Stacey Ann Arras was only 14 years old when she vanished without a trace inside Yosemite National Park in 1981. To this day, her disappearance remains unsolved. Though Yosemite National Park has been the site of other people going missing and creepy occurrences, Arras’s case is especially eerie given the startling lack of evidence.
Due to the mysterious circumstances surrounding the event, some people believe there were supernatural forces at play. And while there is probably a scientific or rational explanation for what happened to Stacey Ann Arras on July 17, 1981, the reality of her departure remains as haunting as any paranormal mystery.
Stacey Ann Arras Was Not Traveling Alone
Arras was traveling with others when she disappeared; she and her father were with six other people. The group was horseback riding and had reached Sunrise High Sierra Camp before Arras wandered off to take photographs of the nearby lake.
The camp was a tourist destination – meaning there were people around to watch Arras as she walked toward the lake.
The Last Known Person To See Her Was A Tour Guide At The Camp
While the group was resting, Arras told her father she wanted to hike down and take pictures of a nearby lake. Her father declined to join her. When Arras left her companions, the tour guide recalled seeing her “standing on a rock about 50 yards south of the trail.” The trail to the lake was only 1.5 miles long.
That is the last time anyone has officially reported seeing Arras.
A 77-Year-Old Man Was With Her Before She Disappeared
When Arras wandered off, a 77-year-old man from her camp group accompanied her. The man sat down to rest while Arras walked ahead. When Arras didn’t return, the man got up to look for her, then gathered the remainder of the group to search more extensively. He later reported that he’d spoken with a group of hikers, but they said they hadn’t seen her.
Witnesses say they saw the man sitting down as Arras wandered off, and there is no further evidence implicating him in any wrongdoing.
She Left Behind Only One Item
Despite the search beginning only minutes after Arras vanished, no one found any trace of the 14-year-old girl except for the lens from her camera. It was found inside the grove of trees Arras entered before presumably photographing the lake.
Arras reportedly had several other items on her person. She was wearing an ankle bracelet and possibly stud earrings, as well as carrying binoculars and her camera. None of these items ever turned up.
One experienced climber noted on a forum that if Arras had lost her lens cap, it shouldn’t necessarily be considered a sign of foul play since the caps are easy to lose.
The Search To Find Her Was Extensive
Arras’s group began searching for the girl not long after she disappeared, and rescue crews invested extensive efforts to find her – it’s all the more bizarre that she has not been found. By some reports, up to 150 people looked for the teen, which includes roughly 67 Mountain Rescue Association volunteers, dogs, and helicopters all canvassing a 3 to 5 square mile area around Sunrise Lake. Despite this, the camera lens is the only clue.
According to a news article from the Fresno Bee in 1981, the dogs employed in the search “were unable to pick up any scent because of dry and dusty conditions.”
On a forum dedicated to discussions about unresolved mysteries, Redditor /u/hectorabaya shared an anecdote about how the elements in the wilderness – that is, wind, trees, and canyons – can affect a person’s sense of hearing:
She left the group and was exploring alone, off-trail, which is very dangerous if you aren’t carrying navigation tools and experienced in using them. She was also likely distracted, paying more attention to photography than to navigation…
The search was fairly small relative to the size of the area they had to work with, and it’s likely she kept moving even once she realized she was lost, because the majority of [people] do. But it’s also the absolute worst thing to do in almost every case, because then searchers are playing catch-up…
A point I see brought up fairly often is that she was within shouting distance, but I don’t think there’s a way to prove that. Sound in the wilderness is weird. I’ve spent a ton of time hiding from searchers as a training subject, and even I’m still sometimes surprised at how variable sound can be. I’ve had searchers shouting for me from maybe 50 feet away who I couldn’t hear because of a slight ridge and wind blowing away from me.
On the other hand, I’ve been freaked out by hearing a dog panting and human voices just above me when I knew the team wasn’t close to me yet, because I was hiding on the edge of a canyon and there was a weird magnifying/echo effect. Usually, the trend is for sound to be dampened, though. Even a bit of vegetation, a small hill, and a slight breeze you barely notice are enough to muffle sound to a surprising degree.
Some Of The Accepted Details In The Case May Be Inaccurate
Search-and-rescue volunteers and outdoor enthusiasts who have researched Arras’s case seem to agree that some reports were possibly inaccurate in the first place. On a forum about unresolved mysteries, Redditor /u/Persimmonpluot, who claims to have grown up and worked in Yosemite, said:
The official description of where she went missing makes no sense. Purportedly, the group arrived at the Sunrise HSC where they planned to stay in some of the cabins. We are told Stacy [sic] left to photograph the lake which was in sight of the cabins. There is no lake in sight of the camp. It would have been a very long hike to reach a lake. So that discrepancy is odd.
That fact changes things a lot. If she really set out to photograph the lake, then there was a lot of distance and space that could have accounted for her disappearance. There are many crevices and spots where she could have possibly fallen, and crevices can conceal [anything]. However, not knowing where she went makes it difficult to guess.
From the same forum, Redditor /u/hectorabaya, who says they are a search-and-rescue volunteer, rebutted:
Even articles from normally reputable sources get a lot of details wrong in many wilderness disappearance cases, from what I’ve seen. I think it’s just because the reporters likely don’t have a frame of reference and it’s just a quick blip, not a Pulitzer contender, so they skimp on the research, but sometimes it can be shockingly inaccurate.
And it isn’t even just on the reporters, because usually, the information comes from a police spokesman who has little to no direct involvement with the investigation, and that information was relayed to the spokesman by the OIC on scene, and the OIC on scene likely got it from volunteer IC, and the volunteer IC likely got it from field searchers… it’s like the telephone game. I’m frankly amazed that they get it right as often as they do.
The National Park Service Doesn’t Keep Track Of Disappearances
Arras is one of many people who disappeared in a national park – though the exact number is unknown. The National Park Service doesn’t keep a record of the many people who have vanished in their parks.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request regarding the number of park disappearances, an official said:
Please know that we reached out to and collaborated with other offices/bureaus: the Office of Law Enforcement and Security, BLM [Bureau of Land Management], and NPS [National Park Service]. According to the feedback we received, they do not track or maintain listings of missing persons.
Some Suspect Supernatural Forces Were At Play
David Paulides – Bigfoot enthusiast, investigator, author, and documentarian – has posited through his Missing 411 series that there are similarities between National Park disappearance cases. Paulides claims he has spent 7,000 hours investigating the park system disappearances. From his research, he estimates there are around 1,600 missing persons across 85 million acres of parkland in the United States.
Paulides often chooses cases that might fit certain paranormal theories, most of which include Bigfoot. He arranges the disappearances he researches into what he calls “clusters” – cases with similar circumstances. One of the criteria for these clusters is storms. In Arras’s case, search-and-rescue dogs struggled to pick up her scent since the conditions were oddly dry and windy.
It’s Unlikely That Arras Ran Away Because Of Her Shoes
According to a news article published in the Fresno Bee around the time of Arras’s disappearance, “Park officials said Stacey was having some family or school troubles, and she was missing her teenage boyfriend.” It is speculated that perhaps the teen ran away or had simply embarked on a walk into the woods.
However, national parks spokeswoman Linda Abbott countered that Arras would not have gone for a walk since the teen wasn’t wearing suitable shoes. The last conversation Arras had with her father was about her shoes – he thought she should change into her hiking boots, but she walked off in a pair of flip-flops instead.
It’s Possible She Had A Mishap
Yosemite is known for its large population of black bears – there are about 300-500 bears in the park alone. As the national park is a popular place to hike, visitors are to “remain at least 50 yards from” any bears they encounter in undeveloped areas.
Though these statistics evoke a small probability that Arras encountered one of these animals on her trip to the lake, it is unlikely that they would have confronted her, considering the National Park Service claims no one in Yosemite has perished from an encounter with a black bear.
One of the common themes David Paulides includes in his “clusters” is drowning. Over the last decade, this has remained the top incident to result in the loss of life in the national parks. Since Arras vanished while taking photographs of a lake, it is possible she slipped into the water. Search and rescue, however, sent in divers and spent time walking search dogs around the lake, but they came back with nothing.
Foul Play Hasn’t Been Ruled Out
There is little evidence to suggest that a person is responsible for Arras’s disappearance, but some still speculate that this may be the case. Moreover, investigators have not ruled out the possibility of something nefarious.
Redditor /u/Quarantinea shared their thoughts on a forum about unresolved mysteries:
Is it at all possible (and/or likely) that she did get lost and wander [around] for a while, unable to hear anyone call her or too far away to be heard, but someone who knows the park better than her approaches her to “help” but is actually a deranged [person] (or something along those lines…)?
I’m fairly certain that if I was lost and alone somewhere like that, I wouldn’t question anyone who offered help.
