110\. Backwoods Horror: Unexplained Disappearances in the Alaska Triangle
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On July 3rd, 2012, 65-year-old Michael LeMaitre laced up his sneakers in preparation for a wilderness race on Mount Marathon. Mount Marathon sits far at the southern tip of Alaska, nestled between majestic fjords, glaciers, and the sea in a small port town named Seward.

Seward is just south of Anchorage and has barely 3,000 year-round residents. Its biggest draw is its annual wilderness race, the one that Michael was preparing for. It's been going on since 1915, and it's basically a three-mile out and back. Every Fourth of July, hundreds of runners race up and down the peak.

If you think that sounds easy, because it's only three miles after all, well, it's definitely not. For the first mile plus, participants have to run up a straight incline, battling roots, rocks, cliffs, and dodging occasional encounters with bears. And when you finally reach the top...

You go from climbing a mountain to sprinting down a cliff. And all the way, you're fighting against trees, mud, snow, and precipices that come out of nowhere, while the gravity of your own body urges you onwards. There have been a lot of injuries during this race, broken bones, head traumas. One time, someone was even impaled by a tree.

It doesn't sound like my idea of a good time, but Michael LeMaitre was so, so excited for this race. He was a lively, outdoorsy guy who was always trying to find a new adventure, and Mount Marathon was on his bucket list. In 2012, he applied for a lottery slot to run at their annual Bacchanal, and he got in.

So then, on July 3rd, Michael and his wife, Peggy, drove to Seward. They attended some mandatory safety meetings, picked up Michael's racing number, 548, and otherwise prepped for the big day. And then, on July 4th, Michael donned a sweatband with black shorts and a black tee, kissed his wife goodbye, and around 3 p.m., he joined over 100 other runners at the starting line.

Michael's wife, Peggy, looked at the sky. The weather was really bad that day. Rainy and foggy, which made the whole course really slick. She wondered how that would affect the race, which was already hard on the athletes and her poor husband, who was 65 after all. But it didn't stop the runners or the hordes of fans who were packed in tight around her near the trail. The gun went off and the runners were on their way.

Over the next few hours, she watched as one by one they started crossing the finish line, but she didn't see Michael. She hadn't expected him to lead the pack, but when he still hadn't finished by 6 p.m., three hours after the race had started, she got worried. Even if he got a cramp, surely he'd be able to walk the whole thing in three hours. By 7.30 p.m., that worry turned to panic.

She drove to the finish line with the couple's dog and waited for Michael, watching as the other runners were changing their clothes and going home for the night. They were all on the mountain with her husband. Surely someone must have seen him, but no one had. It was starting to get dark and it was really cold. Michael had begun the race in just shorts. He must be freezing by this point.

As she waited there, staring up at the rapidly darkening mountain, her dread kept getting stronger. She started honking her car horn and yelling into the wind, hoping that if Michael had gotten lost, he would hear her and know where to go. But he didn't appear. No, he never would. And no one would ever be able to explain where he went.

Welcome to Heart Starts Pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings, and mysteries. As always, I'm your host, Kaelin Moore. I'm not going to lie to you guys. There is something strange going on in Alaska. I have listeners there. I can see you when I look at my stats. And yet, I never hear from any of you. What's going on up there, guys? Are you okay?

Well, some people claim that there's something supernatural about the area that leads to all sorts of strange disappearances and sightings of otherworldly creatures in the woods. And that's why they've even named it the Alaskan Triangle. After all, people go missing in Alaska at a rate that's two times higher than the rest of the United States.

So is it a vortex up there or is something else going on? We're going to get into all of that today. But first, as you know, sometimes I hear from you guys, your darkly curious jobs, hobbies and interests. And so today I wanted to give a quick shout out to Eusebio, who listens to our show while working as a custodian in a haunted middle school. I think the only thing that would have made my middle school experience worse is if there were ghosts there.

Or, I don't know, maybe that would have made it better. Who's to say? But please keep it coming, you guys. Keep sending me your darkly curious jobs, interests, hobbies, whatever, and I will keep shouting them out. Okay, let's get back into it.

Hours before Peggy drove down to the base of the mountain in search of Michael, a man named Tom was up on the mountain. He was the midcourse timekeeper, in charge of monitoring the runners coming through the turnaround point as they finished their uphill slog and then headed back down the mountain again. He had a big time pad with him, which had this mat attached to it.

When the runners' feet hit the mat, there was actually a chip in their shoes that would record them and tell them their time. Tom had been doing this for 16 years, but it had been a long day that day. He'd been there with his team since the morning, and the bad weather had made the last few hours pretty unpleasant.

So, 45 minutes after the last runner came through, Tom and his team packed up the time pad and water station, and then they headed down the mountain. But they didn't get far before they realized something was wrong. There was still one more racer, and he was making his way up the mountain. It was Michael LeMaitre. Michael was moving really slowly, but he didn't seem injured or anything.

Tom told him that he was almost at the turnaround point. It was only 200 meters away. In fact, Tom could even see it from where he stood, and he pointed to it and told Michael where to go. Then they parted ways. Tom headed back to Seward while Michael continued on. And it's believed that that's the last time anyone saw Michael.

Based on his timing, Michael was expected to arrive in downtown Seward around 7:30 p.m., but he didn't show up. So Peggy frantically called the number she had for the race officials and begged them to get a search and rescue going. They did, eventually, but not until around 10:30 p.m. By that point, the sun had set, and the searchers had to comb the cold mountainside in the dark.

They didn't get any infrared assistance until a state trooper helicopter showed up sometime around 1:00 AM and searched the area from the skies. The National Guard joined the efforts later that morning while a 60 person search party scoured the area on foot, including Michael's family, search dogs, firefighters, and local volunteers.

And even with everyone coming together, they still couldn't find him anywhere. They couldn't even find any trace of him. No footprints, no strewn about clothing, nothing. If Tom hadn't seen him with his own eyes, he'd almost think that Michael never made it onto the mountain that day. The search lasted for days before transitioning from rescue to recovery.

And investigations tend to slow down when that happens, when there's not as much urgency to find someone before they pass away. Shortly after, the state troopers bowed out of the hunt, leaving local law enforcement and Michael's family to keep looking on their own, which they did. Michael's daughter actually arranged for a private cadaver dog to sniff around the slopes, but there was nothing. As an Alaska state trooper spokesperson put it, quote,

No clues, no trace, no trail. By the end of the summer, no one had found anything, and the LeMaitre family finally accepted that Michael was gone. In August, his daughter did one last hike up the mountain and carved, quote, "I love you, Dad," into a rock at the turnaround point. That carving might be the only trace left that Michael was ever on that mountain.

So the obvious question that many people are still asking today is where did he go?

Some think that it was just a tragic accident. Because the halfway timer was taken down and no one was at the turnaround point, Michael may have simply missed it. Maybe he kept running and didn't realize his mistake until he was totally lost. It was cold that night, so he could have died of hypothermia while waiting for help or trying to find his way back.

Michael wouldn't have necessarily known how to spot the halfway mark without an official there. He didn't run the course ahead of time like he was supposed to. This was a huge safety issue and it actually violated a race rule.

Others think that he didn't get lost, per se. More like something happened that incapacitated him, like a heart attack or a bad injury. He could have fallen into a crevasse or a dense foliage area that searchers just couldn't get to. Another theory is that Michael escaped, as in faked his own death so he could run off and start a new life.

But his family argued that he would never do something like that. He was close to retirement, and he had just bought a camper he intended on using to see more of the state. He was eager to spend more time with his family, not run away from them. And plus, he only had the clothes on his back. There are easier ways to disappear if that's really what you want to do, and we can sidebar about that later if you're interested.

But here are the facts of this case that I keep coming back to. Michael vanished on a course that hundreds of people had run that same day, a course being monitored by volunteers. There was an intensive search launched fairly quickly, and still there was no sign of him at all, which that brings me to another theory. Some people think that where Michael disappeared is

is part of the mystery. You see, Seward sits at the southern tip of what's known to locals as the Alaskan Triangle, a region that covers 200,000 square miles of the state and roughly extends to its three major cities, Juneau, Anchorage, and Utqiagvik. It's an area that's considered strange and powerful and is directly responsible for all kinds of bizarre things,

like mysterious disappearances, lots of mysterious disappearances. I mean, it's pretty serious. Statistics vary a bit, but some sources say that since the 1970s, there have been around 20,000 missing persons there. That equates to double the national average. It's also a huge number for a state that doesn't actually have a lot of people living in it.

People go missing in the triangle so often that sometimes one person will go missing and as the search for them intensifies, a separate person will go missing. And it's like no one notices. And as shocking as it may sound, that's exactly what happened in the case of Michael LeMaitre. Three days after he disappeared...

Someone else vanished from the same mountain range, about 60 miles north of Seward. There, a woman walked into the forest and was never seen again. But she was not afforded the same level of media attention. Though just like Michael, no one has any idea where she went. More after the break. This episode is brought to you by Zola.

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What about the murders AC/DC was blamed for? Or the suspicious deaths of Brittany Murphy and River Phoenix? These stories and more are told in the award-winning Disgraceland podcast hosted by me, Jake Brennan, every Tuesday, where I dive deep into the dark side of entertainment and the connection between music history and true crime. Lawndy's lead singer, Debbie Harry, was shocked when she saw the man's photo in the newspaper. She recognized him. How could she forget? He'd given her a ride years ago,

A ride she'd barely escaped from with her life. And now, here he was. Right there on the front page. Accused of kidnapping and killing at least 30 women. And now, Debbie Harry finally knew his name. Ted Bundy. Follow and listen to Disgraceland on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Hero Bread.

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For listeners of Heart Starts Pounding, Hero Bread is offering 10% off your order. Go to hero.co and use code HSP at checkout. That's HSP at H-E-R-O dot C-O. Three days after Michael LeMaitre vanished in the wilderness, 43-year-old Valerie Sifsoff was on a camping trip.

Valerie was an Alaska native who grew up in the state but spent time living in Seattle as an adult. In 2012, she moved home and settled in Anchorage with her boyfriend. She was an outdoorsy person, so it probably wasn't a shock to anyone when she and her boyfriend planned a camping trip in the Kenai Mountains that summer at a place called Granite Creek.

Now, Granite Creek lies somewhat deep within the Kenai Mountains, about 20 miles away from the nearest civilization. It sits next to a rushing river completely surrounded by thick pine trees and tall brush. Mountains peak from above the trees. But when you're at the campground, you can't tell exactly where you are in the mountain range.

If you got lost, your best bet would be to follow the river and hope it took you through a town before the elements got you. So the couple set out on July 7th, making the short journey from Anchorage to the camping site. And that afternoon, when they reached their destination, they got into a fight. They eventually did make up, or at least smooth things over enough to enjoy some drinks around their campfire. But around midnight, the couple fought again.

And this time, it was bad enough that Valerie stormed off. She headed towards the outhouses where a mix of other tents and campers were. She had no keys, no ID, no phone. She just walked off into the darkness through the thick pines and dark brush. Her boyfriend understood that she wanted to cool off. They had had fights before and it always was better to give her space afterwards.

But when she still hadn't come back by 2 a.m., he went to look for her around the grounds. She was nowhere to be seen. He waited at their site, and eventually he fell asleep. He woke up again at 4 a.m., and Valerie was still gone. He decided that she must have somehow gotten a ride back to Anchorage, so later that morning he left and drove home.

but she wasn't at their place either. He went back to Granite Creek again multiple times over the next few days, just searching for her, driving back and forth looking for any trace. But each time he came up empty. Finally, he reported her missing to the state troopers on July 11, four days after she was last seen.

Valerie's boyfriend and family scoured miles of woods around the camping site, along with law enforcement, military, and other volunteers. But she had been missing for four days by that point. And they didn't know if she had, let's say, fallen within minutes of walking off or if she had been walking this whole time and was maybe 100 miles away.

But also, the state troopers didn't have the funding or the manpower to check every possible area. So the search was neither immediate nor robust. And they didn't find anything. But then, months after she disappeared, a kayaker was floating across the surface of Granite Creek near the campsite where Valerie went missing. And there, bobbing in the water, was a green tank top.

They ended up reporting the find and officials confirmed that it was Valerie's, the one she was wearing when she went missing, layered under a black DKNY hoodie. And then in October, her family scoured the area around the creek yet again, and about a half mile from Valerie's campsite, they found something else, a swath of black fabric stuck in a log jam.

They didn't touch it. Instead, they called it into officials. And when it was finally pulled out and examined, authorities realized it was a pretty significant find. It was Valerie's black DKNY hoodie. It seemed like the searchers and Valerie's family were getting somewhat close to locating her. Maybe the clothes were acting like breadcrumbs leading them to her location, but they didn't find anything else after that. No more clothes and no Valerie.

And to this very day, she still hasn't been found. So again, the question is, where did she go?

One theory is that someone attacked or abducted her. Alaska has one of the highest rates of violence against women in the United States, and indigenous women are even more vulnerable, which Valerie was. According to the Urban Indian Health Institute, murder is the third leading cause of death for Native women. For reference, for not Native women, murder isn't even in the top 10 causes of death.

And that's only for the bodies of Native women that are found. There are many more unsolved cases where women go missing and are never heard from again. Valerie's father, though, has a different idea. He's heard the theories that maybe her boyfriend was involved, but he doesn't believe that. He thinks that she fell into a river. The current was really fast, which could have torn some of her clothes off and pulled her downstream before she could fight against it.

According to his theory, his daughter wasn't killed by a person. She was taken by Alaska.

And some might interpret this literally. Like I said, a lot of people go missing in Alaska, partly because it's a huge state that's mostly covered in wilderness. A third of its land is part of the Arctic Circle. It contains over half of America's national parks and 20 of the country's highest peaks. In fact, a huge portion of the state is only accessible by water or air.

And there's also frequent extreme weather like avalanches, blizzards, whiteouts, or strong winds, all of which can confuse hikers and cause accidents. There's also a lot of predators too, like bears, wolves, and so on. But when people fall into a river, officials tend to know where to look. Rivers often drop people in the same areas. And yet, Valerie was never found.

So yes, the extremeness of the Alaskan wilderness does help explain Alaska's very high missing persons rate, but it doesn't necessarily account for some of the more inexplicable cases. The ones that are so strange, they defy explanation. Like people going missing in the middle of crowds or on cruise ships. Locals who knew the area well have vanished on their way to school or while going about daily tasks.

Take for instance, Anthony Newsy, a traveling nurse who was staying in Anchorage in the summer of 2001. He didn't show up for work one day and his Jeep was found about 12 miles outside the city. The night before he went missing, he was seen on surveillance buying some items at a gas station, but then he vanished without a trace and has never been found.

Then there's the World War II veteran, Leonard Lane, who was enjoying some 4th of July festivities in Fairbanks in 1995. He just disappeared in the middle of a crowd in broad daylight. No one saw where he went or what happened to him. And his case is also still unsolved.

In the summer of 2019, a woman named Shanna Oman was visiting a friend in Fairbanks when she vanished. She left a house she was visiting around 12.30 a.m., leaving behind her dog and some money. No one knows why she walked into the wilderness that night, and her body has never been found. These disappearances are eerie.

But there's more, and it's downright terrifying. In the triangle, it's not just people who go missing either. Bigger stuff does too, like planes. In January of 1950, a passenger plane known as the Douglas C-54D was carrying 44 people when it took off from Anchorage.

The aircraft was bound for Minnesota. Around two hours after takeoff, the plane crossed into the Yukon and the easternmost part of the Alaska Triangle, which briefly connects with Canada. And this was the point where something seemed to go wrong. The plane's crew spoke to air traffic control around this time. They noted that there was some ice accumulating on the plane's wings and they were dealing with some turbulence.

But that was basically it. They didn't mention any other emergencies and they didn't really seem panicked. They were supposed to check in with air traffic control 30 minutes later. That was the schedule, contact every 30 minutes throughout the whole journey. They didn't do their next check-in and no one ever heard from them again.

They never made it to their destination and a search started almost immediately. Both the US Air Force and Canadian authorities worked together, scouring the region in a grid pattern where the plane issued their final transmission. But the conditions were merciless. There was heavy snow, ragged winds, and a lack of visibility that really hindered their efforts. Four rescue planes actually ended up crashing during the search. That's how bad it was out there.

They looked for a few weeks before being rerouted to another incident and abandoning the search. The families of the victims were left to continue efforts on their own, which they did. Each summer, they organized search parties in the region to look for signs of their loved ones. But to this day, no part of the aircraft or anyone who was inside of it has ever been found.

which people think is really strange. It was a large plane full of people and there hasn't even been a wing or a piece of shrapnel found, nothing. It was flying through the skies and then poof, just gone.

And these weird disappearances are why so many people think that something strange is happening in Alaska, something beyond the natural world. They'll tell you that electronic readings have actually recorded magnetic irregularities in the triangle and surrounding areas. They'll say that the Alaska Triangle is one of the world's 12 limited vial vortices, which is a place where things can be transported to a different dimension.

And then there's the people that believe that there's something truly evil patrolling the woods in Alaska. That's the reason why so many people disappear inside of them. And they look to the story of Portlock as evidence of that after the break.

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In southern Alaska, grazing the western edge of the Alaska Triangle is a town called Portlock.

Back in the day, it was a small fishing village on the Port Chatham Bay. It's very remote and was first discovered by a captain in 1786 who was really impressed with the place. I mean, who wouldn't be? It was gorgeous, nestled between the ocean and the mountains. It was also near a swatch of calm water that was perfect for salmon fishing.

But despite it being such an ideal spot, no indigenous tribes lived there. They inhabited the areas nearby, but Portlock was like a dead zone, as if they knew something about it and understood that the best way to handle the area was to stay away. And eventually it became clear why.

In 1900, an American firm set up a salmon cannery there and a settlement blossomed around it. But only five years into the endeavor, a mysterious incident occurred. A short, vague logbook entry from 1905 is really the only clue we have about what happened there. A cannery supervisor had hastily scribbled a report stating that the cannery workers had fled in fear. They now refused to come back to work.

And there's not much information about why they left, just something about a threat that came from the woods. Now, the settlement of Portlock was surrounded by forest, dense regal greenery that sat in the shadow of stunning snow-capped mountains. What could have emerged from that forest that scared the employees that badly? It didn't say what the threat was, so we don't know.

And whatever it was, it seemed like it went away since according to the log book, the workers all went back to the cannery that following season. For the next few years, all was well. Whatever it was seemed to have retreated into the wilderness it came from. But at some point, it came back. And when it did, people began to die.

In 1921 or 1931, there's conflicting dates, a man named Andrew Kamluck was working at a logging site near Portlock. There was some heavy-duty machinery lying around near him, but he was busy with a manual task. Every so often, he stopped to wipe the sweat from his brow and sit on a bench for a moment. Well, one evening, Andrew didn't return from work.

And another logger was sent to go search for him near where he was last seen working. And what he found, he couldn't explain. Andrew's body was lying crumpled by the bench where he normally took his breaks. And a huge gash covered the back of his head. He probably hadn't seen whoever or whatever did this to him.

Next to him, about 10 feet away, was a bunch of heavy logging equipment covered in blood, which confused the logger who found him. That equipment was far too heavy to be lifted by one man, but where it was sitting, it didn't look like it had fallen on him either. And worst of all, while the logger was inspecting the area, he got the overwhelming feeling he was being watched.

The back of his neck tingled and the hair stood up as if someone was deep in the forest, their eyes boring into the back of his skull, waiting for the perfect time to strike. The man gathered his things and ran to go notify Andrew's family and their boss. And as he was leaving, he thought he caught a glimpse of a giant brown bear, maybe a grizzly off in the distance. So it was really time to leave.

And Andrew wasn't the only local who reported seeing a giant brown bear around this time. There were multiple sightings near a mine, but the people in the area swore that it wasn't a bear. It was far too big, they said. And then a gold miner went missing after leaving for work and he was never found. That was just the beginning.

Over the next decade, people kept disappearing, plucked from the village during the night or while they were out working or doing chores. Some were never seen again, but others were found, utterly eviscerated, with their limbs torn off and twisted and their faces in tatters,

Not eaten, just mangled. Like something had killed them and then furiously ravaged their corpses. At one point, an entire hunting party went missing during an outing up the mountain. After it rained, their shredded bodies floated down the mountainside and reunited in a local lagoon. There, the townspeople found them bobbing in the current.

Each time a body was found, the remains were horrific, and there was no indication of how they'd gotten that way. "It's the bear!" some would shout. But others knew this wasn't a bear. The victims' wounds didn't have the same markings as a bear attack, and it wasn't the season or typical bear behavior to go rogue and attack so many civilians.

It wasn't until another hunting party found something in the woods that they could confirm they weren't dealing with a standard predator. This was something else. They said that during their hunt, they found prints that they felt must belong to the predator. But they didn't look like animal prints. They looked like human prints. And they were massive, 18 inches in length.

That was enough for the residents to start taking some real precautions. Children were told not to go outside when it was foggy, or whatever was out there would get them too. When they snuggled in at night, they stared at the dark sky outside their windows, wondering if something would reach in and pluck them from their beds. Children, it seemed, listened to these warnings. But some adults didn't.

It's not known exactly when a local man named Tom Larson got into trouble, but at some point during the panic, he was walking through the forest, intending on gathering some wood for his fish traps. He had a specific spot in mind, and his route there took him along the beach. There, the waves gently lapped against the sand, sent in by the light current protected by the snow-capped mountains that lined the bay.

A light, cool breeze whipped against his face, chapping his cheeks. He might have stopped to enjoy the scenery or inhale the fresh air if he hadn't seen something that made his blood run cold. There, standing at the edge of the water was a figure.

It was massive and it was hairy, but not like anything he had ever seen before. Tom didn't know what it was, but he was sure it was dangerous and that it did not belong on that beach. He slowly backed away from the creature before he bolted. Instinct told him he needed a weapon now. So he raced back the way he came. He shot into his home, grabbed his rifle and booked it back to the beach.

The thing was still there, only when Tom raised his gun, it turned and it looked straight at him. For a moment, the two species gazed at one another. A man, terrified, with a lethal weapon in his grip, and something else. A monster or a demon, simply returning Tom's stare. And for some reason, Tom couldn't pull the trigger.

It was like some kind of force held his finger in place, refusing to let him fire. Maybe it was Tom telling himself to wait before destroying something he didn't understand. Or maybe it was the creature using whatever power it maybe had to control him. At least, this is the story that Tom told as he stared into his beer at a local bar. A group was around him, hanging on to every single word he said.

But one of the people in the group was a young woman who lived in the area. And her eyes went wide when she heard this story. See, her father was a Ludic, one of the eight Alaskan native tribes that still inhabited the state. And he had told her about the Nantinuk. The Nantinuk was a half man, half beast. Another local tribe called it the Dininga, which means those who steal people.

It's a large, ape-like creature that walks upright on two legs and is covered in dark fur. It announces itself through a series of yells and whistles and is somewhere between 8 and 10 feet tall and around 6 feet wide. She was told...

That's why none of the tribes in the region lived in that specific area, even though the fishing was so good. There was something in the woods that didn't want them there, and they had no choice but to respect its wishes. Was this the creature that tormented Portlock for years, she wondered?

Well, in 1949, this torment stopped because the entire town, seemingly overnight, just got up and left. Some claim that this was actually a gradual natural exodus. The economy slowed down and it was too remote for modernity. But others say that they were driven out by the creature.

A village elder who used to live in Portlock told the Anchorage Tribune that it was the latter. She said the people there had been exhausted by fear, too scared to go in the woods anymore. And the woods was where the timber was. It was where the industry was. If people could no longer go there, they just couldn't support their families. So they had to leave.

Portlock has been abandoned ever since. A place that once had a school, a post office, homes and businesses has now been reclaimed by the natural world. The structures are gone with just bits of machinery lying around the forest floor covered up by the stubborn greenery. There's just one dilapidated cabin that's still standing in the thicket. A last piece of shelter from the creature of Portlock.

And now we have this 90 year old tale, which may have bent and twisted over time, becoming more like folklore than hard facts with the years. That is, until someone saw the creature 11 years ago. In 2014, a girl named Sarah, her friend Ray, and Ray's brother were at Lake Iliamna getting their boat set up for a camping trip. They left the dock and were on their way across the lake.

Sarah turned and looked around her, soaking in the gorgeous lakeside scenery. But then she was suddenly ripped out of this peaceful moment because there was something on the shore, a figure. Sarah couldn't really see it clearly, but she knew it was strange. It was massive for one, about nine or 10 feet tall, and it was covered in dark, long fur. It sent a shiver down her spine and it sparked this feeling of dread inside of her.

But it didn't chase after her and her friends. No, it just watched them with that same cold stare that can be felt from a mile away. The one that the people of Portlock had felt almost a hundred years before. She was about to yell, what is that? But her friend Ray beat her to the punch. He too was staring at the creature. They all were. Their eyes were locked on this thing.

But then it did something that no one had ever reported before. It just vanished. Like a switch had flipped. It suddenly just wasn't there anymore.

Sarah and Ray shared a look. They lived in the area and they had heard the stories. That thing had to be Bigfoot. It was perhaps this knowledge that compelled them to look closer. I mean, if it actually was Bigfoot, they had to see if they could get proof, right? So the group steered their boat back to the landing spot and got out so they could poke around.

Sarah traipsed through the thick foliage, peering through leaves and stepping over logs. The towering trees cast shadows all around her, tricking the eye into thinking the beast was lurking nearby. But Sarah didn't see it again. Instead, all she saw was, in the mud and grass of the forest, a huge footprint.

Actually, there were a lot of them, all around the spot where she had seen the creature. The prints looked like human feet, only way bigger. They were a tangible, horrific reminder of the monster that had been there only moments before. And as soon as she saw those prints, her curiosity dissipated, and her gut told her to stop looking for this creature.

All around Alaska, there are signs of the hairy man, often just referred to by its more famous name, Bigfoot,

Many of the sightings are just glimpses of a tall, hairy beast lurking in the woods or ducking behind trees. Or it's from hikers who come across a sprawling set of footprints made by something huge that walks upright. And a lot of these sightings are from local Alaskans, people who have seen plenty of bears and wildlife and know that this is something different. And when they tell these stories, they're saying that what they saw defied all logical explanation.

So far though, that's all the hairy man has left behind. Stories, whispers of its presence, and trails of its victims. It lurks on the periphery of our vision, but it never shows its full hand.

And that's why some people think this creature is part of a shifting unknowable energy of the triangle itself. Alaska natives have spoken of other shape-shifting monsters for centuries. They've known about the dangers of these woods.

Others say that if there really were these creatures in the woods and there really was something supernatural in the backwoods of Alaska, wouldn't we know about it by now? With all of the cameras and the cell phones and the science that we have? Well, here's a gentle reminder that if we can't find a 44-person passenger plane in the Triangles Wilderness, what else can't we find there?

If someone can still, to this day, take a step into the dark woods only to never reemerge again, and for no trace of them to ever be found, then what else is out there that we can't find?

That is what I will leave you on this week. Join me back here next week for another mystery, this time a morbid medical mystery. We're diving into spontaneous human combustion. I'll see you then. And until next time, don't go into the woods at night. Please, guys, I beg you, don't do it.

Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by me, Kayla Moore. Heart Starts Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Our associate producer is Amanda Olson. Additional research and writing by Kate Murdoch. Sound design and mix by Peachtree Sound. Special thanks to Travis Dunlop, Grayson Jernigan, the team at WME, and Ben Jaffe. Have a heart-pounding story or a case request? Check out heartstartspounding.com. You can listen to Heart Starts Pounding anywhere you get your podcasts, including the free Odyssey app.