I received
Missing 411 - The Devil’s in the Details in the mail yesterday evening and just finished reading it. It's over 400 pages presenting 174 cases spanning from 1768 to 2013 (while the previous books deal with land, this book also include disappearances occurred near or in water). As usual, Paulides does not give any speculation nor attempt to fixate on any particular theory and this book acts as a record of the facts and aim to find patterns to these strange events. He encourages the reader to read his previous books before starting this one as he often references cases from the other books and for basic understanding of the issues (I've already read all three books). The "Devil" refers to numerous places with that word in them, and those locations are known for strangeness in the past and near the disappearances.
Overall, after reading this book, I was furious with those "authorities" involved with the cases and the actions of the National Park Services. The more I read, the more I get an impression that they do have an agenda for covering up (they just have a habit of wiping their "missing person slate clean by changing case statuses to 'missing and presumed dead'"). One retired special agent answered with "lack of integrity" for why NPS doesn't track and document missing people.
The author added new cases in areas that he discussed in his previous books (references similar cases), and this book covers not just the United States, but other countries as well. You would read case after case with sobering detail for each, but the meticulous job the author did in finding patterns among these cases is shocking. In the end of this book ("Conclusions"), he includes breakdowns and comparative data between all the cases from four of his books.
All cases in this book are mind-boggling and scary, which most of them are similar to previous cases (factors like berries, weather, etc.) while others are unique (being taken from one's home, etc.).
One case in England is when one 70-year-old man was crippled and cannot walk due to stroke - he was carried out to the front porch under a clear day and his legs were covered with blanket. The assistant left for the day and the sister went back into the house to fix the bed. After fifteen minutes, she came back to find only a blanket on the chair and then there was a sudden severe storm. He was never found and the locals believed that he was "taken by the devil."
There are cases where children and one elderly were taken from inside their homes (one house had an alarm on - it didn't go off, the child simply vanished) and six children from inside the vehicles. One father was so tormented and couldn't understand how his son was able to open the car door, thinking if he did (he killed himself over guilt). These cases smell ridiculously like physical alien abductions.
The author references
The Good People: New Folklore Essays in the Introduction where he quotes certain sections on "berry-picking" and people being taken by "fairies" in the past. Again, the "fairies" reminds me of the alien abduction phenomena.
39 cases where those hikers/people who were "last in line" among the groups in any mountain were taken.
One case where 10-year-old Bobby Bizup, nearly deaf and wore a hearing aid, disappeared near a body of water and his remains were found almost a year later at 2,500 feet above where he was last seen. He was classified under "Disabled" category where the disabled were often disappeared.
35 cases where the missing people were scholars/intellectuals. The author points out that the year 2013 had more scholars/intellects disappear than any other year. This is new.
I'm a hiker myself, tend to be last in line, intellectual, and hearing-impaired. :/
There's one interesting case in regards to distance: 7-year-old Jack Hodges who disappeared in Seligman, AZ and was found 50 miles away in two days. That's impossible for anyone to walk that far in the desert and wasn't dehydrated.
There are two interesting discussions that are also curious:
Aircraft associated with missing cases - in five cases where aircraft/helicopter were used for the search effort has crashed (one crashed in the swamp, in parks, etc.) where occupants were killed. From these, I'm wondering if immediate EMF anomalies were involved and associated with these disappearances. Something like an "aftereffect"?
Secondly, the author talked a bit about the Bermuda Triangle that one of his readers discussed with him:
page 366 said:
What is fascinating is that four people documented in our books vanished on the same day as four of the aircraft. Here is the list:
July 8, 1968
Karen Cooney, missing from Corry, Pennsylvania
Source: Missing 411 - Eastern United States, pages 205-206
Cessa 180, missing between Grand Bahama and West Palm Beach
N944MH
Two people on board
April 30, 1978
Chris Vigil, disappears from the mountains in northern Colorado
Source: Missing 411-The Devil's in the Details
Cessa 172, missing in Dillion, South Carolina
NIGH
September 6, 2002
Theresa Schmidt, missing from the mountains outside of Deckers, Colorado
Source: Missing 411 - Western United States, pages 229-231
Piper Pawnee-1977, missing southeast of Nassau, the Bahamas
N59684
Pilot only on board
November 5, 1982
Richard Peterson, missing from Delmont, New Jersey
Source: Missing 411 - Eastern United States, pages 281-282
Beechcraft 65-B80, flying from Fort Lauderdale to Eleuthera Island, Bahamas.
NIHQ
Three persons on board.
It seems like an extraordinary coincidence that a person disappears in North America on the same date as an airplane in the Bermuda Triangle.
Above made me think about some sort of electromagnetic anomalies between the two?
The author complied the time of the disappearances: 4:00pm is the highest number of missing cases with 2:00pm and 5:00pm tied for 2nd. So, it's the range between 2 and 5 in the afternoon that the disappearances occurred.
He also points out the month of July is the most active of disappearances with December being the lowest.
From the list of cases in this book, the author concludes that the year with the most disappearances was 2013, having occurred most in USA.
There are a lot more discussions in this book and I highly recommend it, along with his previous books.
These four books aren't telling us something that
just happened in the past; these disappearances are still happening.