Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path went Chili.
Speaker 2: I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm Ashley. Let's dive right
Speaker 2: into this week's case.
Speaker 3: July tenth, nineteen fifty eight, Monterey County, California. Twenty six
Speaker 3: year old First Lieutenant Paul Whipkey leaves Fort Ord, the
Speaker 3: Army base where he stationed, but he fails to return
Speaker 3: and is declared a deserter. Thirty days later, five weeks
Speaker 3: after you went missing, Whipkey's abandoned car is discovered nearly
Speaker 3: five hundred miles away in a remote section of Death Valley.
Speaker 3: Since Whipkey's body cannot be found, the Army believes he
Speaker 3: suffered a mental breakdown and wandered into the desert and died. However,
Speaker 3: Whitpkey's family discovers troubling discrepancies to make them believe the
Speaker 3: Army staged his disappearance, possibly because he was recruited for
Speaker 3: a secret mission. In nineteen eighty two, the Army officially
Speaker 3: changes Whipkey's status from deserter to die in the line
Speaker 3: of duty, but he's never found and the full truth
Speaker 3: about what actually happened to him remains unknown.
Speaker 1: After that, the Path went Chiley. Today, we've got a
Speaker 1: very strange military mystery to cover, the nineteen fifty eight
Speaker 1: disappearance of Paul Whipkey. This case was once featured on
Speaker 1: Unsolved Mysteries, which did its fair share of stories about
Speaker 1: servicemen who died or went missing under seemingly suspicious circumstances,
Speaker 1: and the victim's families were certain that the military was
Speaker 1: involved and orchestrated some sort of cover up. Well, quite frankly,
Speaker 1: I feel that some of these segments had an overly
Speaker 1: conspiratle tone, and that Unsolved Mysteries had a tendency to
Speaker 1: exaggerate certain details to make the cases seem more mysterious
Speaker 1: than they really were. However, the disappearance of Paul Whipkey,
Speaker 1: a first lieutenant serving in the United States Army, is
Speaker 1: a pretty bizarre story, and I think there are enough
Speaker 1: odd details to suggest that the military knew a lot
Speaker 1: more than they were letting on at the time he vanished.
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Whipkey was stationed at Fort Orton, California, before he
Speaker 1: left the base one day and went absent without leave.
Speaker 1: When Whipkey's abandoned car was discovered in Death Valley over
Speaker 1: one month later, the Army believed that he simply wandered
Speaker 1: out into the desert and died, but there is compelling
Speaker 1: evidence to suggest that someone else may have planted the
Speaker 1: car there. Whipkey's family has always clung to two potential theories.
Speaker 1: The Army either recruited Whipkey for a top secret mission
Speaker 1: where they staged his disappearance to cover up their culpability
Speaker 1: in assigning him to work on Operation plumb Bob, a
Speaker 1: series of atomic tests which may have caused a severe
Speaker 1: nos get an impact on Whipkey's physical and mental health.
Speaker 1: So we're going to explore all different possibilities in today's episode.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm already in. This is a very fascinating case.
Speaker 2: You don't hear a lot about cover ups where you go.
Speaker 2: I actually believe there's some truth to this, especially with
Speaker 2: you know, when you talk about the military and things
Speaker 2: like that. When I hope you guys are going to
Speaker 2: give me some evidence to show that one of those
Speaker 2: two possibilities is possible where the Army actually could be
Speaker 2: accountable in both scenarios. What I find really interesting here, though,
Speaker 2: is that they do change the classification for him from
Speaker 2: a wall or deserter to died in align a duty.
Speaker 2: I think there's something to be said about that that,
Speaker 2: you know, a family would think of. My loved one
Speaker 2: is classified as a wall that they just abandoned their
Speaker 2: position in the military, which is one of the most degrading,
Speaker 2: horrible things you could do, is to desert your posts.
Speaker 2: And somehow in nineteen eighty two they change it to
Speaker 2: died in the line of duty. So do you know
Speaker 2: more about that why they changed the classification.
Speaker 1: Well, that's one of the most frustrating things about this case,
Speaker 1: as we're going to talk about, because it was kind
Speaker 1: of a bittersweet feeling for the family because their loved
Speaker 1: one is no longer recognized as a deserter. But at
Speaker 1: the same time they changed to him dying the line
Speaker 1: of duty, but they don't explain why, or produce his
Speaker 1: body or share any details about how he supposed Lee died.
Speaker 1: And if you just drove off and wandered off into
Speaker 1: the desert, that's technically not dying in the life of duty.
Speaker 1: So that gives off the impression that the military knew
Speaker 1: a lot more about what happened to them, but unfortunately
Speaker 1: kept his family in the dark.
Speaker 2: To me, it almost feels like that they know something
Speaker 2: and they changed it to appease the family because they
Speaker 2: didn't want further investigation. Where at least if we change
Speaker 2: it from this, you know, horrible mark on his record,
Speaker 2: maybe there is some solace there in the family. We'll
Speaker 2: move forward.
Speaker 3: This reminds me of the plot of the show on
Speaker 3: Paramount plus Linus of the current season, where she's recruiting
Speaker 3: a new Lioness, which is somebody to go out and
Speaker 3: work in the field, and she ends up recruiting somebody
Speaker 3: who's in active duty in I can't remember Iraq at
Speaker 3: that moment, and she's flying helicopters and they basically have
Speaker 3: to get her a dishonorable discharge, like a fake one,
Speaker 3: so that she can come in believably and work and
Speaker 3: then infiltrate this gang in Mexico because they're somehow orchestrating
Speaker 3: these attacks on America like they had kidnapped a senator.
Speaker 3: Find it really interesting that we're going to get to
Speaker 3: explore this a little bit deeper, and we're also really
Speaker 3: lucky to have Ashley on this case because her father
Speaker 3: was a marine and Ashley spent time as a professor
Speaker 3: at the Citadel, so she's military adjacent and she's one
Speaker 3: of the best people when it comes to opinions on institutions,
Speaker 3: So I'm really excited to hear your takes Ash.
Speaker 2: Thanks Jules. Yeah, I'll tell you what men and women
Speaker 2: and who serve our country. They are my hero. My
Speaker 2: dad is a marine. He obviously retired after Vietnam, but
Speaker 2: once marine, always a marine, and he's literally my hero,
Speaker 2: and so are all the men and women who serve
Speaker 2: our country. I do get frustrated with the institution of
Speaker 2: the military, like you mentioned, but I think that's all institutions.
Speaker 2: So I can't wait to hear more about what happens
Speaker 2: to Paul and these missions that they could have sent
Speaker 2: him on, because in my gut, I'm feeling like the
Speaker 2: Army feels some accountability or that classification just would not
Speaker 2: have changed.
Speaker 3: Our story begins in California in nineteen fifty eight. Our
Speaker 3: central figure is twenty six year old Paul Whipkey, who
Speaker 3: originally hails from Murriesville, Pennsylvania. After graduating from high school,
Speaker 3: Whikey went on to earn a civil engineering degree at
Speaker 3: Pennsylvania State University and was an honors graduate in the
Speaker 3: Reserve Officers Training Corps, where he received his Army commission
Speaker 3: as an officer. After completing basic training in nineteen fifty four,
Speaker 3: Whipkey began aviation school and eventually earned his Army's pilot wings.
Speaker 3: In July nineteen fifty six. He would be posted at
Speaker 3: Fort Ord, located in California's Monterey County, and achieved the
Speaker 3: rank of first lieutenant. After nearly two years there, he
Speaker 3: was assigned the duties of company commander. On the afternoon
Speaker 3: of July tenth, Whickey left Fort Ord in his nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty six red and white Chevrolet. He told his friends
Speaker 3: that he was planning to get a drink in the
Speaker 3: town of Monterey, which was located less than a mile
Speaker 3: away from the base. However, Whipkey never returned to the base,
Speaker 3: and when he failed to surface by morning, he was
Speaker 3: declared absent without leave aka a WALL. After thirty days past,
Speaker 3: Whipkey had still not turned up, so the Army officially
Speaker 3: declared him a deserter, But the case would take a
Speaker 3: bizarre turn only one week later. On August seventeenth, over
Speaker 3: a month after he originally went missing, Whipkey's abandoned Chevrolet
Speaker 3: was discovered by a fishing game warden in a remote
Speaker 3: section of Death Valley. The desolate location is nearly five
Speaker 3: hundred miles east from Fort Ord, forty two miles from
Speaker 3: the nearest town, and fifteen miles from the main road.
Speaker 3: The Keys were still in the ignition and a suitcase
Speaker 3: containing some of whip Key's personal belongings and his military
Speaker 3: dog tags was found inside the vehicle. Well, there are
Speaker 3: no obvious signs of a struggle or foul play. Whippi
Speaker 3: himself was nowhere to be found.
Speaker 2: This is really interesting because he's dedicated his career to
Speaker 2: the army and he's even become a pilot. That's such
Speaker 2: an amazing opportunity in the military, and he's really achieving
Speaker 2: these ranks very fast. It seems like they put a
Speaker 2: lot of responsibility in with him and that they trust him,
Speaker 2: and they're using him as a leader in his position
Speaker 2: and in his station, and so it's odd, it's odd behavior.
Speaker 2: This is not some enlisted kid who comes in. This
Speaker 2: is someone who's making a career out of the military,
Speaker 2: and so for him to quote a wall, it really
Speaker 2: is a fascinating scenario because he has such heavy steak
Speaker 2: in the military. He has a clout and position and
Speaker 2: so for him to go all the way through to
Speaker 2: become a pilot and then just to abandon the military
Speaker 2: does seem quite odd. Of course, when mental health is
Speaker 2: to play, that can always be something that doesn't quote
Speaker 2: make sense or doesn't really follow the normal script of
Speaker 2: how people behave. But this is the fifties, and so
Speaker 2: at the time, how much would we have known and
Speaker 2: how many signs would you have picked up on if
Speaker 2: he was in fact struggling with mental health. So I'll
Speaker 2: be interested to hear more about that, but very odd,
Speaker 2: given again that he has worked so diligently to achieve
Speaker 2: so much in the military, and it goes to do
Speaker 2: what a lot of military men and women do. They
Speaker 2: go off to have a drink and hang out with
Speaker 2: friends when they're not at their posts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to go into more detail about this
Speaker 1: later on, but it sounds like by all accounts, Whipkey
Speaker 1: did have a stellar service record, but he got involved
Speaker 1: in a particular operation which did cause a change in
Speaker 1: his behavior, and if he was having mental health struggles,
Speaker 1: this could have been the source of it. But overall,
Speaker 1: it sounds like it would have been bury out of
Speaker 1: character for him to just desert his post and then
Speaker 1: just drive away, and the fact that his vehicle was
Speaker 1: found five hundred miles away from the base in pretty
Speaker 1: much the hottest climate in the United States is particularly unusual.
Speaker 1: Investigators attempted to attrack Whipkey's movements after he left ford
Speaker 1: Or on July to tenth. It turned out that later
Speaker 1: that same day, Whipkey had apparently driven over three hundred
Speaker 1: miles to Mojave, as his signature was on the guest
Speaker 1: registry of a local establishment called White's Motel. A receipt
Speaker 1: was found in Whipkey's car which showed that he purchased
Speaker 1: fourteen gallons of gasoline in Mojave on July the eleventh,
Speaker 1: and the spot where the Chevrolet was abandoned was approximately
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty five miles from this location. The
Speaker 1: Army concluded that Whipke likely suffered some sort of mental
Speaker 1: breakdown pause due to the added stress of becoming a
Speaker 1: company commander, and this prompted him to drive nearly five
Speaker 1: hundred miles to an isolated area and Death Valley. He
Speaker 1: subsequently watered out into the desert and succumbed to the
Speaker 1: extreme heat, which could reach temperatures of up to one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty degrees fahrenheit in July. The army believed
Speaker 1: that the shifting sands of the desert would make it
Speaker 1: nearly impossible to recover Whipkey's body, but oddly they never
Speaker 1: even made an attempt to search for his body until
Speaker 1: nine months after his car was found. This was just
Speaker 1: one of the many reasons that Whipkey's family became suspicious
Speaker 1: about the official cover story.
Speaker 2: So I'm wondering if their excuse was that a desert
Speaker 2: so vast that there's so many spaces that a body
Speaker 2: could go that he could have again like they said,
Speaker 2: you know, fall down and the sand covers him and
Speaker 2: things like that. Did they claim that it was just
Speaker 2: too big of an unknown place to search, like I
Speaker 2: just don't have a pinpointed area to search enough until
Speaker 2: that car's found and then they say, oh, now we
Speaker 2: can search for his body. Do you know what extent
Speaker 2: they actually went out and had publicity that they have
Speaker 2: a soldier who's a.
Speaker 1: Wall I'm trying to remember I researched this case. When
Speaker 1: I did it on the trail went cold, and I
Speaker 1: don't recall seeing many newspaper articles in newspapers dot com.
Speaker 1: But let me just double check that. I'm just curious
Speaker 1: to see no looking back on it. It really didn't
Speaker 1: get any publicity at all, and this case was completely
Speaker 1: unknown until about the nineteen eighties, which is when Whippy's
Speaker 1: family started lobbying to get his status change from deserter
Speaker 1: to died in the line of duty and they took
Speaker 1: his story to the press. But prior to that, his
Speaker 1: disappearance didn't get any publicity at all.
Speaker 3: Paul's older brother, Carl Whipkey, a veteran who'd served in
Speaker 3: the army during World War Two and covered a number
Speaker 3: of troubling discrepancies. Carl immediately became troubled when he attempted
Speaker 3: to call his at Fort ord on July twelfth, two
Speaker 3: days after he originally went missing. Karl learned that a
Speaker 3: pair of soldiers had collected all of Paul's personal belongings
Speaker 3: from miss Barracks the previous day, right after he was
Speaker 3: declared a wall Even though Paul would not officially be
Speaker 3: declared a deserter for thirty more days, his belongings were
Speaker 3: subsequently packed into eleven wooden crates and sent to his family.
Speaker 3: According to Karl, this was against army regulations, as a
Speaker 3: soldier's next of kin or legal representative are supposed to
Speaker 3: be notified before their belongings are packed up. When Paul's
Speaker 3: car was discovered one month later, Carl only learned about
Speaker 3: it by accident. He had made an unofficial call to
Speaker 3: an enlisted man at Fort Ord, who subsequently phoned him
Speaker 3: a half hour later. The soldier told Karl that Paul's
Speaker 3: vehicle had been discovered in Death Valley, but asked Karl
Speaker 3: not to tell anyone where he'd heard this because it
Speaker 3: was classified information. There were more odd details about the
Speaker 3: circumstances of how Paul's car was found. Four weeks after
Speaker 3: he originally went missing, a rancher reported seeing a red
Speaker 3: and white Chevrolet driving through Death Valley, about twelve miles
Speaker 3: from the spot that it was eventually discovered. However, he
Speaker 3: claimed that the driver was dressed in a military uniform,
Speaker 3: but Paul had been dressed in civilian clothing when he
Speaker 3: left board Or. In addition, a pile of cigarette butts
Speaker 3: was found outside the car in the desert, even though
Speaker 3: Paul did not smoke.
Speaker 2: Very interesting, you would think that the moment a soldier
Speaker 2: went a wall, the military would start contacting people they
Speaker 2: knew to say, do you know where they are? This
Speaker 2: is serious. Your son is missing, Your brother is missing.
Speaker 2: He's abandon his post or we believe he has, and
Speaker 2: see if he's been in contact with anybody. It is
Speaker 2: also odd that you have people who have packed up
Speaker 2: all of his belongings so quickly, just two days, right
Speaker 2: after he went missing, everything's packed up. What if he
Speaker 2: came back and had been in a car accident or
Speaker 2: you know, they found him in a hospital somewhere, then
Speaker 2: why was all this stuff packed up?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, it's not like this was a soldier
Speaker 1: with a history of discipline problems who was known for
Speaker 1: like going a wall and escaping off base, like this
Speaker 1: was very out of character for Paul, Like he had
Speaker 1: a stellar service record. So it's just very suspicious that
Speaker 1: they would think, well, he didn't come back after two days,
Speaker 1: let's clear out his barracks because there's no way he's
Speaker 1: ever coming back. Even though there's so many logical reasons
Speaker 1: for why he might have disappeared.
Speaker 3: The family was really fortunate that Karl had served time
Speaker 3: in the military as well and knew who to call
Speaker 3: and look questions to ask to get this kind of information,
Speaker 3: because if he didn't, like what state would the case
Speaker 3: have been in, the family wouldn't have really had anything
Speaker 3: to lobby for at that point because they just wouldn't
Speaker 3: have had the information to move forward.
Speaker 2: So odd that they'd be told, hey, don't share this information,
Speaker 2: it's classified. When something's so important as his car being found,
Speaker 2: it's his family, don't they have a right to know, Hey,
Speaker 2: you're a while brother. We discovered his car and we
Speaker 2: don't know where he is. That seems like something that
Speaker 2: the family should be aware of. That's his well being.
Speaker 1: So prior to his disappearance, Paul had stopped communicating with
Speaker 1: his family, and Carl would learn a potential reason for
Speaker 1: this when Karl received Paul's personal blongings from ford Ord.
Speaker 1: They mistakenly included a list of Paul's assignments, which revealed
Speaker 1: that he had been assigned a temporary duty at Camp
Speaker 1: Desert Rock in Nevada from July into October of nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty seven. This was a camp for servicemen who participated
Speaker 1: in nuclear weapons testing, and this particular series of tests
Speaker 1: was known as Operation Plumbbob. During this time period, a
Speaker 1: total of twenty nine explosions, all of but two of
Speaker 1: which were nuclear wound up being set off. Paul's duties
Speaker 1: included flying an observation plane and relaying radio messages to
Speaker 1: and from ground troops advancing on ground zero. His list
Speaker 1: of assignments showed that he had logged thirteen hours of
Speaker 1: flying time and witness to total of five atomic tess
Speaker 1: the largest of which was a forty four kiloton blast.
Speaker 1: Carl Whipkey would later speak to his brother's commanding officer,
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Colonel Charles Lewis, who said he noticed a number
Speaker 1: of troubling changes with Paul following his assignment at Camp
Speaker 1: Desert Rock, which may have stemmed from exposure to radioactive fallout.
Speaker 1: Upon returning to Fort Ord, Paul noticed that some unusual
Speaker 1: blotches started appearing on his skin, as well as black
Speaker 1: moles on his body and warts on his hands. He
Speaker 1: started suffering from constant colds and losing weight, and things
Speaker 1: reached the point where Paul needed to have all of
Speaker 1: his teeth removed before he was fitted with dentures. Lieutenant
Speaker 1: Colonel Lewis also said that Paul's personality changed as he
Speaker 1: became more nervous and withdrawn and had trouble delegating authority
Speaker 1: in his new role as company commander. Much like Carl,
Speaker 1: Lewis was also troubled by the circumstances of Paul's disappearance,
Speaker 1: but claimed that when he attempted to make further inquiries,
Speaker 1: he was always advised to drop the matter because the
Speaker 1: case was closed.
Speaker 2: Because this was the fifties, I guarantee you medical care
Speaker 2: was lacking when it came to what you did when
Speaker 2: soldiers were exposed to these kinds of radioactive levels, knowing
Speaker 2: the impact on the body would have been less than
Speaker 2: we have now. And so when you start seeing poor
Speaker 2: Paul literally physically fall apart, he has to have all
Speaker 2: of his teeth removed, he's losing weight. It's clear that
Speaker 2: radiation poisoning or something has occurred, and other military members
Speaker 2: are concerned. Remember his brother, Carl served in the military,
Speaker 2: and he's talking to his brother's commanding officer saying something's wrong,
Speaker 2: and that commanding officer standing up for Paul, saying, right,
Speaker 2: there's a reason why he's a leader. There's a reason
Speaker 2: he's been put in charge of these other soldiers, and
Speaker 2: yet he's failing to delegate. He's failing to behave the
Speaker 2: way we all know he behaves, and so he's going
Speaker 2: to bat for Paul and saying, he' all got to
Speaker 2: explain to me what happened, and no one wants to
Speaker 2: talk to, even the commanding officer. So there's a big
Speaker 2: problem there. This is his subordinate that he's checking on.
Speaker 2: He has a family member who's inquiring, but he himself
Speaker 2: is inquiring and he still can't get information. It's very,
Speaker 2: very suspicious.
Speaker 3: This is so upsetting. Like listening to the list of
Speaker 3: his side effects, I can't imagine how his brain was
Speaker 3: impacted by the nuclear fallout. And to have all of
Speaker 3: your teeth basically fall apart, I don't know if they
Speaker 3: rotted or disintegrated. What happened to is the rest of
Speaker 3: his skeletal structure, Like were his bones falling apart? As well?
Speaker 3: To be trapped inside a body that is failing you
Speaker 3: at the age that he is, the impact would be catastrophic.
Speaker 3: I can't even imagine. And it would be so difficult
Speaker 3: if you weren't able to express your emotions or to
Speaker 3: be able to talk about what you did with your
Speaker 3: family because the information was classified. Like my heart breaks
Speaker 3: for him having to experience that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because this is another case where Karl was
Speaker 1: lucky because he wasn't supposed to note that his brother
Speaker 1: participated an Operation plumb Bob, and he only found out
Speaker 1: because they accidentally sent a list of Paul's assignments in
Speaker 1: his belongings, but otherwise, because it was top secret, Paul
Speaker 1: never told anyone from his family about it, and they
Speaker 1: never would have learned if Carl had not received that sheet.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure that costed some awful thoughts to go
Speaker 1: in his head because this is the fifties and nuclear
Speaker 1: testing has only been around for just over a decade
Speaker 1: or so, and they just probably do not understand or
Speaker 1: they don't care about the negative physical and mental effects
Speaker 1: hes could have on the soldiers who are involved, who
Speaker 1: don't have adequate protection, And this would eventually skyrocket into
Speaker 1: a scandal with a massive lawsuit from all the people
Speaker 1: who were forced to participate in Operation plumb Bob and
Speaker 1: did not get protection and started suffering from health issues.
Speaker 1: And it is just a shame that Paul suffered through
Speaker 1: all this, but he never really got to receive justice
Speaker 1: because he went missing and was no longer around when
Speaker 1: this lawsuit became a big story.
Speaker 3: UIs had been stationed with Whipkey at count Desert Rock
Speaker 3: in nineteen fifty seven and recalled an incident where he
Speaker 3: saw two men dressed in civilian clothing speaking to Whipkey
Speaker 3: and another officer on the airfield. For security reasons, Lewis
Speaker 3: decided to approach the two men and asked to see
Speaker 3: their identification, and they produced ID cards which showed they
Speaker 3: were Army intelligence agents. Lewis said that over the course
Speaker 3: of the next few weeks he would frequently see these
Speaker 3: same two men return to the airfield. They conversed with
Speaker 3: Whikey two or three times per week, and Whikey always
Speaker 3: appeared to be nervous and uptight afterwards. Whenever Lewis asked
Speaker 3: Whitkey if there was anything wrong, Whipkey always assured him
Speaker 3: that everything was fine, but never discussed his conversations with
Speaker 3: the two men. Louis would later express his beliefs that
Speaker 3: these men had been affiliated with the CIA. During this
Speaker 3: time period, the CIA would often recruit servicemen to assist
Speaker 3: them on classified, top secret assignments, and Lewis felt that
Speaker 3: Wikey's excellent service record would have made him a promising
Speaker 3: candidate for them. Lewis's story prompted Carl Whitkey to remember
Speaker 3: our conversation he had with his brother in January of
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty eight, where Paul told Carl that he was
Speaker 3: going on assignment in which he would quote make a
Speaker 3: name for himself. But before Paul could share any more details,
Speaker 3: he told Carl that there were some officers near his desk,
Speaker 3: so he couldn't say anything else, and this was the
Speaker 3: only time Carl ever heard about this subject before Paul disappeared.
Speaker 3: This caused Carl to theorize that his brother might have
Speaker 3: been recruited into some sort of joint Army CIA program.
Speaker 3: If so, it provided a possible explanation for Paul's decision
Speaker 3: to stop at White's motel in Mojave. Edward's Air Force
Speaker 3: base was located nearby, so perhaps Paul met up with
Speaker 3: the CIA contacts at the motel, who subsequently flew him
Speaker 3: out of the country on some sort of secret mission.
Speaker 3: They also may have held on to Paul's Chevrolet until,
Speaker 3: for unknown reasons, they decided to abandon it in Death
Speaker 3: Valley and fabricated cover story about Paul wandering out into
Speaker 3: the desert.
Speaker 2: Is it possible that he needed to disappear that whatever
Speaker 2: assignment he had gone on. I know that sounds crazy,
Speaker 2: but that something like witness protection or changing his identity,
Speaker 2: that something that severe was needed for whatever operation he
Speaker 2: was doing.
Speaker 1: That is a possibility that it could have been something
Speaker 1: where we really need you to serve your country, but
Speaker 1: in order to protect your identity and protect the assignment,
Speaker 1: we have to make it look like you went a
Speaker 1: wall and disappeared and will abandon your car in the desert.
Speaker 1: And I know Jules was talking about the show Linus
Speaker 1: having a similar plot line, So does this kind of
Speaker 1: sound something like that where they practically destroy someone's reputation
Speaker 1: to make it look like they're a deserter, but they
Speaker 1: think it's for the greater good because their assignment is
Speaker 1: so important.
Speaker 3: In that show, the CIA was like, well, if she
Speaker 3: lives through this assignment, she can come and work for us.
Speaker 3: But yeah, they said, basically, her reputation with the army
Speaker 3: will be destroyed forever, but.
Speaker 1: If she's successful, then he can work with the CIA.
Speaker 1: So it could be the same thing with Paul, where
Speaker 1: it's like it's destroying his Army career, but if he's
Speaker 1: successful on this mission, he's got a permanent job with
Speaker 1: the CIA. It also turned out that there was a
Speaker 1: bizarre side story involving a twenty five year old first
Speaker 1: lieutenant from four Door named Charles Guests, who was also
Speaker 1: a pilot in one of Whipkey's closest friends. They had
Speaker 1: both been stationed together at Camp Desert Rock, but while there,
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Colonel Lewis claimed he saw Guests get interviewed on
Speaker 1: at least one occasion by the same two men who
Speaker 1: frequently converse with Whipkey. On the morning of July to
Speaker 1: twenty second, nineteen fifty eight, just twelve days after Whipkey
Speaker 1: originally went missing, Guest took off from Bishop, California in
Speaker 1: an L nineteen reconnaissance plane in order to perform a
Speaker 1: topographic survey for the Army. He was supposed to land
Speaker 1: in Winnemucca, Nevada, but the plane never arrived and an
Speaker 1: extensive search failed to turn up any trace of them. However,
Speaker 1: in September of nineteen fifty nine, a pair of deer
Speaker 1: hunters spotted wreckage from a crashed plane on the west
Speaker 1: slope of wh Mountain in Inyo National Forest, located about
Speaker 1: thirty five miles northeast of Bishop Skeletal remains, which were
Speaker 1: identified as belonging to guests were found nearby. On the surface,
Speaker 1: this seemed like a tragic accident, but there was one problem.
Speaker 1: The plane's wreckage apparently had a different serial number than
Speaker 1: the plane guests had taken off. In the fact that
Speaker 1: Guess and Whipkey had both been involved in atomic testing
Speaker 1: at Camp Desert Rock and happened to go missing less
Speaker 1: than two weeks apart led to speculation that there might
Speaker 1: be a connection between the two cases.
Speaker 2: That whole scenario doesn't even sound plausible, but you would
Speaker 2: have this young military man take off to do a
Speaker 2: geographical assessment and then he just crashes. And when you
Speaker 2: have this crash discovered, it's a different plane than the
Speaker 2: one he took off in the serial number is completely different.
Speaker 2: And when you go back, he's exposed to these same
Speaker 2: two men who say they're from the CIA and they're
Speaker 2: here to interview these soldiers, and both men go missing
Speaker 2: and or end up deceased shortly after. Definitely raises the
Speaker 2: hair on your neck and makes you say, what happened?
Speaker 2: Who were these men? What were these kids involved? And
Speaker 2: they were just young soldiers at the time, and did
Speaker 2: it lead to death or are these cover ups because
Speaker 2: these two men proved to be soldiers that could handle
Speaker 2: a bigger operation. It's very, very, very bizarre, and coincidence
Speaker 2: is possible, but it also does open up this door
Speaker 2: to say, hey, it sounds crazy, but could both men
Speaker 2: be involved in a disappearance or death?
Speaker 1: And the weird thing about Guess is that there's very
Speaker 1: little information about his death other than a brief mention
Speaker 1: on the Unsolved Mystery segment. But I'd be very curious
Speaker 1: to find out how they identify these remains because this
Speaker 1: is the nineteen fifties and they wouldn't have done DNA testing.
Speaker 1: It's not clear if they found his teeth and identified
Speaker 1: them by a dental records. So theoretically, if they wanted
Speaker 1: to fake his death, they could just like say, hey,
Speaker 1: he crashed into this forest and died in a plane
Speaker 1: crash and we found these remains. But if they wanted
Speaker 1: to stage it, they could just toss out some parts
Speaker 1: with a different serial number in order to fake the
Speaker 1: whole thing.
Speaker 3: It seems like a lot of effort to go to
Speaker 3: to like plant somebody else's remains and try to fake
Speaker 3: his death like that when he'd been missing for so
Speaker 3: many years and the chances of them actually recovering the
Speaker 3: plane seemed like they were slim to none. It just
Speaker 3: seems like there is a possibility that maybe there was
Speaker 3: an oversight and it was like was it a completely
Speaker 3: different type of plane or was it just that the
Speaker 3: serial numbers were different? Like could they have got the
Speaker 3: serial numbers on the plane that he took off in wrong.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking as well, is that I don't
Speaker 1: see any indication that it was a completely different plane,
Speaker 1: So it could just be some sort of clerical era
Speaker 1: where they just wrote down the wrong serial numbers when
Speaker 1: he toocked off, and then then when they found the
Speaker 1: wreckage they just saw a different number and assumed it
Speaker 1: wasn't the same plane. But yeah, it seems like if
Speaker 1: they just wanted him to disappear, they wouldn't even bother
Speaker 1: planting the remains or something like that. They would just say, oh,
Speaker 1: he crashed and was never found. And it doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like Charles's guests had like the same service record as
Speaker 1: Paul Whikey where it would be worth faking his death
Speaker 1: in order to send him on some sort of secret mission.
Speaker 3: And just to confirm, this is around the flight path
Speaker 3: that he was on originally when he disappeared. Look where
Speaker 3: he was found it was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think if he was heading to Winnemuck
Speaker 1: in Nevada, he would have flown over this area.
Speaker 3: If he was in like a completely different state or
Speaker 3: found somewhere totally different, then I would believe that it
Speaker 3: could have been some secret mission on a different plane.
Speaker 3: But because it's the same flight path, I'm more inclined
Speaker 3: to think it's a clerical error. For the next two decades,
Speaker 3: Karl Whike would fight diligently to uncover the truth about
Speaker 3: what happened to his brother. In June nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 3: Carl sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI,
Speaker 3: asking them to turn over all information they had about
Speaker 3: Paul's disappearance. The following year, the FBI answered Carl and
Speaker 3: informed him that they had destroyed fourteen boxes containing field
Speaker 3: files about the case six months after they received his request.
Speaker 3: In spite of this, Carl still managed to accumulate nearly
Speaker 3: three thousand pages of government documents, affidavits, and transcripts which
Speaker 3: were related to his brother. He noticed some more odd discrepancies,
Speaker 3: such as the fact that the list of Paul's assignments
Speaker 3: from the Army made no mention of his three month
Speaker 3: stint at Camp Desert Rock. Karl also uncovered one document
Speaker 3: which stated that his brother had once used the alias
Speaker 3: Paul B. Whipper, though no additional explanation was provided. One
Speaker 3: of Carl's goals was to change Paul's official status with
Speaker 3: the Army so that he could no longer be classified
Speaker 3: as a deserter. Carl's persistence finally paid off in April
Speaker 3: of nineteen eighty two, when he successfully lobbied the Army
Speaker 3: Board of Correction to Military Records to undertake a new
Speaker 3: review of his brother's case. The board held a three
Speaker 3: year hearing and concluded there was no evidence to support
Speaker 3: Paul's status as a deserter. Their final report stated that
Speaker 3: his unauthorized absence was excused as unavoidable and that his
Speaker 3: death was incurred in the line of duty, not due
Speaker 3: to his own misconduct. As a result, Paul's status was
Speaker 3: officially changed. She died in the line of duty, and
Speaker 3: the Army Adjudged General's Office issued a certificate of honorable
Speaker 3: service in his name.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering if at the time they looked at records
Speaker 2: that showed his physical health declining, and they had reports
Speaker 2: where even his commander and things like that were saying, listen,
Speaker 2: his mental health is fading. He's not commanding the same,
Speaker 2: he's not responding the same. His personality has shifted. Remember
Speaker 2: they said he was much more kind of inward and
Speaker 2: anxious and couldn't really lead.
Speaker 1: The way he had.
Speaker 2: And so if they know he was in this radiation
Speaker 2: testing and they know it's having these physical effects, Remember
Speaker 2: they're reviewing this case in the eighties now when they
Speaker 2: occurred in the fifties, And so I'm wondering if that
Speaker 2: change in knowledge and what they knew at the time,
Speaker 2: looking at the totality of the event, if that's why
Speaker 2: they changed it. Not that we had anything to do
Speaker 2: with it, but that obviously he was struggling so significantly
Speaker 2: that he had to have all of his teeth removed
Speaker 2: because they were all falling out, and he was losing weight,
Speaker 2: and he had sores on his skin and moles growing
Speaker 2: on his skin that were unexplainable. Clearly, we affected this
Speaker 2: man significantly. He paid for his service with his life,
Speaker 2: the livelihood that he had and so I'm wondering if
Speaker 2: that alone would allow them to change the classification. Even
Speaker 2: if they think Paul quote voluntarily left, they would say, hey, well,
Speaker 2: because what we put him through probably led to that.
Speaker 2: Were they really covering their bases there and saying our
Speaker 2: exposure and what we put him through would have resulted
Speaker 2: in this for many of people. And therefore in the
Speaker 2: eighties they say enough's enough. He didn't desert the military.
Speaker 2: He clearly gave so much that we're going to change
Speaker 2: his classification.
Speaker 3: That was exactly my thoughts too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, would definitely make sense because obviously in the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties there was a much better understanding of nuclear testing
Speaker 1: and atomic radiation and the after effects of it than
Speaker 1: there was in the fifties, because that was the era
Speaker 1: where they were still releasing duck and cover videos where
Speaker 1: they would try to tell people that if you're in
Speaker 1: a nuclear exposion, just duck under a desk somewhere and
Speaker 1: you'll be fine, which is obviously not true. So they
Speaker 1: were looking at these reports now with more advanced eyes
Speaker 1: and thinking, wow, we really kind of screwed this guy
Speaker 1: over by putting him in this testing without a new protection,
Speaker 1: and they don't want to flat out admit that, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of the interesting wording the way that they
Speaker 1: said that his absence was unavoidable and his death was
Speaker 1: incurred in the line of duty, not to his own misconduct,
Speaker 1: So it's almost like an admission without actually admitting that
Speaker 1: our nuclear testing cat changes in Paul's behavior and could
Speaker 1: have led to him driving out into the middle of
Speaker 1: nowhere and dying. So technically will say that he died
Speaker 1: in the line of duty without actually admitting it. So,
Speaker 1: like we said, it is kind of a bittersweet victory
Speaker 1: for the family because Paul is no longer classified as
Speaker 1: a deserter, but they still don't exactly have conclusive answers
Speaker 1: about what actually happened to him and why he's still missing. However,
Speaker 1: even though the board concluded that Whipley likely died the
Speaker 1: day after he disappeared from ford Ord, they still never
Speaker 1: provided any official explanation about what actually happened to him.
Speaker 1: While their official reporting knowledge that Whipkey had been assigned
Speaker 1: to Camp Desert Rock in nineteen fifty seven, they denied
Speaker 1: he was ever involved in atomic testing, even though this
Speaker 1: duty had been specified on the list of assignments which
Speaker 1: were accidentally shipped to Whipkey's family with his personal belongings.
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Colonel Charles Lewis had testified on Whipkey's behalf at
Speaker 1: the three day hearing, but claimed that he ran into
Speaker 1: some issues. A short time later an audit from the IRS,
Speaker 1: Lewis also received a phone call from a man identifying
Speaker 1: himself as an agent from the Department of Defense, who
Speaker 1: asked a number of questions about the Whipkey case, But
Speaker 1: when Lewis contacted the DoD later on, they maintained that
Speaker 1: none of their agents had ever phoned him, so Lewis
Speaker 1: never found out who the caller really was. This story
Speaker 1: would be featured on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries, which
Speaker 1: aired in April of nineteen ninety one and featured interviews
Speaker 1: with Lewis and Carl Whipkey. Carl hoped that someone who
Speaker 1: had been stationed with Paul at Fort Ord might remember
Speaker 1: something and come forward with new information, but this never
Speaker 1: took place, so after more than sixty four years, Paul
Speaker 1: Whipkey is still a missing person, and his disappearance continues
Speaker 1: to remain shrouded in mystery. So I guess you could
Speaker 1: say the path wait Chili.
Speaker 2: I think what we said earlier that this is just bittersweet. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's changed from a wall which is a disgrace to you,
Speaker 2: missing the line of duty or the acknowledging the significance
Speaker 2: service that Paul gave to the military. But when you
Speaker 2: start looking at this idea that you know you changed it,
Speaker 2: but we still have no explanation for what happened. They
Speaker 2: never recovered a body. Where is he? It really does
Speaker 2: leave those open ended questions, just like a missing child
Speaker 2: would do, or a missing family member under any other circumstances.
Speaker 2: Is he still alive? You know, did mental health cause
Speaker 2: him to wander off, but that he didn't know where
Speaker 2: he was or who he was, or you know, doesn't
Speaker 2: understand who is what his identity is at the time,
Speaker 2: or did he go on a CIA mission and had
Speaker 2: to change his name and go into witness protection. Your
Speaker 2: mind would wander so much that it would be devastating
Speaker 2: to say, what if he's still alive and he didn't
Speaker 2: call me. What if he missed our parents' funerals or
Speaker 2: birthdays or Christmas or the birth of my child and
Speaker 2: he's alive somewhere, and what if he's dead and alone
Speaker 2: and no one ever found him. So to me, this
Speaker 2: change of classification, it's incredible in the fact that he's
Speaker 2: no longer disgraced our military because he gave his life
Speaker 2: for his service. He fought to become a pilot, he
Speaker 2: fought to become a leader in his squadron, and things
Speaker 2: like that, and so you clearly know the military was
Speaker 2: important to him and he really did get exposed to
Speaker 2: things that why they denied it, I don't know why
Speaker 2: it wasn't in his records, I don't know. But everyone's
Speaker 2: aware that he served time with these nuclear testing sites
Speaker 2: and he paid for it with his physical health. So
Speaker 2: when you look at it, I want to know where
Speaker 2: he is. You want the family to have that body
Speaker 2: to lay at rest. You want them to be able
Speaker 2: to say, this is exactly what happened to him. We
Speaker 2: know for a fact, you know he's deceased or he's alive,
Speaker 2: And unfortunately they're just not going to get that. This
Speaker 2: was in the fifties, in the eighties they made significant progress,
Speaker 2: but we're talking about twenty twenty four now in a case,
Speaker 2: like Robin said, didn't receive a lot of attention. It's
Speaker 2: really frustrating as much as it's rewarding that they changed
Speaker 2: the status, it's frustrating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And even though un saw mysteries generally would feature
Speaker 1: missing persons cases from so many decades earlier, I know
Speaker 1: that in nineteen ninety one there was still a chance
Speaker 1: that someone who knew Paul or have been serving with
Speaker 1: him might still be alive and could come forward with
Speaker 1: new information that offered insight into what happened to him.
Speaker 1: But that never happened, and I think the chances of
Speaker 1: anyone who knew Paul being still alive in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four are very remote, So I don't know if his
Speaker 1: family will ever receive conclusive answers, But it is frustrating
Speaker 1: because there are signs that he could have had a
Speaker 1: mental breakdown and just drove out into Death Valley and
Speaker 1: wandered off and died of the severe heat. But he
Speaker 1: also checked into a motel when he left the base,
Speaker 1: so it seemed like he had some sort of purpose,
Speaker 1: that he had a reason for being there. And there's
Speaker 1: a good reason to think that the army knew an
Speaker 1: awful lot, knew a lot more than they were letting on,
Speaker 1: and just refused to share with Paul's family. And I
Speaker 1: remember Carl Whipkey's on Saw Mysteries interview. He said that
Speaker 1: I will if we find out that Paul Lot died
Speaker 1: in the line of duty while serving his country on
Speaker 1: some sort of secret mission. That's okay, Well, accept that
Speaker 1: we like the idea of knowing that Paul died a
Speaker 1: hero like helping his country, but to not know is
Speaker 1: just so frustrating. And even if they don't want to
Speaker 1: tell us the details, at least confirm if he's dead
Speaker 1: or alive. So this would be a good time to
Speaker 1: bring an end to part one. So join us next
Speaker 1: week as we present part two of our series about
Speaker 1: the disappearance of Paul Whipkey.
Speaker 4: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
Speaker 4: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Speaker 1: Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
Speaker 1: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
Speaker 1: with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
Speaker 1: tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes in
Speaker 1: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
Speaker 1: The Trail Went Old's original feed, so they're exclusive to
Speaker 1: Patreon and if you join our highest tier, Tier three,
Speaker 1: the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer
Speaker 1: is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsawd Mysteries,
Speaker 1: where you can download an audio file and then boot
Speaker 1: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
Speaker 1: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
Speaker 1: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
Speaker 1: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
Speaker 1: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
Speaker 1: Tier three.
Speaker 4: So I want to let you know a little bit
Speaker 4: about the Jewels and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
Speaker 4: free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
Speaker 4: Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour,
Speaker 4: so they're not very mini, but they're just too short
Speaker 4: to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those.
Speaker 4: So we hope you'll check out those patreons.
Speaker 3: We'll link them in the show notes.
Speaker 1: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
Speaker 1: any chance you have to share us on social media
Speaker 1: with a friend or to rate and review is greatly appreciated.
Speaker 1: You can email us at the Pathwentchili at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwink. So
Speaker 1: until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold
Speaker 1: trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
Speaker 3: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy