Speaker 1: Thousands of people have mysteriously vanished in America's wilderness. Join
Speaker 1: us as we dive into the deep end of the
Speaker 1: unexplainable and try.
Speaker 2: To piece together what happened. You are listening to Locations Unknown.
Speaker 2: What's up, everybody?
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Locations Unknown. I'm your
Speaker 1: co host Joey Rotto, as always is a guy who's
Speaker 1: an expert at sunblocking window coverings.
Speaker 2: Mike Mandible guard. Oh that's very timely.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, and I thank you again to all
Speaker 2: of our loyal listeners for tuning in to another amazing
Speaker 2: episode of Locations Unknown. An amazing episode, amazing episode. So
Speaker 2: just a few announcements before we get going here. First,
Speaker 2: you want to call the show and call two eight
Speaker 2: three nine one six nine one three. You can leave
Speaker 2: a voicemail or a text message. I just posted on
Speaker 2: Patreon that we're going to get better about interacting with
Speaker 2: all of you. We've been so busy with lots of
Speaker 2: stuff that sometimes responding to comments and text messages and
Speaker 2: stuff kind of falls to the back burners. So that's true, yes,
Speaker 2: so we will try to be better about that. You
Speaker 2: want to check out some other shows we have on
Speaker 2: our unknown media group network. We've got off the trails,
Speaker 2: who runs the smart cram off the grid relish.
Speaker 1: We could have a full crash out and be like
Speaker 1: you want to responds more money?
Speaker 2: Yeah right, just turn.
Speaker 1: In one of those people, be like, no Morning Fast off.
Speaker 2: Terrifying. It was that I don't know what that was.
Speaker 1: I don't I blocked out that was I'm back O scared.
Speaker 2: We will try to be better about that. We are recording,
Speaker 2: so just a little inside baseball, recording a few episodes
Speaker 2: in one sitting, because Joe and I are probably going
Speaker 2: to take the month of August off to regroup and
Speaker 2: come back fresh in September, just a little break. Things
Speaker 2: are busy, Joe's got some trips and I'm traveling and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, two kids going off to college. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff happens.
Speaker 2: A lot going on. So we are most likely I
Speaker 2: think maybe I'll one of us will still record, maybe
Speaker 2: some Patreon stuff in between there, but we'll be back
Speaker 2: in September. So if you're hearing this, it's probably mid
Speaker 2: to late July. Yeah, So we'll figure it out. We'll
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Speaker 1: So all right, everybody, let's gear up and get out
Speaker 1: to explore locations unknown. May twenty twenty, a hikers flown
Speaker 1: into the remote Carry Lake region of Denali National Park
Speaker 1: for a month's long solo expedition. He stays in contact
Speaker 1: with his wife through a garment in reach until mid June,
Speaker 1: then suddenly goes silent when he misses his September pickup.
Speaker 1: Searchers find his supplies near the lake and a collapse
Speaker 1: camp several miles away inside our satellite communicator and a
Speaker 1: damaged diary whose final readable entry says he left to
Speaker 1: get water, no body, clothing or clear trail is found.
Speaker 2: Join us this week as.
Speaker 1: We investigate the disappearance of Nathan Isaac Campbell.
Speaker 2: You're very good at that, Yes, so you recorded that
Speaker 2: live yep in the air.
Speaker 1: The name of location has said is Carry Lake Area,
Speaker 1: northwestern Danali National Park in Alaska.
Speaker 2: The sub location is carry Lake specifically.
Speaker 1: The amount of visitors that this area sees is five
Speaker 1: hundred and forty three thousand Tanali National Park. So yeah,
Speaker 1: not this specific area. Yes, that's a lot of people
Speaker 1: still though for.
Speaker 2: How hard it is Getzinale, that is a lot of people.
Speaker 2: That is a lot.
Speaker 1: So some interesting facts about the area. It is larger
Speaker 1: than New Hampshire, so.
Speaker 2: It's almost everything else. You know, what did you just.
Speaker 1: That immense park has remarkably few maintained trails. Despite covering
Speaker 1: more than six million acres d Nale has only about
Speaker 1: thirty five point five miles of official maintained trails. Most
Speaker 1: of the back country is trailers, and hikers are expected
Speaker 1: to navigate across tundra, rivers, brush and mountain train without
Speaker 1: mark routes. The park's lone main road is approximately ninety
Speaker 1: two miles long. Glaciers cover roughly one six of the park,
Speaker 1: and the park experiences thousands of earthquakes. Approximately three thousand
Speaker 1: earthquakes occur within Danali's borders each year. Many are extremely
Speaker 1: small and detectable only by instruments. Much of this activity
Speaker 1: is concentrated in the Cantisha can Tishna seismic cluster north
Speaker 1: of the Alaska Range. Dinosaurs once walked through what is
Speaker 1: now do Nali. Thousands of dinosaur trace fossils have been
Speaker 1: discovered in the park, including tracks left by theropods, duck
Speaker 1: build hadrosaurs, horned et cetera, safe sins et ceteras, and petrosaurs.
Speaker 1: The tracks date to approximately sixty five to seventy two
Speaker 1: million years ago, when the region was considerably warmer than.
Speaker 2: It is today. That's a tough one.
Speaker 1: That would have been a perfect talk about the Jurassic
Speaker 1: Park from last episode.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, last episode we did a little moment of
Speaker 2: silence for the passing of Sam Neil.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we won't do it again because of copyright potential,
Speaker 1: we won't catch it.
Speaker 2: By long story short, my childhood, I watched Jurassic Park
Speaker 2: probably a million times, and I thought Sam Neil was
Speaker 2: like the.
Speaker 1: Probably didn't watch it actually a million times something that's possible.
Speaker 2: I thought he was like one of the coolest dudes
Speaker 2: outside of Arnold from Terminator so get through.
Speaker 1: The Denali has no native reptiles and only one amphibian
Speaker 1: rangers still patrol the park with sled dogs.
Speaker 2: That's really cool. I didn't know that summer daylight lasts
Speaker 2: nearly twenty one hours. That's also cool.
Speaker 1: In depth description of the features so climate in the area.
Speaker 1: The Carry Lake area where Nathan went missing sits in
Speaker 1: the Interior Alaska Subarctic climate zone, which is cool to
Speaker 1: mild summers, cold nights even in June, and long, very cold,
Speaker 1: snowy winters. Seasonal patterns and the Interior Alaska summers typically
Speaker 1: see daytime highs in the fifty to seventy range or
Speaker 1: ten to twenty degrees celsius with some warmer days, but
Speaker 1: nights can still drop towards freezing, especially in low wet
Speaker 1: back country. By late August and September, temperatures trend downward quickly. Frosts,
Speaker 1: cold rain, and early snow are common, and daylight hours
Speaker 1: begin shrinking markedly. Winters are long and harsh, with average
Speaker 1: highs well below freezing and lows often in the negative
Speaker 1: ten to negative twenty degrees fahrenheit range and in the
Speaker 1: interior regions spring shoulder or the spring saddle season or straddle.
Speaker 2: That's what it was.
Speaker 1: Spring strattle, still, cold nights, saturated ground, snow patches and
Speaker 1: shady spots possible early Midsummer, cool to mild days, but
Speaker 1: water temperatures near freezing and weather shifting between sun and
Speaker 1: cold rain early fall by the time of the search,
Speaker 1: colder days, freezing nights, and accumulating snow and brush in
Speaker 1: low areas.
Speaker 2: Here's the pronunciation of that weird dinosaur seratopsians.
Speaker 1: Nah I said that I think No, I did not
Speaker 1: roll the tape. Nope, don't edit that out.
Speaker 2: I just spent five minutes fining mate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, way too long. The train where Nathan went missing
Speaker 1: is low elevation, brushy interior Alaska backcountry, with a mix
Speaker 1: of wet ground, dense vegetation, and very poor visibility. Exactly
Speaker 1: the kind of landscape where people can vanish a short
Speaker 1: distance from camp. So the general setting Carry Lake is
Speaker 1: surrounding lowlands. Carry Lake sits around nine hundred and forty
Speaker 1: two feet in elevation, draining south southwest into deep Creek
Speaker 1: and lying roughly thirty four miles south southwest of Lake
Speaker 1: minchu Min Nah. I'm sure said that wrong. Everyone from
Speaker 1: Alaska is going to be mad. But it's dark there,
Speaker 1: so that's too bad. It's part of the Cusca Coowim Lowlands.
Speaker 1: Broad relatively flat country punctuated by ponds, lakes, and creeks
Speaker 1: with no roads, no mark trails, and no bridges. A
Speaker 1: little bit about the vegetation and groundcover in this part
Speaker 1: of Danali's back country, the Dorm. The dominant challenges are
Speaker 1: brushy tundra and alder willow thickets. Willow and alder can
Speaker 1: exceed six feet in height. Brushes often so thick that
Speaker 1: visibility is extremely limited. Travel through this brushy tundra is slow, exhausting,
Speaker 1: and frustrating. You often have to shout to avoid surprise
Speaker 1: encounters with wildlife because you can't see more than a
Speaker 1: few yards. Wet ground and ponds. The lowlands around lakes
Speaker 1: like Carry are riddled with beaver ponds, boggy patches, and
Speaker 1: shallow water features that can be waste deep in places underfoot.
Speaker 1: Mossy and uneven ground is common, increasing the risk of slips,
Speaker 1: ankle injuries, and falls, especially if you're carrying water or
Speaker 1: crossing saturated areas, Navigation difficulty. The Nale's backcountry has no
Speaker 1: formal trails in most units, and map detail is coarse.
Speaker 1: NPS ones that trails terrain and the one to sixty
Speaker 1: three thousand topple macs toppo maps fifteen minute quads make
Speaker 1: navigation challenging. Many areas have large expanses of similar looking
Speaker 1: hills and drainages. That's just I would never do.
Speaker 2: This, yeah, I mean, I've seen the nally. It's cool.
Speaker 2: It's just a copy and paste in each unit. It's
Speaker 2: so vast. I mean, until you see it, you don't
Speaker 2: really can't really picture it.
Speaker 1: So it's even with a GPS or in reach, moving
Speaker 1: a short distance off a known point can quickly put
Speaker 1: you in a confusing, repetitive train with limited landmarks, especially
Speaker 1: in lowland brush.
Speaker 2: So that's crazy.
Speaker 1: Even with GPS, you can just still get turned around
Speaker 1: because it's just so expansive in this environment. Walking just
Speaker 1: to get water can mean negotiating complex micro terrain with
Speaker 1: poor sitelines, where a wrong turn or misjudge slope can
Speaker 1: leave you disoriented and unsure how to get back to
Speaker 1: a small hidden tent In the brush, hydrology, and water hazards.
Speaker 1: There are no bridges in the back country. River and
Speaker 1: creete crossings are entirely at the hiker's judgment. Water is
Speaker 1: near freezing, and immersion even briefly can lead to rapid hypothermia.
Speaker 1: Silted glacial streams make depth hard to judge around lakes
Speaker 1: like carry small creeks. Rainages and ponds may look trivial
Speaker 1: but can hide deeper spots, soft bombs, or undercut banks.
Speaker 1: There are no roads, pipelines, or obvious modern corridors visible
Speaker 1: from the ground level in the immediate area. It is
Speaker 1: genuinely wild country. One independent satellite analysis has identified a
Speaker 1: faint linear opening, likely an old trapline or sled route,
Speaker 1: running several miles southwest from Kerry Lake. But it's narrow,
Speaker 1: six to twelve feet wide and overgrown, not a maintained trail.
Speaker 2: So overall very difficult, and you didn't mention also there's
Speaker 2: large creatures that could eat you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's besides all the animals and bears and all
Speaker 1: the different things. Yeah, So Mike tell us about Nathan Campbell.
Speaker 2: Yes, he was born June twenty second, nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2: He went missing basically June to September twenty twenty. Officially
Speaker 2: carried as the last known in Carry Lake, Vicinity on
Speaker 2: June thirteenth of twenty twenty, with a missed pickup on
Speaker 2: September fifteenth of twenty twenty. Remains have not been found.
Speaker 2: He was male. He was aged forty at drop off,
Speaker 2: and he actually turned forty one while he was out
Speaker 2: on his hike. Body description height roughly five ten, approximately
Speaker 2: one hundred ninety pounds. He had strawberry blonde hair, blue eyes.
Speaker 2: He clothing he was last seen in. Nothing was specifically
Speaker 2: documented at the time of his disappearance. We'll get into
Speaker 2: some things that were discovered further on in the episode.
Speaker 2: Personality wise, he was described by the pilot who flew
Speaker 2: him in as a pretty quiet individual who nonetheless talked
Speaker 2: about his interests in This is very interesting. So he
Speaker 2: talked about his interest in the rumored Alaska Pyramid and
Speaker 2: called his trip his Indiana Jones adventure. So okay, very interesting.
Speaker 2: It sounds like a whole topic. We should do a
Speaker 2: what's the episodes we do on that stuff? Well, now
Speaker 2: I thought I forgot about it. What in a while? Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's why I forgot yeah, the lower episodes where we
Speaker 2: talk about like triangles and Vorti seas and stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think we're going to have to do on on
Speaker 2: the Alaska Pyramid. Okay, I'm in so friends. Oh look
Speaker 2: our website. Yep, I got his image on our website. Yes,
Speaker 2: this is all my information? Correct? What did I say?
Speaker 2: I think the date missing is wrong on here? All right, Well,
Speaker 2: we're just looking at his picture. Yeah. So his friends
Speaker 2: and family emphasize him as a dedicated husband and father
Speaker 2: of four boys, implying strong family ties and responsibility. His
Speaker 2: willingness to undertake a long solo expedition and chase this
Speaker 2: legend suggests a mix of curiosity, risk, colorance, and a
Speaker 2: desire for adventure and meaning medical issues. We don't really
Speaker 2: know if he had any medical issues. At the time
Speaker 2: of his disappearance. Nothing was publicly mentioned occupation hobbies. He
Speaker 2: was identified in a lot of different articles and quotes
Speaker 2: as being an out doorsmen in backcountry enthusiasts. Details about
Speaker 2: his formal occupation were not clearly documented, but his hobbies
Speaker 2: plainly include camping, fishing, long wilderness trips, and he had
Speaker 2: an interest in this Alaska Pyramid theory or whatever you
Speaker 2: want to call it, and related conspiracy media suggests he
Speaker 2: had also consumed kind of other what they labeled as
Speaker 2: fringe or alternative content around this pyramid and treated his
Speaker 2: this expedition partly as a personal investigation.
Speaker 1: So very interesting. This this is insane for anyone watching
Speaker 1: the video. Yes, like there is. This is the first
Speaker 1: time I've ever done at three sixty. Yeah, and there's
Speaker 1: just there is nothing like city wise, road wise, no,
Speaker 1: every direction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you're out there is That's why then dropped
Speaker 2: off by a plane. Yeah, you zoom out. Where is Denali?
Speaker 2: The actual mountain? Right, it's to the south.
Speaker 1: Okay, so he nineteen Uh go back to I saw
Speaker 1: it briefly if you scroll in, it's right. Oh no,
Speaker 1: he's like the southeast. No, the lake's right here. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's all right. Yeah, so anchorages to the south. But like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's right, he's right here. And that is that is
Speaker 1: insane amount of middle of nowhere. Well two hundred miles
Speaker 1: away from here. The near city is Talkitna, one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty eight miles away.
Speaker 2: And I think there is nothing. I think fifty I
Speaker 2: think we drove through that town to get to the park.
Speaker 2: This one. Where's the Can you find the Alaska Highway?
Speaker 2: It goes east west. Let me get off of the
Speaker 2: ruler here. Yeah, you might have to go go to
Speaker 2: like actual map like that shows just roads and like
Speaker 2: no terrain. Yeah, you're zoom in real quick. Yeah. If
Speaker 2: you go to I do Alaska Highway, we'll pull up. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it Alaska Highway, No, it would
Speaker 2: have been. Yeah, I don't try that way. That's Arkansas.
Speaker 2: Oh no, yeah, the top one. No, it's U kind
Speaker 2: So I'll look it up on Google Maps. Okay, I
Speaker 2: was just Google is More. Yeah, oh that okay, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Alaska Highway. You just did Alaska high Yeah. So I
Speaker 2: was hoping it would pull up. But it's like not,
Speaker 2: no Canada. It's a dirt Oh no, that's not it.
Speaker 2: It's it's like we took it to get back to
Speaker 2: Anchorage because of a forest fire and goes like east west.
Speaker 2: It's a dirt road. So it might not be listed.
Speaker 2: I mean there's one road, so is this it? No,
Speaker 2: because it went east west, I don't think we were
Speaker 2: that far north. Yeah that's too whatever, so unlisted. I
Speaker 2: mean yeah it was, I mean it was definitely a road.
Speaker 2: It was gravel, it wasn't paid. But no, this is interesting.
Speaker 2: We've never had a case where we've had someone go
Speaker 2: out looking for one of these. Kind of gives me
Speaker 2: a little trip of phobia. Yeah, tripophobia, whatever it's pronounced.
Speaker 2: But uh yeah, So like this, this guy was really
Speaker 2: kind of doing an adventure researching. I guess you could
Speaker 2: call it this Alaska pyramid. Very interesting, so experience in
Speaker 2: the wilderness. He is repeatedly described, like I said, as
Speaker 2: an experience outdoorsman in a lot of the sources I
Speaker 2: was reading. He was comfortable enough with wilderness travel to
Speaker 2: plan a solo four months stay in extremely remote Denali backcountry.
Speaker 2: I would say you'd have to be very comfortable to
Speaker 2: do that. The fact that he chose such a trip
Speaker 2: and set up separate lake supplies and inland camp supports
Speaker 2: at least a modernate, moderate wilderness experience, though the official
Speaker 2: record does not dwell on his specific training, prior trips
Speaker 2: or formal qualifications experiencing that location. There's no documentation that
Speaker 2: shows Nathan hit prior trips specifically to Kerry Lake or
Speaker 2: that particular corner of Danali before twenty and twenty. His
Speaker 2: choice of that location appears tied to its remoteness and
Speaker 2: perceive proximity to some of the coordinate sets associated with
Speaker 2: the Black Pyramid legend, rather than to long term, repeated
Speaker 2: familiarity with that exact landscape. So, in practical terms, he
Speaker 2: was a newcomer to that specific area, and he was
Speaker 2: stepping out into one of the park's most remote and
Speaker 2: demanding areas for an extended solo state.
Speaker 1: I'm already starting to think he may have found it.
Speaker 1: He thinks, Yeah, that's a theorem I'm operating on this. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: let's save that too off the deep end.
Speaker 2: Yep. So we'll jump right in the timeline here. It's
Speaker 2: early twenty twenty. Nathan is planning his extended trip into
Speaker 2: Dnali National Park and the Carry Lake area, which is
Speaker 2: the northwestern part of the park. It's roughly five to
Speaker 2: forty miles from the tiny community of Lake Minchuminia. Maybe
Speaker 2: said that right. Carrie Lake is a small, isolated lake
Speaker 2: surrounded by hundreds of square miles of roadless trailists wilderness
Speaker 2: with heavy alder tangles, beaver ponds, and difficult wet ground.
Speaker 2: Like Joe said in the location profile, and his intention
Speaker 2: was to stay for months. He was going to camp
Speaker 2: and fish and keep a diary of his daily life.
Speaker 2: He prepares substantial supplies, a large backpack, fishing gear, and
Speaker 2: at least a couple of plastic totes full of food
Speaker 2: for multi month's day. He also represents that he has
Speaker 2: a garment in reach, a two way satellite communicator with
Speaker 2: GPS tracker to stay in touch with his wife and
Speaker 2: children and to provide SOS capability if something goes wrong.
Speaker 2: Beneath the normal wilderness plan, Nathan carries a more unusual
Speaker 2: mission we've been talking about. He became interested with the
Speaker 2: internet legend of the Lost Pyramid of Alaska and supposed
Speaker 2: massive underground structures said to lie somewhere in the interior
Speaker 2: of Alaska. During the later documented flight, he will describe
Speaker 2: his trip to the pilot as an Indiana Jones adventure.
Speaker 2: Very interesting. I don't remember hearing about the Alaska Pyramid.
Speaker 1: I don't I feel like now that you said it,
Speaker 1: I'm like something in the back of my head's kicking,
Speaker 1: but I don't know anything about it.
Speaker 2: Hear me out. And this is coming from a perspective
Speaker 2: of knowing nothing about this legend at all. I'm coming
Speaker 2: from it from a like a logic standpoint. So throughout
Speaker 2: the earth we've seen, you've found that people have found pyramids.
Speaker 2: That is a thing humans for some reason like to
Speaker 2: build in the past. In Egypt and Asia and South America,
Speaker 2: lots of places with pyramids. So Alaska there was a
Speaker 2: land bridge at one point where humans would cross from
Speaker 2: Russia to North American continent when it seemed logical, like
Speaker 2: it's such a vast open expanse. Maybe it was warmer
Speaker 2: back then. Yeah, that they might have built a pyramid
Speaker 2: there too, just like they did in South America and potentially.
Speaker 2: So I get it's an interesting theory. Now I know
Speaker 2: nothing about it, so we'll have to read up on
Speaker 2: the Pyramid of Alaska.
Speaker 1: So I'm just going through a Reddit form where they're
Speaker 1: talking about doing an expedition to that lake specifically to
Speaker 1: do light our scans for the pyramid.
Speaker 2: Okay, so he went to that lake specifically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I'm trying to figure out they have a
Speaker 1: map showing triangulation to that lake essentially. So that's where
Speaker 1: a lot of people apparently think it is. Yeah this
Speaker 1: is Reddit, yes, So and there's a bunch of people
Speaker 1: telling them what they're gonna run into and how they'll
Speaker 1: probably die.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna keep going. You keep going, and I'll
Speaker 2: see if I can. I mean, that would be a
Speaker 2: massive undertaking to bring the light, our equipment out to
Speaker 2: somewhere that remote. It's like the same reason why they
Speaker 2: haven't done a lot of scans of the Sahara Desert.
Speaker 2: It's just really hard to get to interesting. Okay, this
Speaker 2: is almost turning into one of those episodes, so we'll
Speaker 2: focus back on the timeline. Sorry, no, it's all right.
Speaker 2: I find that stuff fascinating. It's May twenty seventh, twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: So he charters a small floatplane flight out of the
Speaker 2: Teal Kanita area. The pilot flies from across the Last
Speaker 2: g Range and lands on Carrie Lake, deep inside Tanali's
Speaker 2: northwest back country. This would be described kind of like
Speaker 2: his last known contact, last known physical contact, because he
Speaker 2: was speaking with his wife on board the aircraft. Nathan
Speaker 2: tells a pilot he's on the Great Quest to find
Speaker 2: the Pyramid of Alaska, and he has his fishing gears,
Speaker 2: backpack and tots of food. He had no firm early
Speaker 2: return date locked in. At the drop off, he explains
Speaker 2: that he is prepared to stay into late August or
Speaker 2: early September. He says his wife will call the air
Speaker 2: service if he needs an early pickup, otherwise a pickup
Speaker 2: will be scheduled for mid September. Eventually, this would be
Speaker 2: set first number fifteenth. The pilot is uneasy about dropping
Speaker 2: off a solo traveler in such an isolated country without
Speaker 2: a fixed extraction date, but Nathan reassures him that his
Speaker 2: in reach will keep him in contact with home and
Speaker 2: provide and emergency LAN. So that's interesting. The pilot's even like,
Speaker 2: are you sure you want to do this? Like like
Speaker 2: that video online that you see, are you sure about that? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure about that. From I think you should leave. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I love them. I love that. That's interesting. Locals in Alaska,
Speaker 2: We've mentioned this on other Alaska episodes. They they have
Speaker 2: a different appeal, you know, kind of like it's the
Speaker 2: same vibe I got when I was in Hawaii when
Speaker 2: you'd speak with Native people that were born and raised
Speaker 2: on the island and their opinion of people like us
Speaker 2: flying there and visiting. I feel like Alaskans. Native Alaskans
Speaker 2: have that same kind of attitude towards people kind of
Speaker 2: at least the ones that come up there and underestimate
Speaker 2: how fast and remote Alaska is and they just think
Speaker 2: they're gonna come up and do a big trip and
Speaker 2: so interesting that the pilot kind of is like you
Speaker 2: sure you're gonna do this, and Nathan's like, yes, I'll
Speaker 2: be fine. So when the floatplane departs Carry Lake, the
Speaker 2: pilot becomes the last publicly identified person to see Nathan.
Speaker 2: So here's Carrie Lake. Yeah, this is.
Speaker 1: The coordinates to an area that they wanted to search
Speaker 1: that has a square meadow. Okay, interesting, Oh that is.
Speaker 2: Planning on making a trip to Nale. This is two
Speaker 2: years ago, by the way. Yeah interesting, all right, Well
Speaker 2: it's late May early June of twenty twenty. Once on
Speaker 2: the ground, Nathan cashes part of his supplies and fishing
Speaker 2: here at Carry Lake. Near the landing site. He travels
Speaker 2: inland through brush and wet ground and establish a separate
Speaker 2: tent camp several miles away in terrain with no maintained trails.
Speaker 2: During this period, he remains in contact with his wife
Speaker 2: via in reach sending satellite texts and tracking data. He
Speaker 2: writes in his diary about camp chores and normal routines.
Speaker 2: His communityations and daily writing suggests he has a functioning
Speaker 2: camp and wasn't in any immediate crisis. June thirteenth of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, Alaska Straight Trooper a missing Person Bolton will
Speaker 2: later record June thirteenth, twenty twenty as the date Nathan
Speaker 2: was last known to be in Danali National Park, and
Speaker 2: this date is adopted in some summaries as the missing
Speaker 2: sense date and is sometimes mistakenly described as the drop
Speaker 2: off date. So this is the last date. The authorities
Speaker 2: are saying that there is communication with him mid June.
Speaker 2: Like I said, June thirteenth, Nathan's inReach messages stop after
Speaker 2: a period without contact. His wife calls the air taxi
Speaker 2: service on a Friday and tells the pilot she has
Speaker 2: not heard from her husband. The pilot requests the latitude
Speaker 2: longitude of Nathan's last in reach transmission. The coordinates placed
Speaker 2: Nathan approximately five miles from Kerry Lake. The train near
Speaker 2: that location does not offer a suitable float plane landing site.
Speaker 2: The pilot explains that he cannot safely land there and
Speaker 2: advises her to contact a helicopter operator and send a
Speaker 2: helicopter check that location. So after this, the pilot assumes
Speaker 2: that a helicopter check will occur. He later reflects, I
Speaker 2: just figured they did that, and does not personally follow
Speaker 2: up or contact park authorities at that time.
Speaker 1: I would say that was probably not his job either. No,
Speaker 1: now he said, hey, I can't do this. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: and especially in Alaska. I mean it sounds like the
Speaker 1: general theme when people go messy in Alaska is it's
Speaker 1: too bad. Yeah, Like that's what you sign up for
Speaker 1: when you go if you're doing this. Yeah, like I'm no,
Speaker 1: I can't land my plane there. Yeah, get a helicopter.
Speaker 1: Yeah sorry.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Again I don't blame him. This is insane, like yeah,
Speaker 2: to go out in there. So yeah. And the public
Speaker 2: record does not show whether a helicopter company was contacted,
Speaker 2: whether a flight went out, or whether any private search
Speaker 2: occurred between mid June, the mid June call and the
Speaker 2: miss September pick up, so no formal National Park Service
Speaker 2: or Alaska State Trooper search appears accessible during this window,
Speaker 2: so for all intent and purposes, there was not a
Speaker 2: search done. So June twenty second of twenty twenty, this
Speaker 2: would have been Nathan's forty first birthday. He would have
Speaker 2: turned forty one in the Carry Lake area. There was
Speaker 2: no inReach contact or documented phone communication from him in
Speaker 2: the public record late June to August twenty twenty, so
Speaker 2: nearly three months go by with no documented official search.
Speaker 2: Nathan remains out of contact during this time, and because
Speaker 2: the plan had always been a multi month expedition and
Speaker 2: because no specific early return date was set, Nathan's continued
Speaker 2: absence does not automatically trigger a mispickup until his agreed
Speaker 2: upon final window approaches. The pilot believes a family will
Speaker 2: have followed his advice and sent a helicopter to check
Speaker 2: the last inReach coordinates. Later commentary from another pilot, David Lee,
Speaker 2: suggests that the search should have been organized much earlier,
Speaker 2: given that Nathan had been out of contact for months,
Speaker 2: although he acknowledges that an earlier search might still have
Speaker 2: failed in such terrain. So, I mean there is possibly
Speaker 2: like the battery he died and he couldn't charge it.
Speaker 1: You know, you would assume he would have like solar
Speaker 1: panels and stuff for multi month.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you would assume.
Speaker 1: I in all the forms of even the people who
Speaker 1: are a little crazy, they're saying, here are the guns
Speaker 1: you need, Here are the batteries you need, Here are
Speaker 1: the solar panels you need?
Speaker 2: Or don't go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean if I would assume he would have
Speaker 1: done his work that much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if you're getting dropped off by a plane,
Speaker 2: you can bring a little more gear with you than
Speaker 2: you normally would. Oh yeah, I would have.
Speaker 1: Like for months, you're gonna have to have a backpack
Speaker 1: full of batteries just in case, all the solar gear
Speaker 1: to charge everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who knows. September fifteenth comes around. This was his
Speaker 2: expected pickup date. It was later recorded in TPS bulletins
Speaker 2: and has been reflected in a lot of summaries. Nathan
Speaker 2: does not appear at Carry Lake and does not arrange
Speaker 2: another extraction point or flight. There was no contact via
Speaker 2: the in reach or any other means to suggest he's
Speaker 2: heading towards the lake, and the mis pickup serves as
Speaker 2: the clear tipping point from unusual quiet to confirmed missing.
Speaker 2: It's now mid late to late September twenty twenty. Following
Speaker 2: the missed extraction, he's reported missing. The NPS mobilizes a
Speaker 2: search in this It's got to be a really difficult
Speaker 2: search to mobilize. I mean, everyone's got to be flown
Speaker 2: in by helicopter pilots and backcountry staff engage with the caves.
Speaker 2: Searchers at Carry Lake locate the cashed supplies and fishing
Speaker 2: gear Nathan had left near the floatplane landing site. The
Speaker 2: cash confirms he has not simply packed all this gear
Speaker 2: and walked back to the lake for pickup. It's now
Speaker 2: mid to late September. Several miles from Carry Lake. Search
Speaker 2: teams find Nathan's inland tent camp. The tent has collapsed
Speaker 2: and the contents show signs of weathering and rodent damage,
Speaker 2: but searchers were able to recover obviously the tent and
Speaker 2: camp gear. They did recover the garment inReach device it
Speaker 2: was still at camp, and they found his diary that
Speaker 2: was tattered and somewhat chewed, but it was partially legible.
Speaker 2: Tanali Chief ranger Erica Josted and narratives report that the
Speaker 2: diary contains mostly routine records of daily camp chores and
Speaker 2: that the last surviving entry states he just simply left
Speaker 2: to get water, and the presence of the in reach
Speaker 2: at the tent strongly suggests that that probably was the
Speaker 2: last thing he attempted to do. If water source was
Speaker 2: close by. He's probably just left his gear, like he's
Speaker 2: probably done that a million times at this point and
Speaker 2: didn't think to carry it, and he might have got comfortable,
Speaker 2: and that is where things can go wrong. A thing
Speaker 2: would be glued to me. I yes, so I would
Speaker 2: not leave tent the tent without it that in my gun.
Speaker 1: Whenever you can see that they haven't updated squares of
Speaker 1: satellite images for an area, you know it's that remote. Yes,
Speaker 1: there are no pictures of Kerry Lake. Oh I could
Speaker 1: find in the internet.
Speaker 2: What's the closest picture someone's taken that you could go?
Speaker 1: From the big lake here, I'll show you relatively close
Speaker 1: lake Mini Chunka.
Speaker 2: But that's where the pilots. This is.
Speaker 1: There's an airport here. Yeah, there's like one photo from
Speaker 1: so we know when. It was from uh March twenty seventeen. Okay,
Speaker 1: so like otherwise, like there was another photo like far east. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're you're getting into the Nali National Park where you're
Speaker 1: so that is Yeah, like you're starting to see park photos.
Speaker 1: The next closest one because this is where the supposed
Speaker 1: pyramid is.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is where the lake is. So he was
Speaker 2: in this area.
Speaker 1: The next closest one that's not the pilot is this guy.
Speaker 1: Let's see here, and I'd be looking at west if
Speaker 1: I look out west. That is beautiful. Yeah, it is
Speaker 1: beautiful out there. For the amazing picture in Tie. What
Speaker 1: a beautiful Oh my god, I just.
Speaker 2: Love that we can look at these pictures. Can you
Speaker 2: imagine the effort it took him to get this picture? Yeah,
Speaker 2: for those of you watch, it's like a three hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty degree view of just jagged, snow covered mountains
Speaker 2: an alley. I think, so it's the biggest one. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it could be something else. Every direction you look is
Speaker 2: just except that little area with the river going through,
Speaker 2: and that is that's not where he was northwest.
Speaker 1: He was more like, oh maybe it was kind of
Speaker 1: like this way on the other side of this mountain.
Speaker 2: I look at this picture, I'm like, what kind of
Speaker 2: exertion did it take to get this picture? Yeah, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2: That's a wild Oh did they read it to back
Speaker 2: to Mount McKinley. Probably? I thought it was Denali. It's whatever.
Speaker 2: This looks more like what I hiked in Okay. This
Speaker 2: was the August time frame, and there's a trail down there. Actually, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's a bridge.
Speaker 1: There's a few of the thirty five mile trail, and
Speaker 1: there's some hikers. Yeah, that's that's I mean, you're getting
Speaker 1: to get that's where this cluster of images is from.
Speaker 1: The only trails in the whole park. They did they okay,
Speaker 1: at least on Google Earth.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Mount McKinley named to mount it's not even the peak.
Speaker 2: This is awesome.
Speaker 1: I want to climb this mountain's uh oh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: back again. We got the Gulf of America.
Speaker 2: Now it's not. Oh my gosh, I can't keep up
Speaker 2: with all the name changes. So it was officially named
Speaker 2: Mount McKinley until twenty fifteen, and then it was named
Speaker 2: Denali in Obama presidency Denali, and then they and then
Speaker 2: it went back to Mount McKinley. It's like a light switch.
Speaker 2: They just keep turning it on and off. I wish
Speaker 2: they would just leave things like it's getting confusing. I
Speaker 2: was like looking for Denali on the map and that
Speaker 2: was McKinley. I'm like, did they did they get renamed?
Speaker 2: It's still state park. That's the best part Denali National Park.
Speaker 2: So whatever, I don't even let's not get into this yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not getting into that. Let's go back to this.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to the black pyramid. Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 2: So for all of you listening, it is now back
Speaker 2: named back to mouth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look at they all the conspiracy theorist said they
Speaker 1: airbrushed the square, so you can kind of see it,
Speaker 1: because the other images it was more of a there's
Speaker 1: like a square meadow right here on this coordinate.
Speaker 2: That's like they think somebody went in the Google maps
Speaker 2: and like, I think the government's covering it up. Yep.
Speaker 1: Look you can kind of see it's hidden there here.
Speaker 1: Apparently it was a square unless they edited that. We
Speaker 1: need to do a whole episode on it.
Speaker 2: No, we do. Well, there's a Wi files sit here.
Speaker 2: Look at this is what it looked like. You see that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I believe it. I want to believe. I want to
Speaker 2: I want to retrieve. I want to rechieve. Yeah, look
Speaker 2: at that. That's all right. I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: We'll do a deep dive on this. We'll do a
Speaker 2: deep dive.
Speaker 1: I want to watch the y files episode on it.
Speaker 1: So they said there's a Wi files episode, all right,
Speaker 1: I just watched the one on the Hollow Moon. Or
Speaker 1: I'm halfway through the one that apparently the moon was
Speaker 1: the moon shallow, it was well hollowed.
Speaker 2: Nothing. Well, there's got to be like an alien base
Speaker 2: or something. No, it's like a metal structure and it
Speaker 2: was brought to earth. It was Toad here, Toad here, Yeah,
Speaker 2: to help. I haven't finished the episode yet, so I
Speaker 2: don't know. But that's a new one. I haven't heard
Speaker 2: the hollow. We should do it.
Speaker 1: We should just go full full on all the episodes
Speaker 1: like locations now, just completely off the rail. Yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: do a McKinley Denali light switch and just only do
Speaker 1: episodes in like crazy stuff. I'll have an episode series
Speaker 1: called off the Rails, Off the Rails, Rails Unknown, Rails Unknown. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, okay, I'll send it to you. It's interesting.
Speaker 2: I like.
Speaker 1: I like watching that stuff because they make great arguments.
Speaker 1: If you don't question it, yeah, absolutely, yeah, if you
Speaker 1: don't quite. I feel like this day and age we
Speaker 1: have the technology day they determine what's inside the moon.
Speaker 1: They said they, I promise you uncle farther this because
Speaker 1: I'm gonna butcher it because I'm like, I false, I
Speaker 1: put it on to fall a sleep, so like I
Speaker 1: get bits at a time. And apparently apparently on the
Speaker 1: Apollo missions they did a thing where they like put
Speaker 1: a seismic device to hit the moon like basically like
Speaker 1: pound a thing to like determine what its makeup is.
Speaker 1: And apparently it reverberated in such a way that only
Speaker 1: hollow objects do.
Speaker 2: And so far they said something about the.
Speaker 1: Rock structures are coarse or like volcanic rocks of cavernous.
Speaker 2: There's a bunch of explanations as to potentially why.
Speaker 1: So it's a whole thing, and they show videos the
Speaker 1: astronauts that look scared to talk about it.
Speaker 2: So honestly, it's fascinating. Where you have one to ten,
Speaker 2: so like kin have a scale of one to one hundred. Well,
Speaker 2: so like ten is like one of your boring like
Speaker 2: PBS documentaries where you assume it's all pretty science based. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then where does like ancient aliens fall? And then
Speaker 2: where does the Wi Files fall? Is ancient aliens grounded
Speaker 2: in more reality than the Wi Files. I'll be honest.
Speaker 1: I haven't watched many episodes of anchis the Wi Files
Speaker 1: is a YouTube production? Okay, it's the production quality is
Speaker 1: very good. Yeah, they spend a lot of time. You know,
Speaker 1: when we were in the nineties, they would always have
Speaker 1: these shows where you have the host and they'd have
Speaker 1: some sort of fictional character, like a puppet or something
Speaker 1: that would co host.
Speaker 2: Kind of yeah, it's kind of like that.
Speaker 1: So it's actually for me, I really enjoyed it for
Speaker 1: the nostalgia of that setup. Yeah, like just there's I
Speaker 1: remember watching like Bill Nye had like the rat oh yeah,
Speaker 1: or like the thing like there's always like the puppet.
Speaker 1: I would ask questions and respond, So like I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is fun. They haven't seen a show like this
Speaker 1: since I was a child, So that's how they got
Speaker 1: me initially. So like they're doing a good job of
Speaker 1: manipulating me in a positive direction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're pulling on all the nostalgias exactly.
Speaker 1: I was like, and the guy, you know, he's it's
Speaker 1: always they're asking like, so why would it do this?
Speaker 2: And why why would it be like that?
Speaker 1: So like they're hitting all of the proper channels to
Speaker 1: make you question whether the moon is a solid object.
Speaker 2: You went into it knowing it's real, like a real moon,
Speaker 2: and you came out of it like, oh.
Speaker 1: It might be a hello. So here's the deal. Here's
Speaker 1: the deal with me. I am a very fact science
Speaker 1: based person, but I also love that stuff. I love conspiracies,
Speaker 1: and the wilder the more excited I get about it.
Speaker 1: So do I deeply believe the Moon's hollow?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Am I open to the potential that an ancient alien
Speaker 1: race towed the Moon to the Earth to control our
Speaker 1: tides and make Earth habitable as an experiment.
Speaker 2: Yes, simply because why are we here? What is the universe?
Speaker 2: Was the purpose of it? Yeah? No one will ever know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's an infinite unanswered question.
Speaker 1: I want to have fun with that and just say, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe a million years ago somebody towed the moon here.
Speaker 2: I feel like, if I'm wrong, what does it cost me?
Speaker 2: I feel like in the next ten or twenty years
Speaker 2: we'll probably find out, because maybe back there we go.
Speaker 1: So so I'm open to the possibility that the moon
Speaker 1: is a hollow structure that was created.
Speaker 2: Okay, so my opinion. Not knowing any of this. I
Speaker 2: love how we were like, just we're just turning this into.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll get based went from the Black Pyramid, Well
Speaker 1: from a guy missing, it's from the Black Pyramids, and
Speaker 1: all the Moon's hollow.
Speaker 2: I am starting from the standpoint that the moon is
Speaker 2: a normal moon, but I am old that's just utterly ridiculous.
Speaker 2: But I am open and if someone prevented that's kind
Speaker 2: of how I feel.
Speaker 1: It's the evidence is stacking up now that the moon
Speaker 1: might be hollow.
Speaker 2: NASA came out tomorrow and said, we have evidence that
Speaker 2: says the moon is hollow.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, recently they're like, yeah, aliens exist, and
Speaker 1: then everyone's brushing over it. I'm just like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what's real anymore. So now I'm like, I'm open
Speaker 1: to the idea of the moon with AI.
Speaker 2: Now you can't trust anything you said, can't.
Speaker 1: Trust anything or anybody. So I'm going to remain open.
Speaker 1: And the child, the child Joey and me is excited
Speaker 1: that the moon.
Speaker 2: The excited the moon could potentially be hollow.
Speaker 1: My gosh, all right, well let's get let's get back
Speaker 1: to this one before well, we'll flip the light switch
Speaker 1: and we're gonna do the pyramid the hollow moon.
Speaker 2: Let's just do all that. Gosh, that's how we're gonna
Speaker 2: expand our audience. It's an ambulance. Oh jeez, I thought
Speaker 2: they're coming to get us something.
Speaker 1: FBI is coming because we're talking about the hollow gosh
Speaker 1: shutting us down. This.
Speaker 2: If we had the awards for Off the Rails in
Speaker 2: an episode, we want it with this one. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 2: let's move on before we lose everybody. Sorry about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Okay, we're gonna come up with an
Speaker 1: audio that just says fast forward alert and give people
Speaker 1: opportunity to fast forward.
Speaker 2: Right. All right, okay, so let's see where was I
Speaker 2: we were talking about. It's mid to late September twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: and they are they found his inland camp, They found
Speaker 2: the collapse tent, they found his in reach device still
Speaker 2: at the camp, tattered diary that was chewed by some
Speaker 2: rodent activity, but still somewhat legible. And the chief ranger
Speaker 2: was saying that the diary is mostly filled with kind
Speaker 2: of daily camp chores and the last surviving entry was
Speaker 2: to go get water. And then I was saying, that
Speaker 2: makes sense that he's getting comfortable he left his in
Speaker 2: reach in the tent to get water. I was saying,
Speaker 2: I would personally have that thing glued to me no
Speaker 2: matter where I went. Plus, you know, something to defend
Speaker 2: myself because there's lots of bears, yeah around there. And
Speaker 2: despite all of the aerial and ground searching in this
Speaker 2: dense area and rough train, searchers did not find his body,
Speaker 2: clothing or a clear path of really where he went
Speaker 2: after the tent. I can't believe they searched.
Speaker 1: I mean, because we've heard so many stories of they
Speaker 1: just don't search for people sometimes. Yeah, I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't remember a story. We've only covered two Denali cases.
Speaker 1: We covered the Magic school Bus, yeah, and then Johnny
Speaker 1: Waterman the Skier yep. And in this case, his last
Speaker 1: known contact was like three months earlier, so part of
Speaker 1: me could see why they wouldn't go out and search
Speaker 1: that part of us part of me is like, they're
Speaker 1: still gonna search, maybe to collect his remains, and.
Speaker 2: And fair enough, he had the supplies to the last
Speaker 2: that long. Yeah he was prepared. Yeah, Okay, he definitely
Speaker 2: was prepared. So I don't I get why they they
Speaker 2: searched at his inland tent site. His diary contains final
Speaker 2: surviving ench like it mentioned, and it was earlier focused
Speaker 2: on kind of the mundane camp life. The exact date
Speaker 2: of the entry is not publicly released. In the original
Speaker 2: scan or full transcription. A layer narrative places it late June,
Speaker 2: but neither the full text nor the pre June entries
Speaker 2: are fully available in the public sphere. From the evidence
Speaker 2: described after the search, Nathan appear apparently leaves his garment
Speaker 2: and reached in the tent when he goes looking for water.
Speaker 2: There's obviously no sign that he sent an SOS or
Speaker 2: distress message. It remains unknown which water source he was
Speaker 2: heading to, how far it was, what precise direction he traveled,
Speaker 2: what he wore, whether he carried his backpacker on his
Speaker 2: survival gear, and whether he expected a quick return or
Speaker 2: contemplated further travel beyond the water source. We don't know
Speaker 2: any of that, and they didn't find most of his gear.
Speaker 2: It's late Setember twenty twenty. The search concludes without finding Nathan.
Speaker 2: Aerial search flights continue for several days ground team's attempt
Speaker 2: to work the region around the lake and camp. The
Speaker 2: search is hampered by the time elapsed since the last contact,
Speaker 2: the difficult terrain, the dense brush, the water obstacles, and
Speaker 2: the approaching winter conditions with autumn advancing and snow accumulating,
Speaker 2: the probability of locating Nathan at this point drops tremendously.
Speaker 2: Searchers do not find his remains or conclusive evidence of
Speaker 2: what even happened to him after that last diary entry,
Speaker 2: and Chief Ranger Erica publicly states that Nathan most likely
Speaker 2: died somewhere in the remote wilderness surrounding the Carry Lake,
Speaker 2: and that his body is now buried under snow and
Speaker 2: dense alder thickets where detection by air and ground would
Speaker 2: be extremely, extremely difficult. October first, twenty twenty, the Alaska
Speaker 2: Department of Public Safety issues of formal missing person bolton
Speaker 2: for Nathan. October twenty seventh of twenty twenty, a detailed
Speaker 2: public narrative is published describing Nathan's pyramid interest in a
Speaker 2: lot of the details that we've gone through. In the comments,
Speaker 2: a person identifying as a friend of Nathan's wife and
Speaker 2: someone who helped with the search efforts criticized the story,
Speaker 2: asserting that sources were misquoted, statements taken out of context,
Speaker 2: and vital facts omitted, and emphasizing Nathan's role as a
Speaker 2: husband and father of four boys. She points readers to
Speaker 2: a Facebook fundraiser and auction to support the family, and
Speaker 2: I think we don't want to get lost on the
Speaker 2: joking around about the conspiracy theory, and you know, he
Speaker 2: was a father of four, had a wife his you know,
Speaker 2: this is only a six year old case, and I
Speaker 2: think it's kind of cool he went out on this expedition.
Speaker 1: I mean it's yeah, it's a conspiracy theory, but it's
Speaker 1: not like, I don't think it's like completely outlandish to
Speaker 1: say that maybe at some point in history there was
Speaker 1: a human made pyramid in a last well. In the
Speaker 1: reality is people like you and I go out to
Speaker 1: these places for no reason. Yeah, Like, kudos to him
Speaker 1: for having an adventure. Yeah, there's not many adventures was
Speaker 1: left on the planet. Yeah, like there's not there's not
Speaker 1: many places that haven't been visited or explored, So like,
Speaker 1: how have we found half the things? Ever, it's somebody
Speaker 1: who's this, somebody who's marked as crazy for doing something
Speaker 1: crazy and then like found something awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, that's awesome that he did it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's an unfortunate ending. So his friend is, you know,
Speaker 2: criticizing a lot of the media coverage at this time
Speaker 2: and pointing to the Facebook fundraiser, The journalist who did
Speaker 2: the article responds that attempts were made to reach the family,
Speaker 2: that he still wishes to speak with Nathan's wife and
Speaker 2: reiterates the open question why efforts weren't made to reach
Speaker 2: Nathan sooner after the messages stopped. So, I think what
Speaker 2: we're getting at here is in the article. I think
Speaker 2: the article painted a more negative light on why the
Speaker 2: family didn't raise alarm bells sooner when the messages stopped,
Speaker 2: and the family is basically saying the journalists didn't do
Speaker 2: his due diligence and didn't speak with them, And the
Speaker 2: journalist was saying, like, why weren't efforts made to reach
Speaker 2: Nathan sooner? Why he chose a camp so far from
Speaker 2: an obvious water source, and why he appears to have
Speaker 2: camped in an odd location relative to that water, you know,
Speaker 2: comment to his question why Nathan would have gone for
Speaker 2: water without his in reach and whether it's full pack
Speaker 2: remained at the tent. So it's all just further speculation,
Speaker 2: And I get it. The family is upset that he's
Speaker 2: lost and gone, and the journalist is, I think, asking
Speaker 2: reasonable questions. And we'll link the articles and everything in
Speaker 2: the show notes. So just I wanted to mention that
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, there was a foyer request recorded on
Speaker 2: MPs lug. SO National Park Service foil LUG for twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one records a request referencing Nathan Campbell the Nathan
Speaker 2: Campbell case. The log confirms someone sought access to NPS
Speaker 2: records on the case, but does not itself provide the
Speaker 2: incidant report, search maps, or garment lugs or investigative notes.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't us, Yeah, because I have filed several
Speaker 2: FOIA lugs.
Speaker 1: Could have been our pal politis. Oh, SE's talked about
Speaker 1: this case. Yeah, but it's not about Bigfoot, so I'm
Speaker 1: sure unless he thinks Bigfoot got him.
Speaker 2: Maybe Bigfoot built the pyramid. I think bigfoot, big feet,
Speaker 2: big feet? Yeah, multiple, that's Is that the plural of
Speaker 2: bigfoot big feet?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I watched I've seen the movie small
Speaker 2: Foot a million large foot sees the plural the kid's
Speaker 2: movie small Foot. Yeah. Have you seen it? Uh? Is
Speaker 2: it like eighties? No?
Speaker 1: It came out like a few years ago. Oh no,
Speaker 1: I have no gay Yeah, your kids My kids are
Speaker 1: older now.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm not lucky you. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not
Speaker 2: stuck watching that stuff. Yeah. So twenty twenty three to
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. From twenty twenty three on, the case
Speaker 2: circulates through what this one report called high strangeness, UFO
Speaker 2: and conspiracy communities, which focus heavily on the Black Pyramid angle.
Speaker 2: A Reddit post in December twenty twenty three describes Nathan
Speaker 2: as an experience outdoors who told his bushbout he was
Speaker 2: on the Pyramid quest. In December twenty twenty four, a
Speaker 2: Missing four oh one presentation revisits the case for a
Speaker 2: wider audience, again emphasizing a secret location frame, but introducing
Speaker 2: no new investigative documents. In twenty twenty five, YouTube channels
Speaker 2: produce videos with titles suggesting Nathan found the massive Black
Speaker 2: Pyramid and disappeared, or linking him to other speculative structures.
Speaker 2: These videos do not include official case file evidence beyond
Speaker 2: the public summaries that we've gone over here. Another twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five video presents a saddle imagery analysis of the
Speaker 2: proposed a faint linear corridor leading southeast from Carey Lake.
Speaker 2: The narrator argues that the quarter maybe the only logical
Speaker 2: human made route out and speculates that it could align
Speaker 2: with Nathan's last in reach ping and with one of
Speaker 2: the alleged Black Pyramid coordinate sets. So again, all of
Speaker 2: this stuff is speculative and kind of in the fringe. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not seeing any of it on the satellite, Yeah
Speaker 2: for sure. And as of today, middle of July twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six, the case remains open, with no confirmed recovery
Speaker 2: reported and the strongest available evidence still ends at the
Speaker 2: inland tent camp. It was a collapse shelter and in
Speaker 2: reach left behind a rodent damage diary and a file
Speaker 2: final entry stating he went to get water, followed by silence.
Speaker 2: So theories I've got a bunch of from here.
Speaker 1: I think they should have brought a Geiger counter to
Speaker 1: measure radioactivity around the camp in the area to make
Speaker 1: sure that he wasn't abducted.
Speaker 2: Maybe yeah, so all right, well that might be one
Speaker 2: of the theories I think. Hit. Are you gonna read
Speaker 2: theories or are you asking? No? I got a whole
Speaker 2: list of theories. I'll go through. Okay, go through those.
Speaker 2: So number one, wilderness mishapped near the water source. This
Speaker 2: is the most consistent with the official theories or framing.
Speaker 2: So the theory goes Nathan leaves his inland tent camp
Speaker 2: to get water and never returns. His diary and in
Speaker 2: Reach are left behind. The train around Carrie Lake is
Speaker 2: extremely rough. Like Joe and I have said, a fall
Speaker 2: into the creek pond, or depression or a sudden medical
Speaker 2: event hypothermia after immersion, or an encounter with wildlife could
Speaker 2: disable him quickly in a place where detection would be
Speaker 2: nearly impossible. And given the long delay before the search
Speaker 2: and the density of the cover, it's very plausible that
Speaker 2: his reigns are concealed there and they just haven't been found.
Speaker 2: And how often does this place get visitors basically never.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, there's no pictures of it. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: call find online.
Speaker 2: At least this theory fits with everything we know about
Speaker 2: the case. The camp is intact but collapse. The diary's
Speaker 2: last entry tells us what he was going to do.
Speaker 2: His in Reach was left, there's no evidence of packing
Speaker 2: up or any deliberate disappearance, and the chief rangers assessment
Speaker 2: was that he most likely died in a mishap and
Speaker 2: is buried somewhere in the region. Theory two disorientation or
Speaker 2: longer trek away from the camp. So it's a variant
Speaker 2: of the first theory. Nathan may have gone farther than
Speaker 2: a quick water run. Some satellite imagery analysis suggests like
Speaker 2: we're talking a faint old trail or trap line running
Speaker 2: southeast from Kerry Lake, roughly ending where online investigators say
Speaker 2: the last in reach ping was. If he followed such corridor,
Speaker 2: he could have spent hours moving through difficult ground, becoming
Speaker 2: more fatigued and lost, and then suffered an accident or
Speaker 2: exposure farther from camp. In this scenario, he doesn't necessarily
Speaker 2: die right at the water source. Instead, his route pulls
Speaker 2: him into even more remote terrain where he eventually succumbs
Speaker 2: and is kind of outside of the search grid. So
Speaker 2: this hypothesis theory is still plausible in a the geographic sense,
Speaker 2: but remains completely unconfirmed. The hidden trail and coordinate match
Speaker 2: are really independent analysis. They weren't validated by the MPs,
Speaker 2: and it still ends in a conventional outcome getting lost, injured, exposure,
Speaker 2: nothing off the deep end. Next one is wildlife encounter.
Speaker 2: So bear another predator, so in a lot of forms
Speaker 2: and social media posts often jumped to bear attack. So
Speaker 2: the Carry Lake region supports brown bears and other large
Speaker 2: predators surprise encounters at close range in alder and brush
Speaker 2: are credible risks. Some online retellians claim there were injuries
Speaker 2: consistent with a bear encounter, but those claims do not
Speaker 2: appear in the official bulletin or case file, and if
Speaker 2: he was taken or scavenged, the remains would be scattered,
Speaker 2: bones and clothing could be very difficult to find in
Speaker 2: that terrain, and so from a wilderness risk standpoint, a
Speaker 2: bear encounter is one possible reason under the broader wilderness
Speaker 2: mishap tent. But you don't have firm forensic evidence to
Speaker 2: prove this theory, and it should probably just be in
Speaker 2: the buck in wilderness mishap should have all of these
Speaker 2: kind of under it. It could be hypothermy exposure, bear attack.
Speaker 2: Another theory people float his voluntary disappearance. This one's not
Speaker 2: very plausible. A smaller set of people have thought he
Speaker 2: may have used this trip to disappear intentionally no insurance, scam,
Speaker 2: life reset, et cetera. But the evidence against this is
Speaker 2: is gearan diary were abandoned at camp, not carefully packed.
Speaker 2: The inReach was left behind. There's no evidence of a
Speaker 2: stage clue, farewell message, nothing, So not very plausible. Now
Speaker 2: we're getting off the deep end, so Black Pyramid paranormal.
Speaker 2: The most attention grabbing theories online revolve around, obviously the
Speaker 2: Black Pyramids, So this theory. Nathan clearly told his pilot
Speaker 2: he was obviously interested in this lost pyramid. A lot
Speaker 2: of air quotes, alternative media outlets, and YouTube channels frame
Speaker 2: his disappearance as connected to a hidden underground structure, secret
Speaker 2: military and station, or alien technology, or all of the above,
Speaker 2: or all the above. Some claim he found the pyramid
Speaker 2: and then vanished, or that his last known location aligns
Speaker 2: with one of the rumored coordinate sets key points. There's
Speaker 2: obviously no verified evidence for these claims, and the official
Speaker 2: case describes a missing solo traveler. The pyramid narrative explains
Speaker 2: why he chose that remote location and how you know
Speaker 2: in how internet mythology is really shaping his trip, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't explain what physically happened to him. Next one's
Speaker 2: foul play, human caused. I'm not even going to this one.
Speaker 2: This is now he's the only one there. He was
Speaker 2: the only one there. So another theory is based on
Speaker 2: the delayed search and system failures. This is more about
Speaker 2: process than cause, So that long gap between mid June
Speaker 2: and mid September materially reduces any chance of finding him,
Speaker 2: regardless of how he passed away. The messages stop mid June.
Speaker 2: The wife calls the pilot. The advice is to get
Speaker 2: a helicopter, but then there's no documented official engagement for
Speaker 2: roughly three months. By the time the search was started,
Speaker 2: tracks would have faded, vegetation changes, any sense he would
Speaker 2: have left or gone. Like you, maybe if he got
Speaker 2: out there right away, he could bring some scent dogs
Speaker 2: in and maybe track what happened to him. If he's
Speaker 2: the only human stopping around in the same area for
Speaker 2: an extended period of time, there's chance that his scent
Speaker 2: is around and and you know a dog might be
Speaker 2: able to track that. Yeah, you're not gonna be able
Speaker 2: to do that three months later, nobly, So, you know, observers,
Speaker 2: including another pilot, argue that those months may have been decisive,
Speaker 2: that even if the ultimate cause was just an accident,
Speaker 2: the response is what failed him. This theory, this is
Speaker 2: not really a theory of what happened to him, but why.
Speaker 2: We don't know what happened to him. So just kind
Speaker 2: of interesting that it took so long for them to
Speaker 2: get out there. So those are the theories. What do
Speaker 2: you think happened? My boring, I.
Speaker 1: Would say most hot take is that he went for
Speaker 1: water and got lost.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's so thick and remote.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he got turned around and like if you don't
Speaker 1: have any type of navigation, like he got comfortable yep,
Speaker 1: and just said I've got this area figured out, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go get water and yeah, just could not find
Speaker 1: his way back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then just yes to come to the elements.
Speaker 2: And his body is probably out there close to his tent,
Speaker 2: probably within a mile radius of his campsite, and it's
Speaker 2: just so thick and so remote they're just not going
Speaker 2: to find him. And after he sadly passes away, the
Speaker 2: remains will be scavenged and dispersed even more in an
Speaker 2: area that is really hard to find anything. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm online. I'm on board with that. I think that's
Speaker 2: the most plausible. I don't think. I don't think he
Speaker 2: found the pyramid. Can I give you my off the
Speaker 2: deep end please? I think now this is off to deepen.
Speaker 2: Obviously this isn't what happened to him, But if it
Speaker 2: did happen to him, I think he found a passage
Speaker 2: into the pyramid. He went inside and then it closed
Speaker 2: in on him and he couldn't get out, and that's
Speaker 2: why they didn't find him or his gear. And he's stuck.
Speaker 2: He's stuck in there in an underground where he's alive
Speaker 2: because the power of the pyramid could keep him alive forever.
Speaker 2: He is in his subterranean woom of the Alaska Pyramid.
Speaker 2: Because now bring this back to reality. The I believe
Speaker 2: maybe I'm wrong with this, but the pyramids in Egypt
Speaker 2: were known to be like booby trapped. So yeah, they
Speaker 2: had like different where you'd go into a room and
Speaker 2: if you like stepped on something, it could close you in.
Speaker 2: And I'm actually gonna google it, so I don't sound
Speaker 2: like an idiot. Why don't you talk about your off
Speaker 2: the deep end?
Speaker 1: Well, I'll talk about the What the Black Pyramid is
Speaker 1: because look so uh. The most commonly repeated versions claim
Speaker 1: that it is an approximately five hundred and fifty feet tall,
Speaker 1: with its top about one hundred and fifty feet underground,
Speaker 1: and is based roughly seven hundred feet underground. It is
Speaker 1: made from an unusually dark material and is larger than
Speaker 1: the Great Pyramid of Giza. It generates or transmits enough
Speaker 1: power to enough energy to power Alaska, and some tellings
Speaker 1: say all of Canada. The military operates a secret facility
Speaker 1: around it and has suppressed evidence of its existence. Its
Speaker 1: electromagnetic field may interfere with aircraft compasses and human behavior,
Speaker 1: supposedly connecting it to disappearances inside the so called Alaska Triangle.
Speaker 1: The proposed location is frustratingly elastic, south or west of Denali,
Speaker 1: northwest of d Nali National Park, somewhere between Denale and Gnome,
Speaker 1: or simply central Alaska. Nobody has produced authenticated coordinates, so
Speaker 1: where the story came from the public version of the
Speaker 1: legend appears to originate primarily with a July twenty twelve
Speaker 1: interview conducted by paranormal journalist Linda Moulton Howe. Her principal
Speaker 1: source was Douglas Allen. Mutchker I said that wrong, who
Speaker 1: was described as a retired US Army counterintelligence warrant officer
Speaker 1: formerly stationed at Fort Richardson, ther Anchorage. She said that
Speaker 1: in late nineteen ninety two, he watched an Anchorage television
Speaker 1: report stating that seismic waves from a Chinese nuclear test
Speaker 1: had revealed a huge underground pyramid in Alaska. He claimed
Speaker 1: that when he later contacted the station for recording, employees
Speaker 1: denied that.
Speaker 2: The report had ever aired.
Speaker 1: He also said that after being transferred to Fort Meade,
Speaker 1: he searched classified files containing Alaskan archaeological sites or underground installations.
Speaker 1: According to his account, security personnel stopped him and told
Speaker 1: him he did not have a need to know. No
Speaker 1: copies of the documents were produced, So apparently China did
Speaker 1: an underground nuclear test in nineteen ninety two. May twenty
Speaker 1: first yields of approximately one megaton. Seismic instruments throughout North
Speaker 1: America recorded the resulting waves. Those waves are used by
Speaker 1: scientists to study an unusual geological structure beneath northern Alaska,
Speaker 1: but it was located approximately twenty seven hundred kilometers beleave
Speaker 1: the surface, near the boundary between Earth's mantle and core
Speaker 1: is roughly three hundred kilometers across, and not pyramid shaped,
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with an archaeological structure near Dnali,
Speaker 1: so it seemed to have sparked from like they did
Speaker 1: pick up an anomaly because of the waves in the
Speaker 1: New Fild test, similar to how we found out the
Speaker 1: moon was hollow, so that's and then you have this
Speaker 1: retired general that was told he can't have access to
Speaker 1: the pyramid documents.
Speaker 2: Okay, So going back to Egyptian pyramids, I was wrong.
Speaker 2: They didn't have booby traps in the movie sense. So
Speaker 2: archaeologists have found no evidence of Egyptian pyramids containing active
Speaker 2: traps designed to crush, they have poison or permanently imprisoned intruders.
Speaker 1: Then can I guess would they fill reservoirs with mercury
Speaker 1: and stuff like that? No?
Speaker 2: Okay, they did use what they call passive security features,
Speaker 2: so they would have massive granite stones lowered to block passages,
Speaker 2: corridors filled or sealed with stone plugs, hidden entrances, false passages,
Speaker 2: and misleading chambers, and extremely heavy stone doors or slabs
Speaker 2: that could make retreat difficult after builders sealed the tomb.
Speaker 2: So nothing active like if you went in there. I
Speaker 2: feel like in.
Speaker 1: School I learned that they booby trapped the Pyramids. It's
Speaker 1: probably just wrong. I'm sure it was wrong. It's funny
Speaker 1: that Pluto was a planet they booby trapped the Pyramids.
Speaker 1: I also learned that the Pyramids were a tomb, and
Speaker 1: then I was told that they never actually found bodies
Speaker 1: in there.
Speaker 2: Ever, I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: See this is where like the moons could be hollow.
Speaker 1: All the information I've got in as child is all wrong.
Speaker 2: I'm still sticking with my off the deep end that
Speaker 2: he found an entrance to the underground pyramid and some
Speaker 2: way or another got lost inside and was not able
Speaker 2: to make it back out. That's what I'm going with
Speaker 2: off the deep end. What I really think happened was
Speaker 2: he got lost, and it's so vast and remote and
Speaker 2: dense and sparse, no one travels there. He was probably
Speaker 2: the first person in a long time that has seen
Speaker 2: that lake. And yeah, no pictures. You know, even in.
Speaker 1: Really populated traveled parks, it takes years sometimes to find
Speaker 1: the remains of someone who went hiking, like Joshua Tree. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like that park is used a lot, and it's not
Speaker 1: anywhere near this dense like you know, for and how
Speaker 1: long did it take to find Paul Miller?
Speaker 2: Several years?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and he was like, uh, not that
Speaker 1: far off the trail, not far off from where.
Speaker 2: So like it is completely when one percent plausible that
Speaker 2: he just got lost sadly and passed to come to
Speaker 2: the exposure and you know, and died and then probably
Speaker 2: his remains were scavenged and spread even more, which makes
Speaker 2: it even harder to find it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it makes it sound fine, but I'm with you
Speaker 1: on that one. I think that's totally yeah, what happened.
Speaker 1: And now we have to go like way back into
Speaker 1: all of our paranormal stuff. Apparently we are doing a
Speaker 1: deep dive on the pyramid on all the things.
Speaker 2: I don't think we've ever mentioned it, because we've done.
Speaker 2: I think we have on the Alaska Triangle.
Speaker 1: I feel like it was mentioned, maybe mentioned as like
Speaker 1: as like a passing fact they're going to do. It
Speaker 1: would have come up when we did the Alaska Triangle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did. That was an og episode long. It
Speaker 2: was like episode super fifteen, super Ogent. We're on one
Speaker 2: seventy six. Jeez, we're like, it's always sunny. We do
Speaker 2: like twelve episodes a year, yes, because we've been doing
Speaker 2: this since twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, well, thanks again for tuning into our show. We
Speaker 1: appreciate all of you for listening and sharing Locations Unknown
Speaker 1: with your friends and family. Be sure to like and
Speaker 1: follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, where you
Speaker 1: can find the videos of each episode. What is happening here?
Speaker 1: That's not the outro. There we go, that's the patron intro. Also,
Speaker 1: if you'd like to support the show monetarily, please visit
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Speaker 1: you can subscribe to our patron account, YouTube and Apple
Speaker 1: really have access to special events additional shows for paid
Speaker 1: customers only. Lastly, when you enjoying the beauty of nature,
Speaker 1: whether you're backpacking, camping, taking a walk, or searching for
Speaker 1: the dark Pyramid in Alaska, always remember to leave no trace.
Speaker 2: Thanks and we will see you all next time.