Backwoods Bigfoot Stories27 Apr 2025

BWBS Ep:90 Missing: National Park Nightmares Vol.7

On April 12, 1966, a family picnic in America's first national park turned into one of the most baffling missing persons cases in American history. Eight-year-old Dennis Johnson was visiting Yellowstone with his parents William and Betty and his three sisters when his seven-year-old sister Mary wandered off. Dennis and his father split up to search for her. William found Mary quickly, but when he returned to the Cascade Picnic Area, Dennis had vanished without a trace.

What followed was one of the most intensive search operations in Yellowstone's history – spanning 100 square miles, employing helicopters, bloodhounds, and dozens of searchers. Despite three weeks of exhaustive efforts costing over $14,000 (equivalent to more than $100,000 today), not a single clue was found. No footprints. No clothing. No evidence whatsoever. Fifty-eight years later, Dennis Johnson remains missing, his fate unknown.

In This Episode

The detailed timeline of April 12, 1966, and how a moment's separation led to decades of mystery
Why the search for Dennis was particularly challenging, and the technical aspects of a 1960s-era wilderness search
The baffling behavior of bloodhounds that couldn't pick up any scent trail
Five leading theories of what might have happened to Dennis, and why none can fully explain his complete disappearance
How the Johnson family turned to a psychic in their desperate search for answers
What makes wilderness disappearances unique, and the concept of "ambiguous loss"
The statistical context: how rare cases like Dennis's are compared to millions of safe Yellowstone visits
How the case has informed modern search and rescue techniques and park safety protocols

Have you experienced a Bigfoot sighting, Sasquatch encounter, Dogman experience, UFO sighting, or any unexplained cryptid or paranormal event deep in the woods? We want to hear your story.

Email your encounter to brian@paranormalworldproductions.com for a chance to be featured on a future episode of Backwoods Bigfoot Stories.

Backwoods Bigfoot Stories is a paranormal storytelling podcast featuring real Bigfoot encounters, Sasquatch sightings, Dogman reports, cryptid experiences, and true scary stories from the backwoods.

Follow the show and turn on automatic downloads so you never miss a chilling encounter from the forest. Listen with the lights off… if you dare.

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(289)

Rhode Island: Bigfoot & Vampires

This stop on the Backwoods Cryptid Road Trip pulls into Exeter, Rhode Island, where on the seventeenth of March in eighteen ninety-two a group of farmers opened the graves of three women from the same...

11 Okt 1h

Strange Bigfoot Encounters

The Backwoods Cryptid Road Trip pulls off the highway for a pit stop this week so Brian can open the mailbag. Most of the encounters that land in the inbox are straightforward: somebody sees something...

9 Okt 1h 6min

Pennsylvania: The Squonk & Bigfoot

The next stop on the Backwoods Cryptid Road Trip is Pennsylvania, home of the most miserable monster in American folklore. The squonk comes out of the state's old lumber camps, where woodhicks and bar...

7 Okt 57min

The Bigfoot Mailbag

The Backwoods Cryptid Road Trip pulls off the highway this week for a pit stop, and Brian opens the mailbag. These are five Sasquatch encounters sent in by listeners, covering 66 years and five states...

4 Okt 1h 4min

Oregon: Bigfoot & Colossal Claude

In March of 1934, the crew of the lightship Columbia and the supply tender Rose watched something come up out of the water near the mouth of the Columbia River. The men said it was about 40 feet long ...

2 Okt 1h

Oklahoma: The Octopus & Bigfoot

Every lake in this episode was somebody's pasture once. On this stop of the Backwoods Cryptid Road Trip, Brian King-Sharp drives into Oklahoma, where the three lakes said to hide the Oklahoma Octopus ...

30 Sep 54min

Six Stories From The Mailbag

This week, Backwoods Bigfoot Stories pulls off the road for a special listener mailbag episode. The Backwoods Cryptid Road Trip is taking a brief pause while Brian opens the inbox and shares six distu...

27 Sep 56min

Ohio: Bigfoot & The Loveland Frog

This week, the Backwoods Cryptid Road Trip rolls into Loveland, Ohio, a quiet river town northeast of Cincinnati with one of the strangest creature legends in America.In March 1972, Loveland police of...

25 Sep 54min