The Basement: Dave Paulides | Missing 411 and Cases the Government Won't Let You See

The Why Files: Operation Podcast - The Why Files: Operation Podcast

David Pilitis, former law enforcement officer, discusses government secrecy around missing persons in U.S. national parks, citing denied FOIA requests and withheld data. He reveals inconsistencies in official records and

Key takeaways

• Government denies public access to missing person lists despite having them.

Transcript preview

Today we're talking with David Pilitis. David spent almost 20 years in law enforcement, then two Rangers knocked on his door at Yosemite, off duty, and told him people were vanishing in the parks and nobody would talk about it. Oh, you're adorable. Everything's about the money, my sweet summer you. I don't think it's about the money. America's national treasure pulls a lot better than America's Bermuda Triangle. We cover a lot of fun stuff in this one. The disappearance, Bigfoot, vanishing in the park, all kinds of great stuff. After I'll talk, I'll come back and break down what I could confirm, and what's still up for debate. And there's quite a bit. Let's go down to the basement. down and that's what I read that her file is that thick which is about 10 times more pages than a typical missing person. I would find that hard to believe. Would you really? I really would. I don't know what they could be doing. If he hasn't touched it in 40 years, I don't believe that. Well speculate on her case, why hold it for 40 years? If he hasn't touched it in 40 years, I could most of the people admit the file are dead. that there's only a few options. They lost it. Or the investigation is so sloppy, they're embarrassed. Or there's a suspect in the case and they drop the ball on it. It's one of, it's two or three, I think. Anything, it's something that makes them look bad is what it is. It must be. So it's, it's not even disputed that they don't release. lists of missing people at the parks. No one disputes that. They do not. And they say they don't keep track of it, which is, that's a lie. So tell the story. I guess a good way to get into the story would be, because we were just talking about George outside. George Knapp reaches out to you and says, they didn't even use your name in the article. I saw this on your show a few days ago. I'm like, Dave's pissed today. What's going on? So what happened? So what happened? So what happened? There was an article that was written in sub-stack. George sent it to me and said, Dave, you won't believe this. And it outlines the National Parks reluctance to release information on missing people and how much they wanted to charge. Huge article. And my name is nowhere in it. And it's all your data and research. Yeah. I didn't come out the day after your rogue interview comes out. It did. to you know? No. Why do you think they kept you out of that article? I have no idea. You tell me please. I don't know. Because in the big foot stuff I would say could be controversial at least in my mind. One thing that's always frustrated me about health care is how often you leave an appointment without any real answers. You're told everything looks fine but you're still left wondering what supplements you should take, how much sleep you actually need or what your diet should focus on. That's what superpower fixes. 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So you are a published author. Exactly. And just so people who don't understand, I might as well clear this up right now, I could have all my books published by a big publishing house if I want it to. Oh, yes, you could. But don't do that. Don't do that. I do that. I might do that. I do that. I might as. I might as well. I might as well. I might as well. I might as well. I might as well. I might as well. I might as well. I might as well. I might as well. I might as well. I might as well. I might as well. I might as well. I might as well. I might as well. I might as well. I might as well. I might as well. I might 12 to 18% of the book. Now, I don't make a lot of money off my books, but it doesn't take a whiz kid to go through the process and understand how to make your own book, go through your own website, and take 100% of those profits. Right. Which is why I do it. And I don't have the politics involved with the publishing house. I could say whatever I want in my books. Yeah, I bet there's publishers reaching out every week in your email, like, hey, we can get. there? Correct. No, you don't need any of that? No. So I decide that I'm going to file a Freedom of Information Act under using all the formalities that are right and correct and ask them for a list of missing people. For every park. Every park, their entire system. And six months later, they come back and they say, well, we don't have any lists of missing people. Six months? Six months. And we've already looked and spoke to the management. And if you wanted us to go out and gather that information, we will not acknowledge your exemption. But if you wanted to pay for it, if you want a list from all of the park system, it would be $1.4 million. And if you wanted it just from Yosemite National Park, that would be $34,000. And that's to justify what the work involved in compiling that list, that's that that that that's to justify what the work involved in compiling that list. they have. Correct. So I was on coast to coast. I think I was on Norie Show and I talked about this and within a couple days I get a special agent from the Park Service that calls and he said Dave they are trying to screw you. Let me explain how this works. Each one of our regional offices, this has so many special agents right? Every special agent has a handful of missing person case files in their desk Here's what it would take, Dave. Each one of those special agents, maybe it takes them 10 minutes to type on a computer each one of the four or five files, name, date, location, case number. And this is out of the six districts, six districts. Each special agent does that. And then in each office, they send that list to their special agent in charge in that office. Right. They cut and paste that on an Excel spreadsheet. Right. Right. Dave maybe we're talking an hour and a half two hours max each one of those special agents in the six jurisdiction sends that to the front office and how long is it going to take them to cut and paste Dave they're absolutely screwing you That's how I found out about this and They have the list anyway. This this is all just words they have it anyway because we know for a fact they keep track of who dies in the parks 100% They've been doing that since 1897 they know every number but they don't track who disappears no I don't buy it well they have lists of how much toilet paper is in Yosemite National Park sure on an inventory list they have a list on their website of every movie that was made in a national park and George Knapp said one day Dave they are absolutely lying they have the list they don't want you to have it so you compiled your own list of Yosemite oh yeah that really got me mad So for the next year and a half I just did nothing but focus on Yosemite. Wrote a couple of different books that included Yosemite cases. And guess what happened? They released a list of missing people from Yosemite. Son of a gun. And what that told me though? And how close to that list to your list was theirs? They missed a couple of really old cases that they probably don't want to even acknowledge. But you had. everything. Oh yeah, yeah. But it also told me that I'm missing a lot of cases from the other parks obviously. Of course. But yeah. Because you can't do two years per. Is Yosemite the I don't want to say dangerous that's not the right word but what park swallows the most number of people is it Yosemite? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because uh, in looking at Olympia, I think it's a Olympia National. Park, right? Olympic. I think they're up to something like 500 deaths. So if the Yosemite's bigger, a lot of people have died in that park. Oh yeah. Well how long was your list of missing people from Yosemite? It was longer than theirs I think it was approaching 70 80. You never really speculate on what you think is happening with these people. So there was a case I wrote, this is how confusing it gets. that disappeared Yosemite and a National Park Service Ranger took the report and it was obvious that she was up on a hillside or on a cliff and her body was found in a position at the bottom that the wording used by the Park Service was she was launched meaning she didn't fall. She was launched. She didn't fall. She was launched. She was launched. She was launched. Now what they thought how she was launched was never made clear but that was in their report and it wasn't a missing person case that's just a death case right so you can get that and when I looked at that it was never made clear how she ended up so far from the base of the cliff nobody ever said anything about it was just suspicious launched. Is that is that a file that the public can get to or no? Yeah. Maybe we'll link to it. Well, since your latest, your latest film is amazing. I watched it a few nights ago. Washington, it was 401, Washington, that's what we're calling it. Missing 401 Washington State. National Park. So good. It's Hollywood, slick. I hope you're proud of it. You should be. I want to talk about a couple of cases in the movie. interesting. Jacob Gray is one. This is very touching, but a few cases are great. But that area, everything in your films focused around Mount Rainier, which is a very interesting history. So maybe you or together we can go back to December 10, 1946, Marine Corps Transport Plains. Can walk us through that story? makes you choose between looking dumb, smelling bad, or carrying around some weird gadget that needs charging every four hours, there's got to be a better way. And that's why people are switching to Nickknacks, myself included. Nickknacks are fully dissolvable nicotine lozenges packed with real essential oils for real flavor. 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And as they get near to the location, the weather started to get bad. Couple of the planes landed, a couple of them detoured went to other locations. One of the planes never made it and was lost. They didn't have a clue. And from the date that it went missing until the date that they could even start searching was weeks because the weather stayed so bad. There were rumors that maybe it landed in the ocean. There were rumors that maybe it went into Idaho. They were really lost. And sometime after that, a couple months, businessman's leave in Idaho and he's flying in to do business in Washington, Ken Arnold. And as there was a reward for finding the transport, so Arnold is flying up and he says hey I'm just gonna fly by Rainier because there was some rumors that maybe it crashed there. So as he's approaching Rainier from Baker he sees these three four five odd-looking things fly by him. Well Arnold is a super smart man and he times when he sees these things going by two points. He goes by and does the math and it's it's going at speeds that we have nothing in the world that goes that fast and he described him and they don't really, they don't look like a common disc uFO. They look unusual. almost like some planes that we have now. Yeah they kind of look like a delta wing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And eventually, Lance tells the story. And that was really the start of the modern day UFO era right there. Because Ken described it as moving like it was a saucer skipping across water. Correct. So it was flying saucers and that's how it was coined. Exactly. with Rainier. He didn't find anything, but people eventually did, right? We know where that transport is now and the bodies. Correct. But you can't get to them. You're hitting a soft spot with me. It's okay. They walked there. Some National Parks people walked in on it and they confirmed that it had crashed there. And then we brought in some other researchers. And something odd happened there. Why that plane crashed on that mountain is a million dollar question It's located very high up on a glacier and the glacier moves So why hasn't that plane moved over the decades further down? That's one of the questions The other question is is that one of the researchers we brought in Dave Far from the plane. He found a propeller using Google Earth. can't get there if the plane hit the glacier straight on at that location. It's almost like there had to be a mid-air event with something for that propeller to land up so far away. Because you've got a debris field, I think there's almost three debris fields, because didn't Dave also find a fuselage at some point? Yes. Because you make a good point about the glacier, that's one of the fastest moving glaciers in the country. So every 50, 100 years things are moving around. Those bodies, those bodies, those bodies of those bodies of those bodies of those bodies, those bodies, those they'll surface they'll go back under and we can't get up there to do anything about that. Well when we were doing the film the crew and I we talked about what happened to no man left behind right it's 32 men up there yeah and if they were able to hike in why couldn't they hike the people out or put them on sleds and bring them out. A lot of questions. Does it feel like a mid-air collision to you? I'm not the expert on that but from the people I heard it sure seems like it hit something hit it in the air. You make a compelling case in the film, you know, because there's a lot of stuff in there I hadn't heard before. I hadn't seen any of that footage before. I thought that plane was just gone. I didn't know that you found it. But then I started to get angry like, well if we could see it on Google Earth, we got to go in there. Or at least make Because I agree no man left behind. So Mount Rainier becomes the center of a lot of weird stuff. Flying saucers start there. You said you heard a little bit about the Moria Island incident. That happened up there as well. This is a UFO flies over, dropped slag on a fisherman. And this is the first time we get the men in black appearing in Seattle. And we've got a connection to. CIA, JFK, JFK, is a whole thing. But it all starts right here at Rainier. So what is it about that place? It's got all this weird stuff. I was Bigfoot up there too, where there's orbs? So in our movie, American Sasquatch, Man, Myth or Monster, we filmed, there's footage in there at the base of Rainier of a woman that lives there that captured a Bigfoot, it appears it's coming in and out of a portal. And she's had tracks up there. This is right at the base of the park. I mean, probably within two miles. And there's been a series of Bigfoot sightings up there over the years. A lot of it related to orbs and other things. Her footage was good. And you know, I'm not a Bigfoot, I'm on the fence. I'm very skeptical of all because of all the hoaxing. But her footage was good. Her footage was good. And you did a great job in the film, by the way of, before we went on the air, but I'll say now, that there's a famous piece of footage. It was filmed in IMAX from the, Canadian company or whatever, that shows, it looks like a bigfoot behind a bunch of caribou, and you guys can find this online. But Dave went and got the original print. So when it shows up on the film, I know it's a hoax. And I go, oh, no, Dave, don't fall for this. But he got the original print and you can clearly see that it's, what, a guy on a bike. With the big frames it's so much easier to see you can see everything It was it's really stunning. Yeah We were kind of wondering how the people were gonna respond to that People were gonna get mad. I think it's been all positive I haven't heard anyone really come back and attack us about it No I mean people are still after saying it's real Really? Yeah Yeah, yeah They email me I don't know I don't know how you could after watching that It looks like a guy on a bike to me got a backpack is it's totally clear um is Mount Rainier one of the the clusters that you're seeing oh yeah it is for sure. Rainier has so many I mean we ran out of time on that film it's one of the longer films I've ever made and we covered a lot of cases there but they're near the end we just kind of piled on and listed them but they all kind of follow the same track I mean they all kind of follow the same track I mean they all kind of There's no sent trail by the dogs. There's no tracks found There's no body There's no backpack. There's no anything And it replicates itself time after time after time after time And It's all around the mountain What I found stunning was how far apart like the last known sighting and then we find a you know half a tent and all this it's like so for a part part. Quick question. If the dollar keeps losing purchasing power and there's a pretty strong argument at will, what's your retirement account actually worth in 10 years? The stock market had a decent run last year. Gold did better. Silver did a lot better, up over 125% in the past year alone. Banks like Bank of America are now putting silver price targets at 309 an ounce. Gold projections as high as $6,300. Again not a guarantee, but not nothing. I vetted several companies before I'd put my name behind any of them. Golden Crest Metals earned it. Small team, direct service, no bait and switch pricing. When I had questions, I got straight answers. That's the whole pitch. And honestly, it was enough. 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Well, one morning he gets up real early, doesn't tell anybody, he just goes to take off and goes into the park. And he rides in, nobody knows exactly why, but he's pretty far into the park and he leaves his bike and disappears. is a lot like me because if I had heard this then it was my son I would have been there within a day and his dad is there quickly. His dad is a warrior. Oh yeah. He swam that river. Oh yeah. And the Park Service tells his dad, oh your son's, the bike's right next to a river. Your son's in the river. And he goes, what do you mean? And he goes, oh, we kind of hike the river and we saw some marks on the side of a rock and... Hey my son swims in 48 to 54 degree weather every day just about in Santa Cruz. He lives through huge waves. He swims in ocean water. If he's in that river, he's just going to swim down a little bit and he's going to come out. Yes. And he's thinking, oh, these guys are lying to me. He says, OK, I'll go in the river. And I'll follow it 10 miles down and I'll search every nook and cranny, but I don't believe he's in that river. He's in the river. So the dad says okay gets a wetsuit he goes in the river and he for a couple days he just swims