I'm a Search and Rescue Officer for the US Forest Service, I have some stories to tell

I wasn't sure where else to post these stories, so I figured I'd share them here. I've been an SAR officer for a few years now, and along the way I've seen some things that I think you guys will be interested in. <br><br>* I have a pretty good track record for finding missing people. Most of the time they just wander off the path, or slip down a small cliff, and they can't find their way back. The majority of them have heard the old 'stay where you are' thing, and they don't wander far. But I've had two cases where that didn't happen. Both bother me a lot, and I use them as motivation to search even harder on the missing persons cases I get called on. <br>The first was a little boy who was out berry-picking with his parents. He and his sister were together, and both of them went missing around the same time. Their parents lost sight of them for a few seconds, and in that time both the kids apparently wandered off. When their parents couldn't find them, they called us, and we came out to search the area. We found the daughter pretty quickly, and when we asked where her brother was, she told us that he'd been taken away by 'the bear man.' She said he gave her berries and told her to stay quiet, that he wanted to play with her brother for a while. The last she saw of her brother, he was riding on the shoulders of 'the bear man' and seemed calm. Of course, our first thought was abduction, but we never found a trace of another human being in that area. The little girl was also insistent that he wasn't a normal man, but that he was tall and covered in hair, 'like a bear', and that he had a 'weird face.' We searched that area for *weeks*, it was one of the longest calls I've ever been on, but we never found a single trace of that kid. <br>The other was a young woman who was out hiking with her mom and grandpa. According to the mother, her daughter had climbed up a tree to get a better view of the forest, and she'd never come back down. They waited at the base of the tree for hours, calling her name, before they called for help. Again, we searched everywhere, and we never found a trace of her. I have no idea where she could possibly have gone, because neither her mother or grandpa saw her come down.<br><br>* A few times, I've been out on my own searching with a canine, or just walking an area on my own, and I've smelled things that haven't made sense. Honestly, most of the time, when somebody dies out there, you can smell the body. Especially if it's already been a few days. But a few times, I've caught a whiff of something dead, but never found a body, or any other trace of deceased animal. It's possible that a lot of the time it's just an animal that's been hit by a car and wandered into the woods to die, but these smells have always been so out of place that it's bothered me.<br><br>* One particularly sad story that sticks in my mind was a little boy who'd been out with his father. The father had climbed up a tree to get a better view of the area and scan for his son, and when he came back down, he told us that he'd seen a man in a bear suit carrying his son away. The FBI got involved with that one, of course, and we searched that area for weeks, but just like with the other disappearances, we never found a trace of the child or the man that the father saw. <br><br>* I was out on a search with a canine once, and the dog kept barking at a tree. I thought maybe someone had levant.ed themselves and was too afraid to call for help, so I used my baton to search the branches, but they weren't there. After a few minutes of this, the dog started barking even more urgently and the hair on his back stood up. I've never seen him act that way before, and I can't explain why he was so worked up by that particular tree. We searched the area for hours, but we never found anyone.<br><br>* One of my coworkers was on a search once, and he found a woman who was out of breath, bruised, and scratched. She wouldn't talk to anyone but him, and when they were away from the rest of the team, she told him she'd been attacked by 'the bear man' and that she'd had to fight her way free. She described the same thing the little girl had mentioned: a man covered in hair, with a weird face, who was tall and smelled bad. She said that he'd been carrying her, but she'd managed to hit him in the head with a rock and get away from him. In cases like this, we usually have the rescued person stay at the hospital for the night, and the next morning, this woman was gone. Her car was still in the park, and we never found even a trace of her. I don't know if she just got scared and went home, or if something happened to her, but it's something that I think about occasionally. <br><br>I wish I had answers to some of these, but I don't. Most of the time, this job is rewarding, and I get to find the people who are lost. Sometimes, though, things happen that just bother me to hell, and those are the cases I think about when I'm alone at night. <br><br>Edit: <br>I'm back from my calls, and wow! I didn't expect this many responses so quickly. I'm going to try and respond as best I can. A couple of things have been brought up that I'd like to clarify really quick: <br><br>* I didn't take the clothes from the little boy. I was just mentioning those because it was such an odd thing to have left behind. I didn't take them because it wasn't my case, and I don't have any information about what became of them. <br>* I'm not reigning any judgment on the parents who lost their kids. I can't imagine how awful it must be, and I couldn't blame them for it. I've met the mother from the first story I mentioned, and she just seemed so broken up by the whole thing. Like I said in that story, she was the one who told me about 'the bear man', and I can remember her describing the whole thing in detail to me, and just crying. I'm not blaming her or anyone else for these incidents, I'm just reporting what I've seen. <br><br>Now, I'm going to go through and respond to your comments, because you guys have asked a lot of questions that I'd like to address. <br>Thank you all so much so far for your interest and support. <br><br>Edit 2: I'm going to be honest here, guys. I'm a little overwhelmed. I'm trying my best to go through all of your comments, but there just aren't enough hours in the day for me to respond to all of them. I'm going to keep trying, but I'm one person and a lot of you are asking questions that others have asked as well. Please be patient with me, and try to be respectful of each other as we talk about this. <br><br>Also, I'm going to repeat something I said above, because it's very important to me: I am not blaming the parents of missing children for their child's disappearance. I'm not making any judgments at all, and I'm not trying to make anyone look bad. I've met parents who have lost their children, and I've seen how agonizing it is for them. I'm not trying to attack anyone, and I'm not trying to make anyone feel guilty or bad. These stories are just things that have stuck in my memory, and I posted them here because I can't explain them and I thought you guys might be interested. <br><br>I also get that a lot of you are determined to solve these cases, and I appreciate that. Believe me when I say that I have spent many, many hours trying to figure out what happened in these cases. I've gone back over the forensics, talked to the families, looked at the areas where these incidents took place, and I have come up with nothing. I appreciate all of the help I can get, and I'm glad that so many of you are interested, but I don't think any of these cases are going to be solved any time soon. <br><br>Okay, I think that's it for now! Thank you again for all of your interest, and thank you all so much for your kind words and support.