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 quite work out. 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, the kids apparently both wandered off. When their parents couldn't find them, they called us, and we came out to search the area. We found the girl 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 these people are ending up, or what's happening to them, but these are the two cases that keep me up at night.<br><br>* A few times, I've been out on my own, either before the rest of the crew got there or after they'd all gone home, and I've heard strange noises. Once, I was out searching for a little boy who had wandered off from his campsite, and I heard crying. It was loud at first, then it got quieter and quieter, until I couldn't hear it anymore. I followed the sound for almost a mile, and I never found a kid. I heard footsteps behind me at one point, and I turned to see a man covered in hair, with a deformed face and wearing a park ranger uniform. I knew that none of the other officers in the area were wearing those old uniforms, and my gut told me not to take my eyes off the guy, so I called for backup and started to slowly back away. I didn't want to frighten him, because I was sure that he had something to do with the kid, and I didn't want him to run off with the boy if he hadn't already hurt him. The guy didn't move towards me, though, and I kept yelling on the radio until he turned and walked away. When I went to look for him later, he was gone, and I never found the little boy.<br><br>* This isn't something I experienced, but one of my co-workers told me a really weird story. She was out looking for a woman who was hiking with her dog, and my friend found the dog. It was dead, and it looked like it had been used to practice surgery. My friend said the poor animal had been slit open on its stomach, and the skin had been peeled back on its chest. Some of its organs were missing, and it looked like they'd been removed with pretty precise instruments. My friend said that as she was surveying the scene, she heard a sound behind her, like footsteps, and she turned to see a man covered in hair watching her from the underbrush. When she tried to scream, he turned and ran away. She looked for him, but she never found him, and the missing woman was never found either.<br><br>* I was out on a call looking for a kid who had wandered off from camp, and I found an abandoned tent that had what looked like blood all over it. I called for someone to come look, and when we went inside, we found a bunch of photos. There were polaroid pictures of people, taken in the forest, but they were all dead. They had been skinned, or their organs were missing, or they'd been beheaded. I think the weirdest was one where a man had been split in half, vertically, and he was pinned up to a tree with an spear pointed through his head. I don't know who took those pictures, but I hope they weren't the ones taking the people.<br><br>* This is kind of a general thing. I've never seen it personally, but a lot of other officers have, and I trust them all. In the forest, there are places where the trees just...stop. There won't be any signs of a fire, or logging, or anything, it's just empty space. I've been told that these clearings don't show up on any maps, and if you take a GPS, it will tell you that you're somewhere else entirely. I don't know what these areas are for, but I've heard that some people have gotten lost in them for days.<br><br>I don't know what's going on out there, but I know that there's something weird. I'm going to keep looking, and trying to figure out what's happening to these people, and I'll probably end up posting more stories as I collect them. But until then, be careful out there, and stay where you can see the people around you.<br><br>**Edit:** Some people have asked about the training we receive. We're all trained as EMTs and most of us have some sort of training in wilderness survival, although that's not always guaranteed. We're mostly made up of volunteers, and we're all from the surrounding areas. We know the forests, we know what to look for, and we're all pretty good at dealing with the terrain. <br><br>**Update:** I've gotten a lot of suggestions that these are the work of a serial killer, and I don't think that's the case. I think there are too many areas where this has happened, too many conflicting stories, to say that it's one person. Plus, I've never heard of a serial killer doing the same things for decades, and not getting caught. I know that there are some who operate for a long time before they're caught, but this doesn't feel right. <br><br>I also want to say that I appreciate all the comments and suggestions. I'm taking them into consideration, and I'm going to talk to some of my co-workers about them. I'll probably have more stories pretty soon, because we're going to go out looking for some answers.