David Paulides' meticulous research into the thousands of mysterious disappearances in U.S. national parks should be an object lesson on how the paranormal should be investigated. Paulides does what most paranormal researchers fail to do: First, he examines a phenomenon that is truly unique, without defaulting to the unofficial canon of New Age explanations for such, and second, his research is so thorough, objective, and vetted that it cannot be debunked. Many paranormal researchers try to explain one unknown with another unknown. Paulides does not do this. Others have speculated that the disappearances were caused by Bigfoot, or "aliens." Paulides refuses to go there. He seems to intuitively understand that when we are confronted by a mystery that has no logical, physical explanation, a phenomenon that seemingly originates outside of our known reality, one that defies physical laws, then any attempt to define or understand it will fail--we simply lack the conceptual vocabulary. Paulides has done a great service by bringing forth his Missing 411 books and showing the reluctance of the National Parks Service to come clean on the records of missing persons, and he shows the feds are more interested in covering their derrieres than doing what's right. There seems to be a pattern here.
From David Paulides: I think the most important job we have as adults is raising our children. Having a close family bond and helping your kids attain their goals is one of the most rewarding aspects of being a parent. I have been very fortunate in this aspect of my life. I have two kids, a son that is playing D-1 hockey and a daughter that is rowing at the D-1 level. I have been a coach for many years and this has brought more happiness then any other part of my life. Presently, I am a scout in the North American Hockey League. My education was obtained at the University of San Francisco where I received my graduate and under graduate degrees. I had always wanted to work in law enforcement and be a police officer, in 1977 I joined a small municipality in the San Francisco Bay Area, in 1980 I transferred to San Jose police where I finished out my twenty years. I was lucky to have worked many premier assignments including street crimes (street decoy work), SWAT, Vice and a variety of assignments in the detective division. Prior to leaving SJPD I received a job offer in technology making much more money. While working a variety of tech positions, I was tagged as an executive that could flush out businesses, go deep into their background and conduct due diligence in partnership development and acquisitions. In essence, I was using my investigative skills at an entirely different position in life. I eventually retired and left technology and was approached with an unusual offer, prove the existence of bigfoot. I was given funding to either prove bigfoot was a hoax or prove it was a living biped. After several years of developing a cohesive team, interviewing hundreds of witnesses (Taking witness statements via affidavits), writing two books and obtaining many DNA samples, we launched the largest bigfoot/sasquatch DNA study that has ever been under taken (www.nabigfootsearch.com). Over one hundred samples were tested and Dr. Ketchum?s DNA study was completed. My position on the study, eight PhD?s put their credentials in the public spotlight and assisted in writing the white paper. Thirteen different laboratories tested the samples. Dr. Ketchum did not do the testing; outside labs did the testing and validated the results. In talking to hundreds of people about this project, I am convinced that 99% of the individuals that have issues with the paper have not read it, or don?t understand it. Since the paper was released, many other PhD?s have jumped to Dr. Ketchum?s side and supported her work. Please do not listen to rumors or blogs, read the paper your self, and come to your own conclusions without the influence of others. Please read the paper before asking questions as this is a very complex arena that would take me many thousands of words to explain. You can purchase the paper here: www.advancedsciencefoundation.org...#!special-issue/crrc Four years ago I was in a national park conducting other research and was staying at a room off the park. On one of those nights I had a knock at the door and two off duty national park rangers stated they had information that they wanted me to hear. They explained that they had worked at several parks during their career and had participated in many search and rescues of lost visitors. They explained that they believed there was an inordinate amount of missing people and the park service was not conducting follow-up investigations, wasn?t tracking missing people and didn?t appear to understand the issues behind the disappearances. This event started the project I am working on today, www.canammissing.com. I have written three books (Missing 411) about the research our group has conducted and have filed dozens of freedom of information act (FOIA) requests against the National park Service and other institutions. The most famous FOIA we filed, asking the NPS for statistics and documentation of missing people inside their system. We first asked for data on Yosemite National Park. We were told that they didn?t keep track of missing people, didn?t have a list of names, dates or any numbers regarding how many are still missing. We read this statement in stunned silence. The NPS followed that with essentially the same statement about their entire system, 183 locations. As a published author, I wrote back to NPS explaining who my publisher was, the books I authored and claimed an authors exemption to fees, asking them to collect the data and forward to us. The response, my books were not in enough libraries to qualify for the exemption, something nobody can find as a requirement in any FOIA documentation. The NPS then stated that if I did want a list of missing people from Yosemite, that would cost $34,000, if we wanted the list from their entire system, that would be $1,400,000. Unbelievable!! We are still hard at work on missing people, specifically people who have vanished in a rural setting. The research has identified 34 clusters of missing people in North America, including Canada. We established list of criteria that cases must meet if they are to be in the study, it?s too extensive to write about here. We are constantly obtaining new cases. I am always asked, ?What is causing this,? we don?t know and have never made any innuendo about what may be occurring. We won?t make any statements about what is happening to the missing until we are certain that specific, consistent elements exist that point to a cause, we aren?t there yet. Regarding contacting victims that are found alive, we were advised early in our development by other missing person groups that this would be an inappropriate practice. Some people may talk, later see their story in print and feel that they were victimized a second time. We are VERY sensitive to the victims and their families and would never want to do anything to cause them further anxiety. If they initiate the conduct, we would gladly speak with them. In the summer of 2012 I was asked to be a speaker of the NASAR (National Association for Search and Rescue) conference in South Lake Tahoe, one of the largest search and rescue conferences in the world. Our findings were presented to a packed room. Dozens of professionals approached me after the presentation and stated that what I had presented was known by the majority of the senior SAR personnel but that most don?t wish to discuss it. They stated that it is staggering the number of people that simply vanish in the wilds of North America. This is where my investigative heart and sole is today.
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