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 more thoroughly, and to make sure that I don't give up on anybody. <br>The first was a little boy who was out berry-picking with his parents. He and his sister were playing in the brush, and he suddenly disappeared. The parents came to the visitor's center and filed a report, and we went out looking for him. We found his sister pretty quickly, and she told us that he had been taken away by a man. She didn't see where he had gone, but assumed that he had gone back to their parents. We of course started looking extra hard after that, and our supervisor made it very clear that we were in a missing child case, and that we needed to be thorough and urgent. We didn't find him that day, or the next. It wasn't until a week later, when I was out on my own hiking, that I found him. Or at least I found what was left of him. He was deep in the woods, and I can't see how he got there. It was like someone had teleported him there. There was no sign of disturbance, and the plants around his body were untouched. He was buried a few inches in the ground, and there was no sign that whatever had taken him had bothered to cover him up. The only thing that I can think of was that he had wandered off and either been attacked by an animal, or died of dehydration. But that doesn't explain where his body was, or why it was buried. <br>The other was an older gent who was out climbing. He'd climbed all 58 of the fourteeners in Colorado, and was working on the rest of the high points in the US. He had a climber's instinct, according to his wife, and she was certain that he wouldn't have taken any risks beyond his abilities. He was supposed to be back in the afternoon, and his wife filed a report when he hadn't returned by sundown. We went out looking for him, and couldn't find him. We searched for the next few days, but it wasn't until a couple months later that we found his body. He had fallen, and his body had bounced down the mountain. He landed on a ledge, but it was inaccessible from where he had started. The only way to get to it would be to climb the sheer face of the cliff, and then go through a small cave. We only found his body because someone else got stuck in that cave, and we had to come get her. She told us that there was a bag of climbing gear in the cave, and when we went to get it, we found his body. There was no one else around, and the gear was old. The equipment had been there for some time, and there was no way that he could have survived that long. <br><br>* I was out on my own one day, and I saw a little girl in a white sundress. I thought she was with me, until I realized that I didn't have a daughter. I stopped and talked to her, and she said she lived in the woods, and she was out picking flowers for her sisters. I asked her where her parents were, and she said they were home, but she had to be careful because there were bears in the woods. I offered to walk her home, and she said she couldn't take the time. I told her I had the time, and she needed to take me to her parents so I could talk to them. I didn't want to leave a kid alone in the woods. She tried to convince me that it was OK, but I insisted. She finally agreed, and started walking. She looked back at me and said 'You're a nice man, I wouldn't try anything on you', and I assumed she was talking about animal attacks. She started walking again, and suddenly disappeared. I went back to the visitor's center and talked to one of my coworkers. He told me that there's an old abandoned mine not far from where I saw her, and he thought she might be the ghost of a girl who had died in the mine. <br><br>* One of my coworkers was out searching for a missing person, and found a man and woman in a clearing. The woman was eating something, and the man was just sitting next to her. The coworker went up to them and talked to them, and demanded to know what they were doing out there. The man was very calm, and told him that they were just out having a picnic. The coworker asked the woman what she was eating, and she pulled out a handful of hair. He asked her what it was, and she said 'I don't know, but it's delicious'! The coworker ran back to his car and called for an ambulance, and then went back to check on them. They were gone, and there was no sign that they had been there in the first place. <br><br>* There are a lot of weird animal sightings in the woods that I patrol. The most common are the bears. I've been talking to a bear shaped man for over a minute before, and then I've realized that he's actually a bear. I've never been attacked, but I've come close. I was out patrolling a remote area when I heard a rustling. I turned around to see a group of cats. Not just any cats, these were bigger than a housecat. I don't know how big a lynx is, but these were as big as a lynx at the least. They were all around me, and I was trying to slowly back away. One of them approached me, and I thought for sure that I was going to die. It rubbed up against my leg, and wandered off. The others slowly backed away, and I got out of there as quickly as I could. <br><br>* I was out on a SAR, and I came across a man who was wearing a park ranger uniform. I assumed he was another SAR officer, until I realized that I had no idea who he was. I knew everyone in my Park, and this wasn't one of them. I talked to him for a bit, and he told me that he was the Park Ranger, and that I should be careful because there were bears in the area. I told him I knew that, because I'm also an SAR officer. He insisted that he was the only one, and that I was lying. I asked to see his badge, and he told me I wasn't allowed to see it. He reached into his pocket, and I saw a glint of metal. I realized he was going to stab me, and I slowly started to back away. I continued to talk to him, and he eventually stopped trying to attack me. I walked away, and when I turned back to look at him, he was gone. He was only about 20 feet away from me, and I couldn't have missed him if he had walked away, so I have no idea where he went.