Boy Lost in Woods for 2 Days Tells Mom He Hung Out With a Bear

Boy Lost in Woods for 2 Days Tells Mom He Hung Out With a Bear

A boy who went missing in the woods for two days told his family he “hung out with a bear” before he was discovered by rescuers. The boy’s aunt made the claim in a Facebook group, describing his experience as miraculous, and the bear a divine gift.

Three-year-old Casey Hathaway went missing last week when he wandered off while playing in his grandmother’s backyard. Rescuers found him a few days later tangled up in a patch of thorns. He was found crying out for his mother less than a mile from where he went missing.

Questions about whether the bear was imaginary or real are being debated, but Hathaway’s mother believed her son enough to include it in the police report. According to sources, the county Sheriff thought the claim was cute, but probably not real — that didn’t stop his office from posting a picture of the boy next to a picture of a bear on its Facebook page.

“He made a comment about having a friend while he was in the woods — his friend was a bear,” Maj. David McFadyen of the Craven County Sheriff’s Office told CNN.

According to reports, the boy survived two nights in 20 degree weather with heavy winds and pouring rain, making it more believable he received protection of some sort. Psychologists plan to conduct further interviews with Hathaway, but are giving him time to recover from the traumatic experience.

Though the boy’s story may be hard to believe, it’s almost impossible to disprove. And there are certainly plenty of stories of animals coming to the rescue of humans in dire situations.

Online, people in the more conspiracy-minded forums proposed the possibility that Hathaway’s mysterious savior may have been Bigfoot or the strange Missing 411 phenomenon researched and written about by David Paulides.

Paulides has devoted his career to researching hundreds of strange disappearances throughout the U.S. after a park ranger told him thousands of odd and unexplained disappearances have occurred in the National Park Service’s history. Could this have been one such case that fortunately turned out to have a happy ending?

There are others who have speculated that the bear Hathaway referred to may have been a benevolent spirit that helped him find shelter and keep him safe during his harrowing time alone.

Until the boy is a little older, we may never know whether he was saved by his guardian angel or a real life Baloo. In either case, the story is pretty miraculous.

 

For more on David Paulides’ Missing 411 documentation of strange National Park disappearances check out this episode of Beyond Belief:



Does the Legendary Mapinguari of South America Exist?

Does the Legendary Mapinguari of South America Exist?

All over the world there are tales of legendary creatures — sometimes magical and mischievous, such as fairies, sometimes ferocious and deadly, like yowies. Within these creatures’ respective cultures are numerous people who not only believe in them, but are positive that they’ve seen them firsthand. 

Deep in the Amazonian rainforest lurks one of these creatures — the Mapinguari, which is often referred to as a “sloth monster.” It’s a popular figure within Brazilian culture, and tales of how fearsome it is have persisted into modern day, where reports of sightings continue to mount, as does evidence of the destruction left in the Mapinguari’s wake.

According to most legends, the sloth monster began its life thousands of years ago, as an Amazonian shaman who stumbled upon the secret to immortality. Because of his findings, however, he became smug, an attribute that angered the gods. As a punishment for his hubris, they transformed the shaman into a giant, sloth-like creature and left it to wander the forest for eternity.  

Description: The Sloth Monster

When people think of sloths, they generally think of sweet, peaceful, slow-moving creatures that delight in hanging from branches and delicately eat flowers. It’s hard to imagine a fearsome sloth. 

But the mapinguari is giant, exceeding seven feet in length when it stands on its hind legs, which it apparently does, on occasion, though it is said to travel on all fours. And when it assumes this posture, the unfortunate person beholding it can bear witness to its second mouth, located on its belly. 

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