Joining George Knapp in the first half, researcher David Paulides shared updates on cases of people who inexplicably disappear from national parks and rural settings. He detailed two disappearances that occurred in similar locations in Roseboro, NC, some 24 years apart. The first case involved a two-year old boy playing with a dog who vanished in 1976. An exhaustive 2-week search with 1,200 people turned up nothing. In the second incident, a boy living with his aunt and uncle, also disappeared and was never found. Paulides outlined similarities in the cases-- both boys vanished while playing with dogs (in the latter case, the dog returned after five days, looking clean and well-fed), both boys came from broken homes, and there was never any evidence of kidnapping or abduction.
Paulides described a case of a missing girl from Bellmawr, NJ who vanished in 1957, also while playing with a dog, near a creek in her backyard. The area near her house was searched five or six times, including an unoccupied home for sale. Yet, when a mother and daughter were viewing the house for sale, the missing girl's dog jumped out of a closet, and the girl's dead body was also there. It was evident, he reported, that the girl and the dog had not been in the location earlier when it was searched. Paulides interviewed a retired special agent from the Park Service who investigated criminal activity in the parks. The Park Service seeks to downplay disappearances-- they don't want the bad publicity, or to have it known just how many people have gone missing, he told him.
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In the latter half, author Bryce Zabel talked about his meticulously researched new novel, Surrounded by Enemies: What If Kennedy Survived Dallas?, an alternative narrative of the turbulent 1960s after America's charismatic president escapes unscathed on November 22, 1963. He looked at how the assassination attempt would have shaken things up politically, with JFK and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy striking back at their enemies which included the CIA, J. Edgar Hoover, and even LBJ. Zabel's book also portrays scandals that erupted around JFK's private life as his womanizing and health conditions were revealed to the public.
Covers from a fictitious news magazine are featured in his book, with one of them showing JFK meeting the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. There is also a scene where the comedian Lenny Bruce does a monologue about Kennedy's infidelities. If JFK had lived, Zabel believes that the Viet Nam War would have played out much differently. Kennedy "would have been loathe to commit ground troops in any significant number to Viet Nam," he surmised. For more, check out a video from Zabel featuring a faux talk show commemorating the 50th anniversary of the day JFK survived Dallas.