The Unexplainable Disappearance of Dennis Martin - Missing 411

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We had a kid get killed by a mountain lion out near our farm. The sheriff put out the statement, and two days later retracted it saying the kid fell into a gully and died from the fall. My grandad said it was to stop the folks from loading up their jeeps and killing every mountain lion in The Valley.

It’s pretty cool that Wendi has been playing around with different camera placement styles. It’s almost good at convincing us he’s not just a giant torso. Almost.

So, something i can add to this story are the weird holes in the ground filled with water/mud. When hiking with my family as a 6 year old, i stepped onto a patch of moss that looked perfectly normal. I immediately fell into a hole of water or mud, covered by the moss. It was extremely deep and the opening was slim. My grandpa saw me drop in and immediately dragged me out. My family says after me dropping in, the moss floated back over the water - and covered it completely. It would explain him not screaming for help, not Being found and vanishing Soon.

​​When I was 7, I got lost in the woods while playing with other kids. I live where the woods are overrun by blackberry bushes, so you have to be really careful to not get snagged by thorns. I was so focused on getting through the bushes that I didn't notice the other kids I was playing with were no longer with me—I'd underestimated how far I'd traveled too. It was only when I slipped and fell that I realized I was alone. It's entirely possible this boy could have wandered off in a similar manner, only realizing he was lost when it was too late. Him suddenly disappearing is not crazy to me—it's actually familiar.

To be honest, a lot of these cases under further scrutiny can be narrowed down to the parents not being a trustworthy source of adequate time keeping. What i mean by that is some parents will say " I swear i was just watching him just a minute ago, and it may have even felt like just a second". When in reality, they were not watching/paying attention for a much longer period of time, even 15-20 minutes longer then they thought they maybe did. The mind can play wierd tricks on itself , add survivors guilt, trauma, and the whole shabang, and youve got a perfect case of "time amnesia."

From what we saw in the beginning of this video, while they were exploring the creek, there are "leaf-bed traps" of water and mud along the creek. Dennis' last known location was crossing the creek. If they never found tracks suggesting he successfully fully crossed the creek, then I think it's likely Dennis sunk into a deep patch of mud under one of these "leaf-bed traps" and couldn't get out. His body might be somewhere in the mud along the creek.

The Dennis Martin disappearance is not as odd as it seems. The search, while having a lot of people, was handled poorly. This isn't a criticism of the people involved because they didn't know any better. This case was used to establish modern SAR procedure. I'm a SAR volunteer, and this case was covered in my training for that very reason.

I can't help but marvel at the incredible self-control that Wendi displayed by calmly uttering the word "Giant".

How utterly heartbreaking it would be to lose a child on Father’s Day, forever associating a day of happiness with a traumatic loss.

I’ve lived in West Virginia all my life, heard all the stories of the things that go bump in the night, and always felt that a lot of it was just scary folktale but one night leaving work I heard what I thought to be a chimpanzee screaming in the darkness, ever since that night if I’m going outside at night I take a rifle with me because I don’t know what scares me more, a cryptid screaming at me or a chimpanzee let loose in the Appalachian mountains

There’s around 130 available FBI documents on this case implying that Dennis wasn’t found at all, the first 90ish documents are essentially just communications about Dennis’s dad and how adamant he is about opening a kidnapping case. Also 2 somewhat interesting points are A) a sus individual was lingering around during the search but not helping B) a man reported hearing screaming but this is dismissed as unrelated to Dennis due to this being heard in an area too far away to reasonably be related However 10 years later there is some more information: in a highly redacted series of documents 2 former prisoners are discussed in relation to a kidnapping- a prisoner allegedly admitted to stealing and selling Dennis to an unknown individual although there’s no evidence to support it his account of Dennis and the situation is described as “essentially accurate” although it is also stated that the account is from a habitual lier. Finally there’s a small number of documents where someone claims that Dennis is alive and living with them, the document says this will be further investigated but no subsequent investigation is available.

even on a hike in the woods, my man's rockin' a dad shirt. the commitment to his role as a fashion icon really is admirable.

I recently described Wendigoon to my family during Thanksgiving when the subject of influencers came up, the best I could do was "a sweet Southern Belle who talks about monstrosities" and I stand by it.

I've been living both in and around these mountains for 31 years, and it's absolutely wild how ominous and scary it still feels. I still get goosebumps when I hear a twig snapping at night. I've never seen anything unexplainable or supernatural, but I've seen enough of what mother nature has to offer for me to know NOT to take unnecessary risks. I only went solo hiking ONCE in these mountains and I will never do it again. Nothing happened at all, it was a perfectly normal trip, but I absolutely could not shake the feeling that something was wrong. I was scared the entire time, and I didn't like being in that state of mind in the wilderness, so I never went solo hiking again. Respect the forest. Respect the mountains. Respect mother nature, and all the things that go bump in the night. That's all I can say.

IMO, it's possible the reason the feds searched the other side of the river on their own after seeing the footprints could be concern over civilians finding a horrifying scene, like if they assumed the child drowned, was killed by animals, etc. Same way oftentimes you'll see people like medical examiners telling families (regarding a deceased person) that they won't want to see the body, because the person is so wounded or mutilated that they're grotesque or unrecognizable. A civilian stumbling upon, like, the bloody remains of a kid mauled by an animal could traumatize them, as opposed to special ops who would be better suited to deal with such a thing.

Being with Wendigoon is like the nicest hostage situation ever. Because, by affiliation alone, you're already on the same government lists as Wendigoon.

An old Celtic phrase comes to mind "Places where the world is thin" Also known as "Thin places" where the "distance between earth and 'heaven' are shorter" Its this concept that probably inspired the "backrooms" story. A place in nature where if you arent careful you can fall into a seperate realm/dimension/world/limbo

That footprint is the part that really gets me about this. Your child is missing and the dogs seem to be on their trail. Their search ends at a creek where there are child footprints. You're gonna turn around all because the footprints look a little too big? Besides, this is something any ranger in search and rescue should know; footprints very often look bigger than the actual foot of what left it. It's pretty much the first thing they tell you when you're learning how to identify footprints. There's no way they just turned around and looked somewhere else. The special forces were very much looking for something that National Parks thought wasn't within their jurisdiction or skill to handle. They had to have reason to believe that some kind of crime had taken place. Either nothing was ever found or they only released gruesome info privately. This story is so scary in so many real ways.

The story Wendigoon tells at 44:13 about the Tree People sounds like a very effective Appalachian Folktale version of your classic stranger danger story. Like a more fanciful version of the guy in the white van offering you candy. They're slightly taller than regular people - To a kid, almost any adult could appear tall "They will promise you gifts" - That's the candy they'll take children into the tree line- tree line is their white van I am fascinated by stories of cryptids and such but you gotta wonder how many of these stem from stories designed to scare children into behaving, being obedient, etc.