written by: Naila Faidz Kahfi
I’ve
been binging this short documentary series called “missing 411” during the
pandemic. Well, at first I discovered MrBallen’s Tiktok, where he delivers
strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format. I watched one…then
two…then three…aaand I just kept going until I watched his youtube videos. It’s
longer, but it’s far more clear and interesting. One of the first YouTube video
I’ve watched of his was one of his missing 411 series, where he tells us
stories of missing people who went missing, in a very odd, almost impossible
way, and found either deceased or alive in the most bizarre way…. So I got
really attached to the series, even though I’m quite paranoid. Huh
So
I binged everything! Until I ran out of his videos to watch because it is sooo
interesting. He would mention that this missing 411 documentaries, were written
by a former detective named David Paulides. So I went to do some (very little
and lazy) research and honestly, since i live in indonesia, the book isn’t sold
here…so all I can do is wait for MrBallen to cover it up…or watch David’s
Paulides’ youtube channel called the “Canam Missing Project” I’m gonna be
honest…I don’t often watch the videos from the channel since I’m not a big fan
of long documentaries haha, but it’s great! I should try watching them more
often!
I
think I’m getting too much about MrBallen and not David Paulides here, but, if
you have nothing to do, or nothing to watch and you feel like scaring yourself,
I recommend checking out his channel! It’s very addicting, I swear. Anyways,
David
Paulides is a former police officer who is now an investigator and writer known
primarily for his self-published books, one dedicated to proving the reality of
Bigfoot, and his Missing 411 series of books, in which he documents the
disappearance of people in national parks and elsewhere. Paulides attributes
mysterious, unspecified causes to these disappearances, while data analysis
suggests that these disappearances are not statistically mysterious or
unexpected.
In
his online biography page, Paulides states that he received his undergraduate
and graduate degrees from the University of San Francisco, and in 1977 he began
a 20-year career in law enforcement, transferring in 1980 to the San Jose
Police Department, working in the patrol division on the SWAT Team, patrol, and
Street Crimes Unit, and a variety of assignments in the detective division.
While working as a court liaison officer in December 1996, Paulides was charged
with a misdemeanor count of falsely soliciting for a charity, and was
subsequently removed from his position with the San Jose police. In 2011,
Paulides received approval for a deferred vesting status totaling 16.5 years of
service for his time with the San Jose Police Department.
After
leaving the police force, Paulides wrote books on the topic of Bigfoot, as well
as on the disappearances of people in national parks and elsewhere which he
attributes to unspecified, unknown causes.
Oh
yeah, he wrote books about bigfoot or sasquatch too! I never heard one…nor read
one…oh…I probably didn’t pay attention, oopsies.
-Bigfoot
or Sasquatch
In
his pursuit of Bigfoot, Paulides self-published two Bigfoot-related books, and
created the research group called "North America Bigfoot Search" for
which he serves as director.
Paulides
has said North America Bigfoot Search was instrumental in the genesis of a
paper published in 2013, which claimed that Bigfoot was real: "The world
needs to understand that North America Bigfoot Search was the organizer of the
study. We orchestrated the search that led to picking Dr. Ketchum to conduct a
study of bigfoot DNA."The resulting paper documented the analysis of 111
samples of hypothesized Bigfoot DNA and was written by 11 different authors.On
November 24, 2012, DNA Diagnostics, a veterinary laboratory headed by Ketchum,
issued a press release prior to peer review claiming that their DNA sequencing
study confirmed the existence of a hominin hybrid cross between modern humans
with an unknown primate.Shortly after publication two months later in the
inaugural issue of DeNovo: Journal of Science,the paper was analyzed by Sharon
Hill of Doubtful News for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Hill's report
concluded that the paper was of poor quality, stating that "The few
experienced geneticists who viewed the paper reported a dismal opinion of it,
noting it made little sense.
-
Missing 411
Following his work on Bigfoot, Paulides' next
project was Missing 411, a series of self-published books and two documentary
films, documenting unsolved cases of people who have gone missing in national
parks and elsewhere.
According to Paulides, his work on this
subject began when he was doing research in a national park and an off-duty
park ranger found him and expressed concern about the questionable nature of
some of the missing person cases which occurred in the parks. The ranger knew
Paulides' background and asked him to research the issue. Paulides obliged, and
asserts that he uncovered multiple lines of evidence suggesting negligence on
the part of the park service in failing to locate the missing people. He
broadened his investigation to include missing people from across the world,
and this led to his belief that he has uncovered a mysterious series of
worldwide disappearances, which defied logical and conventional explanations.
As
of 2019, Paulides has written nine books on this topic. According to A Sobering
Coincidence, he does not yet have a theory on what is causing the
disappearances, although he indicates that the "field of suspects is
narrowing." Paulides advised his readers to go outside of their normal
comfort zone to determine who (or what) is the culprit.
The
interest in the book series prompted the creation of a documentary film based
on the Missing 411 books; this film was released in 2017.
Kyle
Polich, a data scientist and host of the Data Skeptic podcast, documented his
analysis of Paulides' claims in the article "Missing411" and
presented his analysis to a SkeptiCamp held in 2017 by the Monterey County
Skeptics. He concluded that the allegedly unusual disappearances represent
nothing unusual at all, and are instead best explained by non-mysterious causes
such as falling or sudden health crises leading to a lone person becoming
immobilized off-trail, drowning, bear (or other animal) attack, environmental
exposure, or even deliberate disappearance. After analyzing the missing person
data, Polich concluded that these cases are not "outside the frequency
that one would expect, or that there is anything unexplainable that I was able
to identify." This presentation was discussed in a February 2017 article
in Skeptical Inquirer, a publication of the CSI. In the article, Susan Gerbic
reported "Paulides... gave no reason for these disappearances but finds
odd correlations for them. For example, two women missing in different years
both had names starting with an 'A' with three-letters, Amy and
Ann."Polich concluded in his analysis: "I've exhausted my exploration
for anything genuinely unusual. After careful review, to me, not a single case
stands out nor do the frequencies involved seem outside of expectations."
And here are David Paulides’ books! (which I
really want…but I couldn’t…i can’t buy e-books either)
Bigfoot
Hoopa
Project: Bigfoot Encounters (2008)
Tribal
Bigfoot (2009)
Missing
411 Series
Missing
411 — Eastern United States: Unexplained Disappearances of North Americans That
Have Never Been Solved (2012)
Missing
411 — Western United States & Canada: Unexplained Disappearances of North
Americans that have never been solved (2012)
Missing
411 — North America and Beyond (2013)
Missing
411 — The Devil's in the Details (2014)
Missing
411 — A Sobering Coincidence (2015)
Missing
411 — Hunters (2016)
Missing
411 — Off the Grid (2017)
Missing
411 — Law (2018)
Missing
411 — Canada (2019)
Missing
411 — Montana (2020)
Whew, that was loooooong. But that’s all from me folks. Thank you for reading! I hope this will interest you in this series somehow… well here are the links to their channel! Adios
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