One Oregon survivalist has been missing for nearly 10 years, but there's still plenty of questions that remain. Justin Alexander Shetler disappeared in Parvati Valley of India in 2016. He was carrying just a walking stick he turned into a flute and a woolen wrap. No one has ever seen him again.
The Oregon survivalist's disappearance is now the subject of the Tenderfoot TV podcast Status: Untraced. There's plenty of questions that remain, according to host Liam Luxon.
"The story itself is just so intriguing and bizarre," Luxon said via New York Post. "Justin is a survival expert, so if somebody was living off the grid, it would be him. He has all the training for it — he knows how to speak bird language, which is crazy — he lived in a cave. He can start a fire from anywhere."
It's the Oregon survivalist's last message that has perplexed authorities. "One of the last things he wrote on his blog and social media was, 'I should be back, but if I'm not back by then, don't come looking for me,'" Luxon shared. "It was weird - everything was really, really weird."
Luxon spoke with many of those closest to the survivalist. He wanted to get their perspective on his disappearance. "I know that a lot of people do have as much closure, enough closure for them, to believe what they believe," said Luxon. "There are certainly a lot of theories that have been put out. We crossed off some while we were investigating. I can't speak about how other people feel. But I do personally believe I know what happened. And I think most of his loved ones believed they knew what had happened as well."
Oregon Survivalist Disappears
Luxon said that the survivalist spent the last month living in a cave. He was in a really remote area with no roads. Luxon said, "In the last month that we know where he was, he was living in a cave... which is in a camp in the Himalayas. It's gorgeous. It looks like this medieval, military town. He was staying just outside this camp, but it was four hours from the nearest road. You have no choice but to hike there."
"When he was there, he met this... Indian holy man," Luxon continued. "This guy invited him to go on this trek into the mountains to this place, where the Hindu god Shiva supposedly meditated for like 3,000 years. It's a very holy place. We do know that he hiked up to this mountain. He also hiked with two people... It's very common for someone to go missing in the mountains. But it was that message he wrote beforehand - don't look for me."
Justin's friends and family tried to get answers to their questions.
"Justin's mom and a friend flew over there to try to get more answers," said Luxon. "They got there in October. Other people had passed him on the trail. They said he was heading down and there was only one path going up and down. I've made the trek now, and it certainly seemed like he would've made it back to the camp. And again, this guy is a survival expert. It wasn't like he was deep in the desert with no water and nothing around him for days. He should have made this trek. Nothing added up."
