Radio Script
2003

Each year, thousands of people are reported missing across Alaska. Thumbtacks on a map behind investigator Bill Hughes represent missing persons and remains that have been found. (Photo courtesy Associate Press.)

Vanished!
__________________

INTRO: Many people think of Alaska's wide-open spaces and remoteness as an opportunity to lose oneself. Last year, nearly 4,000 people did just that. As Doug Schneider reports in this week's Arctic Science Journeys Radio, state investigators hope a new Web site will help them solve missing-person cases.

STORY: Take Alaska—a state with 586,000 acres of remote wilderness, open tundra and rugged mountains—mix in adventure seekers, tourists, hunters, boats and airplanes, and what do you get? A lot of lost people. That's according to investigator William Hughes with the Alaska State Troopers.

HUGHES: "We have such a vast state with so little population that it's so easy to get lost. Other states have missing people, but it's nowhere near what we have."

Last year, some 3,780 people were reported missing across the state. The vast majority were young runaways who eventually turned up alive. But many of the missing were pilots, fishermen, recreational boaters, hunters, tourists, snowmachiners, hikers and others who set off into the wilderness, never to return. In all, some 217 people reported missing last year are still missing today.

On a wall in Hughes's Anchorage office is a large map of Alaska. Peppering the map are dozens of multicolored thumbtacks; each represent a missing person. It's a grim reminder of the realities of living in a state that's both beautiful and dangerous.

HUGHES: "We have red flags which indicate boating and drowning and we have blue flags which indicate an aircraft incident, and green tags indicate a ground incident—a hiker perhaps. The black flags indicate unidentified bodies, that's where someone has come upon skeletal remains of some type or another. And then we have yellow flags which we believe to be homicides or suspected homicides involving children."

As an investigator with the Alaska State Troopers, it's William Hughes's job to find these missing persons. He manages the Alaska Missing Persons Clearinghouse, essentially a vast database that houses key information about people reported missing from across the state. Since the database was established in 1988, more than 53,000 people have been reported missing. More recently, the clearinghouse established a public Web site that contains photographs and information about Alaska's missing persons.

HUGHES: "We gather the information from throughout the state on people reported missing or lost, or the result of a search and rescue where someone has not been found. We enter the information in our system. We try to obtain photographs of the person. We have a Web site, and the picture is put on the Web site in the event that someone wishes to see who's missing in Alaska. And who knows, they may have seen them someplace."

The information Hughes has on file can consist of photos, dental records, x-rays, records of tattoos, tattered clothing, even jewelry. When human remains are found, DNA analysis is used to identify the person's remains.

This is Arctic Science Journeys Radio, a production of the Alaska Sea Grant Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. I'm Doug Schneider.

Thanks to the following individual for help preparing this script:

William Hughes, Investigator
Alaska Department of Public Safety
Alaska State Troopers
Anchorage, Alaska
Phone: 907-269- 5058
Email: william_hughes@dps.state.ak.us

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Related Web site

Missing Persons Clearinghouse

Related reading

Surviving Outdoor Adventures

Surviving on the Foods and Water of Alaska's Southern Shores

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