He flat out told us, mom, she's dead, she needs our help.
And that's when I got the goosebumps and I was like, oh my gosh.
He was just in our car and he was pointing out to a certain spot in the meadow.
While Victoria Gorba and her family stopped for lunch, her son Caden began talking to someone.
And my husband and I kind of looked at each other like, what?
And he goes, yeah, there's a lady over in the meadow in a black shirt.
And, um, she oh, I got goosebumps.
He says she needs our help, but she's dead.
And she, um, she's laying face down with her legs up.
And she can't talk to me.
But she's over there.
We need to go help her.
Jake and Victoria checked out the meadow, but saw nothing.
He kept saying, trust me, trust me, mom.
And I was like, I trust you, bud.
You know, I believe you 100%.
Spooked, the couple decided to end the trip early and head home.
We put it on Facebook, seeing if anybody knew anything about the area.
Um, and come to find out that there was a lady missing with the description that he
described to us within a five mile radius of where we were.
Sandra Hughes had gone missing in July of 2020.
Caden had described her in detail and recognized her in three of four photos.
He was very adamant that we needed to help her.
Um, and he described down to blue hair.
He said she has a black shirt, blue jeans and blue hair.
Mom, mommy.
That's the exact description of her when she went missing.
Hello friends!
We recently learned of what may be one of the strangest updates to a
missing person case that we've ever brought forth.
Now, sometimes in these missing person cases that we cover,
there will be a little bit of a paranormal or supernatural element.
It's usually something small and not very significant to the overall case,
but sometimes it seems that the unknown can play a larger part in these cases.
Stories of UFOs, the FAI, Bigfoot or other cryptids, portals, translucent entities,
etc. but is it possible that the ghost of a missing woman may be trying to help
solve her disappearance, or at least help locate her remains?
We ask that you keep an open mind and consider the following case.
Back in episode number seven of our ten unsolved National Park Disappearances series,
we brought you the story of Sandra Hughes.
To recap, 54 year old Sandra Johnson Hughes of California was last heard from on June 26th, 2020.
Sandra had embarked on a solo camping trip in
the Sierra south of Yosemite to escape from the current pandemic.
Sandra had recently moved from Maui, Hawaii to California in June of 2020.
She had trained to be a park ranger in college and was experienced in the outdoors.
On July 5th of that year, the Madera County Sheriff's Office asked for the
public's help in locating Sandra after they found
her campsite near the Johnsons Meadow section of the forest in disarray.
On that same day, the authorities located his
silver Saab in Chiquito Creek to the north of the campsite.
They said it appeared to have crashed into a tree at a speed
of less than 20mph before rolling into the ravine.
Hackers reported seeing Sandra on July 4th,
2020 and said she was barefoot and had a bruise on her face.
They offered to help her, but she declined medical assistance.
Officers and volunteers search and rescue teams from more than half a dozen other
sheriff's departments, together with dog teams.
The California Highway Patrol and the Governor's Office of Emergency Services combed the forest
on foot, while helicopters from California Air National Guard did an aerial search.
The search focused around the area where a car was found, but there was no sign of Sandra.
Then, on August 9th, 2022,
hunters saw a woman leaning against a tree along road 501 near Bissell Road.
She did not wave them down, attempt contact, or appear to be in any distress.
Upon returning, they recognized her from a missing persons flier and contacted park rangers.
The hunters said that she appears to be visibly thinner than her last known photos.
At the time of her disappearance,
Sandra was a 54 year old white female with blue shoulder length hair.
Her natural color is brown.
She has brown eyes and is approximately five foot three inches tall, and weighs about 150 pounds.
The search for Sandra was ongoing but limited.
Now flash forward to almost exactly one year later.
This strange update to the case comes from the Madera
County Sheriff's Office in Madera, California.
It seems that a family from nearby Coarsegold, California, experienced a bizarre,
broad daylight ghost sighting in the Madera County mountains on Wednesday, July 21st, 2021.
The event was so strange and disturbing that the
Madera County Sheriff's Office felt the need to further investigate.
It seems that a man named Jake Gorba, his wife Victoria, and their three children
decided to take their four Wheeler up to the Shut-eye peak on that fateful Wednesday.
While on this family outing, they stopped to have something to eat
beside the trail and that's when things started to get strange.
The couple's three year old son, Caden suddenly began animatedly talking to someone nearby.
He was just in our four Wheeler,
and he was pointing out to a certain spot in the meadow, said his mom, Victoria.
The normally reserved and somewhat quiet Caden excitedly told his
parents that there in the meadow by where the family was having lunch,
was a woman lying face down with her legs straight up in the air.
Furthermore, Caden stated that the woman was unable to speak or move and needed help.
He began pleading with his parents to help this poor woman.
He flat out told us, mom, she's already dead, but she needs our help.
And that's when I got the goosebumps and I was like, oh my gosh, Victoria said.
He goes, yeah, there's a lady over in the meadow in a black shirt,
blue jeans and blue hair and I got goosebumps, said Victoria.
He says she needs our help, but she's dead and she's lying face down with her legs up.
She can't talk to me, but she's over there.
We need to go help her.
So in order to calm young Kayden down,
Jake and Victoria walked over and checked out the meadow but saw absolutely nothing.
Kayden continued to insist.
He kept saying, trust me, trust me, mom.
And I was like, I trust you, I trust you.
I believe you 100%, said Victoria.
Whatever young Kayden was experiencing so unnerved and spooked the rest of the
family that the other members of the family all unanimously agreed.
It's time to put an early end to their day of adventure and
make the 35 mile drive back home to Coarsegold.
After arriving home, the event still fresh in her mind,
Victoria decided to post about the weird encounter on her Facebook profile.
We put it on Facebook to see if anybody knew anything about this area.
And come to find out, there was a lady missing with a description that
he described to us within a five mile radius of where we were, said Victoria.
Now, viewers of this channel know from our previous episode,
number seven, Sandra Hughes had gone missing in that area in June of 2020.
The encounter became even more chilling when, according to Victoria,
three year old Caden's highly detailed description of the woman he had seen in
the meadow was identical to the description of Sandra Hughes as given by the local authorities.
He was very adamant that we needed to help her and he described her down to blue hair.
He said she has a black shirt, blue jeans and blue hair.
Mom, that's the exact description of her when she went missing, said Victoria.
Then Victoria went and searched online for Sandra Hughes and found some photographs
that had been released as a part of the search effort the year prior.
Because he said she got goosebumps when Caden readily recognized three of the
photos of Sandra, identifying her as the woman he had seen in the field.
As fate would have it, Madera County Sheriff Corporal Chris Williams just
happened to see the Facebook post and found it intriguing to say the least.
So much so that he contacted Caden's family to further investigate the chilling account.
Victoria said the corporal in charge of her case actually reached out to us
on Facebook and was like, hey, we want more information and we want to bring
you guys back up there and see if you could point us in the right direction.
Corporal Williams has been investigating the
disappearance of Sandra Hughes since the beginning of the investigation.
On the following Thursday, two Madera County Sheriff's deputies ventured back up to the meadow
to investigate, with Jake and Kayden coming along to point them in the right direction.
Unfortunately, the deputies found nothing new by way of evidence, although the case remains open.
If she was possibly a ghost looking for some help,
I hope that he could have at least helped and maybe helped the family find her,
because it's been a long time, apparently since she's been gone, Victoria said.
The four Wheeler that Caden and his family used while traveling in the mountains has
now been nicknamed the Ghost Runner and, incidentally, is also for sale.
It's not believed that the spooky encounter is the reason they put the vehicle up for sale,
as the family says they will continue to go adventuring in the Madeira mountains, but do
admit there are a few spots now which they aren't anxious to visit again any time soon, if at all.
Local news reporters in the area reached out to the Madeira County Sheriff's Office,
who did confirm that they received the report of a possible sighting of some sort.
And they did go out to the location to search for any additional leads or information.
For now, the case remains open in hopes that this
latest update regarding the spooky encounter may produce some new leads.
Now, as strange as this new development is,
it's not the first time that possibly a ghost helped solve the missing person's case.
Back on February 21st, 1997, the TV show Unsolved Mysteries aired a
segment regarding a missing person's case from almost three years prior.
This report told the story of 23 year old Christine Skubic and her three year old son, Nick.
They were driving along highway 50, in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California,
when they vanished without a trace on June 6th, 1994.
Christine was a single mother and had recently completed paralegal training.
She had plans of going to work for a prestigious law firm,
and she hoped to make enough money so that she and her child's father could be married.
Christine left her step parent's home near Sacramento on June 5th,
1994, on her way to Carson City, Nevada.
After failing to make contact with her family.
After three days, her stepfather,
Dave Stolzenbach, reported her and her son missing on June 8th.
The police took the missing persons report, but there were no initial leads in the case.
Five days after Christine and Nick disappeared, however,
a woman named Deborah Hoyt and her husband were driving along highway 50 around 3 a.m..
The pair were on a long overnight drive and
had been joking and singing in order to keep each other awake.
Suddenly, Deborah saw what appeared to be a completely
naked woman lying on the side of the road.
The naked woman's face was turned toward the road,
and she was lying on her side with her knees slightly bent.
She had one arm placed beneath her head and the other arm held over her head.
The Hoyts were shocked beyond belief.
They thought it must have been some sort of sick practical joke,
or perhaps even a ploy to carjack them had they stopped.
Deborah floored the accelerator instead and sped down highway 50, not stopping until
she arrived at the nearest phone booth, where she proceeded to call the police.
In just minutes, two sheriff's cars were at
the scene where Deborah had seen the naked woman's body.
However, unable to pinpoint the exact location,
the deputies reported that they saw and found nothing.
The next morning, though, speculations began that the sighting had something to do with
the disappearance of Christine and Nick, who were the most recently missing people from that area.
Due to the insistence from the family,
deputy Rich Strasser decided to go back and have a closer look.
Strasser figured that it might be easier to spot anything out of the ordinary in the daylight.
Deborah had indicated that a particularly dangerous stretch of highway 50,
known as Bullion Bend, was where the incident took place.
As Strasser patrolled the area,
he spotted a new looking child's tennis shoe on the side of the road.
Immediately next to that spot, in the shoulder of the road, was a steep embankment.
Strasser pulled over his cruiser to search the area more thoroughly, and sure enough,
at the bottom of the embankment, he spotted the twisted remains of Christine's car.
He checked Christine and observed that she was
dead and unfortunately had been that way for quite some time.
The deputy then went around to the other side to check Nick,
who was curled up in a fetal position in the passenger seat.
Strasser assumed the worst and was sure that Nick was also dead.
However, when he touched the little boy's neck to find a pulse, it appeared that Nick took a breath.
Strasser immediately radioed for an ambulance.
Little Nick had been alone in the car for five days, yet he was somehow still clinging to life.
Officials believe that sometime around 2 a.m. on June 6th,
Christine must have fallen asleep at the wheel.
The car veered off the road and plunged to the bottom of the ditch, striking a tree.
Due to the embankment being so steep.
Other drivers drove right past the accident scene for days,
unaware that it was just over the side of the road.
It was later determined that Christine had been killed instantly on impact with a tree.
Three year old Nick was all alone, with no way out and no one to talk to.
Christine's mother says that she believes that
little Nick spent the time talking to his mother, unaware that she was dead.
Against all odds, he survived five days of intense heat and four nights of cold.
Trapped within the twisted remains of the car.
Doctors who examined Nick stated that he was in such bad shape that he would
have most likely died within a couple of hours had he not been found when he was.
The strange encounter that saved Nick's life seems to defy any rational explanation.
If Deborah had not seen the naked woman lying on the side of the road,
Nick would have not survived.
Now, it's absolutely impossible for Christine to have been the naked woman.
now it's absolutely impossible for Christine to have been the naked woman
She was still fully clothed and wearing her seat belt when found
and the medical examiner stated that she was most likely killed on impact.
Deborah Hoyt is 100% certain that she saw a naked woman on the side of the road.
Both she and Christine's family believe it was Christine's Spirit who saved Nick that day.
The spirit had apparently appeared in the nude in order to draw attention.
Nick, years later as an adult was interviewed on a television show Paranormal witness.
He remembers seeing a bright light surrounding the car following the accident to this day he believes
that his mother was watching over him following the accident and helped him to be rescued.
The show also revealed that Christine's aunt had several dreams or premonitions
about the accident before Christine and Nick were even reported missing.
She dreamed of seeing them lying in their car in a ditch.
She also saw the number 16 in the dream which turned
out to be the number for the mile marker nearest the accident site.
Well there you have it!
What do you think about the apparition that little Caden
observed which she identified as Sandra Hughes?
Even down to the color of her hair which was dyed blue when she went missing!
Is it possible that Sandra's spirit is attempting to communicate with the
living in a desire that it remains to be found and her friend and loved ones have closure?
It certainly appears that way.
And what about the two other times she was spotted by hikers?
Was that actually her or was that an apparition?
Thank you for listening and we look forward to your comments on this strange case.
As always, we ask that you please remain respectful of the victims mentioned,
their family, and friends and the opinions of other commenters.
Until we meet again take care of yourselves and each other
I'm Steve Stockton and I'll see you a little further on down the road.
I'll talk to you next time!