There are places all over the world that are so beautiful there seems to be almost something
literally magical about them.
As if there’s some sort of deep and possibly ancient mystery at work in them that we can
almost reach out and touch, but not quite.
As we on this channel know very well there are many places where there is believed to
be not only something supernatural but also - possibly, something sinister taking place
just beyond the view of what our eyes are able to see.
Oftentimes the places that are the most beautiful to behold and the most peaceful to spend time
in carry a sort of sinister feeling in their periphery.
The air itself is somehow different and once the extent of these strange feelings sinks
in, it could end up being too late.
We have discussed so many places like this and so many people who have fallen victim
to whatever these things are, the unknown things about these specific types of places
that makes them so appealing in the first place.
One of these places is Crater Lake, located in Mount Mazama in Oregon, United States.
Crater Lake has been the subject of more than a few sinister and dark legends and has been
home to more than a few strange happenings.
From tales of UFO encounters and abductions, strange and unnatural beings and creatures
being reported as lurking about, suspicious deaths, vengeful and mournful ghosts and spirits
to so many other things that lurk in between; they have all been, at one time or another,
added to the proverbial belt buckle of Crater Lake- that is, another notch.
Many of these myths and legends go back centuries and further and some have even said that it’s
the very deadliness and sinister vibe that could be luring unknowing and unsuspecting
victims right to it.
Could there be something more to Crater Lake than what meets the eye?
Is there something about it, something underlying the natural beauty of Mother Nature at work
that is pulling us in somehow possibly to our doom and demise?
We may never know the answers to those questions but there are more than a few things about
this place that make it special; in both a good and evil respect.
Let’s discuss some of the more bizarre disappearances that have happened in this seriously strange
place.
Crater Lake National Park is located in Klamath County and is a part of the beautifully scenic
Cascade Range in Southwest Oregon.
This is not a place where one would immediately think there were rumors and speculation about
evil lurking about and terrifying creatures running amok.
In fact, Crater Lake and the surrounding area is known to have the cleanest and purest air
in the entire world.
Cliffs that reach to between 7 and 8 thousand feet, sprawling meadows and tranquil fields
all come together to give an aesthetically pleasing view and a serene and peaceful feeling
of absolute tranquility that tends to relax the tourist and put them at ease.
According to some, this is all but a mere facade and there is actually something malevolent
and terrifying underlying this somewhat magical place.
Crater Lake’s fiercely blue waters reach depths of up to almost 2,000 feet.
It’s actually the deepest lake in the entire United States and the third deepest in the
world based on average depth.
In fact, the lake is so deep that before we had scientific measurements, locals and tourists
alike thought it to be bottomless.
Crater Lake is a caldera lake and sits on a dormant volcano called Mount Mazama.
The lake was formed when the volcano erupted way back in 5700 BC.
The lake itself covers 21 square miles and has to make us wonder, what secrets does it
hold and will we ever really know?
Arguably one of the most troubling and puzzling disappearances to ever happen at Crater Lake
was that of photographer Charles McCullar in 1975.
A year earlier Charles set off on a nationwide tour, which he planned to create and publish
a photographic journal of the beautiful scenes he saw while on his adventure.
Charles was going to travel by hitchhiking and taking buses across the country until
he found what he was looking for and documented all of it.
In January of 1975 Charles was staying at a friend’s house in Oregon for a few weeks
before planning to move on to the next leg of his journey.
He thought this was the perfect opportunity to take
some photos of Crater Lake in the dead of winter.
His friend knew what Charles was trying to do and so he didn’t bat an eye or think
twice about it when Charles informed him that he would be back in a few days and took off
into the wilderness alone.
About a week later Charles still hadn’t returned and so his friend reported him as
missing and rounded up some locals to help aid in the search for the lost photographer.
This little search and rescue operation grew very quickly and soon even the FBI was involved
in searching the wilderness and focusing on where Charles was thought to have set up camp.
However, efforts were quickly hampered by drifts of snow that were, in some places,
12 feet deep.
Charle’s father flew out during the summer months when no sign of his son had been found
and stayed the entire three months to help in any way that he could to at least find
out what had happened to him.
He even camped out on the shore of the lake in case any sign of Charles could be found
there.
He refused to give up but eventually, he and everyone else had to face the facts; at this
point it was a recovery mission and the most they could expect was to find his remains
and bring them home.
Exhaustive efforts were made by not only the authorities but volunteers and Charle’s
father but despite all of this and even after all the snow had melted, there was still no
sign whatsoever as to what could have become of the young and ambitious photographer.
In October of 1976, a pair of hikers came across a torn-up and raggedy backpack in a
remote canyon.
This canyon was about 12 miles from where Charles was known to have been camped.
The hikers brought the beaten-up pack to the ranger’s station who searched it and found,
in one of the side pockets, a set of keys that belonged to a Volkswagen- the exact type
of car that Charles had owned.
Although he hadn’t been driving at the time, it stands to reason that perhaps he still
had his keys on him, maybe out of habit if nothing else.
Either way, two rangers assigned to the case named Larry Smith and Marion Jack compared
the key to a photocopy of the actual key to Charle’s car and saw it was a perfect match.
The backpack the hikers found was indeed Charles’.
Immediately following this break in the case, a patrol set out on horseback and went directly
to the area where the backpack was found.
It didn’t take long for them to find what they were looking for.
Near a spot called Bybee Creek human remains were found.
Many thought this would be the end of it but it was actually only the beginning of this
strange and bizarre disappearance.
Aside from the remains, there was a pair of jeans
found just laying there on a rock nearby the bones.
The thing was, the jeans were in remarkably good condition given the elements they would
have had to have been left out in and for the amount of time they would have been there,
had they belonged to Charles.
There was no shirt, no coat, and no boots anywhere that they ever found but within the
legs of the jeans, there were socks.
Inside one of the socks, the investigators found toes bones that had all been broken
and inside the legs of the jeans, there were some snapped shin bones and nothing more.
This was all very confusing for the investigators and no one quite knew what to make of it.
Even more odd was the fact that the belt was still on the jeans but had been undone and
the zipper and buttons undone, almost as if Charles were trying to take his pants off
in the middle of the frigid cold snow.
Besides these toe and shin bones, there was nothing else.
There were no other body parts found and it was almost like the rest of him had simply
dissolved into the forest itself.
The only other thing that was ever found as far as Charle’s remains was a discovery
about 12 feet away from the jeans and other bones.
The crown of Charle’s skull and some teeny tiny fragments of other bones, too small to
None of Charle’s other possessions were ever able to be located either.
His wallet and his camera remain missing to this day.
One ranger who had been doing the job for more than thirty years said the discoveries
they made that day when they found the jeans was the strangest thing he had ever seen and
that it was almost like Charles had simply melted into the log he had been sitting on.
It’s a huge mystery as to how this man could have walked twelve miles away from where he
was camped, and why.
The impossibly deep snow drifts and approximately 120 feet of snow that is known to have fallen
during his time out there in the wilderness should have been enough to thwart his efforts
to make it very far at all let alone twelve full miles.
What in the world had become of Charles McCullar and why was his body, or what was left of
it, found in the way it was?
It was all so incredibly bizarre and investigators still don’t know what to make of it.
It’s not a question of whether or not he is deceased but of how he came to be that
way and where the rest of his body went and where were his wallet and camera?
The official cause of death is listed as death by natural causes but, given the information
we just presented to you, many questions the validity of that opinion.
Charles McCullar isn’t the only bizarre disappearance to come out of this mysterious
and majestic lake and not by a long shot either.
In 1971 a man from Grants Pass, Oregon named Nick Carlino, took his pet German shepherd
out with him snowshoeing.
The pair were said to have been headed just west of Rim Village.
A search was launched when the dog returned sometime later without its master and search
groups simply followed his snowshoe prints to the edge of the rim of the crater where
they suddenly just stopped.
No trace of Nick was ever found and no one ever saw or heard from him again.
One strange coincidence is that Nick had rented snowshoes from the park concessionaire and
was going out to take photos of the snowy landscapes he passed along the way.
So, another photographer goes missing while taking photos at Crater Lake.
Is the mountain itself perhaps camera-shy?
As far as we can tell, no sign of him has ever been found and it’s almost as though
he was simply swallowed whole by the forest itself.
Another tragic disappearance to mar the beauty of Crater Lake is that of 8-year-old Samuel
Savage Becker Boehlke.
Sammy and his father Kenneth, aged 48, were out exploring together on October 14th, 2006
in the Cleetwood Cove area of Crater Lake National Forest.
At approximately 4 pm little Sammy ran up a cinder slope into the woods and seems to
have simply vanished into thin air.
He never returned and was never seen or heard from again.
Sammy had a mild form of autism which manifested itself in a tremendous fear of loud noises
and bright lights.
He was 4 foot 11 and weighed 86 pounds.
Despite having had camping training that was considered to be extensive given his young
age, he had no formal wilderness survival training.
He and his father had stopped at a pullout at around 4 pm and approximately 500 yards
east of the parking lot at Cleetwood Cove and started walking on the North side of Rim
Drive.
Sammy and his dad decided to play some tag and hide and seek for a little bit, just enjoying
each other’s company and having some fun together.
They did this near a cinder slope and were having a great time.
Sammy saw something a little further on that he thought might be gold, given whatever it
was being yellow and the young mind of a child, it made perfect sense to him and he wanted
to investigate it further.
It started to get dark and Sammy and his father decided to walk to the car as it was only
a short distance from where they were.
Kenny was ready for them to go back to where they were staying at a rented cabin near Diamond
Lake, however, Sammy refused to budge from his position on the slope despite the pleading
from his father for him to do so.
Kenny started to run up the slope after his son but Sammy more than likely thought this
was a game, perhaps similar to the tag the two had been playing just minutes earlier,
and turned and ran further into the wilderness.
Kenny said he was never able to catch up with his son, who was about 50 feet ahead of him
most of this entire time, and said that his son simply
vanished once he ran over the top of the slope.
Kenny immediately went and reported his son as missing.
He was frantic but hopeful his son would be found alive and well.
Very quickly the search extended to over two hundred people who thoroughly scoured an area
of 6 square miles; approximately 4,000 acres of wilderness.
For weeks on end, SAR utilized search dogs, helicopters, and heat-sensing cameras but
no trace of little Sammy was ever found.
Not a single clue was ever uncovered as to what could have become of him and the mystery
goes on to this day.
The only tracks spotted, according to local authorities, were that of the normal wildlife
in the area and nothing unusual was ever turned up or
uncovered regarding the disappearance of the young boy.
The park is at 7,000 feet and receives an average of more than 500 inches of snow per
year.
Despite this and severe snow storms hampering the search efforts, they did continue to look
for the child intermittently but again, never found anything.
It’s thought to be unlikely Sammy had fallen into the lake because there were said to be
too many obstacles in the path leading to it from where he was last seen.
This area was searched thoroughly anyway but to no avail.
Search teams included those from Jackson, Klamath, and Deschutes counties, National
Park search experts from California, Washington, and Oregon, including specialty rescue teams
from Mount Hood and Mount Rainier, and local U.S. Forest
Service and Bureau of Land Management Employees.
Many people think there’s something very fishy about this story from the very beginning.
Sammy was described as only “slightly autistic” so some find it odd that he would take off
running into the woods for no reason at all and not slow down or heed his father when
he went chasing after him.
Given the extremely cold temperature that day, wouldn’t it have made more sense for
him to want to turn and run back to his father knowing they would be getting into the car
and driving to the warmth of their rented cabin?
Even if he had been hiding for a little while, with his father calling him, most people believe
he would have eventually come out.
However, Sammy was described by those who knew him as a child whose passion bordered
on stubbornness and at times he could even be flat-out obstinate.
Sammy had brown eyes and short brown hair.
He was last seen wearing a long-sleeved black and green t-shirt, cargo pants, a blue winter
coat, and red, slip-on shoes with rubber soles.
In yet another strange disappearance that took place recently in 2014, a ranger stopped
to speak to a man who then went and started scrambling down a caldera wall.
The ranger was concerned and went to tell the man to stop what he was doing as he was
putting himself in unnecessary danger.
It was meant to be a friendly warning and the man wasn’t in any trouble or anything.
However, the ranger followed him for a little while but once the man rounded a bend, the
ranger said it was like he simply vanished into thin air.
The ranger conducted an extensive search of the area, again concerned for the man’s
safety, but all he could find was the man’s sunglasses.
When the ranger investigated further by running the name the man had given him, he realized
it was fake.
A full description of the stranger was distributed all over the forest and surrounding local
areas along with a plea for information but nothing ever came to light as to who the man
was, what he was doing there, or why he gave the ranger a false name, to begin with.
In October of 1991, a 33-year-old mechanical engineer named Glen Allen Mackie was thought
to be on a tour of national parks and forests in the United States.
Somewhere around October 21st, 1991 snow plow operators notified park rangers after noticing
that Glen’s vehicle had been parked in the exact same spot and hadn’t moved for a long
time.
Officials decided to break into the vehicle and when they did they found a receipt dated
October 14th for entrance into the park.
Glen’s driver’s license, keys, passport, and toiletries were located inside of the
vehicle and some cash was there as well.
He had no family in the area and that’s most likely the reason why the car was parked
there for as long as several weeks and no one had noticed or reported him as missing.
More than forty people searched in four-foot-deep snow with search dogs but Glen Allen Mackie
was never found and there was no trace of him anywhere.
The search was scaled back on October 28th and his family, all who were living on the
east coast, were notified.
On August 29th, 2007 an announcement was made and Glen’s family were notified that skeletal
remains had been found a year earlier but it’s never been made public knowledge if
the remains belonged to Glen or not.
His family was only notified, or so it’s said, because there were no other known missing
people in that particular area.
What makes this case even more interesting is the fact that, once the remains were uncovered,
the FBI was quick to get involved in the process of identifying whoever the skeleton belonged
to.
Because the FBI only gets involved under very limited circumstances, this leads some people
to speculate that perhaps they were treating Glen’s disappearance as suspicious in some
way.
For what reason they would be doing this though was never made known to the public either.
The remains were found near Bybee Creek and this is where Charles McCullar’s remains
were found under bizarre circumstances.
Bybee Creek is described as being extremely remote and densely wooded and “not the kind
of spot where people would tend to go.”
Park Ranger Dave Brennan said, “From the condition of the remains it was evident they
had been there some number of years.
A limited number of remains and personal effects were found last year and again this year.
Not enough were found to make an identification but the remains did include teeth with dental
work which should allow identification by dental records.”
Despite all of this information this case still remains shrouded in so much mystery
and intrigue.
There simply isn’t enough information for anyone to draw any type of real conclusion
as to what actually happened and it’s never even been publicly noted as to whether or
not the remains belonged to Glen Mackie or not.
Glen was described as being 6 foot 1 with brown hair and blue eyes.
He weighed approximately 165 pounds.
So, what do we make of all of this?
These are only a few in a long list of strange and bizarre disappearances.
There are many legends of strange and supernatural happenings around the Crater Lake area and
some people even say it might be cursed.
The native Legends go back to ancient days and so many of those legends seem to almost
play into not only the bizarre and suspicious disappearances but deaths and other things
as well.
We may not ever have all the answers but we will continue to bring you the most up-to-date
information we possibly can, as always.
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