There was a strong reaction to the stairs, so I’ll talk about them briefly here and add one story connected to them. The stairs we come across vary in shape, size, style, and condition. Some are badly damaged, just ruins, but others look almost new. I once saw a set that looked like it had been taken straight out of a lighthouse, metal, spiral, old fashioned. They don’t go up forever or disappear into the sky, but some of them are taller than others. Like I said before, imagine the stairs from your house cut out and placed in the middle of nowhere. I don’t have any photos. After the first time I saw them, I never even thought about taking pictures, and I didn’t want to risk losing my job. Maybe I’ll try in the future, but I can’t promise anything. About half of our calls are for missing people, the rest are accidents, people falling from cliffs, getting burned, bitten, or hurt in stupid ways, usually drunk kids. We’re a solid team, with veterans who are very good at tracking, which is why cases with no trace are so frustrating. One case hit us especially hard because we did find a trace, but it only raised more questions.

An older man went hiking on a clearly marked trail, but his wife called when he didn’t return home on time. He had a history of seizures and hadn’t taken his medication. We started a standard search and quickly found tracks showing he had left the trail. We spread out to cover more ground, then got called back by radio. Usually that means we found the person injured. When we arrived, the veterans were standing under a tree, staring up. One of them pointed, and I saw a cane hanging from a branch at least ten meters above the ground. The strap was wrapped around the branch. There was no way he could have thrown it that high. There were no other signs, no footprints, nothing. We called out, but no one answered. We kept searching, used dogs, but the trail disappeared long before the tree. Eventually the search was called off. His wife kept calling for months, asking if we found him, and each time her voice carried less hope. What stayed with me was the absurdity of it all. How did the cane get up there. Was it some kind of message, or something else entirely. It felt like something was mocking us.

Stories about missing children always hit the hardest. It doesn’t matter how it happens, it’s never easy. Sometimes we find them dead, not often, but it happens. There are stories about children being found in places they should never have reached. I didn’t see many myself, but one case still bothers me. A mother took her three kids, six, five, and three years old, for a picnic near a small lake about three kilometers from a parking area. The trail was clear and well maintained. After the picnic, they headed back. The kids walked ahead, and the mother heard something behind her. She turned for just a few seconds, and her five year old son was gone. She thought he stepped aside, but the other children said a big man with a terrible face came out of the bushes, took him by the hand, and led him into the trees. They didn’t seem scared, just confused, almost drugged. The mother panicked and called for help. We searched for weeks. No tracks, no clothing, nothing. Eventually volunteers found a body twenty four kilometers away. It was him, wedged into a rock crevice halfway up a steep slope that even we struggled to climb with gear. The strangest part was that he had no injuries, no scratches, no dirt on his feet. It looked like he had only been dead for one or two days, even though a month had passed. The coroner said hypothermia. No suspects, no answers.

One of my first calls as a trainee was a search for a four year old boy. That one ended well. The dogs picked up a strong trail, and we found him about eight hundred meters away, just wandering. On the way back, my instructor took me to a place where missing people are often found, a natural depression near a trail. It was far from any buildings, deep in protected land. While walking, I noticed something in the distance with straight edges, something that didn’t belong. When we got closer, I felt the hair on my neck stand up. It was a set of stairs. Just stairs, with beige carpet, about ten steps, standing alone in the forest. Like a glitch in reality. I asked what it was, and she just said to get used to it. I wanted to get closer, but she grabbed my arm and told me not to. Never approach them, never touch them, just ignore them. I saw something in her eyes that told me not to ask more. Since then, I see them every few calls. Sometimes close to trails, sometimes deep in the wilderness. Different styles, different sizes, some old, some in perfect condition. Everyone says the same thing. It’s normal. Don’t go near them.

One winter case was more sad than strange. A young man went missing during heavy snowfall, nearly two meters deep. We knew we would likely find him only after the thaw. When the snow melted, a hiker found his body near a tree. I knew immediately what happened. It’s called a tree well, a space of loose snow around a tree where someone can fall in and get trapped. He likely fell in headfirst and couldn’t get out. The snow collapsed around him, and he suffocated. It’s called snow immersion suffocation. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s deadly. What disturbed me most was imagining his final moments, upside down in the freezing dark, unable to move, slowly running out of air.

People sometimes ask me if I’ve ever seen something like the Goatman. I haven’t, at least not directly. But there was one case that came close. We were called to help an older woman who had fainted on a trail. Her husband said he left her briefly, then heard her scream. When we carried her down, she woke up and started screaming again. She said she heard a strange sound, like a cat, but wrong. As she followed it, she realized it wasn’t a cat, but a human voice repeating “meow” over and over in a distorted, buzzing tone. She couldn’t see anything, but it was getting closer. The last thing she remembered was a shape coming out from the trees. Later, I went back to check the area. At sunset, I heard it too. A man’s voice, repeating “meow” in a flat, unnatural way. It sounded like it came from everywhere at once. I tried to follow it, but it faded. I never heard it again. Maybe it was someone playing a prank. But even now, I’m not sure I believe that.