The mysterious disappearance of American Brandon Swenson still regularly appears in various tops of the most bizarre and unsolved disappearances.
May 14, 2008, 1.45 a.m. On the way home from Lind (Minnesota), Brandon returns from friends, he accidentally drives into a ditch, nothing serious, but the car is stuck and he cannot leave on his own. He calls his parents.
The phone call wakes up his father, Brian Swenson, and his mother, Annette. The father answers the phone and realizes that his son is calling him. Brandon explains where he is and he asks his father to help him get his car out. The father understands that it is very close, 10-15 minutes from their home. Brandon and his parents know these places well.
The parents quickly got dressed and jumped into their pickup truck. They constantly call back on the road and within a few minutes were at the place that Brandon indicated to them. But neither Brandon nor his car is there. They are alarmed.
The father turns on the lights on his pickup and immediately dials Brandon. They report that they are there, but do not see him. His father asks him to blink his headlights to determine his location in the dark.
Brandon flicked his headlights and his parents heard it on the phone.
- Can you see me? he asked.
Promotional video:
- No. Nothing at all. answered the father.
Brandon and his parents are confused. They do not understand why they cannot see the headlights on a flat stretch of road, where there are fields on both sides.
The road is in that area.
Brandon decides to walk back to Lind, which is very close. He even sees the lights of the city, as it seems to him. He has been walking for more than forty minutes and has been talking to his father all this time. At the 47th minute, he utters a strange phrase, cut off from the conversation with his father.
- Can not be?!
After these words, Brandon pauses, but the connection does not break, there were no noises or sounds either.
For a long time, his parents tried to contact him without hanging up. But the brandon never answered them. They tried to call him back, but after 5-6 calls, the beeps stopped and the voice mail turned on.
This strange phrase was the last they heard from their son. Brandon has not been found dead or alive to this day.
And now a little more about Brandon and the events of his disappearance.
Brandon Swenson was 19 years old at the time of his disappearance. He lived with his parents and younger sister in the small town of Marshall, Minnesota, USA. The population is 1000 people.
Marshall, Lind and Canby on the map.
He attended Minnesota Western College of Technology in Canby, Minnesota, which is located 48 kilometers Northwest of Marshall. He was going to connect his life with the development of renewable energy sources. He also loved history, he watched and read a lot of non-fiction and scientific literature.
Brandon with his father, Brian Swenson.
He was very attached to his family, got along well with his sister and always found time to visit his family grandparents. He was not a problem teenager, the authorities dismissed the version of the escape or other reason for the disappearance, since he is included in the FBI VICAP database. This base is where disappeared people are brought when the authorities suspect that the reason for their disappearance is a violent death.
It was the last day of class, and he and his friends decided to celebrate it. At 12:30 after a party, he was returning from the town of Lind, which is 11 kilometers southwest of Marshall. And here strangeness begins, between his departure from friends and the first call to his parents more than an hour passed.
His car drove into a ditch and he could not leave on his own.
The version that he was drunk is not confirmed. His friends testified that he was not drunk when he left them home. His mother Annette spoke to him that night and she denies that he was drunk. Also, his father claims that in the 47-minute conversation he did not notice the drunken speech, and I think that the father and mother would quickly notice it.
A possible reason for the congress is indicated that he was very tired that day. He left home early in the morning and returned late at night. Perhaps sleep overwhelmed him.
He called his parents and they went where Brendan indicated. But they did not find him there. Blinking the headlights did not work, even though it is a flat stretch of road with fields on both sides.
He decides to walk back to his friends in Lind, as he thought that he did not have time to go far. He told his father that he saw the lights of the city of Lindh. He talks with his parents for more than half an hour and falls silent at the 47th minute after a very strange phrase.
- Can not be.
Other sources indicate the phrase "Damn!" or "Shit". I was unable to find the exact data.
After this phrase, the telephone conversation was not dropped.
In an interview, his mother said:
It should be added that they heard absolutely no sounds after this strange phrase.
Search
For the rest of the night he and his friends searched for him on dirt roads, but they did not find any sign of Brandon and his car.
In the morning. Annette went to the police. But the police were in no hurry to throw all their strength into the search, arguing that it is not so strange not to return home for a 19-year-old teenager after a party. Later, because of this incident, the "Brandon Law" was created about the intensive search for minors under suspicious circumstances in the first few days.
The police have requested the location of the latest calls from Brendan's phone. The cell operator indicated the area between Porter and Taunton, and this is more than 40 kilometers from the place that Brandon himself indicated to his parents.
It remains unclear how he could have gone so far, absolutely in the opposite direction from his home in Marshall, and not notice it. And he knew the area well, he grew up there. In addition, a straight road leads from the town of Lind to Marshall and it does not at all look like the gravel roads of that area. Not the police, not relatives and friends, had no logical explanation for this.
Searches in that area yielded results. The police found Brandon's abandoned car. The car was at the edge of the road and hung over a sharp incline. The car was undamaged. The doors were open and there were no keys. There were no other notes or evidence.
Brandon's path map.
The search dogs indicated a trail. Brandon walked across the fields towards Porter, but thought he was going back to Lind. He went out to the Yellow Medicine River. For some time he walked near the river. One of the dogs even jumped into the river, but then went out and led further near the river, and then the trail ended.
Then there were large-scale searches that did not yield any results. On the net, I found a blog dedicated to finding Brandon. The last entry is dated 2011. They searched for him for over three years and did not find a single clue of what might have happened.
Official versions
The police immediately considered it unlikely that a wild animal had been attacked, since the search dogs would quickly find the site of the attack, and the remains would eventually be found. Also, parents might hear the sounds of the attack on the phone.
The version of the abduction was also recognized as unlikely. Escape was also ruled out, Brandon was very attached to his family, and he had no motive to leave his family.
The main version of the police is drowning in the Yellow Medicine River.
In spring the water in the river is high, has a fast flow and low temperature. In the early days, the police sheriff personally examined the long section of the river, spending more than six hours on it, and found nothing. During the search, the river was drained so that the dogs could smell the cadaverous smell, but this did not yield any results.
There is no evidence that he fell into the river, other than the dogs that led the police to the river. Also, the trail did not end in the river.
Another question arises why Brandon should be included in the FBI vicap base if this is an accident. It is possible that the FBI has classified information that is not disclosed in the interests of the investigation.
Community versions
The community puts forward a variety of versions. But only one deserves attention.
When Brandon was walking by the river and talking to his father, he stumbled and fell into the river. His phone drowned, because of this, his parents did not hear anything. He got out of the river and continued on his way. This can confirm that the dog continued on its way after jumping into the river.
In May, the nights were still cold, and in wet clothes he quickly lost heat. He began to develop hypothermia. A fatal stage killed him in a field, possibly in tall grass. And farmers early in the morning on agricultural machinery could not notice and run over him, thereby disfiguring him. And in order not to run into problems, we got rid of the body.
Users claim that they often work on farms illegally. Perhaps just such a worker ran over Brandon's body. One of the Reddit users wrote that he had heard about a similar case, but that farmer did not hide the body and immediately went to the police.
On my own I want to add that people with hypothermia, at its last stage, behave irrationally. Hypothermia victims are often found naked, bruised and scratched. In their death throes, they try to hide somewhere or bury themselves, for example, under bushes or even the ground. Science has well documented and studied a similar phenomenon.
Another fact speaks in favor of this theory, the fact is that most of the territory is privately owned fields and the most active searches fell on the season. The search parties did not always have access to the search area. For this reason, out of 100 square miles of search territory, search parties have combed only 60.
I know that this is a specific theory, but it explains well why the body was not found, or at least some traces.
What happened to Brandon Swenson remains a mystery. Perhaps someday this secret will be revealed.
The material was prepared by the author of the Secret films channel.