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 searching on my own and have found evidence that someone else is out there with me. Most of the time this is just another SAR officer, or someone who's out searching on their own, but sometimes it seems like it might be something else entirely. I've found footprints that stop abruptally, or strange signs of disturbance in the underbrush. I've been staunchly skeptical of all this for the most part, but the more this happens the more I'm starting to think that there might be something out there. <br><br>* I was out on a search last year, and I saw a man in a bear suit watching me from the trees. I saw him twice, and the second time I went after him to see if he needed any help. I never caught up to him, and I lost track of him pretty quickly, but it was definitely a weird experience. <br><br>* I had a very experienced SAR officer come to me in tears because, as part of a training exercise, he'd suitability a dead body. In my opinion, the training exercise was a little unethical. We had ten SAR officers, and we were told that half our training was with a real missing person who had never been found, and the other half was with someone who was just hiding and trying not to be found. The officer who found the body had started to actually look for it, instead of just going through the motions, and he'd found a dead man with no signs of trauma, who had apparently just lain down and died. We worked with the police to identify the body, and it turns out it was a man who had gone missing in the 50s. I have no idea what happened to him, and I probably never will. The other two 'missing' people were found pretty quickly, and the other eight SAS officers were reassigned.<br><br>* In areas where someone has died, I've sometimes heard strange noises. I've heard a little girl talking in a disembodied voice, once I heard what sounded like a man screaming in agony (and we hadn't gotten a call about anyone being lost in that area for almost a month), and I've heard what sounded like a woman sobbing and saying 'I'm so sorry.' I'm sure these are just tricks of the mind, but it's still creepy. <br><br>* A few times, I've talked to people who were lost for several days, and they've told me about being visited by 'the bear man.' I don't know if it's the same person every time, or if there are a bunch of 'bear men' out there, but it seems like there has to be some kind of truth behind the stories. <br><br>* I was teamed up with another SAR officer because we'd gotten reports that the person we were looking for might have a weapon. The man had a history of violence, and it was possible that he'd been having some kind of psychotic break when he wandered off. We were searching a pretty small area, and we'd been out there for a few hours with no sign of him, when we heard a strange rustling in a bush. We drew our guns and went into flanking positions, and when we were in place and had good cover, we called out for the man to come out with his hands up. Instead of a man, a bear came charging out at full speed, straight at me. I'm 100% sure that if I hadn't been in a flanking position, I would have been killed. As it was, the bear charged at me and I was able to shoot it under the shoulder, right in the heart. I emptied my gun into the bear, and it didn't even seem to phased. It died almost instantly from its wounds, but it didn't react to being shot at all. My partner said that he'd never seen anything like it, and I had to agree. Once the bear was dead, we went back to searching, and we never found any trace of the guy we were looking for. He was never found, and he's still on the missing persons list.<br><br>Ok guys, I think that's all I've got for now. I might update in the future if I think of anything else, and I'll probably answer some questions. I've seen a lot of you asking why I'm an SAR officer if I don't like being out in nature, so I'll answer that here since I've seen it a lot. I do like being out in nature, I just don't like hiking. I was a cop for ten years, and I was on the police force's SWAT team. When I left the police force, I chose to become an SAR officer because I could be out in nature and still help people. I do a lot of work with survivors of violent crime, and the extra pay I get from being an SAR officer lets me take some time off to help them. I'm also a pretty experienced rock climber, and I'm a paramedic, so being an SAR officer lets me keep those skills sharp in case I need them. I don't do a lot of hiking, I do more climbing and crawling, and I love the feeling of being out in the wilderness and doing something that helps people. I get to spend time in the forests, and I don't have to deal with the bitchy hikers.<br><br>Alright, I think that's everything, thanks for reading!