Chapter 2: The Disappearances of the Palmer Brothers

It seems that in the world today one is never far from another person. In the decades just before World War II, the most industrialized nations witnessed a rapid migration of their populations from rural to urban and suburban areas. Because of that trend, most of us have to travel a distance to truly get away from the noise of civilization. Even denizens of rural areas are usually not very far from their closest neighbors and only a short drive to the nearest town or city. In areas that are more remote, such as the American west, freeways, trains, and airplanes connect formerly isolated areas to the rest of the world.

The American state of Alaska may be an exception to this rule.

Alaska, the United States' forty-ninth state, is aptly named the "Last Frontier" because of its vast expanses of territory that has rarely, if ever, been walked on by human feet. The size of Alaska is immense; it is comprised of 663,268 square miles of land, which makes it by far the largest American state and larger than all but twenty of the independent nation-states of the world. In contrast to Alaska's vast size, its population is relatively modest. With only 710,231 inhabitants, Alaska ranks forty seventh out of fifty American states in population and nearly half of those reside in the Anchorage metropolitan area.

Alaska's vastness has become somewhat of a pop culture phenomenon in recent years, with a number of television shows being produced there, such as Tougher in Alaska, that chronicle the harshness of the Alaska frontier. The book and movie Into the Wild, based on the true life adventures of Christopher McCandless, also depicted the beauty and range of the Alaskan frontier while also showing its potentially dangerous side.

If there is anywhere in the industrialized world where one can get lost, it is Alaska!

In fact, in the United States, Alaska has the dubious distinction of having the most missing persons per capita, more than twice the national average.

People disappear into the Alaskan wilderness every year and some, such as Christopher McCandless, even do so willingly, which at first glance makes the next case seem like just another missing person file from Alaska; but further examination of the Palmer brothers' disappearances reveals another set of bizarre coincidences that are stranger than fiction.

***A Family of Men***

The Palmer family seemed to be made for life in Alaska. A family of men, the siblings included oldest brother Chris, middle brother Charles "Chuckie", youngest brother Michael, and sister Hannah. The three boys and their sister grew up together in Wasilla, Alaska, which has become famous in recent years for being the home of former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. The three Palmer brothers enjoyed spending time with each other and engaging in typical Alaskan activities including hiking, fishing, hunting, and snowmobiling. They enjoyed the rugged frontier lifestyle of Alaska and all it has to offer. Life in Alaska was good for the Palmer family, until things took a bizarre and tragic turn on June 3, 1999.

***The Disappearance of Michael***

Fifteen-year-old Michael Palmer was enjoying his summer vacation from school the same way many American boys his age do—hanging out with his friends and pushing the boundaries of his parents and the law. On that night, he slept over at a friend's house, and after his friend's parents went to bed the crew snuck out of the house to see what kind of trouble they could get into.

Michael and his friends went to a few different parties that night and engaged in some drinking, although his friends would later say that none of them, including Michael, were too drunk to navigate their bicycles. The group spent their time at the parties drinking some beer, visiting with friends who they had not seen since the end of the school year, and trying to make time with girls. At one party, a fight broke out that Michael was involved in, but he was not believed to be the reason for the fight, and like everything else during the night, it was not considered out of the ordinary—just some tough Alaska boys blowing off some steam

After a couple hours of party hopping, the boys decided to ride their bikes back to the home of the boy they were supposed to be staying the night with. Although the nine-mile ride was fairly long, Michael and his friends were all in good shape and used to such long treks across the vast Alaskan outdoors. The boys rode in single file with Michael taking up the rear, but when they arrived at the house, Michael was nowhere to be seen.

Michael Palmer had vanished into thin air!

The boys later told authorities that they thought Michael had changed his mind and decided to ride home to sleep in his own bed, so they did not report him missing until later the next day. Once Michael was reported missing, the local authorities and the Palmer family began their search in earnest. Local police quickly found Michael's bike in a river, but were quick to state that they did not believe he drowned. The boy was athletic and knew how to swim, the river was fairly shallow, and a log jam down river would have caught his body if he did in fact drown.

The next major clue was even more puzzling. Michael's shoes were found wet and neatly placed side-by-side next to an airstrip about 200 yards from the river. No airplane had taken off the night of the boy's disappearance and the neat placement of the shoes suggests that Michael placed them there. They were not strewn about as if there had been a struggle. But some started to believe that Michael was the victim of violence that began at one of the parties he attended on June 3. The police interviewed and gave polygraph examinations to everyone who was known to have been at the parties, with special attention given to boys involved in the fight that was mentioned earlier. Everyone passed their polygraph exams.

It should be noted that people often "beat" polygraph exams, but those who do are usually adults who are often seasoned criminals, not high school boys who got into a fist fight. Besides, how many teenagers can keep a secret? It seems that if one of Michael's classmates had something to do with his disappearance then someone would have said something by now. But the disappearance of Michael Palmer quickly grew as cold as an Alaskan winter.

***The Disappearance of Chucky Palmer***

Perhaps the worst part of losing a loved one to a disappearance is the unknown. For years the Palmer family wondered what had happened to Michael. Was he abducted and murdered? Did he become disorientated and wander deep into the forest where he died? The disappearance of Michael Palmer faded from the memory of the people of Wasilla but was never totally forgotten. Conspiracy theories based on no credible evidence began to circulate, and before too long Michael's disappearance became legendary in that part of Alaska. But to the Palmer family, the loss of their youngest brother was never legendary; it was the source of constant pain and a void that could not be filled

As the years passed by, the other Palmer children became adults and started families of their own. They never forgot about Michael, but the pain of losing him diminished somewhat, and the family finally looked to be moving on. The siblings remained close in adulthood, especially brothers Charles "Chucky" Jr. and Chris, taking part in many typical Alaskan adventures in the outdoors.

But the thought of what happened to their youngest brother was never far from their minds.

"Two brothers aren't supposed to go missing from the same family," is what oldest brother Chris said when the seemingly impossible happened – his brother Chucky vanished into thin air in much the same circumstances as Michael.

On April 10, 2010, nearly eleven years after Michael disappeared, Chucky, Chris, and some of their friends went on a snowmobile trip on Bald Mountain, about an hour outside of Wasilla. April in Alaska is still cold enough to support winter sports; but spring is usually right around the corner, so the most hardcore Alaskans often like to get one last skiing, snowmobiling, or ice fishing trip in during that month

In the morning, it seemed to the Palmer brothers that they had picked a good day for their end of the season snowmobile trip. The weather was nice, and there was plenty of snow left on the mountain for the men to make plenty of trails, but before the men even got started, signs pointed towards an impending tragedy. Oldest brother Chris, who was a much more experience snowmobiler than Chucky, had to stay behind because the handlebars on his snowmobile snapped. Not wanting to miss out on possibly the last chance of the season to snowmobile, Chucky continued on with his friends. Interestingly though, Chucky, who was admittedly the weakest snowmobiler in the group, brought up the rear of the convoy much like his brother Michael did with his friends eleven years earlier

Unfortunately for the Palmer family the result was the same!

Chucky, like Michael, disappeared into thin air. As soon as Chucky's friends noticed that the thirty-one-year-old was missing, they retraced their tracks and searched Bald Mountain for their friend. As minutes turned into hours, the situation became more desperate, and professional search teams from Alaska Mountain Rescue were called in to find the missing Palmer brother. Snow and low visibility hampered the search teams, but once the snow stopped searchers located Chucky's snowmobile.

Chucky's snowmobile was found off the main path in a drift with no footprints nearby. Many people think that the lack of footprints is the most eerie aspect of the case, but there is no reason why there would be any since Bald Mountain was the recipient of over two feet of snow at the time.

The search continued after the snow melted, but no body or further clues were ever discovered on Bald Mountain. It was as if the mountain just swallowed Chucky whole.

With Chucky's mountain disappearance, the remaining Palmer family and the entire world for that matter, is left wondering how this is possible and what are the chances? Even if foul play were responsible for the disappearance of one or both of the Palmer brothers, the chances of that happening twice in the same family must be extremely small. Most people could never imagine such a thing happening once in their family, never mind twice.

Perhaps Chris Palmer best summoned up his family's tragedies in layman's terms: "I never thought I'd have to deal with this shit ever again." The world will probably never know what happened to the Palmer brothers, but they are proof that lightning can strike twice!