Any conspiracy theory about people going missing in National Parks is automatically silly to me. Like "Why are National Parks such a hotbed of disappearances???" because they're full of idiots. You've got thousands of people who've never pissed outdoors in their life wandering around the woods/desert/mountain with zero experience and zero gear and zero understanding that this place can kill them. You don't see as many disappearances in wild areas because people don't go to them unless they have some background knowledge. Whereas you get tour buses full of old folks and suburban families shuttling people into National Parks 365 days a year. If you took the same amount of buffoons and dropped them in the actual wilderness the disappearances would be significantly higher than at the parks. Use your brain.
Some fun stuff from the notes:
- park ranger who has seen people spread bacon grease on their campsite in the hopes of seeing a bear
- British person who is appalled that North American national parks kill people
- people who lure bison calves away from their mothers to photograph them
- a lot of it involves bison
- a LOT of it involves people trying to swim in the yellowstone thermal vents
- woman who tried to retrieve her dropped cell phone from a pit toilet and FELL IN
- Lots of people reminding me that caves are a problem too. I know, I just try to forget that caves exist because I hate them.
- Guys who tried to hike the entire length of Florida in flip flops
- Someone who approached a bear cub because they thought it was a raccoon
- Someone who works at an unspecified national monument and says dead bodies keep turning up at the picnic area (Hello???)
- A few Alaskans laughing at everyone
- Scottish person who wishes their parks were as effective at killing tourists as ours are
- A few NPS staffmembers saying the NPS is far, far too incompetent to wage any sort of large scale conspiracy about disappearances
- Several death threats against David Paulides
- People accusing me of being Bigfoot (I plead the fifth)
- A group who got on a raft in a river assuming it would loop back around... like at a waterpark
- Person recalling a time they saw a hiker "saved by monkeys" but did not elaborate on that
- BISON
I met a girl last semester who volunteered at a national park for several years and she told a story of the time a facility that rehabilitates bear cubs had a lady pull up with a Black Bear in the back seat of her car because she had hit the bear with her car and drove an hour to the rehab facility with the bear in the car with her. They had to make a post that was like "PLEASE DO NOT BRING BEARS TO US. BEARS WILL KILL YOU"
