I don’t know why I went to Mount Rainier . . .

I mean, I know what I went to Mount Rainier for, but to this day I don’t really know why I felt so compelled to go.

I’ve always been “Obsessively curious”. I think that’s probably the best way to describe it. I get these fascinations for things out of seemingly nowhere, and once that fascination lodges itself in my head it quickly starts to take over every waking aspect of my life It seems. Thinking about it turns into reading about it, reading about it turns into researching it as thoroughly as possible, research leads to investigation, and the rabbit hole of my obsessions just goes and goes, and then as suddenly as this obsession starts. It’s gone. Complete and total disinterest, just like that.

Ever since I was a kid it’s been this way. I kind of compare it to an itch, and ultimately the only way to really stop an itch is to scratch it. Right?

I remember laying on my couch on a rainy off day from work and scrolling through YouTube while I waited for the Dominos guy to drop off some buffalo wings when a strange title I’d never heard of came up and caught my eye.

Missing 411: Strange and Unexplained Disappearances In Americas National Parks.

As soon as I clicked on that video, I knew I’d found my newest obsession. The Dyatlov pass incident I had been researching for months now was gone and out the window.

Hindsight’s always 20/20, as the saying goes. I had no idea that I was about to set an unchangeable course that led me to the horrifying reality I was soon to discover. . .

Three weeks and probably a hundred videos, a handful of ordered books, and an endless scrolling through every forum and internet thread I could get my hands on, and I was still just as enamored with these “Missing 411’s” as I’d been when I first clicked on that initial YouTube video.

I’d be genuinely surprised if there were a lot of people reading this who didn’t know about David Paulides, the missing 411s, and all of confounding mysteriousness that surrounded these matters, but for those who might be out of the loop I’ll do my best to sum it up in few little bullet points for you. Cliff notes or whatever.

I. There have been a disturbingly large number of unexplained disappearances in Americas’ national parks, and by large number I mean two THOUSAND. That’s more than everyone in the North tower on 9/11. 2,000 people just vanishing in the woods with no explanation whatsoever.

II. A lot of these people are never seen/ heard from again. That in its own right is insane given the technologies that we have, and the massive searches that are sometimes carried out for these people, but what’s even weirder is that the people that are eventually found leave us more questions than answers. Kids go missing and are found miles and miles away from the initial search zone. Way further than even top survival experts are able to walk. People’s bodies turn up in super obvious areas that have been searched multiple times by search and rescue teams. Search dogs will have a good obvious trail on the missing person and then just lose it. Sometimes all they find are the person’s shoes, sometimes they find the person with no shoes at all, sometimes the bodies look like they’ve fallen from a great height despite there being no high ground to fall off of. Etc.

III. The number of times military units have been deployed to go and search for missing people is eyebrow raising to say the least. The military is very effective, but they’re not search and rescue. They’re trained to seek and destroy, not really search and save.

IV. The National Park service gets very, VERY sketchy when it comes to any kind of further inquiry. This has led a lot of people to believe that they’re covering something up.

Now, me being the obsessive person that I am immediately started trying to sleuth around for some kind of conclusion. What was the overall theory? What did people think was going on here? I guess because the speculation can go on forever. The theories go on forever too. Everything from rich megalomaniacs on “Hunting trips”, Aliens, Wendigos and Skinwalkers, Bigfoot abductions, parallel universes. The list is truly endless. So many different theories, and as wild as some of them might sound at first. It’s beyond eerie how quickly they begin to sound more than rational, and even possible with just a little bit of explanation.

But as I poured through the seemingly endless accounts and rumors. There was one theory that hit a stronger chord with me than the rest.

Feral people . . .

In a nutshell, the theory is that during the Great Depression, maybe even earlier. People took off with their families deep into these wilderness regions to live off the land and get away from the crippling poverty of the cities and towns during that time. Generations of incest and isolation resulted in their ancestors being what we would consider “Feral” completely hostile, incapable of reasoning that we can comprehend, with a multi-generational knowledge of the land they lived in and how to survive it. Paired with a relatively untouched (Government protected after all) access to a virtually endless number of resources. Other humans. If the opportunity presented itself. Could not only be a decent food opportunity, but they were also food opportunity with extremely valuable tools just ripe for taking. Like cereal with a fuckin prize in the box Can you imagine how valuable a water bottle would be to a caveman? How wildly priceless a fishing pole would look? The national park service knows about these feral people, but they also know it’d be a huge risk to go traipsing in the wilderness looking for bloodthirsty cannibals that are more competent and dangerous than even the most apex predators they live with. They also provide an extremely valuable insight for scientists to study all sorts of things about human nature, but from time to time they get a little too close, or they get to bold and give their locations away, the military gets called in to dispose of these ‘tribes’ in a discreet and efficient manner before more people disappear, and as a result more people take to the woods to find their missing people.

For whatever reason this theory made perfect sense to me . . . Well, almost perfect sense. It checked almost all the boxes. Children and elderly people go missing because they’re the easiest to overpower. Hikers who are by themselves go missing because they’re by themselves and can be ambushed quicker than a group of hikers could, Hunters go missing because they’re far off the beaten path, and they have weapons that are worth the risk. It even explains why bow hunters tend to go missing more than gun hunters. Bows are easier to figure out, and lower matinence. We already know people go missing without a trace and are never found again. Would it be so wild to say in the same breath that people are never found in the first place for the same reasons?

Even most of your “Bigfoot” sightings in these national parks could be explained with the feral people theory. Imagine what you would look like if you had never had a haircut, if you’d never taken a shower, or clipped your nails, or combed your hair or shaved your beard. Throw a Hapsburg jaw or a heavy brow in the mix from years of intrafamilial breeding and you’re pretty much the perfect definition of a sasquatch at that point.

But for all the information and cross examinations that I would read about to seemingly prove this theory. There were admittedly a few glaring loopholes that with a bit more thought would very quickly start to pull the whole idea apart.

Humans are truly a scourge on this planet. Anywhere we go we leave a mess, we make smoke from fires, we burn things down accidentally, we cut down trees and leave bones lying all over the place. The very steps we take kill the forest floor. Leaving huge patches of dirt wherever we stay for more than a few days. We are hands down the easiest animal to find. Every human that’s ever walked the earth inherently believes that the earth is theirs. I guess that manifests even in the most unconscious of ways.

Not to mention the scientific probabilities; infertility that comes with incest. Crippling genetic mutations, etc. For all the positive evidence I’ll be the first to admit there were some serious holes in the theory.

So around and around I went with this concept. For months. Ruling it in and ruling it out. Until one day I was given what I can only describe as a divine revelation. Like the conspiracy Gods took pity on my slow decay into insanity and threw me a nice big bone to chew on, and this one actually had some meat on it. . .

I had fallen asleep on the couch amidst another bout of determined research. YouTube was once again in the background. When I woke up from my nap I went for the remote when the narrator of the video caught my attention. Missing 411’s had rabbit holed into unexplained mysteries in general, and unexplained mysteries had rabbit holed into crazy discoveries made by scientists and historians.

The narrator was talking about this skull that had been found. The picture of it was posted up for the viewer to see while he talked about it. It was an old weathered looking skull that had puncture holes in the cranium part, because of these holes scientists thought for a long time that this child had been the victim of a human sacrifice, but through a series of discoveries it was made apparent that this child in actuality had been picked clean off the ground by a Crowned eagle.

Suddenly it hit me. I sprang out of my seat like a mad man as all the pieces began to fall together like an arubix cube that was all but solving itself.

Giant. Fucking. Eagles!

I know, I know. It sounds ridiculous. On the surface more ridiculous than any other theory brought forward, but like my dad always said, the difference between batshit and guano is the stuff that’s inside it, and this was no different.

I’m not going to get into every painful detail here, but I do have to point out a few just to show you where I’m coming from here.

I. Eagles eat take- out. They swoop in. Snatch and kill their food, fly it back, and eat in the nest. This explains why people go missing and are never found again. They’re being looked for somewhere on the forest floor. When they’ve actually been carried up a mountain and dropped in a nest somewhere. This also explains why the people who are found are way further out than they by all rights should be, and why so many seem to have fallen from a great height. The eagle takes someone who’s a little too heavy, takes someone who doesn’t die right away and squirms a bit too much, gets spooked or startled and needs to fly faster, and they drop their meal.

II. Eagles are ambush predators. They hang out on a perch, and as soon as they see a tasty snack, they swoop in pin it down, kill it, then swoop back with their newly acquired meal to wherever it is they nest at. This explains why so many lone hikers go missing off a trail. Just like a hunter would babysit a game trail for deer, an eagle babysits a foot path for humans, and speaking of deer . . .

III. An eagle large enough to swoop up with a human would more than likely have a reliable food source of deer, and there are a crap ton of deer. In Yellowstone alone there are over 2,000 mule deer running around, and that’s just mule deer, and this is the very reason why hunters go missing. If you’re out hunting a deer then chances are you’re wearing scents, and making deer calls. In other words, you are actively trying to convince deer that you are in fact, also a deer, but the same artificial smells and bleats that would attract a nice big ten point would just as easily be a “FREE FOOD” sign for a large bird of prey.

IV. This also explains why so many times only aspects of the missing person have been found. Shoes, backpacks, cameras, hiking sticks, bows, etc. Eagles are smart creatures. They probably learned pretty quickly that there’s a lot of stuff on these humans that aren’t edible. Clothing can be torn through easily enough, but the thicker more durable stuff gets ripped off and discarded. Like a deer’s antlers. The feet are torn off by the ankles and smaller animals eat whatever is left inside.

Now, I know if you’re reading this, you’re probably thinking one glaring thing.

“Come on Saint_Circa. You’d think someone would notice Giant eagles flying around.”

But they have.

That’s why the National Park Service gets so shady when people try to investigate further. They are well aware that there are giant eagles living in the hundreds of miles these national parks reach out to sometimes, and considering eagles only hunt in a roughly 15–20-mile perimeter around their nests. They know exactly where to find them as well.

Americas National bird is the Bald Eagle. It’s been that way since 1782. By 1963 there were only 400 nesting pairs of bald eagles in the entire country. Why? Because people shot them out of the sky in droves. Not for their meat, not for their valuable talons or beaks. Researchers say that these eagles were killed mainly to “See them up close.” That’s it. Do you think for half a second there wouldn’t be a thousand hillbillies with birdshot scouring the entire countryside the second it was discovered that there were giant eagles flying around?? My best guess is that the National Park service works in tandem with wildlife conservationist groups to keep these endangered animals as secret as possible, but you can’t just let giant man-eating eagles fuck each other willy nilly and fly around eating whatever they want whenever they feel like. No one’s going to go spend money to hang out at a natural park they’ll be killed and eaten at. That’d be horrible for business.

In comes the military.

You see. It’s not just “The military” that’s sent out to find these missing people. It’s one particularly small, but highly effective section of the military, and that section is the Green Berets. Green Berets have a large set of skills, but two of their main purposes are “Special Reconnaissance” and “Unconventional warfare.” And almost all their operations fall under the category of “Classified.”

In layman’s terms. They specialize in “Finding things, and reporting information on it.” And “Killing things in very unique and creative ways.” And then of course they’re not allowed to talk about any of it. Total secrecy.

You think these guys get called out because Tiny Tim got turned around in the woods? Bullshit. The government can’t even send a real HazMat team to Palestine Ohio when a chemical fire radiates the entire town. No, they go out there when park rangers suspect Tiny Tim got turned into a giant eagle’s lunch, and they need the best of the best to identify If that is indeed the case and take it down/ dispose of it properly if it is, and keep their mouths shut about it afterwards. They get sent out when scientists speculate that the giant eagle population has grown too high and is risking compromise. The green berets go out and depopulate a bit. Keep the population under control, and keep their mouths shut about it afterwards. They get sent out when one dies so they can collect the body for research, and keep their mouths shut about it afterwards.

I was absolutely sure of it, but even after this certainty cemented itself into everything else I knew to be true. A new dangerous itch began to invade the back of my mind. You can’t just “Know” that a house is haunted. You have to actually see the fucking ghost, don’t you? I fought it for longer than I thought possible, but within seven months of watching that first video I found myself driving to Mount Rainier. I had to complete the experiment. I had to be sure, that I was sure, that I was sure.

How’s that song go? The old 80s one?

Blinded with Science!

​

Took forever to plan the trip. I’d already been spending weeks studying things about eagles, but now I had to reorient and study how to spot eagles. When they hunted, how to watch them without spooking them etc.

But after four deep diving months I had my plan, and everything I needed to carry it out.

I chose Mount Rainier for two reasons. The first being it was close, the second being that there have been an unusual number of disappearances not only on the mountain itself, but in the entirety of the national park that surrounded it. Even by National Park Standards.

In the small hours of the morning, as the sun was just beginning to rise. I took off down the trail and began looking for the perfect spot to set up my blind.

See normal eagles hang out in big trees, or on the sides of cliffs, but my hypothesis was that a giant eagle would probably be hanging out in crevices against cliffs. When something it could eat walked into its radar it would swoop out and ambush it. About four hours into my trip, I found a spot I thought was ideal. A small hilltop with trees, but not too many trees. At the bottom of the hill to my left a large cliff wall could be seen. To the right was relatively flat land with enough space in between for a large bird to fly through unhindered.

And so, I waited, and waited, and waited. For three days I sat in that fucking blind. Watching the deer. Eating cold MRES and trying my hardest not to doze off.

At the beginning of day four, however, it would all change. I was just considering leaving. When you’re alone in a ramshackle tent it doesn’t take long for your mind to convince you of what an idiot you are. Giant eagles? Come on Saint_Circa, look at all the time you’ve wasted. Why can’t you get hooked on something productive? As a big 10 point stepped out of the brush into the area just in front of me, I watched it with a sort of boredom. Deer are cool the first time you see one, but this had to have been the 100th deer in three days that I’d seen, and at the end of the day they’re just horses with antlers. They mosey, they eat. They poop and leave.

I guess in my boredom I didn’t really notice how quiet the forest had gotten. The deer did though. It stopped mid bite and perked its head up, locked rigidly into place with a big mess of grass hanging out of its mouth.

And that’s when it happened.

It was so fast my mind hardly had time to process it. One moment the deer was standing there, and the next it was pinned to the ground. I sat there wide eyed and in shock from the hidden barrier of my blind. Standing over this thing was the largest animal I had ever seen. Its huge wingspan seemed to stretch endlessly, it had to have been forty feet from end to end. The forest floor was shaded almost completely as its outstretched wings blotted the sun from the sky. Even without the wings it was almost too large to comprehend. At least eight feet off the ground on its two taloned legs. Its dinosaur-like eyes gazing emptily into its prey like huge orbs of golden fire.

The poor animal let out one bleated scream before the eagle’s large beak tore into its neck. Sending streams of blood and tissue across the forest floor like something out of a slasher movie. I could hear bones crunching violently even from the distance I was at.

Suddenly I realized I had to take a photo. No one would believe it if I didn’t show them firsthand. Even then they’d have probably thought it was just a hoax. Green screens and CGI and Photoshop, all that shit. I raised the lens of my camera towards the creature with shaking hands and snapped a shot.

Huge . . . huge mistake.

As soon as the camera made that stupid little fluttering sound the eagles’ head snapped instantly in my direction. It’s lifeless eyes staring with pure instinct straight through the camouflage of my structure. It saw me. Before I could react, there was a sharp blast of wind. In less than a moment the entire blind was ripped off of its stakes and thrown into the woods around me. As I recovered and looked around, panic stricken. I could see the horrible thing tearing into the remnants of the plastic structure some fifteen or twenty feet in front of me. Trying to find me inside of it. With everything I could muster I took off in the direction of my car. I’ve never ran so fast in my life. It took a long time to get back to my car, and the few times a stopped to try and catch my breath or dry-heave I was all but sure would result in me being another missing 411 on Mount Rainier. After what felt like days of almost endless running, I made it back to my car. Exhausted and frightened for my life.

As I sat in the driver’s seat hyperventilating from exhaustion and weeping from fear, I couldn’t wrap my mind around what I’d just witnessed, or how I was still here to think about it. The only thing I could think about was getting the hell as far away from Mount Rainier as possible. As I made the long drive home, and my thoughts began to somewhat return to me I concluded that the eagle must’ve gotten itself trapped in the blind just long enough for me to get away. It was either that or the deer it had killed had way more meat than I did, and it was already dead. I guess it’d be pointless to chase a smaller prey. Eagles are wicked smart after all.

I tried to contact several authorities afterwards, but surprise surprise. No one believed it.

“You know sir, Eagles are a lot bigger than people initially think they are.”

“Are you sure you weren’t using any illegal substances?”

“Okay, well we’ll send someone out to look at it and tell you what we find. . . Uh huh, we’ll let you know if we find anything. We’ll let you know. “

That camera is still out there in the woods with the rest of my stuff . . . I don’t know if I’ll ever be brave enough to try and go back for it. Maybe someone will find it and the truth will be that much harder to dismiss.

For now, I only have you guys to tell.

The National Park Service is hiding something big in the mountains and forests of the United States, and if you ever go hiking in one of these remote places. Make sure you are never alone.