>>2810398A number of people greater than zero are probably killed by mountain lions, bears or wolves every year and the remains are never found.
Also, whenever someone does die of exposure or trauma in the backcountry, they can actually be picked apart by scavengers fairly quickly.
There's a girl that when missing by my town, probably killed by her husband, but that's irrelevant. And they only found a bit of her jaw and some ribs. And they only found those because her burnt-out car was nearby.
Imagine if she had died further into the woods. They would have never found anything.
>what about clothing and jewelry? When I see torn up clothing halfway buried in mud, I don't think
"OMG! I need to catalog this and report it to authorities"
I think
"Someone ran out of toilet paper."
Jewelry probably gets regifted, pawned, or put in the lost and found.
There are weird 411 cases. But most have fairly adequate explanations. And I'm a bigfoot believer. So the fantastic isn't beyond my consideration.
