All language subtitles for The UnXplained Special Presentation s01e08 Mysterious Disappearances.eng

WILLIAM SHATNER:
A mysterious hijacker

who vanished into thin air.

A transnational flight

that never reached
its destination.

And a world-famous explorer

who trekked into the depths
of the Amazon

and was never seen again.

When a person seems
to vanish without a trace,

it's usually only
a matter of time

before we learn what
actually happened to them.

But there are
certain disappearances

that defy conventional wisdom,

and leave us
with no clear answers.

These mysteries make us wonder,

"What could have
possibly gone wrong?"

Well, that is what
we'll try and find out.

♪ ♪

On the night
before Thanksgiving,

Northwest Orient Airlines
Flight 305

is about to depart
on a short flight to Seattle

when a middle-aged man
dressed in a black suit

and carrying
a black attaché case

boards the plane.

But this man
is not flying to celebrate

the holiday
with friends or family.

He has other plans.

GEOFFREY GRAY:
As the plane took off, he passed the stewardess a note.

The note said, "I have a bomb.

I would like you
to sit near me."

And at that point,
she could tell he was serious.

SCOTT SELBY:
The stewardess asked him if she could see the bomb.

He discreetly opens up
a briefcase

and shows what appears
to her to be a bomb.

SHATNER:
The hijacker demands $200,000 and four parachutes

to be delivered to him
when the plane lands in Seattle

or he will blow up the airliner,

killing everyone on board.

GRAY:
After the plane lands in Seattle,

in comes the money
and the parachutes.

And all the passengers
are escorted off the plane,

and the hijacker
ordered the pilots to take off

towards, of all places,
Mexico City.

SHATNER:
The Boeing 727 is refueled

and a four-person crew takes
the hijacker back into the air,

headed for the border.

But during the flight,

the hijacker puts on
two parachutes,

ties the money to his chest

and opens the aft stairs.

No one knows
exactly when or where,

but at some point,

he leaps from the plane

and is never seen again.

He was gone,

and vanished into the night air.

LARRY LEVINE:
There was a manhunt that was launched

over a two-state area

where they had the FBI,
other federal agencies,

the Army, state police,

and they were combing
that entire area,

and they didn't find anything.

SHATNER:
According to the plane's manifest,

the hijacker's listed name
was "Dan Cooper,"

but thanks
to a news miscommunication,

he is more commonly
referred to as "D.B. Cooper."

However, authorities
soon learned

that this name
was merely an alias

and the real identity
of the man was unknown.

D.B. Cooper's escape
was so ingenious,

that it was nearly ten years

before the FBI got
a major break in the case.

GRAY:
One day in 1980,

having a picnic
on the side of this river,

a young boy found some money.

But this just wasn't any money.

This was the D.B. Cooper money.

It turned up in this sandbar.

The money was found in
a completely different place

than the path of the plane.

So what that means
is that the money

didn't just flutter
to the ground

and land into the sand bar.

It means it had to get there
by some kind of means.

SHATNER:
But why would D.B. Cooper risk his life

to steal $200,000,

only to bury at least
some of it in the sand?

It seems to defy all logic.

Unless D.B. Cooper
had another reason

for doing the hijacking
besides money.

DIANE BIRNHOLZ: Having money
be the object of this case

doesn't make sense
because he had

to have known that this money

would either be marked

or it would be
somehow traceable.

So again, you have to wonder,

what was the real agenda here?

LEVINE:
You've got a man that jumped out

of a moving jet aircraft

that was never found,

and he was like
a perfect professional.

And I suspect

that he was probably
former military,

possibly part of the CIA

who had a mission
that needed to be carried out.

SHATNER:
It may sound like a far-fetched conspiracy theory,

but according
to some researchers,

there is evidence to suggest

that D.B. Cooper
had military training.

For instance, Cooper
knew that the Boeing 727-100

aircraft's aft staircase

was a good platform
for a parachute jump.

And in fact,

the CIA had used
this same tactic

with the same model airplane

to airdrop supplies and spies

during the Vietnam War.

Air America, which was
the CIA's airline in Vietnam,

they used this same aircraft,

and D.B. had to have
had knowledge

that the 727-100
had the stairwell

that could be lowered, and
it could be lowered in flight.

This wasn't common knowledge.

And, this is something
that somebody

had to have already
had experience doing

in order to pull it off.

SHATNER:
If D.B. Cooper was trained by the CIA,

was the hijacking
something he did on his own

or could it have been a mission

that he was ordered
to carry out?

And if so, for what purpose?

BIRNHOLZ:
Back in 1971, there was not much security

in terms of airline travel.

And there were
a lot of hijackings

happening in the early '70s.

SELBY:
At the time, you could have, say,

as many guns as you wanted
in your duffle bag

that you carried on,
on your person.

And this meant of course,

that people were hijacking
planes left and right.

It was also
oftentimes political.

So the terrorism of the 1970s

in which people
would hijack a plane

and then make demands

for various political
prisoners to be freed.

And then you take them
in the plane to Cuba

and Cuba would let you
live there for free

as long as you wanted.

This was like
a political act, hijackings.

People would say,
"Take me to Cuba."

So much so, that the FAA
and agency officials

almost reconstructed a replica

of the Havana Airport
in Southern Florida.

The idea was
if you got hijacked t-to Havana,

you would just fly around
and then land at the fake site.

Some people theorize
that the D.B. Cooper hijacking

was really some sort
of false-flag event

to create
a hijacking spectacular enough

that it will grab
everyone's attention

and lead to some
regulation changes

so that these hijackings
can stop.

And that actually is what
happened after D.B. Cooper

because the FAA came out

with all kinds
of new regulations.

LEVINE:
I wouldn't put it past the CIA

to have an agent like Dan Cooper

do whatever it took
to raise public perception

and public awareness
on airline security.

I mean, when you
really look at it,

who was hurt? Nobody.

I mean, he had all the makings
of an undercover operative.

GRAY:
The D.B. Cooper case, what makes it noteworthy,

is that it's actually the only

unsolved skyjacking
in the world.

And what makes it
so hard to solve

is that it's mysteries
and mysteries.

And once you get inside
those mysteries, there's others.

It's not just a story
about a hijacker.

SHATNER:
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370

prepares to depart from Kuala
Lumpur International Airport,

en route to Beijing.

On board are 227 passengers

and a flight crew of 12.

NANCE:
Malaysia 370 was a commercial flight.

Malaysia Airlines,
it was a routine procedure,

a routine flight as we say.

The flight path was more
or less a straight line.

Aimed from Kuala Lumpur
out over the water

in the South China Sea
to the main landfall of China.

As far as everybody
was concerned,

it took off normally,

was flying its route
north towards China.

TUTTLE:
Then all of a sudden

it turned off its communications
and basically went dark.

SHATNER:
At about 1:20 a.m.,

as the plane was flying
over the South China Sea,

ground control
lost all contact with the plane.

One second,
the 240-ton Boeing aircraft

was emitting a clear
transponder signal

to air traffic control.

And then, mere moments later,

there was nothing.

The fact
that the signal disappeared,

that was the unusual element.

The fact that that transponder,

which was chirping back
every time it was hit

by the radar beam from air
traffic control, went silent.

KAKU:
Flight controllers frantically tried

to communicate
with the airplane.

Nothing.

What happened?

How can you lose a jetliner?

How can it vanish in thin air?

SHATNER:
Although the aircraft was lost on civilian radar screens,

unbeknownst to ground control,

military radar was able to track
the plane for another hour.

And what it detected
was baffling.

At that point,
when the radios were turned off,

the flightpath did a 90-degree
turn to the left,

basically on
a southwestern heading

and disappeared into the
vastness of the Indian Ocean.

We don't know the motivation
for doing this.

We just, we don't know.

SHATNER:
Around 2:20 a.m., radar contact with the plane

was lost for good.

By 7:20 a.m., one hour after
it was scheduled to land,

authorities in Beijing
realized that Flight MH370

was not going to reach
its destination.

A search and rescue operation
was immediately launched

and it quickly became the most
expensive and difficult

in aviation history.

The initial search
was basically, uh,

aircraft searching
for the immediate wreck,

looking for any survivors

or telltale wreckage
on the sea surface.

Unfortunately,
after a while, things sink.

Survivors aren't there

and you go from a search
and rescue mission

to a search
and recovery mission.

SHATNER:
When the wreckage did not turn up,

officials were
eventually forced to admit

that all 239 people
on board the flight

had perished.

We were clueless as
to what could have caused

this tragedy
right under our noses.

In an era when
we have the Internet,

satellite, radar communication,

it just disappears
off the radar screen.

SHATNER:
The wreckage of the plane,

despite the efforts of the
world's top aviation experts

had seemingly vanished
without a trace.

But then after
months of searching,

investigators finally uncovered
an important clue.

Boeing had included

a maintenance reporting thing
that goes by satellite.

It was called an ACAR system.

And Boeing had installed
the system

to report maintenance
information

about the engines
in the airplane every hour.

In this particular case,
it was still pinging away.

It was saying essentially
to the satellite,

"Hey, I'm here.
You want any information?"

SHATNER:
The information revealed by the ACAR system was shocking.

It showed that the plane
did not crash

anywhere near
where it was last detected.

It actually changed course

and kept on flying.

GREG LIEFER: It was flown
for another six hours

after it made
the initial diversion

from its intended flight plan

and it was flown, uh,
to a very remote area.

SHATNER:
Based off this data, aviation experts believe

that the plane
most likely crashed

somewhere in the southern
portion of the Indian Ocean

after running out of fuel.

It seems that the aircraft
flew in the wrong direction

for thousands of miles,

to a distant part of the ocean

where there was no possible
place to land.

But how could
that have happened?

Initially, the theory that was
proposed by a lot of the media

was that the pilot in command
committed suicide.

But in fact, the accident
report clearly stated

that the pilot had no history of
emotional or physical problems

that would preclude suicide

and family, friends
and coworkers said

he had no abnormal behavior
before the flight.

KAKU:
Other people say,

"No, it was some kind
of mechanical failure."

If it were to catch on fire,

the plane could rapidly
depressurize,

meaning that people
would suffocate very rapidly.

And I think
that what happened then

was you had a ghost airplane.

Where everyone was
either dead or dying.

It was randomly
going back and forth

until it finally ran out of fuel

and crashed
into the Indian Ocean.

You had theories
of oxygen malfunction

that incapacitated the pilots

but I don't think
that makes sense

because the aircraft,
it certainly appeared to me,

like it was being flown manually

for up to at least 30 minutes,
if not up to an hour

after it made
that hard left turn.

The thing that makes
the most sense to me

was some type of hijacking.

The abrupt maneuvers
that it was making,

the changes in altitude
and air speed and heading,

all that indicates to me
that it was a deliberate, uh,

manipulation by other people

that took control
of the aircraft.

But then that poses
the question,

"Well, why did they
hijack the aircraft?

What was the motive and why fly
to the southern Indian Ocean?"

SHATNER:
While the theory

that the plane was hijacked
may sound logical,

authorities thoroughly
checked the background

of all the passengers and crew
and none of them

fit the profile of a hijacker.

The truth is that while
several of the explanations

that have been put forth
seem to have merit,

we simply don't
have enough information

to verify any of them.

We have no way of knowing

because the cockpit
voice recorder

is at the bottom
of the Indian Ocean someplace.

But the other,

and the most important thing
to keep in mind is,

we found a piece
of that airplane.

A piece of the wing
was found and verified.

It was washed up on, I believe
the shores of Madagascar.

Or close to it.

And it was definitively
from this particular airplane.

So, we knew then categorically
that that airplane

had gone into the Indian Ocean.

And in this case, this
particular piece of the plane

had taken about
a year and a half

to float all the way
across the Indian Ocean.

LIEFER:
It was one of 27 pieces that were eventually recovered

and it was one of three pieces
out of the 27

that was positively identified
as coming from the aircraft.

The aircraft wasn't found,
occupants weren't found,

but yet, 17 months later,

they find these
pieces of debris,

thousands of miles away.

And that's what
makes this mystery, I think,

probably the biggest mystery
of all the aviation mysteries.

SHATNER:
Three Englishmen, accompanied by two Brazilian locals,

make their way through
the dense foliage.

The men are searching
for an ancient lost city

that has been rumored
to be hidden

deep within the rainforest.

The leader of their quest
is an ambitious explorer,

who feels that he is on the cusp
of a remarkable discovery.

Colonel Percy Fawcett.

TOK THOMPSON:
Colonel Percy Fawcett

is a very interesting
historical character.

He was a geographer,
an explorer,

a member of
the World Geographic Society

and also a military man
for most of his career.

So, a very capable individual.

And he was responsible
for exploring and mapping

a lot of the unknown regions
of South America.

So, um, Colonel Fawcett
makes an interesting

and rather dashing figure.

SHATNER:
After decades spent trekking through South America,

Fawcett became convinced
that a massive civilization

had once existed somewhere
in the Amazon jungle.

DEYERMENJIAN:
Fawcett came upon this particular manuscript

that was supposed to have been
written by bandeirante,

a Portuguese fortune seeker

back in the 1700s.

And it looks to be describing

a particular city there
in the Brazilian Amazon.

LYNNE McNEIL:
That manuscript describes

not just a lost city of ruins,

but a lost city
of epic proportions.

A lost city of riches,
a city of gold,

and architectural marvels,
technologically developed,

things that you would
absolutely not expect to find

in the middle
of the South American jungle.

SHATNER:
In time, Fawcett's fascination

with a lost city in the Amazon

turned to obsession.

He even came up with a name for
the place he was searching for.

He called it
"The Lost City of Z."

Armed with clues from
the Portuguese manuscript,

he plunged into
the wilderness once more,

determined to solve the mystery.

His companions were his son Jack

and his son's friend
Raleigh Rimmel.

The geographical challenges
along the routes

that Fawcett
and his party would face

included things like rivers

that were extremely swift

that one could easily

have their feet
knocked from under them.

And there would have been
piranha as well

in these areas of Brazil.

And the swamps, the marshes,

were particularly
virulent as far as disease,

insects,
and geographical difficulties.

SHATNER:
As Fawcett moved deeper into the heart of the Amazon,

he wrote about his progress

and gave his notes
to native guides,

who carried them
back to civilization.

The newspapers eagerly
published the details

of his latest exploits,

portraying the explorer
as an international hero

on the verge of making history.

DEYERMENJIAN:
Colonel Fawcett was a world-known celebrity.

His exploits
were followed in the press

and, uh, were quite popular
and quite well known.

We know what we know
of Colonel Percy Fawcett

largely from his own writings.

Stories about encounters
that he had

with native peoples in Brazil.

Stories of having arrows
drawn on him threateningly.

He tells the story
of a 62-foot anaconda

that he shot
in the spine and killed

as he was canoeing through
the waters down the Amazon.

LAYNE:
He writes a letter to his wife and says,

"There's no fear of failure."

He apparently thinks
he's right on top of it,

that he's going to find it,
this lost city.

And then he vanishes.

SHATNER:
Six weeks after the expedition started,

Fawcett's letters
stopped coming.

And people around the world
began to fear

that something terrible
had happened

to the explorer and his team.

After weeks, months,
and eventually years of waiting

with no word from him,

it became clear
that Colonel Percy Fawcett,

his son Jack and his son's
friend Raleigh Rimmel

would never return
from the jungle.

THOMPSON:
There was a great interest in what could have happened.

Some people thought
he might've been murdered

by the local Indigenous groups.

Other people thought
that maybe some, uh, bandits

that were operating in this area
might've killed him.

Some people even said that,
"Look, maybe he found it,

"maybe he found
his Lost City of Z

and just decided to stay
there the rest of his life."

SHATNER:
The Lost City of Z, found at last?

Is it possible
that Fawcett's dream

actually became a reality?

Brian Fawcett, uh,
his youngest son,

reported that there's
a distinct possibility

that Percy Fawcett
did not intend to return.

That for him, if he did find it,

it being the capstone
to what he was looking for,

he might not have intended
to ever leave the jungle.

LAYNE:
If you have dedicated your life now

to finding this lost city
of treasure and gold

and you actually find it,

maybe you don't want to reveal
it to the rest of the world.

Maybe it's perfection,
it's paradise,

maybe you can make
the choice to stay.

Was Colonel Percy Fawcett

swallowed up by
the Amazon rainforest?

Or did he actually find the lost
city he was looking for?

We may never know.

But what's clear is that
there are some places on Earth

where it's easy to go missing.

And one of those spots lies
not in a remote jungle,

but rather in the heart
of the United States.

SHATNER:
On a bright, clear morning in this small desert town,

billionaire adventurer
and pilot Steve Fossett

takes off for a scenic flight

and is never heard from again.

PAULIDES:
Fossett should've been back within about two hours.

He didn't come back.

The airport called
search and rescue

and what encompassed
was the biggest search

for an aircraft in Nevada
of all time.

It went on for days.

SEARCH AND RESCUE SERGEANT:
We've got 200 people looking.

And we haven't just
hit these areas once,

we have flown over them two,
three, four times.

With different type of aircraft,

at different altitudes.

And then, on top of that,

it wasn't just the people
in the air.

It wasn't just
the ground pounders.

But it was also people at home
that were looking.

There were thousands
of people online

that were looking
at Google Earth

trying to see if they could find

some remnants or a crash site.

In essence, they threw
every imaginable resource

into finding Steve Fossett.

SHATNER:
Federal investigators leading the search

for Steve Fossett were
baffled by his disappearance,

because he was
a highly experienced pilot.

Steve Fossett had set
some 91 aviation records,

including being the first person

to circumnavigate the globe
in an airplane solo

without refueling.

So, that's why when
he went off on that day

in an airplane and disappeared,
people were shocked,

because this is not
something you expect

from somebody
like Steve Fossett.

PAULIDES:
During the search for Mr. Fossett,

the searchers came across
a multitude

of other planes
that had crashed.

Some they knew about.
A few they didn't.

But what it tells you is

the quality of the search
they made for him.

It was intensive,
and they weren't finding him.

SHATNER:
After a month of investigation,

authorities stopped the search
for Steve Fossett.

And then, in February of 2008,

Fossett was declared
legally dead,

even though both he and
his plane were still missing.

But what could have caused

such a highly skilled pilot

to seemingly disappear

off the face of the Earth?

There are those who believe
the answer is tied to the fact

that Fossett was flying

in what is known as
the Nevada Triangle.

MORENO:
The Nevada Triangle goes from Reno,

down to Las Vegas,
and then over to Fresno.

And it's on the edge of the
Sierra Nevada mountain range.

And the reason that it's known
as the Nevada Triangle

is that some 2,000,
mostly small aircraft,

have crashed within that zone
in the last 60 years.

It's seen as this

kind of Bermuda Triangle
of the Sierra Nevada.

SHATNER:
While the Bermuda Triangle may be better known,

the Nevada Triangle
is actually far more deadly.

On average, nearly
three planes go missing

in this mysterious area
every month.

MORENO:
One of the earliest planes that disappeared

in the Nevada Triangle
was from a flight

taken by a man
named Charles Ogle.

And Ogle, like Fossett,
was a successful businessman

and a veteran pilot.

And so, for him to disappear

on a routine flight
was out of the ordinary.

But he did.

And his plane is still
out there somewhere.

So, that's still a mystery
of the Nevada Triangle

that hasn't been resolved.

Another famous story
of an airplane

that crashed in the Triangle

was a B-24 Liberator.

It was 1943 and this B-24
took off from Fresno,

reported in a few times,

and then just kind of
suddenly disappeared.

And so, the U.S. military
immediately sent out

nine more B-24s to do searches.

And then another one
disappeared.

And so it became part
of the legend

of the Nevada Triangle
is you have two B-24s,

these big lumbering planes
that are,

you know, supposed to
drop bombs on places, et cetera,

and they both go down
in the mountains somewhere

between the Nevada-California
border.

SHATNER:
What is going on in the Nevada Triangle

that is causing
so many planes to disappear?

Perhaps the answer can be found
by taking a closer look

at the Steve Fossett case.

Because two years
after Fossett's plane vanished,

it then seemed
to inexplicably...

reappear.

In October of 2008,
there's a hiker

out in the Mammoth Mountains
area, walking with his dog.

And he finds $1,000
in hundred-dollar bills

and he thinks that's
kind of interesting and unusual.

But also,
he found a pilot's license.

He, um, started looking at
the license and he realized,

"Wait, this is
that guy that was missing."

So, he took it
to the local authorities.

And then they mount
a new search of that area,

and they start
finding other things.

They find the engine
of the plane,

and they find the tail
section with a number on it,

which clearly identifies it
as the airplane.

Also, they find a pair of
sneakers and a couple of bones.

So, they take the bones,
they do DNA on them,

and it turns out that it is
the remains of Steve Fossett.

PAULIDES:
The intriguing part about this is that

several articles at the time
stated that aircraft had flown

over the location where
he was found 19 times.

And somehow,
the wreckage was missed.

Also people on the ground

when they recovered his remains
and the aircraft

stated that there was even
a small fire on the ground

in close proximity
to where all of this happened.

Discoloration
of the associated foliage

would've been unusual
and something to look at

by the people in the air.

And so I don't have
a rational explanation

how Steve Fossett's
plane was missed

19 times from the air.

ANDREW COLLINS:
How is it possible that all of these searches

missed this wreckage?

I mean, there is no
obvious answer.

But we have to raise
the question

of whether the wreckage
was not there

during the intervening period.

And that Steve Fossett
encountered

one of these
mysterious anomalies

that we know to be associated

with the Bermuda
and Nevada Triangle regions.

Steve Fossett's plane
could have actually gone

into another dimension
for a year

and then be ejected out of it,

back into our own reality?

PAULIDES:
When you look at the Steve Fossett case,

and you understand

that normal search and rescue
is gonna find

this pilot and the plane,

and somehow or another,

it didn't happen
for over a year,

you have to ask yourself,
was it there or was it not?

SHATNER: Alaska. Here,
among the rugged mountains,

dense forests

and towering glaciers,

lies a mysterious
stretch of wilderness

where more than 16,000 people

have gone missing since 1988.

Locals refer to this area

as the Alaska Triangle.

MIKE RICKSECKER:
The Alaska Triangle stretches from Juneau in the south,

to Anchorage in the middle,
all the way up to Utqiagvik

at the most northern point
in Alaska.

Like other triangle areas
of the world, planes will crash.

People will go missing.

But the Alaska Triangle
seems to be more volatile

than other areas of the world.

PAULIDES:
You have to remember that Alaska has

some of the most notoriously
difficult terrain,

weather,

and it has the highest number
of private planes

anywhere in the United States.

So, in one sense
it's not surprising

they have a number of people
that go missing there.

In another sense,

it's quite fantastic when

you look at the stories
behind the missing.

In January 1950,
a Douglas C-54 D Skymaster

taking off from
Elmendorf Air Force Base

was headed toward Montana.

It was a beautiful day,
only a few clouds in the sky.

Yet, just as it passed over
into Yukon Territory,

the Air Force lost
complete radio contact with it.

Both United States and
Canadian military forces

teamed up,
about 7,000 personnel,

scanning 350,000 square miles
of territory

for this missing airplane

and couldn't find a thing.

But what's even stranger
is just two weeks later,

a smaller plane went down
in the same area.

They were able to find
that immediately.

Yet the larger airplane,
the Skymaster,

they've never been able
to find a thing.

It completely disappeared.

PAULIDES:
When you look at the Alaska Triangle,

one of the few times
a search and rescue person

has ever disappeared was an
individual named Gerald DeBerry.

And he was on a search
outside of Fairbanks.

And he was on an ATV,

and he never showed back up
after the search.

The Alaska State Troopers
bring canines in.

The canines can't find a scent.

They bring
professional trackers in.

They can't find tracks.

And strangely,
they couldn't find the ATV.

It was a year later,
a hiker finds the ATV,

the engine's turned off,

and the Alaska State Troopers
went in

and did another massive search.

He's never been found.

SHATNER:
The number of people that are reported missing

in Alaska every year is twice
as high as the national average.

But can all
of these disappearances

be explained by Alaska's
unforgiving wilderness?

It's possible,
but there are those who believe

that something
more extraordinary

may be taking place.

And as evidence, they point
to stories in local folklore

that describe strange creatures

suddenly appearing
out of thin air.

Alaska is an area where
there are many unknowns,

uh, many mysteries.

Uh, and there are
very common stories

of what you might call
monsters and the like.

One of the very
compelling examples

actually comes from
the Kenai Peninsula,

in the southern part of it.

There's an abandoned town
called Portlock.

It was a cannery town,
very successful one, early on.

But it started getting
terrorized by a monster.

And so this monster would
attack people, kill people,

to the point where by 1950,
the entire town was abandoned.

This creature was identified
as the Nantiinaq.

Nantiinaq can be thought of
very much

in the sort of wider tradition
of Bigfoot or Sasquatch,

somewhere on the slippery slope
between man and creature.

NEWMAN:
Some people have suggested that these are entities

that live between worlds,

that they come through portals,

and they return back
through portals.

What this world is
they come from, we don't know,

but they're rarely seen.

They often disappear
into thin air.

So, there is a good chance
that it's not just

that people get lost
in the wilderness.

But actually,
they're being transported

with these beings
to other realms.

SHATNER:
Could strange creatures really be traveling

to the Alaska Triangle
from other realms?

While such an idea may sound
like a far-fetched fantasy,

many researchers claim
that it's entirely possible.

Because scientists
have discovered

that there are numerous
geological anomalies

found throughout
this mysterious area.

The land in Alaska
is extremely volatile.

The U.S. Department
of the Interior

did a geological survey
in the area

and discovered negative magnetic
anomalies

that are prevalent in the area.

They can wreak havoc with
guidance systems, compasses,

all kinds
of electronic equipment

that can cause planes
and other vessels

to go missing or crash.

And there are theories
that these anomalies

can spawn portals,

these doorways
into other dimensions.

While geological activity
in Alaska is known

to cause magnetic anomalies,

could it also
be creating portals

in this area, as some believe?

At the moment,
we can't say for sure,

but one thing is certain.

Hundreds, if not thousands,
of people

continue to
mysteriously disappear

in the Alaska Triangle
every year.

SHATNER:
Photographer Charles McCullar hikes around the rim

of this picturesque
body of water.

But what starts out as
a simple walk through nature

quickly turns tragic.

JOE ERATO:
Charles planned a two-day excursion to Crater Lake

to snap winter photography.

But he trudged out
through the park entrance

and was never seen again.

SHATNER:
Authorities tried for months to find Charles, with no luck.

It wasn't until
nearly two years later

that they got a break
in the case

when his body was found
in a remote part of the park.

ERATO:
The most baffling aspect of the Charles McCullar case

besides the way
that the remains were found

was where the remains
were found.

It's about 14 miles
from the park entrance.

So, he would have had to trudge
over 105 inches of new snow,

with some areas having
20-foot snowdrifts,

14 miles to a remote
part of the park.

So, how did Charles
get that far into the park?

LAYNE:
The weather conditions were so severe,

there was so much deep,
fresh snow on the ground

that snowmobiles
weren't even able

to travel this route
at the time.

The weird part
that lingers with his story

is how did his human remains

end up so far away
from where he was

and why were they found

so long after
the fact of his disappearance?

Search teams
had been looking for him

from the week he disappeared.

SHATNER:
The idea that someone could hike 14 miles

in eight feet of snow

is a little hard to imagine.

But on the other hand,
Crater Lake has been the site

of similarly inexplicable
occurrences, for centuries.

ERATO:
Crater Lake is a hotbed for stories

about paranormal activity,

and just
supernatural occurrences.

There are stories
of people vanishing,

and it ties back
to local native tribes

that have lived in the area
thinking that it was

basically the location for
the devil on the planet Earth.

SHATNER:
Is it possible for a place like Crater Lake

to be imbued with
some kind of dark power?

The native people of that area

had a largely
sacred understanding

of that particular body of water

and when we have a place,
a geographic location

that's recognized as powerful,

when individuals
approach that area

unknowing or
disrespectful perhaps even

of the power that's there,

the story never ends well.

Is this a place with deep enough
and strong enough energy

that it's causing people
to suffer repercussions?

We can't explain it,

but it's something
that keeps happening.

ERATO:
When someone vanishes in the wilderness,

we have a lot of
modern-day technology

that's used in the recovery
to go find people.

And it works most of the time.

But what drives
public fascination about

a lot of these mysteries
are the vanishings

where none of that technology
seems to work.

We have all this stuff
at our disposal,

and it turns up nothing.

And nobody can explain why.

Is Crater Lake home
to supernatural forces

that spirit people away?

The answer is uncertain,

just like many disappearances

that continue
to spark our curiosity.

They are puzzles
we want to solve,

but like any good mystery,

digging deeper for the truth
is the only way

to find answers to these
baffling cases that remain...

unexplained.

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