Daniel Robinson, Buckeye desert
A 24-year-old geologist drove away from a remote worksite west of Phoenix on 23 June 2021; his crashed Jeep was found in a ravine a month later, but he was not.
2021 CE · 33.43, -112.78 · status: unexplained
The account
Daniel Robinson left the site in his Jeep Renegade; on 19 July a rancher found it on its side in a ravine a few miles away, with his clothes and belongings. Vehicle data showed it had been started many times after the crash. Buckeye Police said they had found no evidence of foul play and continued to treat it as a missing-person case; his father, who has led the family's own searches, believes something criminal happened. As of 2024 the case was open.
The sceptical view
Heat in the Sonoran summer kills within hours; the investigation, not the wilderness, holds the open questions.