The Unsolved Yosemite Disappearance of Stacy Ann Arras
(As heard in the Weird Darkness episode, “The Cage”: https://weirddarkness.com/thecage/)
In 1981, 14-year-old Stacey Ann Arras vanished without a trace inside Yosemite National Park. Her disappearance remains unsolved to this day. Yosemite National Park has a strange history of people going missing and eerie occurrences, but Arras’s case is particularly noteworthy given the complete lack of evidence.
Many people attribute her disappearance to supernatural forces. While there is likely a scientific or logical explanation for what happened to Stacey Ann Arras on July 17, 1981, the truth about her going missing is as eerie as any supernatural mystery. Arras separated from the group she was traveling with, which included her father and six others. They were on horseback and had reached Sunrise High Sierra Camp when Arras went off alone into the mountainside to snap pictures of a beautiful lake. The camp was a tourist destination, and Arras would have been visible from the other side of the lake.
As the group rested, Arras asked her father if she could hike down to the lake to take some pictures. Her father refused, but Arras left the group anyway. The tour guide later remembered seeing her standing on a rock about 50 yards south of the trail. The trail to the lake was only 1.5 miles long. This was the last time anyone reported officially seeing Arras.
When Arras wandered off that day, a 77-year-old man from her camp trail group accompanied her but soon sat down to rest. Arras moved ahead. When Arras didn’t return, the man started looking for her and organized the rest of the party to conduct a more intensive search. He reported talking to a group of hikers, but they said they hadn’t seen her. Although the search began only a few minutes after Arras vanished, no one could locate any trace of the 14-year-old girl other than the lens from her camera, found inside the grove of trees she had gone into before disappearing.
Immediately prior to her vanishing, Arras had the following items on her person: she was wearing an ankle bracelet and possibly stud earrings, and she carried binoculars and a camera. None of these items have ever shown up again. A seasoned mountaineer noted in an online forum that if Arras had lost her lens cap, it shouldn’t necessarily be considered a sign of foul play—lots of folks lose those caps.
The search for the girl began immediately after she disappeared, involving roughly 150 people, including 67 Mountain Rescue Association volunteers, dogs, and helicopters canvassing a three-to-five-square-mile area around Sunrise Lake. Despite these efforts, the camera lens remains the only piece of evidence.
According to a 1981 Fresno Bee news article, “it was too dry in the area, and the dust from civilization hung upon the hills.” On a forum dedicated to solving mysteries, Redditor /u/hectorabaya shared how the environment, including wind, trees, and canyons, can disrupt our understanding of hearing: “She left the group for a while in untrailed countryside, which is very dangerous if you don’t have navigation tools and know how to use them. But she was also likely off-guard, with the open air and sunshine leading to relaxation… The search was quite small in comparison to the overall area they had to comb, and it is very likely that once she knew she was lost, she kept moving. However, in almost every case, this is just about the worst thing to do.”
Some search-and-rescue volunteers and outdoor enthusiasts who have researched Arras’s case believe that some reports were possibly wrong in the first place. On a forum about unsolved mysteries, Redditor /u/Persimmonpluot, who claims to have grown up and worked in Yosemite, said: “The official description of where she went missing doesn’t quite add up. Supposedly, the group arrived at Sunrise HSC where they planned to spend the night in some of their cabins. Stacy [sic] left on her own to take pictures of the lake, which was visible from the cabins. No lake is within sight of our camp. It would have been a long hike to reach a lake. That discrepancy is strange.”
Arras had many predecessors who vanished in a national park, though exactly how many people are not known. The National Park Service does not keep track of how many missing persons have disappeared from their parks. David Paulides, a Bigfoot enthusiast, investigator, author of books, and documentary producer, believes that there is a pattern in these disappearances. Paulides says he spent 7,000 hours researching cases of people who vanished in the park system. He estimates there are about 1,600 missing persons across 85 million acres of parkland in the United States.
Paulides usually explores cases like this with theories that may involve paranormal elements, often dealing with Bigfoot. He classifies the disappearance cases he researches into “clusters”—similar instances with common circumstances. One of these “clusters” elements is a storm. In Arras’s case, search and rescue dogs had a hard time picking up her scent since weather conditions were rather dry and windy.
According to a story in the Fresno Bee at the time of Arras’s disappearance, “Park officials said Stacey was having some family or school troubles, and she missed her teenage boyfriend. Maybe the kid ran away or just took a walk into the woods.” However, Linda Abbott, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service, contradicted this, noting that Arras was last seen by her father, who advised her to change out of her flip-flops.
There are more bears in Yosemite than anywhere else in the contiguous United States. Black bears account for approximately 300-500 of these inhabitants and are a common sight at the park. According to park policy, “keep bears at least 50 yards away.” Therefore, if you see one while hiking on less-developed terrain, be sure to maintain that distance.
The chances of encountering a bear while in places such as Yosemite are small. No one has died from a black bear attack in 17 years. Thus, when people make statistical arguments against the possibility of a bear having killed Arras in Yosemite National Park, these are based on relevant information.
One of the common themes of David Paulides’ “cluster” is drowning. State records show the top incident resulting in loss of life over the past 10 years in national parks is drowning. Although Arras disappeared during her trip near a mountain lake, it is possible she might have fallen in. The search and rescue team brought in divers and dogs around the lake but found nothing.
Although there is little evidence to suggest that Arras was a victim of murder, some still speculate she might have been. Investigators have not ruled out such a possibility. Redditor /u/quarantinea shared their thoughts on the unsolved mysteries forum: “Even if it is possible (or probable) that she got lost and didn’t realize it, and wandered away, once lost, most people keep moving. This is the worst thing to do. It puts searchers even farther behind… A point which emerges now and then is that she was just a couple of meters away from shouting range. The wilderness resolves sound. I’ve spent enormous pieces of time hiding from searchers as a training subject, and even I’m sometimes surprised at the variability of sound.”
Overall, the case of Stacey Ann Arras remains one of the most perplexing and haunting mysteries in the history of Yosemite National Park. Despite extensive search efforts and numerous theories, the young girl’s fate continues to elude investigators, leaving behind only questions and a lingering sense of unease.
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