Directed by Michael DeGrazier & Benjamin Paulides and released in its home country of the USA in 2016.
After having heard about David Paulides on YouTube a few years back I was eagerly anticipating when a documentary on the subject would finally be made. And here we have it. Unfortunately I was very disappointed.
To give a brief synopsis, this is a documentary about the disappearances of five children from National Parks across North America. David Paulides is the man who introduced these cases to the world as well as their similarities.
The film focuses on a few specific cases where children went missing. It’s not until the last ten minutes of the film where we are told that out of the vast trove of cases Paulides’ uncovered of people going missing in National Parks across the world there were more than just children going missing: many adults also went missing. This is an important factor because if we think that it’s only children going missing, it’s easy to jump to a quick assumption that there’s one far-reaching conspiracy to abduct children from national parks.
When you look at the cases put forth in the film they are very interesting, and the main case which the film focuses on clearly has more than meets the eye and the documentary focusing on that could shed light on that case in particular. As a whole though I really wish they’d have focused more on all of the cases together and their similarities as opposed to specific cases. For this I think the film loses much of what Paulides’ investigations truly uncover, or at least seemingly begin to unravel.
Many many theories have come about suggesting the real reason for these disappearances from animal attacks, instances of drowning, people falling to their deaths from high altitudes, but if many of these are the case, then where is the evidence, and where are the bodies?
David Paulides used to be a police officer. Long after this period of his life ended, Paulides came to the attention of the public as an investigator into the Bigfoot phenomenon. Yeah. I thought the same thing as well. Some even suggest that Bigfoot is the cause of these missing persons’ cases.
Whatever it is, this documentary does not do Paulides’ investigations justice at all and I urge anybody even remotely interested in the topic to either seek out his numerous interviews on YouTube or read the books which he’s wrote.
