had driven up the road but had become lost, and as the snowfall worsened, they abandoned the car and tried heading in a southerly direction back home.

This meant they would have walked more than 20 miles over rocky, mountainous trails in freezing cold weather before arriving at the service trailer.

Once inside, the boys would have tried searching for food and something to start a fire with, but in the end, could not get one started and had simply failed to locate the food in the locker.

With no idea about the propane tank outside, and with Weir's worsening condition confining him to the bed, Hewitt, Madruga and Sterling might have left to locate assistance, leaving Matthias behind to keep watch over their friend.

If they had left around the time the blizzard hit on the 28th of February, it would have been their last mistake, as none would have made it back alive.

If Matthias had indeed stayed behind, with no word from the other three men, he might have set off at a later time.

A quarter of a mile northwest of the trailer, officers found three blankets and a rusted torch.

They speculated that Matthias might have gone out to locate his friends and give them the blankets, but got lost in doing so and succumbed to the elements, although there was nothing to substantiate this.

Needless to say, the question on everyone's lips was why had they driven up that mountain road in the first place?

It was not on the same road connecting Chico to Yuba City.

None of the boys had ever travelled on that that road before, nor would they have been familiar with the area, despite the fact that Weir and Sterling had been on hunting trips to nearby trails as children.

Just how had they ended up there of all places?

Madruga's mother would later claim that someone or something chased them up that mountain trail, but she couldn't believe that anyone would have gotten the upper hand on them.

Although they had their disabilities, they were five very strong, able-bodied men men who could more than handle themselves.

Police questioned what had compelled them to leave the relative safety of a perfectly operable car and trek for 20 miles through a forest on a freezing cold night in the first place.

They also wondered why, upon reaching the trailer, the boys had not tried to start a fire or ransack it for supplies, unless they were trying to hide.

But hide from who?

Or what?

Given their intellectual disabilities and mental health issues, it has been suggested that maybe they just didn't understand how to cope with the situation.

But if Matthias, and to an extent even Madruga, who had both served in the army, had been with them, then surely they would have been more capable and should have known what to do.

Unsurprisingly, Rumours of foul play surfaced around the time the bodies were discovered, and one person's account on the night of their disappearance might shed some light onto the sequence of events.

On the 2nd of June 1978, Lieutenant Ayer spoke to a man named Joseph Schoans, who reported that on the night of the 24th of February, he had actually been driving along the same road where the Mercury Montego was later discovered.

Schans-Volkswagen beetle had got stuck in the snow, and he suffered a mild heart attack whilst trying to dislodge it.

This forced him to spend the night in his car.

As he convalesced, he awoke at around 2am to the sound of strange whistling nearby.

He looked out of the window and reported seeing several men and a woman holding a baby, backlit by a pair of car headlights, about 100 feet away.

Hoping to get assistance, Shans called out for help, but instead, The men and the woman rushed back towards their car and the lights vanished in an eerie silence.

Later that same night, he was awoken again by lights at his window and more whistling noises, but didn't know who or what was responsible.

At 5am,

Sean's ran out of fuel and his car engine, which had been keeping him warm, cut out.

He was forced to walk back to a lodge 8 miles down the trail in the freezing cold.

Along the way, He noticed the Montego sitting quietly on the road, but thought nothing of it at the time.

Sean's story appeared to fit with several early reports of men allegedly confronting the five boys in the parking lot at Chico University.

People at a nearby lodge in Brownsville believed they had seen the boys stop by to make phone calls, but without proper leads and no further information, his testimony did not lead to anything further.

There is speculation that not everything was as it seemed, and if closer examination of the evidence is made, a much darker picture is painted.

Posting on a blog in late 2017, a person claiming to be Hewitt's sister-in-law relayed several pieces of information which were not reported in the press at the time.

She believed that the five men had witnessed an altercation between a woman and another group of men at the basketball game.

They had gone to her aid.

which had led to a hostile confrontation.

Consequently, she claimed Gary Mathias was thrown off a bridge and died from the fall, while his friends panicked and fled for their lives, ultimately driving up the mountain trail and getting lost in the woods.

Another small detail, which was apparently left out of reports at the time, was that shell casings were found at the entrance to the mountain road.

Had someone shot a gun at the car as they fled?

If so, how do we explain the fact that the boys visited a store to buy snacks?

This hardly seems like the actions of a group fleeing from an an adversary, unless this happened before the chase commenced.

Unfortunately, this possibility only raises more questions than answers.

There have been many theories regarding what happened that night, from Matthias having a mental breakdown and coercing his friends into going up that road, to alien abduction or Yetis attacking them in the dark of the forest.

As we said before, This case has come to be described as America's own Dyatlov Pass incident, and it's easy to see why.

There are striking similarities between the two.

Both occurred in the month of February and involved a group of people leaving the safety of a shelter, running off into the wilderness and becoming separated before dying from exposure to the elements, and with no one in the aftermath understanding why.

The boys from Yuba City although grown men, were anything but.

With the exception of Matthias and possibly Madruga, they had young, innocent minds, and in many ways were just children.

What makes this case so terribly heartbreaking is that we cannot even begin to imagine what their families must have felt and must still be feeling to this day, especially as the events which led to their deaths remain unexplained.

Our only hope is that they rest in everlasting peace and that one day, their families get the answers they have desperately been searching for.

Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a four-litre jug.

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

Oh, come on.

They called a truce for their holiday and used Expedia Trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip.

Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

Whatever.

You were made to outdo your holidays.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia made to travel.