Nancy Guthrie, 84, (mother of TODAY Show host Savannah Guthrie) missing - last seen in the Catalina foothills area on Jan 31, 2026

[Alxx108]

Does anyone have any info on why Nancy’s name would have been searched so many times before the incident - from places outside of her state? I am not seeing a lot of info about this and … idk it seems kind of important? Would love to hear your thoughts!

I have the same question! This also came up in the Tepe case, and I recall reading people say you couldn't trust the Google analytics numbers for searches. I didn't quite understand why or what would cause spikes if not for actual searches happening. Does anyone understand whether or not the numbers are to be trusted?

 

[TKG]

Does anyone have any info on why Nancy’s name would have been searched so many times before the incident - from places outside of her state? I am not seeing a lot of info about this and … idk it seems kind of important? Would love to hear your thoughts!

Do you mind me asking where you read or heard this happened?

 

[MrsEmmaPeel]

Woefully behind, but I did have a comment. I feel very differently about the FBI and its abilities now than I did in the not so distant past. Perhaps, there was actual reasons behind these decisions, and perhaps, all the negative “leaks” about the Sheriff are being promoted by an overly self-promoting and not so trustworthy current FBI

I hear you @MassGuy.

 

[SaraSmile]

IMO in a quiet neighborhood like Nancy’s that would be the last thing you would use to be stealthy.

Quiet car as getaway car. Actually the desert is packed dirt mostly, crushed rock, and it’s sandy, of course, but very drivable, lots of long dirt roads out in the middle of nowhere.

When you see tumbleweed, shrubs, cacti, “living plants”, that means it’s got a good, mostly dirt base. ( I know it must look incredibly barren if you are from the East Coast).

There are all sand dune areas, and with those, yes, you need a 4x4, and can still get stuck.

JMO

 

[nightowl2728]

Dang ok there are now FOUR separate US Army helicopters on the tracker, all took off from Pinal Airpark recently, going in different directions out from Pinal and CIRCLING over mountainous clusters/canyons/bodies of water (the topography of AZ is so crazy to me as an East coaster) and former mines, it appears.

I'm trying to not get too excited about this as it COULD be unrelated but seems very coincidental in terms of what LE should be doing to search. Interesting though it is past dark in Arizona right now, I believe.

EDIT: I lost the fourth, I wonder if it's just out of range/service or it landed.

For example, GOON93 is now circling this area which appears to be fairly remote - no Google street view, no homes or businesses, etc.

 

[Cassie P]

Genetic genealogy is a very slow process. Can take months. Or longer.

No, it depends. I used to do adoption searches using genetic genealogy. It can be quite quick depending upon what kind of matches you get. Close matches means you could do it in a hour or so! If you cannot get close matches it may take longer. But you can narrow it down to certain locations, family surnames, and ethnic groups fairly quickly.

 

[PCHS]

From comments on here and my own personal opinions, sounds like two very flawed LE entities at odds with each other. Terrible for the Guthrie family.

This is exactly where I am sitting right now.

 

[mickey2942]

The only good thing right now for the searchers, is the weather. At least they don't have searing summer heat now.

 

[RainbowBoogie]

I have the same question! This also came up in the Tepe case, and I recall reading people say you couldn't trust the Google analytics numbers for searches. I didn't quite understand why or what would cause spikes if not for actual searches happening. Does anyone understand whether or not the numbers are to be trusted?

Right!? I thought Google analytics were supposed to be accurate/well done. Plenty of large companies even use this info for decision making.

 

[Sakura2Sophia4Lucia]

Too noisy in the middle of the night, IMO.

Good point. They wouldn't likely have used a ATV in the middle of the night. I see them all of the time on the outskirts of Tucson during the day. It would be highly suspect to see a person in the middle of the night on a ATV.

JMO

 

[SMK777]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2022153363048292398

So is Brian Entin basically saying that the FBI did not know that a glove had been found in the house and sent for testing by the Sheriff, whenever that occurred? And that there may be other incidents as well?

[ I confess I didn't have time to read the initial article you posted, only the headline, and skimmed some, so may have missed something. Multitasking here ]

 

[SaraSmile]

I don't think anybody here is going to have conclusive info, but a few points to keep in mind:

1. NG was on the Today show with SG in November, so millions of people saw her and learned about her there. It's not surprising if some wanted to learn more.
2. There is an author with the same name who probably gets some search traffic.
3. Geolocating the person doing a search query is inexact at the best times, and can be totally off if they are using a VPN or other privacy-protection measures.
4. As I mentioned earlier, Google Trends is not accurate for exact counts of searches, or for information about low-volume searches. Its intended purpose is for showing trends in popularity of relatively common/popular search terms. I would be cautious about drawing conclusions from data about uncommon searches (especially things like "there were no searches before date X, and suddenly people are searching it!")

JMO, YMMV, MOO, IMHO, all the things

Savannah did a whole show ( or series?) about her mother and her life growing up in Tucson.
It was in Nov 2025, so only a couple of months ago. Just an idea why people would research her.

JMO

 

[thefragile7393]

She presents as politically neutral.

not to some on one side unfortunately. All anyone would have to do is google the presidential debate and see the critcism she got. Not my opinion-it is fact she was really lambasted (even though I agree with you that she did well and was neutral), however I'm not linking what can be found easily, so I will say IMO

 

[HoveringWombats]

I have the same question! This also came up in the Tepe case, and I recall reading people say you couldn't trust the Google analytics numbers for searches. I didn't quite understand why or what would cause spikes if not for actual searches happening. Does anyone understand whether or not the numbers are to be trusted?

Google Trends and Google Analytics are not the same thing. Google Analytics is not relevant here (it can't be used for this). People are using Google Trends, which is designed to show how the popularity of common search terms varies over time. To my knowledge (MOO, possibly out of date information disclaimers apply), it operates on a sample of search traffic rather than all traffic. For example (completely making up the number here), they might decide that they only need to look at 1% of search traffic to generate trends, because any sufficiently popular search term will still be in those millions of searches, in the right proportions compared to other popular search terms. But if you have an uncommon search term, it's possible or even likely that it won't show up at all in that 1% slice. And maybe it does show in the next 1% slice and it looks like suddenly there's a spike in traffic, when it was roughly the same.

I would not expect the problem to be that it shows searches that didn't happen. I expect that it will miss searches that did happen, but potentially inconsistently, which can show up as spikes and valleys that don't actually exist.

It's also possible that some search term normalization happens (things like spell correction, clustering of similar search terms, etc.) which might cause searches to show up in a trend when you might not expect them to.

Finally, the geolocation stuff is really iffy at small numbers. If all of the searches in that "spike" come from one user who happens to be using a VPN, it's going to be way wrong. This effect generally will cancel out on a common search term with millions of searches.

Bottom line really, without needing to know any technical details of how this works, is that it's not what Google Trends was designed for. Just like any other time we're using something in a way other than what it was designed for, the results might not be what we hope.

JMO, based on a combination of experience, knowledge, and educated guesses. There may be mistakes here. Trust at your own risk.

 

[Sakura2Sophia4Lucia]

I am sorry that you don't keep up with the most recent trends in EV, electric UTV.

https://www.polaris.com/en-us/off-road/electric-vehicles/

Good reminder that they have electric off road vehicles that are very quiet. But wouldn't it be suspicious to see a ATV in the middle of the night - in NG's neighborhood or out somewhere at 2 am in the washes, hills or desert? JMO

 

[stmichael]

I am sorry that you don't keep up with the most recent trends in EV, electric UTV.

https://www.polaris.com/en-us/off-road/electric-vehicles/

Cool. You think the guy with a $5 mismatched holster and a $15 WalMart backpack splurged for an EV Polaris? What are those a few hundred bucks? And then drove it out of the neighborhood that is surrounded by main roads and a hwy with a hostage thrown in the back? I mean her neighborhood isn't on the outskirts of the desert, its nestled within larger roads around it.

 

[MassGuy]

Woefully behind, but I did have a comment. I feel very differently about the FBI and its abilities now than I did in the not so distant past. Perhaps, there was actual reasons behind these decisions, and perhaps, all the negative “leaks” about the Sheriff are being promoted by an overly self-promoting and not so trustworthy current FBI

The messaging is worse (three screwups in the last 3 big cases), but it’s important to remember that the agents on the ground are the same as they’ve always been.

The CAST team, and other specialized teams continue to do their jobs, regardless of who is at the helm.

The noise doesn’t help here, but I don’t think it has any bearing on the FBI getting to the truth.

 

[Friday Fan]

I can't remember what user was familiar with military flight operations/training, but on Monday I believe, when we were tracking the medical helicopter (which turned out to be unrelated..) that user were giving info on what certain planes might be doing in the areas around Tucson: Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map | Flightradar24

I'm asking because right now there is a US Army helicopter (GOON93) circling the mountains north of the Catalina Foothills and it was previously circling on some mountains further north of there (it took off from Pinal Airpark, which is public use, not military). It doesn't look like there's much up there other than a small ski resort and they weren't circling that but hiking trails and some canyons (and the furthest right circling is around some old mines up in the mountains).

Could be for a missing hiker or training or anything else, but thought it was interesting that it was military. There's another Army heli that also took off from Pinal but went west and then circled back close to this heli, circling over Tiger AZ, which is another abandoned mine with no roads in.

View attachment 644404

Border Patrol was circling mountain tops in that general area last night....
Who knows???? Seems like an odd place due to the elevation and that it's winter but what do I know?

So, the army helicopter in Tucson could be doing border patrol duty near Tucson because an army helicopter is obviously doing it in the Laredo sector.

The US Army was circling areas near Laredo last night and they're at it again tongiht and with this flight path, I'm 99% sure they're doing border surveilance.

There is no military base in Laredo. Also an army helicopter took off from Edinburg, TX from South Texas International Airport there. It is currently surveiling the border.

 

[mpnola]

Genetic genealogy is a very slow process. Can take months. Or longer.

Until @othram

 

[HoveringWombats]

Right!? I thought Google analytics were supposed to be accurate/well done. Plenty of large companies even use this info for decision making.

Just to make sure the record is correct on this: Google Analytics is (mostly) accurate. But it has nothing to do with Google Trends, which is what we're talking about here. They are totally separate, work in different ways, and do different things.