This strange case is compared by many to the Dyatlov Pass, when in February 1959, in the vicinity of Mount Kholatchakhl in the north of the Sverdlovsk region, 9 skiers died in a frightening way.
It happened in February 1978 when five close friends of Gary Dale Mathias, Jack Madruga, Jackie Hewitt, Theodore (Ted) Weicher and William Sterling from Yuba City, California, met to play basketball.
All of them were from 25 to 30 years old and they were united by the fact that they all had some problems with mental development. They met each other in a support group.
No, they were not severely disabled and fit quite well into society, being able to serve themselves and possessing most of the social skills. Moreover, mental problems did not prevent Madruga and Mathias from serving in the army.
On that day, they met and drove to the university basketball court, which was 50 miles from the city. The match ended at about 10 pm, after which they refueled at a gas station, bought bags of chips and nuts there, and drove home along the highway towards Yuba City.
This was the last time they were seen alive. None of the five made it to the house and they were nowhere to be found. They seemed to have disappeared into the air with the car.
Three days later, their empty car was found on a winding and snow-covered mountain road in Plumas National Forest, which was the first mystery since the highway to Yuba City and the road to the reserve are far from each other and neither of the men had a warm winter clothes.
The car was locked and one window was open. Inside the car, they found empty packages of chips and other snacks that the men had bought at a gas station. The car itself was perfectly in working order and why it was abandoned also remained unknown.
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None of the families of the missing could understand why they drove along the road up the mountain. None of the men ever spoke about their desire to visit the reserve. They intended to return home immediately after the match and not stay anywhere.
Due to the fact that everything in the reserve was covered with snow, it was decided to postpone the search for the remains of the missing until spring. No one believed that the men would be found alive.
After 4 months, the snow on the mountain road finally melted and soon someone stumbled upon an eerie sight - a dead body in an empty forest ranger hut 19 miles from an abandoned car. The body was identified as Ted Weicher.
Examination of the body revealed a number of unsolvable mysteries. The corpse was fully clothed, but without shoes, which were nowhere to be found and was wrapped in eight blankets in such a way that he himself could not do it, this was clearly done by someone else, and most likely after Ted's death.
It also turned out to be odd that the hut had a lot of fuel, including propane tanks and wood for the fireplace, but none of that was touched. There was also a clock on the table next to the body, and none of the families of the victims could identify who they belonged to. At the same time, the watch lacked details.
The dead man had a long beard, as if he had been growing it for at least three months, and as it turned out, he died of hunger, having lost about 100 pounds of weight before that!
In the hut around the body, they found scattered cans with military dry rations from the hut's reserves. Some were opened and eaten, some were whole and there was also a large box filled with the same cans.
How then did this man manage to starve and die of starvation?
The next day, after an intensive search, the remains of Madruga and Sterling's bodies were found 8 miles from the hut. Madruga's corpse lay with unusually folded hands and was partially eaten by scavengers, and only one skeleton remained from Sterling's body.
Two days later, a skull and one bone that belonged to Hewitt was found nearby.
It was very difficult to establish the cause of their death and the coroners, after some attempts, suggested that both died of hypothermia.
And Matthias's body was never found. Curiously, however, his shoes were found in an abandoned car.
The questions were endless. What happened to these people? Why did they go to the mountains? Why did you leave your work car? Why did they go 19 miles into the forest and what happened after they found the hut? Why didn't they use anything to keep warm, and how did Ted Weicher starve to death with a large supply of food? Who wrapped him in "shrouds"? Where did his shoes go? Where did he spend those three months in which his beard grew?
According to one more or less logical version, people simply lost their orientation on the terrain and turned in the wrong direction, and then got lost. But their car was thrown on the road and why then they did not go back along it, but turned off the road uphill?
In a more sinister version, someone deliberately lured them into a deserted area. Maybe someone just wanted to play a joke, or maybe take revenge for something.
“There was some force that made them go there and from which they ran into the forest like a frightened flock of quails. Perhaps they saw something during their arrival at the gas station and most likely they did not even understand what exactly they saw,”says one of the investigators of this case.
Another logical theory is based on the fact that the never found Matthias had a mild form of schizophrenia and took pills. It is possible that he forgot his pills and had a seizure on the way. He could attack his friends or scare them badly. After which they decided to wait out the time in the hut and for some reason could not use firewood, gas and food supplies. And Mathias himself most likely just ran away so far that no one found his bones.