Missing 411: National Parks

or more than a decade, David Paulides has investigated one of the most disturbing and least discussed phenomena in North America: the unexplained disappearance of people in national parks, forests, and protected open spaces. Through twelve bestselling books and three groundbreaking documentaries, Paulides has revealed a pattern that defies coincidence and challenges official explanations. Those films, Missing 411, Missing 411: The Hunted, and Missing 411: The UFO Connection, each reached number one worldwide, bringing global attention to cases many believe were intentionally ignored.

Across thousands of cases in sixteen countries, these disappearances consistently fall into a disturbing profile. Search dogs are unable to track a scent. Professional trackers find no physical trail. Sudden weather events occur during or immediately after a disappearance. Victims, when found alive, often have no memory of what happened. Many are discovered in areas already searched, missing shoes or clothing, frequently near water, granite formations, or swamps. Disappearances tend to occur around 4:00 p.m. and cluster geographically in ways that defy statistical randomness.

As these patterns emerged, resistance from federal agencies followed. Paulides and his team filed multiple Freedom of Information Act requests seeking basic records of missing persons within the national park system. In roughly 70 percent of cases, those requests were denied, even when the disappearances were decades old and not classified as crimes. When asked for a master list of missing persons, the National Park Service claimed no such list existed, despite maintaining detailed inventories of everything from commercial film permits to toilet paper supplies.

Veteran investigative journalist George Knapp summarized the issue plainly: the park service has a list of missing people, and they do not want the public to have it. When Paulides asked what it would cost to compile such a list, the quoted price was $1.4 million dollars. After he independently identified missing persons from Yosemite National Park and made the names public, the official list was suddenly released months later.

For years, restrictive film permit rules kept cameras out of national parks and limited public scrutiny. That barrier no longer exists. A new federal law now allows small documentary crews to film without permits, opening the door for unprecedented access, firsthand testimony, and whistleblowers ready to speak. Missing 411: National Parks is the next chapter in this investigation, confronting the unanswered questions head-on and asking what the public has a right to know about who disappears on public land and why.

With your support, this film will explore the evidence, expose institutional silence, and challenge viewers to decide for themselves what is being hidden in America’s most treasured places.