But if you don’t know what happened, it’s not really a memory…
Not to mention the number of individuals whose memories are negatively impacted by experiencing extremely emotional and physical events. Which is to say- almost all of us.
People going about their ordinary business, who are then thrust very rapidly into extremely stressful and UN- ordinary situations, very often cannot accurately recall what they were doing, what they witnessed, or how they reacted to the stressful event.
Heck, many people can't recall on a good day WITHOUT a traumatic event occurring, what socks their kids had on, what time they ate that apple, how much cash is in their wallet. When we put our memories to task the mundane, we start filling in the blanks with what we can recall surrounding the issue. Traumatic events often create blank spaces that cannot be filled until much, much later on- and sometimes not at all.
In fact (and this is moo, of course) I often find witnesses to such stressful events as missing children more believable and transparent when they struggle and struggle with recall and simply end with...I don't know. Because I know it is entirely possible that they simply do not know.