Case file · Anomaly hotspot
Bill Ewasko, Joshua Tree
A 65-year-old Georgia man went on a solo day hike in Joshua Tree National Park in June 2010; hikers found his remains in 2022.
2010 CE · 34.05, -116.39 · status: explained
The account
Bill Ewasko disappeared on 24 June 2010 during the desert summer. Official searches and years of volunteer searches, notably those of the researcher Tom Mahood, failed to find him. In February 2022 hikers found remains near the Panorama Loop area in the park's northwest, with a wallet bearing his name, about ten miles from where he had parked. The cause of death was not determined.
The sceptical view
Heat and dehydration in the summer desert, and a route very different from the one searchers expected, explain both the death and the long delay.
Connections in the atlas
- The Death Valley Germans
- Daniel Robinson, Buckeye desert
- Robert Koester, 'Lost Person Behavior'
- 'Missing 411' and Yosemite