Amazing News 2020

This hiker was found dead two years ago. We still don't know his name

November 08, 2020 | by Julian L. Mertz | No comments

PLUS: The history of poop, and a closer look at the polls.

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11.08.20

The man started his trek on the Appalachian Trail in New York, heading south. As WIRED editor-in-chief Nicholas Thompson writes this week on Backchannel, the man—who soon picked up the nickname Mostly Harmless—wanted to get away "from something and maybe from everything." He may have worked in tech. He carried a giant backpack but no cell phone. Fifteen months later, two hikers all the way down in Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve came across a yellow tent with a pair of boots sticking out of it. Mostly Harmless was dead, and an internet mystery was born. Authorities in Collier County, Florida, had no luck identifying the man, but soon Facebook and other social media sites were buzzing with leads—people who had talked to Mostly Harmless on the trail, people trying to match up photographs with missing-person databases. "The internet can decode family mysteries, identify long-forgotten songs, solve murders, and, as this magazine showed a decade ago, track down almost anyone who tries to shed their digital skin." Thompson writes. "This case seemed easy." Except: nothing. Despite the community of avid searchers that coalesced online to identify him, Mostly Harmless remained—and remains—entirely nameless, unknown. A genetic testing company has now joined the search and may soon solve the mystery, unless the internet can do it first.

Mark Robinson | Features Editor, WIRED

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A Nameless Hiker and the Case the Internet Can't Crack

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The man on the trail went by "Mostly Harmless." He was friendly and said he worked in tech. After he died in his tent, no one could figure out who he was.

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