Missing Hiker Monica Reza - Don't let her case go cold

If you have information regarding missing hiker Monica Reza, contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) Homicide Bureau – Missing Persons Unit at (323) 890-5500. Detective Rincon or Detective Sanchez are leading the investigation, and you can also reach out to the Crescenta Valley Station at (818) 248-3464. 

Today we are talking about a missing person's case out of LA County. Her family is begging for her disappearance to be remembered and revisited so that the investigation stays active. They want to know what happened to their loved one, Monica Jacinto Reza.

The Details

Monica Reza was a brilliant and fit 60 year old woman. 

In the early morning hours of June 22nd, 2025, she'd dropped off her car at the house of one of two hiking companions, people she knew from the yoga studio she went to, and they carpooled to the trailhead near Mount Materman in the Angeles National Forest.

As the crow flies, the trailhead is 30 miles from the city of angels. 

Monica was an avid hiker, she might have been 60 years old, but she was lean and fit. As the three ascended, one of the companions, the only other female, decided to bail out. The elevation and aggressive climb didn't seem to agree with her. She told Monica and the male that she'd stick around the area and meet them on their descent. But that would be the last time she saw Monica.

About 9am, Monica and the male summited Mount Waterman. The companion shared the photo of Monica there, and another taken some feet down from there beside a lightning-struck tree. That male wasn't in the photos, and none with him on the summit were ever released to the public. Neither was his name.

Curiously, the male took off at a jogging pace down the mountain. And Monica Reza followed close behind. I say curiously, because seasoned hikers said the terrain on that part of the trail was too riddled with dead pine needles, too rocky and too steep to make jogging safe. But the metadata shows that's the pace they traveled.

Before they'd reached their other companion, who still waited for them, the trail forked left and right. The male hiker told rescuers later that he signaled to Monica to take the right fork and she waved in return, seeming to understand the instruction. 

And here's where Monica Reza went missing. He looked back ten or so minutes later, and Monica was no longer behind him. The male said he doubled back, calling for Monica, which their female friend reported hearing from below them, but still no Monica. 

He looked around, called out and soon met up with the female companion. Alarmed, they kept looking and soon, by luck, ,encountered a group of five people, one of which was a regular volunteer for search and rescue. 

By 11am, they'd reported Monica missing to authorities. 

There was a multi-county, multi-jurisdiction response to the call. Soon people were combing the trail and mountainside. Search dogs were enlisted. A helicopter with FLIR was used. The takeaway is there was an immediate re

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:18

But I feel like we're on a different vibe today, so I shouldn't make fun of the recording in progress.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Wait, what's what are we on different vibes about?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Well, I I mean, I I I uh I mean, we're we're talking about some, you know, we're going off uh we're going off on some trails. I took it, I took it relationally, like you and me are on different vibes, and I'm like, dude, we are oh no, we're we're we're we're we're still brother and sister, work married, all that stuff. Yeah, you don't have to worry about it.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Okay, good. Oh, that makes me so happy. Okay, I feel so comforted now. Yeah, yeah. And like Jesse just talked about it, so we might as well get out of the gate. Today we're talking about this missing person's case out of LA County. Her family is begging for her disappearance to be remembered and revisited. So that's the investigation and um that we are diving into. They want to keep the investigation active, they want to know what happened to their loved one, Monica Jacinto Reza. First of all, Jesse, have you heard of this case before?

SPEAKER_00 1:22

I have heard that. That uh is this related to the the scientist?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Yeah, I was gonna say don't jump the shark, but yes, it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

That's uh I'm not that's all you know. I really don't have anything else to add to shark jump because that's all I know is that okay. Well, you know what that's going on.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Actually, there's a little backstory because I love to the last thing I do at night is I usually read or do a crossword puzzle, but before that, sometimes I'm not ready to unplug from the world. So I jump on YouTube and I watch hikers. This is how weird I am about hiking now. I am that person. I like to watch other people hiking a trail. And so I just randomly picked uh an episode where a guy was in LA County in the mountains and he was gonna summit a trail. So I clicked on his um video and I'm watching it, and then I realized holy crap, he is following the steps of a woman that went missing on this trail. He's like trying to find out for himself where she could get lost in the trail. How does this story sound feasible? And he is doing the work, and it's two parts, and I've linked to it in the show notes. And that's how I came to know Monica Reza's story of going missing. He didn't even mention that she was one of the scientists until I think maybe at the end of part two, or it was in the comments, but he didn't approach it from that aspect at all. So that's how I got into this spider web of this case. It just kind of sucked me in because stuff, as you know, Jesse, stuff happens to me on the trail every now and again. And this felt like a synchronicity I had to follow.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

I know, which is why I kept saying we need to do some stuff to like talk about stuff that goes on, you know, on trails and things, the things, yeah, the things, the haunted things.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

It's like the veil beyond the veil on the trail, or something like that. You had some catchy thing that I totally messed up.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Beyond it, that's no, you did it right. Beyond it beyond the veil on the trail, beyond the the the trail beyond the veil, the trail beyond the veil.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

That is so good. So, this is definitely a trail beyond the veil episode. Here's the scoop. So, Monica Reza was a brilliant and very fit 60-year-old woman in the early morning hours of June 22nd, 2025. So, not even a year ago, she dropped off her car at the house of one of two hiking companions. These were people she knew from a yoga studio she went to. Not only did she go to it, uh, reports are saying her friends are also saying that she was trying to learn how to teach yoga at this yoga studio. The three of them carpooled to a trailhead near Mount Waterman in the Angeles National Forest. So I, as a crow flies, the trail is about 30 miles from the city of Angels or Los Angeles. Monica just knows she was an avid hiker. She hiked every week at least. She might have been 60 years old, but she was lean and she was fit. And as the three ascended the summit, one of their companions, the only other female, decided to bail out. The elevation and aggressive climb didn't seem to agree with her. She told Monica and the male that she'd stick around the area and meet them on their descent. But that would be the last time that she saw Monica. About 9 a.m. Monica and the male summited Mount Waterman. The companion shared a photo of Monica there, and another taken some feet down from there beside a lightning-struck tree. That male was not in the photos that were released, and none with him on the summit were ever released to the public. Neither was his name. Curiously, the male took off at a jogging pace down the mountain, and Monica Reza followed closely behind. I say curiously because seasoned hikers said that the terrain on that part of the trail was too riddled with dead pine needles. It'd be slippery, it was too rocky, and it was too steep to make jogging safe. But the metadata shows that the pace they traveled was a jog. I mean, a fast jog. Before they'd reached their other companion, remember, who was still waiting for them. The trail forked left and then right. And the male hiker told rescuers later that he signaled to Monica to take the right fork and she waved in return to him, seeming to understand the instruction. Okay, put an asterisk on that. I have so many questions.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Oh yeah, I'm right.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Right. And here's where Monica Reza went missing. He looked back 10 or so minutes later, and Monica was no longer behind him. The male said he doubled back, calling for Monica, which their female friend, remember she's down below, could hear, but there was still no Monica. He looked around, he called out, and soon he met up with that female companion. Alarmed, they both kept looking. And soon, I think it was by luck, they encountered a group of five people, one of which was a regular volunteer for search and rescue. And by 11 a.m., they'd reported Monica missing to the authorities. Now, this search for her was serious right from the start. It was multi-county, multi-jurisdictional. It they responded to this call in a big way. And soon people were combing the trail and that entire mountainside. There were search dogs enlisted, a helicopter with flare was used, and some special pixelated um, I don't know what this tech is, but they could say the color of her shirt was red when she went missing, and they could identify all the red items on the mountain and start searching those hotspots. Oh, I know I had never heard of this before. What was weird is all the red items that they tracked down on those trails, they were Mylar balloons. No trace of Monica Reza. But the takeaway is there was an immediate response, which isn't always the case. And still there was no sign of Monica. Okay, until the next day, because that's when some maybe a thousand feet off of the trail, a dog discovered Monica's beanie, which is a knitted cap that her companion said had been tucked into her waistband. That would be the only physical trace found to date of Monica Reza. The search would go on for close to eight days and was then called off. And just there's so much weirdness about this case that I am just dying to share with you. But do you have any questions about like that main bulk of information? Did I leave any holes for you?

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Have you ever heard of the that, you know, this has been ongoing and this was uh it for a while, and it was even back to an Art Bell thing, which that's been, you know, over a decade ago or more, about all of the weird sort of disappearances that go on in like national parks and things. Yeah, this is this seems as strange as some of those stories that I had heard before.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

You're right. And it I know David Politis is best known for um covering those in his missing 411 books and on YouTube. And I've linked to some of his um videos because he actually did a video two weeks after Monica Reza went missing to give some basic facts. And what uh, but and so it is, it's so weird. Now, some cases that Art Bell would cover involved strong, strange weather fronts coming in kind of unexpectedly. And this didn't happen in this situation. It was dry, it was warm, um, there wasn't anything like that. And the video I told you about that kind of captured me, he is literally hiking the trail all the way up to the summit, all the way down. And when I say a summit of a mountain, some people may think of like a big blanket of like, I don't know, evergreens and fog. This is LA County, so it's more like scrubby. There's scrub brush, there's boulders, there's a lot of dirt, and then there's some pine trees. It reminds me of some of the hiking.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

But you're not gonna get lost in like the deep woods in that sort of terrain because there is no deep woods. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

And here, like there's there's more to the case that I can share. But the first question that came up is when I was like assembling the for, you know, the 911, the the information, the basic facts. Monica Reza 101. I was struck with the fact that the guy in front of her, who's never named, he's not in the pictures that have been released on the summit. He's supposed to be allegedly uh, you know, one of the members of the yoga studio, maybe the one that has been a main instructor for her. He says he signaled right to her and she waved to acknowledge it. So he could visually see her at that point. And wouldn't he be able to visually, unless the trail dropped down severely right there? Why couldn't he see that Monica? I would want to track my fellow hiker. I first of all, if I'm trying if I'm hiking with someone, we're hiking together side by side, and we go single file if people are coming past, right? That's a courtesy. Second of all, if I told them to go right and I'm worried that they're gonna miss that fork, I'm tracking them visually. So it seems purposeful. Thirdly, what if, and I'm just saying, what if allegedly, I'm just going fiction mind here. What if he actually signaled left to her? And left was not the right trail. It was like would take you off a different part that would take you much further away. What if he signaled left because he had some sort of malice in his heart and then he went right?

SPEAKER_00 12:12

So he knew not to look because he he and then he kind of ducked out of the way, but even that doesn't make sense because she would see or he was wrong, or he was distracted by his dumb phone, or you know, there's a hundred different things, and he the sun was in his eye, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

I I don't know, you know. Okay, Occam's razor. What if he what if looking back, he wished he had indicated, waited for her visually to indicate to go the right way, and he never did just because he was in such a hurry. Maybe he had to use a bathroom or something, he's jogging out.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Or he or or or you know how you we don't always remember everything correctly. He was like, Well, of course, I signaled that direction because that's the way the trail goes, but he actually signaled the wrong direction. My little theories here in no way are supposed to take away from how just strange and weird this argument.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

We're just trying to backfill it.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

It even sounds like she was a she she she knew what she was doing, and she was like an experienced hiker.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

She was a smart cookie, and we'll get into the facts about her. But I told you that the search effort was huge, and Montrose search and rescue was part of that, and there were many counties that were involved. And even though I told you at like day seven or day eight, the official rescue teams they stopped, but teams kept searching for her, they were focusing on this steep, brush-heavy Devil's Canyon area where the beanie was found. And that beanie was found roughly a thousand feet from the trail. And some people were saying that suggested she might have gone southward, which doesn't make a lot of sense because that area is more dangerous, it's steeper and it has denser vegetation, it even has waterfalls. And during the search, that um they had a searcher that went into distress and they had to have a helicopter rescue of one of the rescuers of all things. It's just the it's an ongoing mystery because of a couple reasons, many reasons. One is that there was this weird control situation of the actual search itself. David Politis mentions this in his video. He's like, I've never seen a initial search so uh controlled as this. They weren't even posting maps of where people had searched. And he said, that's a disservice to the families, as you can imagine, because maybe I can't imagine I could even sleep at night. I'd go out there every chance I got, you know, between work hours to go search for my mom or my stepmom or my aunt. Sure. And so you're supposed to have a map of showing where they've already searched so that you can go somewhere new and hopefully come across something. And they didn't offer that information anymore.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

If anything, it would seem like it would make the the people that are worried about the person like it would give them a little comfort to show that they're that to have a visual representation that the search is ongoing, is ongoing, and you'd see all those like holes in that mountainside kind of filled in with boots on the ground, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Of course, evidence. You're exactly right. Nothing about this process would be a comfort to the family. They did not release the name of either of her companions, they never have. I actually have kind of uh, I mean, I'm really I think I found out the name of the female companion, and it's pretty scary. Some of the connections I've made to this person, but I I really I can't air them here.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

It's not it's salacious, it's we think we're we think maybe that uh they're hiding something.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

I I think maybe they are. They're not even saying if she had a cell phone on her, Jesse. The authorities refuse to confirm that she had a cell phone on her.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Who would ever go hiking without a phone?

SPEAKER_01 16:19

I agree, and fully charged or mostly charged. And she it the whole thing's so weird. This is why I'm doing this case. I told you at the top, it was because family members were begging for this story to be staying in front and center in the public view so that the investigation stays active. One family member with the username of Claudia Vid Orieta 4078 wrote this in the comments on one YouTube video. She said this quote, our family still hasn't received any news regarding Monica's whereabouts. I would like to keep her story going. We just like to have some closure regarding what happened to her. This whole thing doesn't make any sense, and we're not getting any response from the authorities. We would like more social media exposure. She's a beautiful woman and she deserves to be found. End quote. So you can see why this is our very first true crime together, Jesse. We had to do this.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

This is uh the I mean, I'm I'm sure you you have a lot more to dig into with this, but like it's already really strange.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

I know she left a message. This same person, Claudia Vinorta. She left a message in the comments on David Politis's video on the case that I told you he did two weeks later. And she wrote this thank you so much for covering the story. She happens to be the stepmom of my niece and nephew. You bring up really good points. Thank you for keeping the story alive. Yes, it doesn't make sense about the hikers, but was more concerning to me is that we reached out to the detectives on the story, and no one has reached out to us. I want to keep her story alive. She matters. Thank you for this. End quote. It just breaks your heart. But if you want to, I can give you some more facts about the case.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Of course, I want more facts. I'll hit you. I'm sure the listeners want more facts too.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

It's not gonna fill in the blanks, it's not like I get to have a nice summary at the end that tidies this up and we we understand it all. I mean, I hope someday we do have answers. They headed up to Mount Waterman in the morning. It was Monica, a male, and a female. So three people total, maybe friends. We don't know the name of those companions, like I said, but the female she bailed after a little while. Over a mile, she went like a mile and a half, and she said it was too steep. She told them, I'll catch you later. Sometime around 8:15, Monica and the male hit the summit. They take a couple of photos and the only pictures released that I mentioned, they only include Monica. Then, after a rest and a drink of water, I assume, they head back down the trail to catch up with the female companion. The male companion said that later he was hiking maybe 30 feet ahead of Monica. Then he said maybe it was 30 yards, and then he said maybe 30 feet. He didn't know. And that's where he reached the fork in the trail I told you guys about.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

There's a big difference between 30 feet and 30 yards.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

That that's one of the things that bothers me.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

30 feet's across like a big living room, you know what I mean? Like 30 yards is like you know, you know, uh like a third of a football field.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Uh uh it's a complete different thing. Now, people are speculating that maybe Monica stopped to pee behind a boulder. We don't know, and maybe he was trying to kind of cover up that fact. But hikers know sometimes on long hours-long hikes, you gotta go. When you gotta go, you gotta go. And you bury it.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Why would you not like uh I don't know?

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Why wouldn't you disclose why wouldn't you just say that?

SPEAKER_00 20:04

You know, I mean, like and the the poor woman's missing, nobody cares if like she was peeing, you know. Nobody cares that she had to pee in the woods.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Yeah, and I told you about the guy that I've linked to in the show notes that does the entire trek up and down the mountain. He even goes on a lot of these scrubby side paths, and he even goes down to where they found the knitted cap that was thought to be Monica's, and there's could have fallen out of her pocket, could have been blown by the wind, could have been grabbed by a random animal and taken where you know there's a million different things that could happen with it, of course, and there's a reason because there's like multiple things that a dog, a scent dog found it, and then he couldn't go any further. Well, that would make sense, right? He would smell her scent, but if it came on the wind, you wouldn't smell Monica's like track after that. Exactly. And I'm gonna reiterate that this is not thick woods, it's scrubby, and there's lots of visual gaps between foliage and rocks to see someone you are hiking with from a distance. And this is like one of those old UB track.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

This is like one of those old Star Trek episodes. Remember when they'd beamed down to the planet? That's what it looks like. It's like rocks and like yes, occasional like scrubs, you know, that because that's where they they shot a lot of that stuff out there.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Yep, they sure did. So the male companion finally gets frustrated, meets up with the female, and they express concern about Monica. And then that's when they met up with the group of hikers and the real search began. So here's the intriguing information. And you talked about it at the top. You kind of teased it, and you were exactly right. Is Monica Reza's disappearance tied to the missing scientists we keep hearing about? I think the number is up to 13 scientists that have died or gone missing under mysterious circle. No, not all of them. Some are on the East Coast as well.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

But they're all connected to but the California ones, right? They're all sort of Yeah, it's it's JPL.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

It's J uh, you know, where Monica Reza worked.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

We don't even have to get into the whole uh Jack Parsons and uh all that stuff, too. It that that's always been weird over there.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

It's always been spooky weirdness. So third, you know, we know, but maybe the listeners don't know. I don't know. Maybe they've been on vacation and off the grid, but that's been catching the attention of federal officials. The scientists have been going missing since 2023 until the present moment. Monica Reza was a scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, so JPL. It's associated with Caltech, which people need to know. And now my right ear is ringing. So that was interesting. She and two other coworkers, Michael David Hicks, and Frank Maywald, are connected to the same lab and they've gone missing and died.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

I've heard the Maywald name before. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Monica herself was a brilliant material scientist, and she was an aerospace engineer. Before joining JPL, she worked for decades at Aerojet Rocket Dyne, where she co-invented a material, a nickel-based superalloy called Mondaloy. And the Mon in that, the Mon is from Monica. It's taken from her name. I did do some research, and the other person that co-invented it with her, uh, she passed away of cancer a few years ago, which is pretty sad. And her name was Dallas. Her first name was Dallas. So the Mon and the Dow. I'm assuming the Dow was for Dallas. This material, though, is a game changer. It was a game changer in the field of rocketry. Apparently, it meant that the US was no longer dependent on Russian-built engines. Isn't that interesting? Because it was like impervious to heat. So it was very important to our nation's security.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

They invented not to take anything away from Monica and Dallas. Or I don't know. Did it come from somewhere else and they just sort of back engineered, figured it out?

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Asterct on that because that's interesting. I'm going to assume that they invented it or they were inspired by maybe materials they I mean they're exposed to and got to they're smart enough, they're smart enough to be manipulating it.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

You know what I mean? They're they're they're not gonna they're not gonna land the helicopters on my front lawn and go, uh, hey, uh, we need you to come with us and help us develop the super material. Like, I don't know what, you know, I'm not that smart.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

That's such a good point. And that is seems to be how a lot of this stuff has been rolling out because, and that's why I think that they think if there's full disclosure about the UFO stuff, the public is gonna go all pitchforks and you know, little torches and pitchforks, because it's like that means we could have had clean energy, endless energy supply, abundance for everybody for at least 50 some years. We would have had that, but you know, uh yeah, and I live not far from where he did the test where he put the light bulbs in the ground. Oh yeah, demonstrated it, yeah, which I cannot believe they haven't made hallowed ground and into a museum, but whatever. But the other name that might sound familiar to you, Jesse, is Major General William McCasslin. He was part of the funding apparatus, the person in charge of it for that Mondoloy material. So essentially, he was like the funding boss of her work initially, and he went missing. He went missing under weird, mysterious circumstances of his own. Wait, wait, wait. The general went missing. Yes, Major General William McCasslin, he went missing, like I think about two months after Monica. What happened? Actually, I should just backfill this. A repairman came to their house in the morning. His wife went out briefly. She was had an appointment to do something, and somewhere maybe around noon, she returned and he was gone. Her husband was gone, his phone was there, his wallet was there at the house. You know, most of his most private personal items were there.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

His track repair match was there.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

I know to me, it's interesting. But then he took his gun in a holster and he went for a walk, and then he was never seen again. The only trace they found of Major General William McCaslin is a sweatshirt that was said U.S. Air Force, and the family hasn't even confirmed if it's his.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

If Monica was that smart, I'm not ruling out foreign agents snatched her on the trail. That could be like why all these people are disappearing.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Jesse, I have goosebumps because I cannot say what I found out about what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

I'm sure the North Koreans would like to talk to her. I'm sure the Russians would. I'm sure that you know the list goes on.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

It does go on. Well, and it does. I mean, McCaslin was this two-star general that had a master's and a PhD from MIT. Talk about being smart and extra. He was the one that oversaw black projects, which included that material mandoloi. So, right, it's like it's part of our brain trust for our country, isn't it? Okay, it's gonna get really I was raised in the Cold War, baby.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Yeah, that's where my brain goes. Exactly. Four days after Monica, and I have goosebumps all over my body right now. Four days after she went missing, there is a memorial created for Monica on a site called Find a Grave. It's called her death a green burial. Do you know what a green burial is?

SPEAKER_00 28:23

That isn't is that where they uh you like turn into a tree, your ashes turn into a tree or whatever?

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Yeah, essentially. So the four days there's still helicopters in the air, and somebody puts up by the name of Lillian, puts up a memorial for Monica on Find a Grave and says her burial is a green burial, and that's exactly what it is. It's laying you out in a forest and letting the elements just erode your body into the earth.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

Okay, well, that's that could be conjecture that um she's on the trail somewhere and uh just some weirdo made that, or yeah, um, that could be somebody jumped the gun on Adner to find a grave.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Yep, and since then, thank God for the internet that took screenshots and have it because it's wiped, like the the memorials wiped, and Lillian wiped her account.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

This is why we have to protect the Wayback Machine, everyone. Donate to the archive, yeah, we sure do.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

So, anyway, it's really creepy, and I don't know what that means. I think that it could be somebody like there are people that are kind of obsessed with doing something like morbid, right? There's a there's a fine line between being interested in true crime and trying to keep a story alive so that the investigation stays active, and then there's another thing about I want to have my fingerprints on it, so I'm gonna do this memorial. I don't know what it's going to be. But what's weird, there are so many other weird things. So she, I just have to share a couple things. The Pacific Crest Trail, which I have covered extensively on my podcast, the subset Cascadia. The Pacific Crest Trail has lots of disappeared uh people or murdered people that occur almost every year. There's a situation, there's you know, predators that prey on some of these hikers that end up alone or separated from the group. And David Politis always says, if you are hiking or traveling in a group, never be the last hiker. And he says it for that reason alone. I have to go back to this. She was friends enough with people in this group that she was hiking with to carpool with them. She left her car at one of their houses so that they could carpool up to the mountain together. Okay, so they took the photos at the summit. Were if there was something nefarious happening, uh, wouldn't you talk? You know, this is like, I know maybe you would take a photo at the summit. I have summited things and I've forgotten to take a photo and I've seen other groups of people do it. So I've kind of gone, oh, maybe I should do it as well. But it could also be considered a timestamp, proof that I had nothing to do with this.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

I would just like to throw in here that out of the two of us, Jenning is the brave one. Uh, I I don't do things like this. I I don't I don't go on trails and like uh and dodge mountain lions and uh you know, and maybe get you know the aliens or the North Koreans to snatch me. You know, I I don't do stuff like this.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

You know, after I told Doug about this case, he was like, You're getting a personal beacon, Jen. You need to hype with a personal beacon besides my phone.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Yeah, me and Doug are on the same page here.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

My podcast husband and my my other husband.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Yeah, yeah. We're gonna get together and like sad these out. Yeah, we're gonna have an intervention with you.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

There's some other weird things that David Peleus brought up on the initial flyers that the I don't know who created the initial flyers, to be fair. I don't know if it was LA County Sheriffs or what, but she was called at risk. Okay, so at risk is an odd thing to say. At risk means did they know that she had a medical condition and she'd need her medicine by a certain like, you know, I think of my cat that's epileptic, he needs his medicine every 12 hours. Was it because of her age at 60 years old that she was considered at risk? Was she considered at risk because the alphabet agencies already were on to this and they were saying, no, it's at risk. She's like, you know, intellectual property for the nation. I don't know. And like I mentioned, I think it is weird that they've never released the search records, where they've gone, they've never released the names of the people that were with her. Um, Richie Lives on YouTube. He claims that Monica is his mother. He commented on one of the David Politis's videos, and his last name is Livs, L-I-V-Z.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Wasn't that the other lady's name? Livs, the other one that posted. Wasn't she something Livs? Oh, actually, you Claudia.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

It was oh yeah, it could that wasn't her name. I just thought it was Liv's like, I live, but you're accepting.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

No, I didn't pick up on it until you just said it, you know, the other person's name. I was like, okay, maybe they are all related.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

Well, I think they are. So he comment commented on David Politis's video, and he did give us some information that the authorities have yet to do. So I'm grateful to him. He said this she had a cell phone, but it was an iPhone 12 or older, and there was no satellite on it. They pinged her phone, and metadata showed her location up the mountain, and that's what he told David Politus. David Politus encouraged him to reach out via email, but and her last known location is 34.35035 degrees north by 7.96038 degrees west. For all of you out there that want to sleuth it down. I've got links to all of those. But what I want to get into next are the theories. And I know we started kind of teasing around with the theories because we can't help it, Jesse. We are fiction writers. We're like, we need to figure out where this plot goes.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

I've been on this conspiracy stuff since I was born. Okay. So I mean, I just your blood. I can't turn that off on my, you know, like the X Files came on, and I was like, you know, all right, Fox. Sometimes you kind of act like an amateur a little bit, you know what I mean? Like, I've been on no, I'm not kidding.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Okay, so here's some of the theories. Monica went off the trail, it was an accident, and she fell off a ridgeline and she died. But why no phone pinging? Why?

SPEAKER_00 35:16

Nah, I mean, I don't know enough about but it the phone could have been crushed in the fall, or uh you know, I don't know, but it seems like they should have been able to ping the phone, regardless. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Yeah, that's what I thought too. The second theory is Monica was hurt or killed by one of her hiking companions, allegedly. I found out something about one of the two companions. And like I said, there's no way in hell I can say it in public, but it's concerning. What was she drawn out there and led the room?

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Everybody can use their imagination and let their brains run wild then.

SPEAKER_01 36:05

If the companions have nothing to fear from the process, I would encourage them to put their names out there. The onus is on them to put their names out there and to say, why didn't they join the search efforts after that first day?

SPEAKER_00 36:23

They can be back in North Korea for all we know.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

I don't know, or wherever, or just like busy covering up things here, or you know, one of them is suing right now. That's the other reason why this person is like lawsuit happy. So this is all allegedly. I'm just like, come on, suing who? Well, it's a different thing, it's uh different different lawsuit.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Don't don't don't think I'll tell you off mic. Don't get into it, don't get into it.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

I can't know because I don't want us to be sued, and I don't even want that name associated with it.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Hey, look, uh everyone, we don't we we don't know we know nothing, okay? So yeah, we're not even conjecturing anything.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

But let's think like a detective here. You summit, you take a photo, and then you choose to jog the descent. It's odd at the very least. Your legs are kind of shot, and what you're doing, because I've done this, folks. What you're doing is you're using the whole front side of your legs and you're trying to slow down yourself, which is so hard on your hamstrings.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

We used to walk and run around the stadium in college and stuff. So I've done all that before. I, you know, I know how that that can hurt. We used to push pretty hard.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

The re there's other reasons why people on the internet keep looking at the companions because the male companion I told you about, the reports are that he got angry when the searchers started looking in certain routes and places. He got angry, he was like, Who can I don't understand? Then there's the zoom out that we've been talking about the missing scientists, people that work in aerospace or material science or nuclear engineering that have been dying or going missing under mysterious circumstances.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

I don't believe that much in coincidences.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

I don't either. Yeah, could it be an enemy of the United States that's systematically taking out our country's brain trust? Is there an ex file about that kind of thing? Uh yeah, totally. And isn't there the what is it called? The three-body problem. What is it called?

SPEAKER_00 38:35

Oh, yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

I haven't I haven't watched it.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

I'm there it's based on both those guys for screwing up the end of Game of Thrones, so I haven't watched it.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

A lot of us apparently.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

I'm never gonna let that go.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

You know what? I actually, this is a nice happy, light tangent.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

You guys burned me once, you know what I mean? You're not gonna do it again.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

This is a happy tangent because I I always wondered why everything imploded that last season.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

Did you I can tell you why why? Why I know why tell me, yes, dish. Okay, they were offered as much time as they needed because it was such a cash cow, they could have gone on for three more seasons if they needed it. Okay, yeah, they were offered a Star Wars trilogy when everybody was getting offered Star Wars trilogies after Disney bought Star Wars, so they rushed the ending to wrap it up, and then the ending turned out to be so awful and destroyed all the goodwill Game of Thrones had built up over a decade and and immediately removed it from the the cultural zeitgeist. Did they never got their Star Wars movies?

SPEAKER_01 39:42

Oh that's that's karma, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

So I mean, yeah, that's like Hollywood karma. Allegedly, uh dudes that made Game of Thrones.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Oh my god, oh my god. Okay, that was a happy segue, even though it's Game of Thrones, and I'm still like me and Doug still are like, Do you want to watch it again? It's like, no, it's too soon. We just we have to like rewrite the last episode. Maybe that's what AI is good for, Jesse. It can rewrite produce a proper ending last season of Game of Thrones. Maybe the clankers could be good for that.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

I I I don't want let's just you know move on. Yeah, let's just let's just uh keep our hopes uh on Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and move on.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

Uh well, speaking of keep our hopes up, I this is my fourth theory, and it is this, and I am such a Pollyanna, but I'm just gonna throw it out there. It's my what I'm calling Manhattan Project theory, it's that these scientists are being scooped up and taken away, reco relocated somewhere safe and secret to work on a top secret endeavor.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

That's what I'm talking about. Has anybody ever watched Paradise? You know what I'm talking about? They're they're they're they're building the big underground city right now, they needed all these people.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

But for all of us, you know, I'm trying to I'm trying to hope that it's for something for all of us that'll help us. I'm such a ball at it.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

They're not letting us into the underground city.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

We're fucked.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

Yeah, no, yeah, no, we're we're we we don't get to go to the underground city, Jesse.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

We need to each stock up on Pop Tarts and canned goods, and can I get dog food? What kind of dog food do your dogs eat? I'll have some here in Colorado.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Uh yeah, my my dogs aren't uh they're they're not fancy like that, they'll eat whatever.

SPEAKER_01 41:35

So you know hey, okay. Cooper's kind of fancy. His tummy's kind of funny.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

They like me to they like me to mix it up. I'm I mix the flavors up.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

You know, how's Eddie doing? Is he still on his diet?

SPEAKER_00 41:47

Yeah, he he Eddie and I have both uh we've both Eddie and I are both doing good. We we've we've both lost some pounds, so we're good.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

Hey, oh, I'm so glad. I love that for you guys so much.

SPEAKER_00 41:58

He's a good boy, of course.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

He's a good boy.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

He motivates me to uh, you know, to to keep it like exercise, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

Get on the dumb bike. We always text each other and go, Are you on the dumb treadmill and the dumb bike? And I need to get on the dumb treadmill today because you hit me with a new episode of something that I gotta listen to. But stop, we need to we need to wrap up this one because we don't know the answers, right? I told you I'm not teasing.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

I I like I like the last uh I like the theory. You just I think that's what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

The Manhattan Project theory, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

I like that uh because I mean, me too. They're there's they're just gone, they're nobodies, they're you know what I mean. It that the it may maybe the general too, you know. I don't know, you know.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

Yeah, but the big thing that I am head to toe in goosebumps right now, I really want to say is like others on that list, Monica Reza had a family, she had friends, coworkers, she's missed. The not knowing has got to elongate and aggravate the suffering of her loved ones, and my heart just goes out to them.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

Yeah, this has gotta be the this has gotta be the the absolute worst, it has to be, you know, and I always feel for people who um grief is hard enough without yeah, without any without it without any closure, you know, without closure, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

It's heartbreaking. I mean, I think about you know, deaths that I've suffered through, and it's like it was hard enough being able to literally physically kiss the person and say goodbye.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Yeah, I know you're not having that to to to to not not know the reason or to not ultimately know what happened or whether they're even gone.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Yeah, you know, you know, yeah, exactly. So that's it.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

That's this lady could this this lady could very well be alive somewhere, you know. And I'm she could be. Yeah, and you know what? Honestly, for her, I hope she is. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

But I mean But her family, I wish that there was a way that if she was okay and this was a purposeful thing, that they had some indicator that she was still out there and okay. Because this is it's fucking hell. Yeah, it's it it's I wasn't gonna cuss today, but it is well, it's terrible. It's awful.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Well, you know, you knew I was going to anyway. So what is it, you know?

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Well, if you have any you can you can cut my F bomb out if you want to.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Your F bomb.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

You should just bleep me, you know.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

Okay, oh, we should get a little sensor. We should, yeah, we should get one of those bleeper things, and then if we want it to be family friendly, it you know, when we have the intra music for um, is AI the devil? We go beep when you know Anna says fucking clunkers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

In her cute I don't I I don't know if that's uh I think I think we I I think we would curse ourselves if uh we did that. I think so too.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

I think Aramon would laugh in our faces.

SPEAKER_00 45:02

But you could you could believe me though, if you wanted.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

Well, that's it for this week. And um, if oh i I'm gonna have links to everything in the show notes, but please feel free to share, to connect with us on Substack, to um, and also to connect with the authorities. If you know anything, anything they need peace. We want to send this family.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Yeah, please uh please. If you if you if you can help this situation in some way, please do.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

Yeah. All right, till next week, listeners. We love you. Stay safe on the damn trail.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

Or don't hike. Don't don't yeah, don't just be like me, don't hike. And or if you do, like uh, yeah, avoid the the the veil of the trail, or whatever I said.

SPEAKER_01 45:55

The veil of the trail. Bye.