The details of each disappearance have been outlined by others in harrowing detail, and for each one a multiplicity of theories abound about what may have happened. They range from plausible tragedy, both of the natural and manmade variety, to the paranormal stuff of late night a.m. radio shows.
I don’t believe in Bigfoot but I do appreciate a good uncanny coincidence. One of the Park’s missing persons, Polly Melton, disappeared on the same day that I was born: September 25, 1981. As a result I feel a sort of kinship with this woman who faded into the ether just as I was gasping my first breath.
It was a Friday. Warm but cloudy. Sandra Day O’Connor was sworn in as the first female justice of the Supreme Court. A John Belushi rom-com was released in theaters. The Rolling Stones began a 40-city world tour. I came into the world. Polly disappeared.
People go into the woods for many reasons. From what I’ve read Polly suffered bouts of depression, especially since the death of her mother two years before. Friends say she struggled with her weight and other physical consequences of aging — by all accounts, she’d been very beautiful as a young woman. Bob, her third husband following two divorces, was 20 years her senior and in poor health. Polly had revealed to her pastor that she was heavily dependent on valium and made some comments he interpreted as guilt about an extramarital affair.
There were, in all these missing persons cases, a fistful of loose ends. For Polly, there were the uncharacteristic phone calls she made from the food pantry where she volunteered the day before. Who was she calling, and why? The bottle of valium that Bob later discovered missing. Did she take it all, or just take it with her? The check cashed in her name several years later, for interest due on a bank certificate. The signature appeared to be Polly’s, but the teller had no recollection of her face. Whether Polly’s vanishing was an accident, a suicide or a calculated ruse to run away with a lover, it was almost certainly an escape.
Disappearing into the lives of the disappeared is its own sort of escape, I guess. The static buildup of white noise in modern life overwhelms — the endless social media scroll, the 24/7 fever pitch of the news cycle, the ticker tape death toll of a ruthless pandemic, the whirring din of a president who won’t shut up.
If great outdoors mysteries fascinate you, we recommend for further reading:
Project SNOW storm’s A Long, Long Way from a Mickey D story about how modern technology solves long-pondered secrets of a furtive species’ life history. Coincidentally, its writer crossed the tracks of Hugh Glass, who survived getting mauled by a bear and left for dead in the wilderness — 200 years ago.
A new hypothesis about the 1959 Dyatlov Pass Incident in the Ural mountains is based on research funded by Disney for the production of its 2013 film Frozen. Two excellent articles set forth many known facts and pictures, along with illustrations of what might have happened to nine very experienced snow hikers. They were discovered naked and frozen near their tent, which appeared to have been slashed from inside.
We list both articles here because they may require registration or subscription to view in full. You might find them in a library, though, or perhaps you can borrow the respective magazine from a friend who has a hardcopy subscription.
Smithsonian Magazine: Have Scientists Finally Unraveled the 60-Year Mystery Surrounding Nine Russian Hikers’ Deaths?
National Geographic: Has science solved one of history’s greatest adventure mysteries? (this online version includes fantastic animations!)
People go into the woods for many reasons. From what I’ve read Polly suffered bouts of depression, especially since the death of her mother two years before. Friends say she struggled with her weight and other physical consequences of aging — by all accounts, she’d been very beautiful as a young woman. Bob, her third husband following two divorces, was 20 years her senior and in poor health. Polly had revealed to her pastor that she was heavily dependent on valium and made some comments he interpreted as guilt about an extramarital affair.
There were, in all these missing persons cases, a fistful of loose ends. For Polly, there were the uncharacteristic phone calls she made from the food pantry where she volunteered the day before. Who was she calling, and why? The bottle of valium that Bob later discovered missing. Did she take it all, or just take it with her? The check cashed in her name several years later, for interest due on a bank certificate. The signature appeared to be Polly’s, but the teller had no recollection of her face. Whether Polly’s vanishing was an accident, a suicide or a calculated ruse to run away with a lover, it was almost certainly an escape.
Disappearing into the lives of the disappeared is its own sort of escape, I guess. The static buildup of white noise in modern life overwhelms — the endless social media scroll, the 24/7 fever pitch of the news cycle, the ticker tape death toll of a ruthless pandemic, the whirring din of a president who won’t shut up.
What must it feel like to draw a chalk outline around your life then stand up, step out of it, walk away or vanish completely.
Sometimes, half-conscious and exhausted from another midnight stretch of insomnia-induced amateur sleuthing, my own thoughts come unmoored and I slip into the bodies of the disappeared. I stare up at the stars through a black canopy of old growth forest, my heart shot through with the crisp wonder of being simultaneously somewhere and nowhere. Here and yet gone.
Moonlight collects on waxy magnolia leaves. I hear a rushing stream somewhere nearby, an owl, a coyote. In this liminal space between waking and sleep my breath hangs frozen in the air — irrefutable proof submitted by my subconscious that I do still exist. And for that, when my eyes flutter open a few hours later, I’ll be grateful.
In memory of my first editor, Hellbender Press co-founder Rikki Hall,
who went missing from our lives in 2014.
Wherever he is, I hope there are mountains.