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, and they've tried to lead me straight up cliffs. Not hills, not even rock faces. Straight, sheer cliffs with no possible handholds. It's always baffling, and in those cases we usually find the person on the other side of the cliff, or miles away from where the canine has led us. I'm sure there's an explanation, but it's sort of strange.<br><br>* One particularly sad case involved the recovery of a body. A nine-year-old girl fell down an embankment and got impaled on a dead tree at the base. It was a complete freak accident, but I'll never forget the sound her mother made when we told her what had happened. She saw the body bag being loaded into the ambulance, and she let out the most haunting, heart-broken wail I've ever heard. It was like her whole life was crashing down around her, and a part of her had died with her daughter. I heard from another SAR officer that she killed herself a few weeks after it happened. She couldn't live with the loss of her daughter.<br><br>* I was teamed up with another SAR officer because we'd received reports of bears in the area. We were looking for a guy who hadn't come home from a climbing trip when he was supposed to, and we ended up having to do some serious climbing to get to where we figured he'd be. We found him trapped in a small crevasse with a broken leg. It was not pleasant. He'd been there for almost two days, and his leg was very obviously infected. We were able to get him into a chopper, and I heard from one of the EMTs that the guy was absolutely inconsolable. He kept talking about how he'd been doing fine, climbing, finding hand and footholds, and he'd been thinking about his late wife. He said he'd heard her voice, and when he looked up, he saw her 'standing' on the wall above him. He said he reached out to touch her hand, and that's when he slipped and fell into the crevasse. I don't know whether the guy was a mess because of the pain and the infection, or if he really saw his wife's ghost, but it gives me chills every time I think about it.<br><br>* I get a lot of reports of 'ghost planes' from hikers. Planes passing overhead, but the hikers can never see them. It's a strange thing, and I have no idea what could cause it.<br><br>* There was a case I worked which stuck with me for a long time. We were searching for a guy who'd gone hiking with his dog, but hadn't come home. His car was parked at the trailhead, and his wife was worried because he hadn't taken his phone. We searched his usual areas, and finally found him about two miles off the path. He'd had a heart attack, and had died where he lay. We figured that his dog had been with him the whole time, barking and trying to get attention, but there was no sign of the dog. We figured it had wandered off after its owner died, and was just scared and confused. We searched for it, but never found it, and I hoped it had survived. I kept thinking about that dog for a long time, wondering if it had been okay. I'm glad I don't work that area any more, because every time I was out there, I couldn't help but think about that dog, and wonder if it was okay.<br><br>* One of my fellow SAR officers told me about a body they'd found, which had affected her really badly. She was new, and the incident had shaken her up in a big way. Apparently, the guy was a climber who'd gone out alone. He'd climbed up a sheer cliff face, and had fallen. When they found his body, it was twisted in ways that bodies aren't supposed to be twisted. My friend said his spine had broken in three places, and his head had been turned almost one-eighty. She kept apologizing for crying, and I told her it was fine, I'd seen my share of horrific deaths on the job. She told me that the thing that had bothered her the most was that the guy's family had been from out of state, and they'd had to tell them over the phone that their son was dead. She said she'd never heard a man cry like that before, and she hoped she never had to again.<br><br>* I found a video missing person's camera, and there was footage on it. I'm not going to post it here because it's pretty graphic, but I'll tell you what happens. The camera points toward the horizon, and after a few seconds, the camera jumps slightly, as if the owner had moved. The guy groans, and the camera shows the ground for a minute. The owner groans again, louder, and the camera moves slightly, showing the forest floor. We couldn't enhance it enough to see any details, but it looks like there's blood on the ground. After that, the camera goes black. We never found the owner, and we never figured out what happened. <br><br>* One of my friends went out on a search with another SAR officer, and they never came back. We found their vehicle parked at the trailhead a few days later, but their equipment and the body of the missing person were gone. We've never found any trace of them, and no one knows what happened. <br><br>That's pretty much it. I might have some more, but I can't think of anything off the top of my head. I'll send any more stories your way if you guys want.