The case of the disappearance of Dennis Martin is one of the most mysterious and disturbing in the history of the United States and, after more than 50 years, an answer has still not been found

The case of the disappearance of Dennis Martin is one of the most mysterious and disturbing in the history of the United States and, after more than 50 years, an answer has still not been found

It all began in the summer of 1969, in the Great Smocky Mountains National Park, at a point on the trail called Spence Field (on the border between Tennessee and North Carolina).

Together with his brother, Dennis (7 years old) was with his parents in a wooded clearing and the latter started talking to other hikers camped there.

At that moment Dennis, his brother and two other children started playing hide and seek among the trees; the group separated and Dennis decided to get as far away as possible.

After a few minutes, the parents called their children back but, of the four children who were playing, only three returned... Dennis had disappeared into thin air.

The search for the child began but ended in nothing; Dennis had completely disappeared and neither his brother nor the other two children had seen him again after they had separated to play hide and seek in the forest.

That same day, 9 km from Spence Field, a boy reported to his parents that he had seen a large figure moving through the trees that he initially mistook for a bear but that, in reality, seemed to be a man in a strange camouflage costume who was holding something struggling under one arm.

The testimony was taken into account by the authorities, who began searching the area for the possible presence of footprints belonging to Dennis or someone else... but again, no trace was found.

The strange things did not end there, since even the FBI became interested in the case; furthermore, the leader of the Specialized Units group that was carrying out the search, days after Dennis' disappearance, inexplicably committed suicide.

45 years later, in 2014, a former member of the FBI's specialized units who signed with the name Harold Cleveland, sent an email about Dennis's case to News of the Weird, a local newspaper that for years has reported cases of people who have mysteriously disappeared. In the email, Harold wrote:

"Our specialized units have never been called for this type of operation involving civilians, that is only the responsibility of the local National Guard with the approval of the state governor.

Furthermore, during the search for the boy the men were armed, why would they have been? It was not a military operation to track down a terrorist (...).

There is something strange behind Dennis' disappearance, given that in the units the men employed in the missions are trained to probe every type of environment, even the most impervious ones.

The justification of the terrain "too full of irregularities to allow linearity of the search" is not credible, I myself have carried out operations in environments much more hostile than the Great Smocky Mountains.

The Green Berets employed in the search for Dennis however did not take up arms randomly, I do not know who or what they were hunting.

The person responsible for Dennis' disappearance was certainly an extremely dangerous individual but not even I am given to know who he was. We will probably never know who was hiding in those mountains." The veracity of Harold's email is still a source of debate while Dennis' mysterious disappearance will probably remain shrouded in mystery. Continue reading