- [Narrator] All right, so I live in the Appalachian Mountains, and if you've heard anything about them, it's probably this. - [Reporter] Search area has
expanded as the day stretch into a full week since the
youngster was reported missing. - If you hear something in the woods No you didn't. - No, you didn't, keep walking. You do not wanna be outside
when the sun goes down. - Something very strange
seems to be going on inside of national parks - [Narrator] Lately I've seen these videos all over social media talking about the long
history of people vanishing on the Appalachian Trail
and in the mountain range that's named after, and
what might be causing those disappearances. Secret National Park Service projects feral cannibal people,
Bigfoot, skin walkers. - You're usually hunted for a
long time by these creatures. - They're called devil monkeys. - [Narrator] Bigfoot is
from the Pacific Northwest and skin walkers are from
the southwest, but that's beside the point. These mountains have a
rich history of folklore and it can be really
interesting to get into that but these videos can often
disrespect the people who have gone missing in these mountains and the
people who live in them - Details their experience
with the mountain people. - It's feral, rumored to be
cannibalistic men that lived in east Tennessee in the woods - Generations of people
who have like grown up living in these like
caves of national parks. - [Narrator] So naturally
I started reading, trying to figure out why people
go missing in my backyard and what makes these mountains
feel so strange and eerie. The science and history that I found along the way is frankly more interesting than any conspiracy theory,
but it also completely changed the way that
I see these mountains. I was left more aware of
the dangers lurking in them but also of their beauty
and what sets them apart from any other mountain range on earth. Most people think of the Appalachians as this area in the south but they actually extend all
the way up to this tiny island off the coast of Newfoundland
called Belle Isle. You've probably heard that
these mountains are some of the oldest on earth. They started forming about half a billion with a B years ago. That's pre pangea. Pre dinosaur, fish had like just appeared. It started out with one
tectonic plate sliding under another, forming
massive stratovolcanoes but those mountains were eventually eroded down into basically just gravel. Then 400 million years ago those same two plates slammed back into each other this time
forming huge jagged peaks. And then about 290 million
years ago, Africa slammed into North America shoving
these mountains inland rolling and folding them over each other exposing rock hundreds of
millions of years old to form one of the most geologically complex
mountain ranges on earth. Since then, wind, water and
ice have carved these mountains into what they are today,
and they continue to do so. Like let's start with wind. Just look at Mount
Washington in New Hampshire one of the coldest and
windiest places on earth. The weather station at the top has recorded
a 28 foot snow pack negative 47 degree Fahrenheit temperatures and a negative 108 degree
Fahrenheit wind chill. Just a few months ago at least 130 people have
died on this mountain and it's such a tough climb
that it's used to train for Denali and even Everest. Needless to say I think the weather out
here gets a bit more intense than people give it
credit for, next water. The Southern Appalachian
Mountains contain the rainiest places in the US outside of the Pacific Northwest as
much as like 230 centimeters. In some areas heavy rains have caused
massive floods that cascaded through the mountains, carving deep gorges and also allowed for the growth of a temperate rainforest
containing thousands of species. Many of them found nowhere else on earth. Finally, ice. About 10,000 years ago the Northern Appalachians were buried under massive glaciers. As the glaciers advanced,
plants and animals native to the north migrated
south to escape extinction. When the glaciers were
treated and the climate warmed those species moved to
higher elevations looking for the colder conditions
they were used to. A lot of species ended up stuck on mountaintops with no
way of migrating elsewhere evolving into a web of
species found only here and some only on individual summits. Now you go up to the
mountaintops here in the south and you'll find a landscape
that feels a lot more like Canada. These are often described
as biological islands time capsules of a landscape
that was widespread during the Ice age. These mountains provided
a habitat for huge groups of bison and elk, packs of
wolves, mountain lions and lakes and flocks of birds like passenger pigeons which were likely the most
numerous bird on earth traveling in flocks
numbering in the billions. And what's cool is that the
ecology is wildly inconsistent. At the far north, you would
find an arctic tundra complete with caribou, arctic fox's,
polar bears, and this guy the great auk, basically a penguin. These mountains were also home to people a diverse quilt of hundreds
of indigenous cultures living in the valleys for thousands of years. The landscapes of the
Appalachians are some of the most complex
and biodiverse on earth and with that complexity
comes interdependence upset the balance just a bit,
and things fall apart quickly. European settlers first arrived here in the late 1400s but these mountains provided
a huge barrier to expansion and for the first couple of centuries they didn't even try crossing over them. The first people to inhabit
the higher elevations were actually indigenous groups
pushed out of the valleys by settlers and the diseases they brought and forced to take
refuge in the mountains. But in the 1700s the east coast started getting crowded and settlers started to
move inland once again pushing indigenous groups out and into the plains to the west. The first explorers to cross the mountains describe an infinitely complex landscape of steep slopes choked
with dense vegetation and days of darkness
under the canopy above. Even Daniel Boone, who's like
the Appalachian Explorer guy described the slopes
as "so wild and horrid that it is impossible to
behold them without terror." When these settlers first arrived the mountains were almost entirely covered by old growth forest containing trees over eight feet wide and 260 feet tall. But in the 1800s, a
timber industry exploded in the Appalachians harvesting just about all of these forests. Logging companies scooped
up huge amounts of land getting absolutely loaded,
while paying people next to nothing to move into the
mountains and clear that land. These loggers worked long
hours exposed to the elements surviving on rations and packing large groups
into temporary shelters and as the industry grew
railroads and burns to clear the land caused wildfires
that engulfed thousands of square miles of forest. This forest around me is one of the only old growth forests left in the entire Appalachian
Mountain range and one of the only places on this side of the country where you can come and find just like a really
big old tree like this guy. Pretty much all of the areas
surrounding this forest was clear cut, but the logging
companies cutting it down went bankrupt before they
could get to this spot at the bottom of the valley,
and then a few years later a wildfire blew through and
knocked out a bunch of land but also missed this spot. So out of pretty much sheer
luck, we have this really cool little area where you
can come and get kind of a glimpse into what most of
this forest would've looked like a couple hundred years ago. Logging, mining and damning
in the mountains drove many species to extinction,
including the passenger pigeon and the great auk, and drove
many others out of the region. Bison, salmon, elk, caribou,
and polar bears just to name a few big predators
like bears and lynx had it particularly bad because
people kind of just didn't like them and hunted them
down for the hell of it. Industry, of course, came with pollution which contaminated the
waterways and even the air at higher elevation. There's often this beautiful
fog, but it's wildly acidic from sulfur and nitrogen emissions. Acid rain, fog and snow have
been a huge problem here weakening the higher elevation ecosystems and cutting plant growth in half. In some areas, European
settlement also brought invasive parasites all
over the Appalachians. You'll see these ghost forests, skeletons of entire tree species
wiped out by parasites Just decades after they got huge the logging and mining
industries collapsed, leaving behind a ruined landscape and a population without work forced to
survive off of this steep rocky terrain that wasn't
really any good for farming. With no money and no good roads. These communities were pretty
much trapped in the mountains. That isolation led to the
development of a unique culture and folklore unlike anything
else in the country. Combine that with the
way that these mountains and their inhabitants have
often been portrayed in movies TV and other media, and the cultural image of the Appalachians kind
of starts to take shape. There's also just a spooky vibe here like we know that the mountains are old but you can also just
feel it, the boulders the twisted trees, the
fog, it can be a bit eerie. It's honestly not that surprising that people think this
is a creepy place where weird stuff just happens
all the time, but it isn't. It's a place with a unique and I'll be the first
to admit sometimes quite off-putting culture and
centuries of folklore but that doesn't mean there are cannibals or skin walkers hiding in the caves, kidnapping
unsuspecting hikers. The Appalachians have this
reputation as spooky and haunted but they also have a reputation as kind of the wimpy mountains on the other side of the country. But honestly, my biggest takeaway from making this video has been that these mountains
are a lot more intense than people give them credit
for, sure, they're not as big as the Rockies or the Cascades,
but this terrain is steep and overgrown, difficult to navigate with weather that can
go south really fast. You're probably familiar
with the Appalachian Trail which runs through a big
stretch of these mountains. The AT is about 450 miles shorter than the Pacific Crest
Trail out west, but it typically takes people a few
weeks longer to complete. This terrain is just deceptively
challenging to navigate. It was 400 years ago
and it still is today. It's easy to get lost or
injured and hard to get found. The dense forest and steep
terrain make it difficult for search parties to cover ground and nearly impossible for planes or helicopters to spot someone
beneath the canopy below. Sure, these mountains
aren't as large as others but that doesn't mean they
aren't just as dangerous. (ambient music) Just as this landscape
continues to present plenty of threats and hazards today,
it continues to face plenty of threats and hazards of its own. Mountaintop removal for mining
has literally blown thousands of square miles of mountains to pieces. Fracking for natural gas
here contaminates groundwater and rivers and climate change is
causing ecosystems to migrate to higher elevations, which isn't great for the ones that are already
stuck on the tops of mountains like the biological islands
we talked about earlier. But a lot of things have
actually been improving as the forest that was cut down
200 years ago has grown back and been more carefully regulated. Many of the species that went
with it have been returning too, moose, bald eagles, bears, hell yeah who doesn't like bears and other species have been
deliberately reintroduced like elk, many of which
were imported from Wyoming. Honestly, the more I learned
about these mountains the more I appreciate them as the home to some of the rarest and
most biodiverse ecosystems on earth, as one of the planet's
longest running projects and as just a really beautiful place. (ambient music continues)
