The Great Smoky Mountain Disappearances.

Dennis Martin

The disappearance of 6-year old Dennis Martin on June 14, 1969.

The boy’s family was out on a camping and hiking trip they took every year in the Great Smoky Mountains. 

The family had stopped off at a grassy mountain highland meadow and popular stop-off point along the Appalachian, known as Spence Field.

As the adults sat out on the grass chatting, Dennis, his brother, and two other boys on the trip thought it would be amusing to play a prank on their parents. 

They decided that they would split up, go out into the woods, and then simultaneously jump out from different directions to startle the adults.

Three of the boys went one way and Dennis,went the other. 

The men asked where Dennis was. 

Since the other boys had seen him just a few minutes earlier, they assumed that he had merely missed his cue and so they waited for him to jump out of the trees as well, but he never appeared.

Dennis’ father, Bill Martin, went out to get his son, but an immediate search of the area showed no signs of the boy, and calls into the woods went unanswered. 

Bill and Dennis’ grandfather, Clyde Martin, hiked out in different directions farther and farther from the place where the boy had last been seen and still they found nothing. 

Park Rangers were notified and a search was launched that would last until nightfall.

Heavy rain began to come down along with thunder, hampering efforts to find the boy.

The search was called off until the following day with still no trace of where Dennis had gone.

A mere hours after Dennis had gone missing a family named the Keys reported that they had been hiking around 6 miles from Spence Field when they had heard a boy’s scream. 

The son also claimed to have seen movement in a bush which he at first had thought to be a bear, but turned out to be a man walking in the woods with something apparently slung over his shoulder. 

Authorities determined that the location was too far away from Spence Field to have possibly have anything to do with Dennis within the time frame of events.

In the following days the search efforts would quickly grow in size.

Hundreds of people scoured the area.

Continuing heavy rains flooding roads, as well as thick fogs, made efforts difficult. 

Dennis’s parents posted a hefty reward for any information leading to finding their son.

A few possible traces of the boy turned up in the form of small footprints and a pair of boy’s underwear found in the woods near Spence field.

It was determined that the possibility that the footprints were linked to Dennis was remote, and Dennis’ mother said the underwear did not belong to her son.

The search would stretch on for months.

It was largely assumed by frustrated authorities that he was likely dead. 

 One idea was that he had been kidnapped. 

He also may have gotten lost, but this seems odd considering he was meant to wait right near the field and pop out to surprise the adults.

Dennis Martin was never found, and absolutely no trace of him has ever turned up. 

His odd case remains open to this day. 

Over the years, some details of the case have turned up. 

Author and researcher David Paulides, most well-known for his investigations into mysterious disappearances and his series of books on the matter,interviewed author Dwight McCarter, author of Lost!: A Ranger’s Journal of Search and Rescue.

McCarter claimed that during the search for Dennis, the special forces units had barely communicated at all with authorities, rangers, or civilian searchers.

They worked on their own, as if they had their own agenda.

They had been heavily armed as if expecting something big to happen. 

The lead FBI investigator on the case, an Agent Jim Rike, later committed suicide for unknown reasons.

Trenny Lynn Gibson

Oct. 8, 1976, Trenny Lynn Gibson, a 16-year-old high school sophomore from Knoxville, was on a field trip to the national park along with 40 of her classmates. 

The students were hiking from the parking area towards a spot called Andrew’s Bald.

They had separated into smaller groups. 

It was a well traveled route.

At around 3PM in an area just below Clingmans Dome, it was noticed that Gibson was no longer with her group.

She had been with other people and there had been groups of students both in front of them and behind, as well as other hikers, who had not seen her actually go off on her own. 

The area is very popular with hikers, is far from remote, and there are a lot of people around, yet no one had seen Gibson anywhere. 

Despite an intensive search, no sign of Trenny Gibson was ever found. 

She simply vanished.

Thelma Pauline Melton

September 25, 1981, 58-year-old Thelma Pauline Melton,  “Polly”, was hiking with two of her friends near the Deep Creek Campground.

 It was an easy trail that Melton had been hiking for 20 years.

She knew the lay of the land.

As they were hiking at a leisurely pace she rounded a bend in front of her friends and seemingly disappeared.

Her friends searched the area where she had been just moments before.

 None of them could find a sign of where she had gone. 

Melton was overweight, and suffered from high blood pressure and nausea for which she took medication.

Bizarre that she could have gotten so far away from her friends so fast. 

Melton’s friends had been playfully teasing her about her slow pace not long before she vanished. 

She had also been a happy and well-adjusted individual with no  reason to want to vanish.

A massive search was launched.

No sign of Melton could be found. 

Authorities were unable to even get a good set of tracks to follow.

Melton’s left shoe had apparently had a noticeable crack in the sole which would have made her tracks distinguishable and easy to differentiate from those of other hikers. 

No trace of Polly Melton has ever been found and she remains missing.