Cades Cove

Yeah.

And I've heard that term wood booger when I was growing up in East Tennessee, and, and, uh, another one I used to hear my, my granny called it, she was from Cades Cove area of the Smokies, she called it run at ya.

She said-

Yeah

For some theorists, shall we say, these wild feral people are said to account for the unexplained disappearances in the National Park.

In particular, they've been blamed for the disappearance of young Dennis Martin, the six-year-old boy who vanished near Cades Cove area in June of 1969.

A cryptic YouTube channel named South Force 10 elaborates on this theory and even claims to have inside knowledge, stating that some of his relatives in the area were hired by the government to hunt these people at one time.

Even retired park ranger and legendary tracker Dwight McCarter, who was the lead in the Dennis Martin disappearance and many others during his long career, admit that there are wild men who live deep within the recesses of the national park.

Martins were embarking on what had been a long-standing family tradition for Father's Day, with the group planning to camp and hike.

As they entered the park, the group first hiked from Cades Cove to Russell Field, where they pitched their tents and settled in for the night.

This first night went without a hitch, and Martin's men gathered around the fire, eating the food they had prepared, with the two adults telling the children stories.

It wasn't just the Martins at the camp, though.

Dennis Martin walked into the bush of Spence Field and into the pages of history, folklore, and Smoky Mountain mythology.

The story goes that Dennis, his older brother, his father, and grandfather had all gone to Cades Cove to spend Father's Day in the beautiful outdoors of the Great Smokies.

The weather in the mountains was exceptionally cool on this particular weekend, a respite from the heat that Dennis, his brother and father had endured at their home an hour and a half away or so in the Bearden neighborhood of Knoxville.

Bob Martin, Dennis' father, was a prominent architect at the time in Knoxville, but he enjoyed the trappings of being a family man and father to his two boys.

the famous Appalachian Trail that led through the edge of their camping area.

This set in motion the greatest manhunt and search and rescue effort the Great Smoky Mountains National Park had ever witnessed.

Within two hours, hundreds of park rangers, forestry service employees, and civilian volunteers were combing the hills and woods of Cades Cove, trying to locate the lost boy.

As darkness fell, the weather took a turn for the worse.

You've got urban settings where deer literally come into people's backyards and eat their ornamental flowers or their shrubbery, and they live right in the little windbreaks and brushy fence rows behind their properties.

And I'm sure you've also seen deer driving through places where, like let's say we went to the Smoky Mountain National Park and there's an area back in there, I think it's called Cades Cove.

And the deer there are kind of halfway tame and you can drive right up to them.

They see thousands and thousands of people every day.

We'd go to a different part of the...

We used to ride the Cades Cove Loop.

We used to do all the things all the time.

Mm-hmm.

... pick a couple of spots, hike to a waterfall or-

Absolutely

... whatever, you know, drive Cades Cove Loop or whatever.

But the vastness, it's effectively the top left square of Wyoming is three massive national parks.