How does anyone know such files exist?
A few years ago, I read a book written by a retired National Park Ranger that researched the history of the National Parks and the records of all the people who went missing or were killed. It was very interesting and its often the same situations that repeat themselves over and over again. People get lost in the same ways, for the same reasons, some from taking the same risks. People who go off trail and get lost always make the same mistakes, too. The tend to keep turning to the right, which makes them go in circles.
For instance, I have a relative who has worked in SAR for many years in a region that has both mountains and desert. He says the same thing. Inexperienced people who don't pay attention, don't read signs or go off trail.
Here's the story of a woman who hiked the Appalachian Trail who went off trail to go to relieve herself and got lost. She camped for weeks while she slowly starved to death, just a short distance from the trail she couldn't find.
Geraldine Largay’s Wrong Turn: Death on the Appalachian Trail (Published 2016)
She was afraid of being alone and prone to anxiety, a diminutive 66-year-old woman with a poor sense of direction, hiking the Appalachian Trail by herself, who wandered into terrain so wild, it is used for military training. She waited nearly a month in the Maine woods for help that never came.The author of the book mentioned above noted that when he did his research, he wasn't too surprised to find that, especially in early days, there weren't many records about disappearances and accidents in the National Park. Park rangers aren't paper pushers. They don't do a lot of record keeping, just basic information. Today, they probably keep more info, thanks to computers, but many are still in very remote areas without electricity or computers. That's the way the park rangers like it - they want the parks to be unspoiled nature. They don't want to install electricity and phone chargers and wifi for everyone at Sunrise High Sierra Camp.
Geraldine A. Largay chronicled her journey in a black-covered notebook that summer of 2013, and she kept writing after she lost her way, even as her food supply dwindled along with her hopes of being found. Her last entry reflected a strikingly graceful acceptance of what was coming.
“When you find my body, please call my husband George and my daughter Kerry,” she wrote. “It will be the greatest kindness for them to know that I am dead and where you found me — no matter how many years from now.”
It would be two years before a logging company surveyor stumbled upon her campsite and remains, solving a mystery that had tormented her family and defied teams of experienced searchers. Ms. Largay, a retired nurse from Tennessee, had survived nearly a month on her own — longer than many old backwoods hands thought possible — before dying of exposure and starvation.
I listened to some of those 411 podcasts several years ago and found them unbelievable, no offense. It's easy for people to think that stuff is true if they've never spent much time out in the woods or at a national park.
I know its impossible to discuss things with people who believe in conspiracy theories, so I'll let the discussion end here.
I respect your opinion, please respect mine.