TN TN - Disappearances in the Great Smokey Mountains

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joellegirl

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I'm sure some of you have read about these cases already. Dennis Martin vanished in 1969, Trenny Gibson in 1976 and Pauline Melton in 1981. All were with other people at the time and just were out of sight for a moment, then apparently fell of the face of the earth. There is a book about this as well,called "Unsolved Disappearances in the Great SmokyMountains".

What are your thoughts?

Trenny Gibson: http://www.doenetwork.us/cases/425dftn.html

Pauline Melton: http://www.doenetwork.us/cases/483dftn.html

Dennis Martin: http://www.doenetwork.us/cases/460dmtn.html
 
This is very interesting. The Smokey Mountains is a large area, any info on the exact locations of their disappearances?
 
My mom has always talked about the disappearance of little Dennis Martin. He disappeared just days before I was born. She worries about what happened to him to this day. He disappeared in an area of Cades Cove. Lots of tourists are through this area of the park yearly.

I was looking of the doenetwork when I found out about Trenny and Pauline. Now I can't pass Clingmans Dome without thinking of Trenny. The area that Trenny disappeared is also an area many tourist would be near. Highway 441 goes right by the turnoff to Clingmans Dome. This road connects Gatlinburg and Cherokee, NC.

I don't know where Pauline was hiking. It is on the NC side of the park, I believe.

I can tell you that I had a scary experience on one of the trails in the park one time that involved being very closely followed. My hiking partner and I were very frightened by those men. I believe the only thing that saved us was that we spotted more hikers a few hundred feet away. I rather loudly said something to the effect of "hey, here come some more people". The men who were following us took off up the side of the mountain. We didn't stick around to see where they went.

I would love to know what happened to these people. Thanks for mentioning the book. I will have to track down a copy.
 
Sprocket said:
Are there any Yeti in the Smokey Mountians? :D
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No, the Yeti are rumored to live in isolated parts of Nepal. You might be thinking of Sasquatch, aka Big Foot, his North American Cousin.

There are quite a few less exotic, although more dangerous animals in the Smokey Mountains, including Black Bear and Wild Hogs. The most dangerous, however is probably man.
 
Sprocket said:
Are there any Yeti in the Smokey Mountians? :D
Click to expand...
No. No Yeti around here. There was a black bear attack that did leave a woman dead a couple of years ago. However, I agree with Richard that man is probably most dangerous.

Whoever those two men were that followed me on the trail, I hope that they never do that to anyone else. It was very scary.
 
tennessee said:
No. No Yeti around here. There was a black bear attack that did leave a woman dead a couple of years ago. However, I agree with Richard that man is probably most dangerous.

Whoever those two men were that followed me on the trail, I hope that they never do that to anyone else. It was very scary.
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Tennessee, I'm so thankful you made it off the trail without any harm...except for being scared to death.

My son was an avid hiker during high school and college. His dream was to hike the entire Appalanchian Trail from Ga to Maine before entering graduate school. The day after he graduated college he took off....alone....with plans to meet up at various points along the way with other hikers so none of them would ever be spending too many long periods hiking alone. Two weeks into the trip he called me to come pick him up in NC after suffering an injury in a bad fall. Turns out he was injured after breaking camp in the middle of the night to evade several guys that had appeared to be stalking him for several days.

Those mountains are a beautiful part of our heritage but a dangerous place unless you stay together in groups. A weapon would be a good idea too though firearms are prohibited in the SMNP.

For female hikers alone ??? forget about it.

Glad you're safe
 
Any mountain lions? They can take a person and you'd be lucky to find the remains, if any.
 
According to this website, http://www.great.smoky.mountains.national-park.com/info.htm , the mountain lions were thought to be eradicated by hunters in the 20s. However, there have been reports that they are still around. There are bobcats. Would they attack humans during daylight? Aren't they known for their screams or do I have them confused with another cat?

Whatever happened to these three people, they aren't forgotten.
 
tennessee said:
According to this website, http://www.great.smoky.mountains.national-park.com/info.htm , the mountain lions were thought to be eradicated by hunters in the 20s. However, there have been reports that they are still around. There are bobcats. Would they attack humans during daylight? Aren't they known for their screams or do I have them confused with another cat?

Whatever happened to these three people, they aren't forgotten.
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A bobcat would attack a human, but they aren't really big enough to devour one or even want to kill for a meal, probably. They tend to attack the eyes, especially. Plus, mountain lions bury their kills so they can go back later and feed without worrying about other predators taking it away. One of the mountain bikers killed by a lion not long ago was found partially buried. That combo of devouring and burying would make it especially hard to find anything left of the victims of an attack. Gruesome, but true.

And yes, bobcat screams are well-known and very chilling, from what I have heard. They are in our area, but I haven't heard one, yet. (not that I am complaining, lol.)
 
Dark Knight said:
A bobcat would attack a human, but they aren't really big enough to devour one or even want to kill for a meal, probably. They tend to attack the eyes, especially. Plus, mountain lions bury their kills so they can go back later and feed without worrying about other predators taking it away. One of the mountain bikers killed by a lion not long ago was found partially buried. That combo of devouring and burying would make it especially hard to find anything left of the victims of an attack. Gruesome, but true.

And yes, bobcat screams are well-known and very chilling, from what I have heard. They are in our area, but I haven't heard one, yet. (not that I am complaining, lol.)
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Bobcat screams are horrible! My parents had a pair of them living in the woods behind their house along with small ferral pigs called javelina. One night there were just awful screams coming from the woods. The combination of the cats and the pigs screaming (cats were killing pigs) sounded like someone was being killed. I called the police because I thought something truly terrible was happenign. Another time the pair of bobcats was mating right on my parents back porch. Very, very loud amorous noises tehy make.
 
I found a bit more about Dennis Martin in back issues of papers on NewspaperArchive. He disappeared on Father's Day, just a few days before his seventh birthday, poor kid. Have no additional info on the others.
 
Richard said:
No, the Yeti are rumored to live in isolated parts of Nepal. You might be thinking of Sasquatch, aka Big Foot, his North American Cousin.

There are quite a few less exotic, although more dangerous animals in the Smokey Mountains, including Black Bear and Wild Hogs. The most dangerous, however is probably man.
Click to expand...
Don't forget Big Foot in Arkansas or was that California? Whatever, there are rumors of a big hairy beast in the Arkansas woods. He is featured in The Legend of Boggy Creek. Wouldn't be too much of a stretch for him to have friends in the Great Smokey Mountains, would it?
 
tuppence said:
okay - but now I want to know what happened!! was he ever found?
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Unfortunately, Jenn is right. There was no body, no live recovery, nothing. He just seems to have disappeared of the face of the earth. I believe that there was no trace found of Trenny or Pauline, either.

Off to check out newspaper archives.
 
tennessee said:
Off to check out newspaper archives.
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NewspaperArchive is a good resource. It's rather useless for current cases but can yield lovely nuggets of information on ancient ones. And with a flat monthly subscription fee it's cheaper than NewsLibrary, who at $2 per article have bankrupted me. Sigh. I need to get a job...
 
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