A documentary film titled Missing 411 has recently been making waves online, sparking conspiracies about how an estimated 1,600 people have mysteriously disappeared from national parks and other public lands around the country. Now, TikTokers are asking questions.

The film details several missing persons cases, including that of a 3-year-old Colorado boy that went missing on the Big South Trail in the Roosevelt National Forest, 60 miles west of Fort Collins, 22 years ago.

The boy’s remains were found 4 years after his disappearance and his death was widely assumed to be the result of an animal attack, according to the film. However, many people do not accept this to be true.

Other accounts in the film are eerily similar, suggesting that there might be something sinister going on in America’s national parks.

According to the Department of Justice’s National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), 600,000 people in the United States go missing every year. Although the majority of these cases resolve successfully, the database shows that tens of thousand of missing persons cases grow cold.

Of these cold cases, former police officer and author of the Missing 411 series of books, David Paulides, believes that around 1,600 went missing on national public lands, many of which have allegedly gone unreported.

So…what happened to them?

These numbers, along with a string of mysteriously similar disappearances, sparked a resurgence online, specifically on TikTok, of an old rumor about a population of feral cannibals living in secret in U.S. national parks.

This theory relies heavily on the belief that the majority of missing persons cases in national parks go unreported, as suggested by Paulides’ research.

While most stories regarding the supposed cannibals are related to the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and rural Appalachia, the conspiracy has found its way to Colorado.

Granted, there’s currently no official documentation to suggest that feral cannibals live in Colorado’s national parks, but that hasn’t stopped conspiracy theorists from telling their stories.

TikTok users from the state have shared their own explanations and stories, blaming cannibals, aliens, and Bigfoot as potential culprits behind missing hikers, specifically in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Despite the conspiracy, Rocky Mountain National Park only has 3 active cold cases on record, spanning nearly 70 years apart.

Are there cannibals hiding out in Colorado’s national parks, as rumored by TikTok conspiracy theorists? It’s unlikely, but the rumors are likely to continue their spread.

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