Case file · High strangeness
Paul Redfern vanishes over the Guianas
On 25-26 August 1927 the 25-year-old aviator Paul Redfern flew from Brunswick, Georgia, towards Rio de Janeiro. He was sighted off South America and reportedly over Venezuela, then disappeared.
1927 CE · 6.40, -62.70 · status: unexplained
The account
For years rumours said he lived with Indigenous people in the interior. In 1988 Robert Carlin argued he crashed near Angel Falls (position approximate).
The sceptical view
No credible evidence shows he survived; the crash site has not been confirmed.
The researched reading
A solo long-distance flight lost over South America. A crash in jungle or sea is most likely.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A known natural phenomenon | 40% | A solo flight of over 4,000 miles in a Stinson Detroiter over sea and jungle; a crash in the Guiana or Venezuelan rainforest or the Atlantic explains the loss. |
| Undetermined | 27% | The share the reading had given to fabrication on doubt rather than evidence: the record does not settle it either way. |
| A cultural story | 16% | Repeated reports that he lived among Indigenous peoples prompted expeditions but turned up nothing credible. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 8% | Reports of sightings after the loss are unreliable. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 5% | Some survival stories were invented or embellished. |
| Something in the surroundings | 2% | Not relevant. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 2% | A crash in jungle needs no strange cause. |
Official position: No official conclusion; several searches found nothing.