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, and when he'd gotten to the top, a man had been there. He said the guy had no climbing equipment, and he was wearing a parka and ski pants. He walked up to the guy, and when the guy turned around, he said he had no face, just a blank space where his eyes, nose, and mouth should have been. He said the faceless man had pushed him, and he'd fallen down the cliff. I don't know whether or not to believe the guy, he was obviously in a lot of pain and pretty delirious, but the story is one that I won't ever forget.<br><br>* There have been times when I've been out searching, and I've heard whispers. It's always soft, and I can never make out what the words are, but it always sounds like somebody is talking in my ear. I've tried to ignore it, but it's always a little unsettling. I mentioned it to my superior officer, and he just told me it was weirdness from being alone in the woods for so long. I'm not sure I agree, though.<br><br>I'm sure there are more, I'll add them as I think of them. I've just moved on to a slightly different area, so I don't get as many calls as I used to. I'm also an EMT, so a lot of my time is spent doing that. I'm happy to answer any questions you guys have, though!<br><br>**Update:** I'm somewhat blown away by the response this has gotten. I'm going to try and answer some of the more common questions I've seen in the comments. I'll make a few things clear and then I'll probably stop checking back here.<br><br>First and foremost, I'm not comfortable giving out the names of any of the people involved in these stories. I have to keep a level of professionalism, and for me that means keeping that information private. I also don't want to cause any more pain than I have to. If you go digging, you'll probably figure out who these people are, but I asks that you don't contact them about these issues. A lot of them are still grieving, and I don't want you all to upset them.<br><br>Secondly, I'm not going to give out specific locations. Some of you have already identified the areas based on the descriptions I provided, and that's fine. But I'm not going to tell you exactly where all this has gone down.<br><br>Third, I'm not comfortable talking about my superstitions or beliefs. I'm not a skeptic, but I'm also not a true believer. I think there might be things out there that we can't explain, but that doesn't mean I think they're ghosts or demons or anything like that. I just think there's a lot we don't know, and until we do, we should just be careful.<br><br>Finally, I'm not going to answer any more questions about 'the bear man.' I know it's the most interesting thing I've mentioned, but it's also something that I don't want to talk about. I use it as motivation to be a better SAR officer, but it's also something that really, really disturbs me. I don't want to talk about it, and if I'm not willing to talk about it with my family or my closest friends, I'm not going to talk about it on an internet message board. I hope you guys understand.<br><br>That's it, and I appreciate all the feedback. I'll probably check back and update this thread every once in a while, but I'm not going to answer any more questions.<br><br>**Update 2:** I'm going to write a list of the places I've worked, and the nearest city, and you can try and locate the areas on your own. I'm not going to give out anything more than this.<br><br>Mountain Point - Flagstaff, AZ<br>Sawyer Ridge - Prescott, AZ<br>Colson's Peak - Payson, AZ<br><br>I've worked in a lot of other places, but these are the three where I had the experiences I mentioned. I know it's not a lot to go on, but if you look at the areas surrounding the towns I've listed, you might be able to figure it out.<br><br>I'm also going to mention something I haven't before, because I don't want to start a panic. I've mentioned that I don't think there are ghosts or demons or anything like that out there, but I do think there might be things that we can't explain, things that we can't see, and they might not be human. I don't know what they are, bylaws I don't want to talk about it anymore. Just be careful, that's all.