National Park Disappearances / Unidentified Submerged Objects

Hosted by George Knapp

Guests: Richard Dolan, David Paulides

Sunday - February 23, 2025

In the first hour, host George Knapp welcomed back David Paulides, the renowned author and filmmaker behind the book series Missing 411. Their discussion focused on unexplained disappearances in national parks and the government's opaque response regarding these cases.

Paulides identified troubling patterns among the missing persons incidents he has researched. "98% of them fall into this 'canines can't find a scent' category," he explained, referring to instances where tracking dogs are unable to pick up scents of lost individuals. He provided alarming examples of this, such as the story of a child who vanished and was later found several miles away, inexplicably traversing difficult terrain.

According to Paulides, it's common for people to reported bizarre experiences during their time missing. He recounted a case in which two young brothers, after being lost for days, said they were hiding from "the ape people," a possible reference to Bigfoot.

The conversation then shifted to Paulides's efforts to obtain information from the National Park Service. After filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for a list of missing persons in national parks, he found the response both frustrating and perplexing. "I said, 'How about just a list of missing people from Yosemite?'" he recounted, telling listeners the answer he received was, "Oh, no, we don't have that." He also explained how his attempts to delve deeper into individual cases were met with resistance and high fees for information.

For the remainder of the program, historian Richard Dolan shared his fascinating investigation of Unidentified Submerged Objects (USOs). He acknowledged that despite the vast literature on UFOs, few have tackled the concept of USOs in depth.

Dolan has meticulously gathered nearly 700 USO cases dating back centuries, with a majority occurring in the 20th and 21st centuries. A June 15, 1982 event near Catalina Island was among the notable cases he highlighted. During that incident, a family aboard a boat observed a fast-moving yellow object traveling below the surface, which they concluded was neither a marine creature nor a submarine. "It just seemed very strange," Dolan noted.

The topic turned to geographical hotspots for these sightings, with Dolan pointing to Puerto Rico as "the king of USOs." He speculated that the presence of USOs in this region could relate to military activities, suggesting that certain entities might be monitoring human activity at sea. "There's a pattern... they come to check us out," he added. He also suggested that some USOs might be monitoring the environment, referencing a 1953 Amazon case where locals witnessed a craft that appeared to be observing the rich biodiversity of the area.

Dolan explored the potential military implications of USOs, particularly concerning the Navy. "The United States military, especially the Navy, knows about it," Dolan asserted. He pointed to incidents like the USS John F. Kennedy encounter in 1971 where communications were hampered, and a "glowing orangey kind of spherical thing" was spotted.

According to Dolan, about 70% of the cases involve witness reports of transmedium capabilities—objects moving seamlessly between water and air. He pointed to a compelling case from 2017 in the Gulf of Mexico, where an oversized craft emerged from the ocean, remaining visible for several minutes to a crew of engineers before vanishing into the sky