Without a Trace

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Story 1.

The Flannan Isles Lighthouse Mystery

In December of 1900, Three lighthouse keepers stationed on an isolated group of islands in the North Atlantic vanished without trace.

Was their disappearance the result of a freak accident?

Or was there something more sinister at work?

Join us as we recount the still unsolved mystery of the Flannon Isles.

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There was a sharp intake of breath from the ship's crew as the looming specter of Aylin Moore emerged from the mist.

The towering cliffs of this small islet were an imposing sight to behold.

no matter how many times one encountered them.

Beneath their feet, the vibration vibration of the engine seemed to dampen as the vessel slowed its approach.

Standing at the prow,

a lone figure kept his eyes fixed on the lighthouse jutting from the summit of this brooding landmass, which was little more than a silhouette beneath the veil of fog.

That in itself was a concern.

In these conditions, it should have been lit.

The man's name was Joseph Moore, a lighthouse keeper from the Isle of Lewis.

It had been six long days since he had received orders from the Northern Lighthouse Board to return to his post at Aylin Moor.

He had hurriedly made his way to the harbour at Brest Cleat, where the Hesperus had been waiting to take him to the nearby Flannon Isles, but poor weather conditions had prevented them from sailing until this morning.

For him, the journey had been an anxious one.

He had spent the majority of the trip in deep thought, pacing fore and aft across the ship's deck.

Any attempts to engage him in conversation had been met with little more than grunts or nods, and he had refused breakfast, taking only a few mugs of coffee for sustenance.

The reports had clearly troubled him.

As soon as he had heard about the lighthouse having been dark since the 15th of December, He'd had an unshakable feeling in the pit of his stomach that something had gone terribly wrong.

It was not a possibility he was quite ready to accept.

The three men stationed on the islet, rising from the waves in front of him, were not just his colleagues, they were his friends.

As the ship approached the east side of the island, an ominous atmosphere descended over the scene.

The Flannon Isles had a haunting loneliness to them at the best of times, somewhat punctuated by the fierceness of the seas around them.

But on this morning, as the Hesperus came about, there was something else in the air.

Something not quite right.

Captain Harvey had noticed immediately that the ensign was not flying on the flagstaff, and when Joseph Moore had also made the point that none of the provision boxes had been put out to be restocked, and that there was no welcoming party from either of the three men he had been sent to relieve, the eeriness was suddenly amplified beyond words.

Three long blasts on the ship's foghorn split the air as Harvey attempted to notify the lighthouse keepers of their arrival.

When this failed to elicit a response, he ordered that the crew set off a signal rocket from the deck below,

but still there was no reply from the three men.

Save for the crashing of waves against the cliff faces, and the cawing of seagulls overhead, an oppressive silence hung over the island in front of them, which sat heavy in the heart of Joseph Moore.

A short time later, a crewman by the name of McCormick approached him.

He explained that the captain had ordered the two of them to take the ship's launch across to the east landing and to report their findings.

As the relief keeper made his way towards the waiting boat, He couldn't have known it at the time, but he was about to step into one of the world's most haunting and enduring mysteries.

Every day across the globe, people go missing in their thousands.

Thankfully, most turn up alive and well.

For others not so fortunate, their remains are often found weeks, months or even years later, having perished through misadventure or foul play.

But every so often there are cases in which the missing individuals are never to be seen or heard from again.

They simply disappear into the vastness of the world we inhabit.

Vanishings like this occur in both urban and rural settings, but in either case, there are often more obvious explanations.

After all, there are plenty of sinister people with sinister motives, just waiting to take advantage of any given opportunity.

But what about more isolated incidents, such as one where a group of individuals stationed on a remote, uninhabited and almost inaccessible island, miles away from the evils of the world, simply vanish without trace.

On the evening of the 7th of December 1900, almost three weeks before the Hesperus arrived at the Flannins, Superintendent Robert Muirhead stepped off the east landing of Aylin Moor and climbed into his waiting launch.

Having shook hands and bid farewell to his colleagues, he now headed out to a larger steam vessel anchored offshore, which would take him back to the mainland.

As his small boat made its way over the choppy waters, he looked back at two of the three men he had left behind.

They were 43-year-old James Duquet and 28-year-old Thomas Marshall, and they were stood on the east landing waving to him.

The third man, 40-year-old Donald MacArthur, was atop the cliffs towering above them, manning the lighthouse as procedure dictated.

It was strictly forbidden to leave the light unattended at any time, and so he could not join his colleagues in waving off their supervisor.

As Muirhead raised his hand to wave back, not once did the thought cross his mind that he would be the last person to ever see any of these men again.

For when the relief vessel arrived 19 days later, they were nowhere to be found.

The Flannon Isles, a group of seven small islets situated some 20 miles west of the Outer Hebrides in western Scotland, were to be the setting of this strange disappearance.

The islands themselves were named after the 7th century Irish priest, St Flannon, and for as long as anyone could remember, they had remained uninhabited.

The settlers on the neighbouring Isle of Lewis and the rest of the Hebrides always viewed this bleak and deserted group of craggy rocks with great superstition.

Many fishing boats and merchant vessels had founded there over the years, and although the Hebrideans often ferried sheep to graze on the Flannon's lush turf, they believed it very unlucky to spend a night there.

During the 1890s, the Northern Lighthouse Board decided to construct a lighthouse on Ayland Moor, the largest of these seven islets.

It took four years, and building work was constantly hampered by the tempestuousness of the wild Atlantic Ocean, which made it very difficult to land supplies.

Nevertheless, the lighthouse was completed and went into operation on the 7th of December 1899.

It had no wireless communication and the only way of contacting the mainland was through the use of visual signals, which could be seen by the Hebrides on a clear day.

The lighthouse itself would have been operated by up to three men at a time, with a fourth keeper on shore rotating in as relief.

The mystery began on the night of the 15th of December 1900, when a sudden squall broke out in the vicinity of the islands.

The first signs of anything amiss came when the captain of an American steamer, the SS Arch Tor, making its way from Philadelphia to the port of Leith in Edinburgh, passed close to Aylin Moor just before midnight and noticed that the lighthouse was eerily dark.

This was something almost unheard of for an operational rock station like the one on the Flannons, and was reported when the ship reached its destination three days later.

Even so,

although a dark lighthouse was considerable cause for alarm, no immediate action could be taken due to the harsh weather.

The Hesperus was due to set sail on the 20th of December, carrying fresh supplies and the relief keeper, Joseph Moore.

But because of the unfavourable conditions, it was unable to set out until dawn on Boxing Day, the 26th.

As Moore and McCormick reached the east landing, Moore instructed his colleague to wait below, whilst he made his way up the steps leading to the plateau, where the lighthouse stood.

Moore called out to the three men as he negotiated the steep incline, but there was no reply.

Upon reaching the lighthouse, he found the entrance gate to the compound and main door both closed.

Inside, nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary.

The lamps were cleaned and refilled, the beds were unmade as if the men had just awoken, the washing up was done, and there were cold ashes in the grate.

After his initial observations, he spotted an overturned chair in the kitchen, and then noticed that all the clocks had stopped, which only added to his concerns.

Returning to the Hesperus, Moore relayed his findings to the captain, then made his way back up to the lighthouse with more men in the hopes of conducting a wider search.

At the east landing, everything had been intact, but the west landing provided considerable evidence of damage caused by recent storms.

A box at 110 feet above sea level had been smashed and its contents strewn about.

Iron railings were bent over.

The iron railway by the path was wrenched out of its concrete housing, and a rock weighing more than a ton had been displaced above that.

On top of the cliff, at more than 200 feet above sea level, turf had been ripped away as far as 10 metres from the cliff edge.

Further investigation revealed that the keepers had kept their log until 9am on the 15th of December, and their entries entries made it clear that the damage had occurred before their disappearance.

The only other considerable piece of evidence was that two sets of oilskins were missing.

Only one set of the outdoor gear remained by the entrance, suggesting that one of the men must have ventured outside without wearing his protective clothing.

This was surprising considering the severity of the weather on the date of the last log entry, and especially during a harsh North Atlantic winter.

Of the keepers themselves, there was no sign, either inside the lighthouse or anywhere else on the island.

They had simply vanished.

Moore and three volunteer seamen remained behind to attend to the duties of getting the lighthouse back up and running, whilst the Hesperus returned to the shore station at Brestcleet.

From there, Captain Harvey sent a telegram to the Northern Lighthouse Board, dated 26 December 1900, stating,

Whatever the cause of the Keeper's mysterious disappearance was, several embellishments have been added over the years, such as the classic half-eaten meal which was supposedly found on the keeper's kitchen table.

This is common in so many vanishing tales, but in this case is a complete fabrication.

Even the overturned chair has been called into question, with no mention of this in the original accounts.

The clocks being stopped is another aspect for many looking for something out of the ordinary, but there is nothing even remotely strange about this fact.

All clocks of that era had to be wound in order to continue ticking away.

With no one around to do this, they inevitably cease to function.

Another point of contention are the log entries, which are listed as follows:

December 12.

Gale north by northwest.

Sea lashed to fury.

Never seen such a storm.

Waves very high, tearing at lighthouse.

Everything ship-shape.

James Duckett irritable.

Later on the 12th.

Storm still raging.

Wind steady.

Storm bound.

Cannot go out.

Ship passing, sounding foghorn.

Could see lights of cabins.

Duckett quiet.

Donald MacArthur crying.

December 13.

Storm continued through night.

Wind shifted west by north.

Duckett quiet.

MacArthur praying.

Later on the 13th.

Noon, grey daylight.

Me, Duckett and MacArthur prayed.

There was no log entry on the 14th.

The final entry was supposedly chalked on a piece of slate.

which would normally have been transferred to the logbook at a later time.

December 15, 1pm.

Storm ended.

Sea calm.

God

is overall.

These entries would have made for disturbing reading, if not for the fact that they are mostly fictitious.

The reports on the weather are probably true, but the comments regarding the keeper's mental states do not make any sense when considering the context.

A Northern Lighthouse Board logbook is an official, process-bound document.

It is not a diary for an employee to record his personal thoughts, especially regarding other members of the team.

It seems rather odd to suggest that Marshall would have written such statements about James Duquet.

Duquet was Marshall's superior, and it would have been today's equivalent of an employee writing on an office message board or official report that their boss was in a foul mood.

Had the men survived, the Northern Lighthouse Board would have rightly asked Marshall to explain why he had written such personal remarks.

The comment about MacArthur crying is also completely out of character, as he had a reputation for being a tough old sea dog.

In fact, all three men were highly seasoned and rather hardy.

It was a prerequisite for the job, so the idea of them cowering beneath a violent storm, which they would have been more than used to as it was a common sight around the Flannons, is an insult to their memory.

Finally, there is no mention of the damage recorded at the West Landing, which was present in the original logbook entries, according to Joseph Moore.

The source of these false editions has been traced back to an American pulp magazine, published in 1921, many years after the incident took place.

This was perhaps a harmless attempt by the publication to add more intrigue to the mystery, but it has ultimately become confused with fact.

In any case, no bodies were ever found, no other clues were uncovered, and we can only speculate as to what really happened on those windswept isles in that cold December during the last year of the 19th century.

Theories have ranged from the mundane to the extreme.

with the most fantastical mentioning sea monsters, boats filled with phantoms, kidnapping by foreign spies, and even alien abduction.

There are two or three more rational explanations, however, and one of these involves the occasional keeper, Donald MacArthur.

It has been suggested that, despite the log entries being fictitious, MacArthur's mood at the time was highly irritable.

He wasn't a full-time lightkeeper.

and was used to spending only a few weeks on station at a time.

At the Flannons, he was covering for an assistant lightkeeper by the name of William Ross who was on long-term sick leave, and who, incidentally, would quite literally drop dead in the lightroom of the Aylan Glass Lighthouse, 16 months to the day after the tragedy at Aylan Moor.

As a result, MacArthur had already spent most of October, all of November, and the beginning of December on the Flannons by the time Superintendent Robert Muirhead visited them on the 7th of that month.

The fact that that a superintendent took the trouble to visit the keepers at such a remote station in the middle of December is quite unprecedented and suggests that he did so because there were issues brewing between the men.

It is highly likely that Muirhead made a trip to calm the situation and assure MacArthur that he would be relieved on the 20th by Joseph Moore.

In MacArthur's eyes though, This simply translated that he would have to spend yet another two weeks away from his family.

It is not hard to imagine what may have transpired from this situation.

Some have suggested that MacArthur possibly suffered a bout of cabin fever and took the lives of Marshall and Duquet.

He then threw their bodies and himself from the cliffs rather than face the consequences of his actions.

There was little, if any, evidence of any kind of struggle inside the lighthouse.

So if this line of thinking is to be taken seriously, it would require that MacArthur lured the other two men to their deaths whilst outside.

One of the most prominent theories suggests that the men were swept away by a freak wave.

It postulates that Marshall and Duquet had gone to secure some of the damaged equipment at the west landing, leaving MacArthur to man the lighthouse.

A box containing mooring ropes and other essential items was apparently wedged in a fissure on the cliffs at 110 feet, and it is thought that one of the men got into trouble trying to

it.

The other man who was with him then rushed back to the lighthouse seeking assistance from MacArthur, and as they worked to rescue their colleague, all three of them were taken unawares by a frequent.

Whilst this is probably the most convincing explanation, it is not without its flaws.

First of all, It is clear from the log entries that the disappearance occurred in the late afternoon on the 15th.

In the years since, many lightkeepers have questioned why Dukat would have left it so late in the day to try and retrieve the box of supplies, especially with the fading light and deteriorating weather conditions.

They agree that any lightkeeper worth their salt would have carried out this task in the morning.

Dukat had more than 20 years of experience to call upon and was by all accounts one of the best lightkeepers in the service.

So why would he have unnecessarily risked his life and those of his subordinates when the West Landing was being hammered by 30 to 40 foot waves and the wind was building up to just below storm force?

Speaking of the wind, a relatively new theory put forward by Keith McCloskey in his book, The Lighthouse, suggests that a vortex may have been responsible.

Many lightkeepers who served on the Flannons will attest to just how strong the winds can get on those aisles, with some of them describing how they had been lifted off their feet and carried through the air for quite a distance.

Because the Aylan Moore Lighthouse is constructed on sloped ground, the wall around the complex is lower on the west side than at ground level in front of the winch house, which means it offers no protection from westerly winds and causes something of a wind tunnel effect through this narrow passageway.

McCloskey postulates that high winds on the afternoon of the 15th of December may have caused shutters or doors around the complex to bang and slam, and that two of the men donned their oilskins and ventured out to remedy the situation.

As soon as they turned the corner from the living quarters into the area immediately in front of the winch house, a high wind may have carried them over the low wall and then straight over the 200-foot cliffs to the north of the lighthouse, which are only 15-20 feet away.

He goes on to say that the third man may have gone out to investigate when his colleagues did not return, not bothering to put on his oilskins as he wouldn't have been outside for too long, only to turn the corner and suffer the same fate.

But if this is the case, why didn't any other lightkeepers stationed on the Flannons throughout the subsequent years also succumb to this strange weather phenomenon?

Surely it wasn't so unique that it only ever occurred once.

The riddle of the Flannon Isles has been an endless source of fascination, one which has inspired stories, films, poems, songs, and even an opera, but the whole truth may never be known.

Something about the mystery of these three men, isolated at the edge of the civilised world and surrounded by the vast and hostile Atlantic Ocean, not only sends a chill up the spine, it tugs at the heartstrings.

They left their families with a promise that they would return over Christmas, but instead, they were never seen again.

James Duquet was married with four children, MacArthur married with two,

and whilst Marshall was single at the time of the disappearance, he must have sired children at some point in his life, as there are descendants of his alive today.

There would be no closure for their loved ones.

only heartbreak and confusion.

The lighthouse itself remained manned and without further incident up until 1971, when it became fully automated.

It is still in operation to this day and the isles are now only visited occasionally for maintenance purposes.

Over the years, the islands never could quite live up to their cursed reputation, as nothing out of the ordinary ever took place there again.

But the mystery of Aylin Moore lives on, perhaps forevermore.

In closing, we leave you with the words of Superintendent Robert Muirhead, who, in his official report of the 8th of January 1901, said of the keepers:

I visited them as lately as the 7th of December and have the melancholy recollection that I was the last person to shake hands with them and bid them adieu.

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story two

vanished without a trace

The northwestern state of Alaska remains one of America's most unsettled and unexplored regions.

It is a place of wonder and mystery, but also of great danger, with roughly 2,500 people going missing there every year.

And one settlement, situated far to the west of the state, remains the setting for some of the most bizarre of these disappearances.

Timothy Smith had been in the process of making his first cup of coffee of the day when the mobile phone in his pocket had begun to vibrate.

Stopping what he was doing to take the call, the state trooper found himself speaking with Tracy Bowie, one of the clerks from the nearby city courthouse.

Initially apologising for having called so early, knowing the officer would still be preparing for his shift, Bowie went on to ask Smith if he was aware of any missing persons reports having been filed over the weekend.

Moving over to his computer terminal and checking the logs, he informed her that there wasn't any, his reply in turn leading to a protracted and awkward moment of silence.

The clerk had gone on to relate that her colleague, Joseph Balderis, had not turned up for work that morning.

The last she had heard, he had been going out hunting for the weekend.

and was now failing to answer his phone.

Promising to look into the matter, Smith retrieved his coffee and went on to ask his colleagues if anyone had seen the missing clerk during their travels over the weekend.

A popular and easy-going guy, well known around the town of Nome,

it wasn't surprising when two local officers did recall having recently seen Balderis' car parked out near Mile 44 on the Nome Council Highway.

After clearing things with his superior and phoning Bowie with a quick update, Smith then grabbed hold of the keys to his cruiser and made his way out of town towards the location.

Sure enough, as the marker post for mile 44 came into view, Smith could see a dark blue Dakota truck parked up on a nearby verge.

Having checked the parked vehicle was secured and unattended, Smith had proceeded to remove the loudhailer from inside the cruiser and then call out for the missing man several times.

All he received was silence, which seemed to grow more ominous with each passing second.

Checking the Dakota once more, he saw no signs of damage and no obvious tracks leading away into the bushes alongside it.

The state trooper considered the parked truck for a moment.

and began to feel a familiar tingling sensation as the hairs on the back of his neck bristled with unease.

Shortly afterwards, at his insistence, additional units were soon on their way, in possession of thermal cameras and search dogs.

But when the hounds had been walked up to the vehicle in order to catch its owner's scent, they had proceeded to track only a little further down the road, before coming to an abrupt halt.

Despite several more attempts and the repeated urging of their handlers, the pair of tracker dogs instead remained sitting stubbornly on the spot where they had come to rest, in the middle of the highway, several yards from the abandoned vehicle, with no forward progress in any direction.

It was as if the missing man had simply ceased to exist on that very spot.

At the time of writing, It has been six years since Joseph Balderas set out alone to hunt game in the countryside around his hometown and never returned.

The search for him would last five months, involving workers from numerous law enforcement agencies and emergency services, and costing tens of thousands of dollars.

But no clue as to the fate of the missing hunter was ever uncovered, and 12 months later, he was declared legally dead by a local court.

The Balderas case remains one of the most mystifying and frustrating missing persons cases in the history of the city of Nome.

The 36-year-old was a fit and healthy outdoorsman, who held a position of responsibility within the local community, and was part of a large circle of family and friends.

Bulderis had no known medical or mental health issues at the time of his disappearance, and was in the process of making plans to marry his fiancée and move across state to settle down in Juneau.

Investigators have never been able to come up with a viable hypothesis as to why Balderus would disappear of his own volition,

and they have met with little success in evolving a working proposal as to how he may have vanished in circumstances beyond his control.

There was little evidence at the scene that he had ever left the immediate vicinity of his vehicle.

with no tracks or damage found amongst the foliage nearby.

The idea of an animal attack would be ruled out due to a lack of blood or torn clothing, and there was nothing to suggest that an accident or criminal act may have taken place.

But perhaps the most concerning element in the disappearance of Joseph Bulderus is that it's only one of many similar incidents, all within the same seemingly unassuming city.

Nome was first settled at the beginning of the 20th century, when it was established that there were significant gold deposits lying hidden in the ground nearby.

Countless adventurers and prospectors swarmed to the remote region in search of fortune, and as they did so, various businesses and services associated with their enterprises were also established.

Over time, as the gold rush slowly waned, so too did investments in the city.

But due to its isolated and remote location, it has remained an important transport and trade hub.

It boasts two airports, along with a busy dock area, and it is via these facilities that most visitors enter or leave the city, as the roads leading into the countryside do not extend to any larger highways or settlements of significance.

There have always been rumours of unexplained disappearances in and around Nome,

mostly relating to members of the native population, But it was not until the late 1990s that the scale of these disappearances became clear, with up to 30 members of the town's population having vanished under mysterious circumstances.

Every town or city inevitably has its own array of missing persons, and whilst 30 cases over 50 years may not sound of particular concern, The fact that Nome has a population of less than 4,000 pushes this number well above the national average.

The families of those who had gone missing had campaigned for many years for external assistance with the investigations,

stating that they did not feel the local police were doing enough to solve the disappearances.

But it was not until the summer of 2005 that they were finally successful in this endeavor.

when the mother of Erika Pataki petitioned the state attorney in relation to her missing son.

21-year-old Eric hailed from an Inupiat settlement on nearby St.

Lawrence Island and had been visiting Nome at the time of his disappearance.

His family had repeatedly warned him not to travel to the city due to the many disappearances amongst their community which had occurred there, but he was adamant that no harm would come to him.

When Eric's pregnant girlfriend informed the family that he had never arrived, a broadland and sea search was initiated for the missing man, which uncovered no clues as to his whereabouts.

Upon reviewing the case and those of the other missing persons associated with the city, the authorities duly handed ownership to the FBI, who went on to conduct a full review.

Their report, in which they were asked to consider the presence of a killer or group of killers operating in the local community, found no apparent evidence of foul play.

It instead noted the harsh weather conditions and flat open topography of the land surrounding the town.

Alcohol was said to be a factor in most of the identified cases.

The profilers found that many of the victims were male, had frequented local bars or had been drinking to excess at the time they vanished.

and had likely died of exposure having meandered out of the city and into the surrounding area.

And yet this does not explain how the remains of the missing have never been found, given the lack of undulating terrain or thick undergrowth situated anywhere near the city limits.

There is also little explanation as to how or why anyone would wander away from the relative safety of the community in such a vulnerable state.

In any case, the disappearances in Nome have continued, with the most recent having occurred during the summer of 2020.

A local woman named Florence Okpiluk had been camping out on the beach near the city.

Many locals had encountered her during her stay, but on August 31st, her tent was found unattended, with her jacket and shoes mysteriously folded neatly away inside.

There was no damage to speak of.

An extensive search was immediately undertaken, featuring the use of cadaver dogs and remote underwater vehicles, to search the waters bordering the nearby beach.

Alongside this, the local police conducted over 100 interviews with Okpiluk's friends and family, as well as those living near to the scene of her disappearance.

In addition to her mobile phone data being handed to FBI profilers for further analysis, hundreds of hours of CCTV footage footage from nearby cameras were downloaded and analysed.

Not one person was seen to have either entered or exited the city limits during the time Okpiluk was last sighted, and the only vehicle to be seen moving was quickly eliminated from the police inquiry.

She was in a loving relationship at the time of her disappearance, with her parents and young child waiting for her to come home.

The area around her tent was open flatland, with no sign she had passed through it, and had she drowned in the nearby waters, her body should have quickly washed back ashore much closer to the town.

As with Joseph Balderus, she remains an open and active missing persons case, for which the authorities are desperate for information.

In 2009,

the city became embroiled in a very public controversy with Universal Studios concerning a viral campaign which had been launched by the company relating to the Milajovovich film The Fourth Kind.

The movie is set in Nome, and the plot ties the disappearances to wider UFO activity reported within the state of Alaska.

A series of fictional abduction cases purporting to be genuine and to have originated in Nome were published online, causing anger and outrage amongst the families of those involved in the real-life incidents.

After a swift climb down,

the studio released a statement clarifying that the cases featured in their online campaign were purely fictional, and donated money to the local community by way of an apology.

But as distracting as the argument with Universal Studios may have been, it did highlight the large number of UFO sightings in and around the region.

Even with the confirmation that the stories published by the film studio were untrue, many believe that extraterrestrial visitors may well be the reason for the vanishings, citing the disappearance of two brothers from Wasilla as proof.

On the 4th of June 1999, 15-year-old Michael Palmer was cycling home from a party with two other boys in Meadow Lake when he had begun to fall behind.

Having stopped to wait for Palmer, his friends had eventually headed back to look for him only to find no trace of their fellow cyclist.

A daylight search located Michael's pedal cycle lying discarded near the Little Susitna River.

More concerning still,

his trainers were then discovered lying in open ground close to a nearby airstrip.

Eleven years later in April of 2010, 30-year-old Chuck Palmer was part of a group riding their snowmobiles up to a cabin near the town of Talkeetna.

Just as his younger brother had done before him, Chuck fell behind and became separated from the rest of his group, who then turned back to search for him but were unsuccessful.

Once the authorities had been alerted, an aerial search was carried out and Chuck's snowmobile was found unattended in an open patch of of snow.

There was no trace of the vehicle's missing rider, but more worrying still, the particulate lying on the ground was completely pristine and undisturbed.

There was nothing to suggest why the vehicle had come to rest where it was, or to indicate that Palmer had alighted and walked off in any direction away from it.

It was as if the missing man had simply been plucked from his seat atop the snowmobile, which had then come to a rest of its own accord.

In addition to allegations of alien abduction, there have been numerous other paranormal explanations put forward by commentators in relation to the gnome disappearances.

Some have suggested that the region is a place prone to time and dimensional slips, similar to other areas such as the Bennington, Bridgewater and Bermuda Triangles.

These theoretical weaknesses in space and time are thought to have been responsible for the disappearance of a number of ships and aircraft which have historically vanished in the state.

It has also been suggested that reclusive cryptids such as direwolves or sasquatches may dwell in the isolated and unsettled regions surrounding the city, and it is these secretive predators which are responsible for the disappearances.

However, it is perhaps more likely that the reason for a significant number of these incidents is far less supernatural, but equally as horrifying.

In 1999, a local man by the name of Lancelot Immigan went missing whilst making a journey home from Savunga to Nome.

In the aftermath of his vanishing, his sister came forward to claim that in the years prior, he had been brutally beaten by police officers on numerous occasions.

Her allegations and many others against the local police were largely ignored, until a tragic and horrifying series of events which would take place in August of 2013.

Investigators probing the murder of a 19-year-old student followed a trail of evidence which led to one of their own coming under suspicion, Officer Matthew Owens.

When an attack, which Owens had tried to pass off as an ambush on him, was proven to be faked, he was arrested and later charged with the murder of the young woman.

It would later transpire that Owens had used his position to abuse and intimidate numerous local women, leading to further accusations and allegations against other members of the police force.

Whilst to the wider world the disappearances in Nome have become something of a cultural phenomenon, to the families of those involved, they remain painfully unsolved.

With no obvious motive for their loved ones to have come to harm, and the topography of the area meaning that evidence of any apparent crime should be easy to locate, these disappearances remain both tragic and perplexing.

It seems that even the advent of modern technology, such as CCTV cameras and mobile phones, has not been able to determine just who or what is stalking this city.

Whether it is a serial killer yet to be apprehended, drunken misadventure, or something otherworldly, we can only hope that the truth will soon become known, and that the families of those who have been taken may find the answers they so desperately need.

Bedtimes for us.