Garrett Bardsley, Uinta Mountains
A 12-year-old Boy Scout walked about 150 yards back to camp near Cuberant Lake, Utah, to change wet socks on 20 August 2004 and was never seen again.
2004 CE · 40.70, -110.88 · status: unexplained
The account
Garrett Bardsley was fishing with his father and a scout troop when his shoes and socks got wet; he set off for the camp a short distance away and vanished. More than 1,400 volunteers, helicopters, dogs and thermal imaging searched for weeks. A damp Nike sock was found in a boulder field about half a mile away, but a searcher later said it might be his own, and the sheriff called it '50-50'. Nothing else was found. Family and volunteers searched until 2005; his father founded a foundation to help other searches. The case remains open with Utah's cold case unit.
The sceptical view
Investigators thought he became disoriented and died of exposure or fell into one of the many crevices of the boulder fields and talus around the lakes.
The researched reading
Most likely a fall or exposure in boulder country, but with almost no physical evidence the case remains genuinely unresolved.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A known natural phenomenon | 40% | Exposure in wet clothes, or a fall into the crevices of the talus and boulder fields around Cuberant Lake, was the investigators' working view. |
| Undetermined | 40% | Over 1,400 searchers found only a sock of doubtful ownership; the case is on Utah's cold case list. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 15% | A 12-year-old who loses sight of camp may travel in the wrong direction; lost-person data show this age group can go far. |
| An unknown or out-of-place animal | 4% | Predation has been speculated but there is no evidence. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 1% | No evidence beyond the shortness of the walk. |
Official position: Unsolved; Utah Bureau of Criminal Identification cold case. Investigators favoured disorientation and exposure or a fall.