“Missing 411: The Hunted” & Mysterious Hunter Disappearances

How sure are we that we’re at the top of the food chain?

It’s a must-watch for outdoorsmen…only maybe after you’ve already come home safely.

Although we sportsmen refuse to allow 2020 to keep us out of the fields, even dedicated outdoorspeople like to watch TV on occasion. The latest reality-TV obsession is an Amazon Prime documentary called “Missing 411: The Hunted,” and if you’re as big a fan of outdoor mysteries as I am, it’s a must-watch. This isn’t just one mystery, though; it’s hundreds of them stretching out over hundreds of years. “Missing 411: The Hunted” details a little-known American secret: Our hunters are being hunted, and we don’t know by whom or what.

Without delving too deeply into the disturbing details of Missing 411: The Hunted, the central mystery surrounds bizarre hunter disappearances. These disappearances are happening in clusters centered over certain spots (such as the Crazy Mountains), and are difficult to explain. One of the common themes of the disappearances is that they happen to very experienced outdoorsmen, and that they happen in areas where there is a lot of igneous rock. It just gets weirder from there.

Another common factor is that the disappearances tend to happen when the hunter has been very temporarily separated from their group, often only by a couple hundred yards. Eerily, tracking dogs seem to be almost useless in these disappearances; they tend to lose the scent at more or less precisely the same place the hunter was last seen. We’re talking about dogs like the bloodhound, which is capable of scenting a human corpse through 6 feet of loam or following a track that’s 300 hours old, losing a clear and recent track. And then the outdoor mysteries of “Missing 411: The Hunted” get even creepier.

One of the primary draws of “Missing 411: The Hunted” is that it features some audio and film evidence of very strange “supernatural” events. Of course, there’s really no such thing as “supernatural,” because if you saw it in Nature, it was natural. But if you’ve ever been curious about what a Bigfoot’s mating call might sound like, or if there really is such a thing as a “Predator,” you’re definitely going to want to have a watch.

Of course, it’s difficult not to follow our logical and skeptical natures. One of my questions as I watched was whether or not any of the search-and-rescue teams ever looked up. Anyone who’s ever hunted from a treestand knows that being up high just kind of makes you invisible, and that goes double if you’re wearing camouflage. That would also explain why tracking dogs stop right at the tree where the hunter was last seen. We do know that mountain lions are fantastic climbers that are more than equal to the task of killing a human and then stashing the remains in the fork of a tree for later snacking.

Another possible explanation is that people can and do act very strangely when they’re hypothermic. The second stage of hypothermia can cause confusion, and the scary part is that if it’s happening to you, you will not know it. (Yes, I have this from personal experience.) In the end stages of hypothermia, people will do two things that generally confuse the heck out of Search and Rescue: They’ll take off all their clothes, and they’ll hide. It’s tough to find a hunter who has suddenly started behaving as if he doesn’t want to be found.

Have you watched “Missing 411: The Hunted”? Have any theories of your own? Tell us in the comments!