The Bennett County Sheriff was unable to explain to reporters that day what the hunters had seen.

He stood by the side of the road clutching a baseball cap in his hands, repeating the same thing.

We’re investigating.

I can’t say anything else at this time.

But the reporters already knew the most important thing.

A small fishing boat named Annabel, which had disappeared in a severe storm in 1993, suddenly appeared deep in the forest where no normal road leads.

Hunters found it by accident.

The boat was standing between pine trees on a dry bed of old needles as if someone had carefully placed it there.

The story began 18 years ago at the end of October.

At that time, two local fishermen, Jonathan Hill and Mark West, went out to sea early in the morning.

The weather was cloudy, but tolerable.

The weather service did not issue a storm warning until noon.

The wind gusts intensified rapidly, and by evening, a real hurricane was raging off the coast.

Contact with the Annabel was lost at about in the afternoon.

The last radio signal was garbled.

Hill shouted, “We’re leaving the bank.

We’re not holding our course.” And that was it.

That night, the Coast Guard sent out two boats, but 20 m from shore, the waves were rising to 6 m.

The search for the vessel had to be postponed until after the storm.

For several days, the sea was combed along the coast.

Helicopters flew out and questioned ships entering the port.

Nothing was found from the Annabel.

No debris, no fuel stains, no life rafts.

By law, after a year, the boat and the fisherman were declared dead.

Their families held a memorial service and the case was closed.

An old black and white photograph of the boat hung on a board in the local harbor for a long time.

A wooden hull, white sides, and the name on the bow.

Years passed.

Even the old-timers forgot about the disappearance.

But in September 2011, two hunters, Douglas Howard and Jack Taylor, went to the woods near an old creek.

This area was rarely visited.

There were no trails or campsites, just thick undergrowth and debris.

The hunters were looking for deer tracks, wandering aimlessly.

Douglas was the first to notice something light between the trees.

They approached and saw a boat.

The hull appeared to be almost undamaged.

The paint was peeling, but the outline was recognizable.

The name Annabel was clearly legible.

Shocked, they contacted the police.

Sheriff Bennett and three of his men arrived at the scene.

An inspection showed that the boat had been moved and carefully placed in position.

There were no drag marks or tire tracks nearby.

The bottom was intact and the hull was level.

Inside were fishing boxes, a canister of freshwater, and a life preserver.

On the shelves were personal belongings, a jacket with initials, and a watch belonging to Mark West.

But the most important thing was missing, the people.

The fisherman’s bodies were never found.

There was no blood or signs of a struggle in the boat.

It looked as if the boat had simply been moved from the water into the forest.

No one could explain why.

The first thing they did was check whether it was physically possible to bring the boat here.

The only old logging road ended 8 km from the site of the discovery.

Beyond that were swampy areas and fallen trees.

It would have been impossible to transport the boat through such terrain unnoticed and without heavy equipment.

The sheriff sent a request to the Coast Guard.

They confirmed that the boat had disappeared 18 years ago and was listed as lost at sea.

The strangest thing was that the hull had not been damaged by a storm.

The mast was missing, but the main fastenings looked solid.

Outwardly, the boat looked as if it had not spent years at sea.

Experts noticed that there were no signs of prolonged exposure to saltwater on the hull.

No typical fouling or corrosion.

This baffled everyone.

The fisherman’s relatives upon hearing of the discovery came to the site.

Jonathan’s brother, Harry Hill, immediately recognized his brother’s jacket and Mark’s watch.

His words were simple.

They were on board.

I don’t understand why the boat is here.

The police launched a new investigation.

An aerial survey of the area yielded no new information.

It was as if the boat had appeared there suddenly.

Cameras installed during the search only captured images of forest animals.

A tattered log book was found in one of the boxes.

The last entry written by Jonathan read, “The storm is getting worse.

Heading southeast.

The engine is malfunctioning.” The entry was made an hour before the last radio signal.

No further pages were added.

Experts revisited the old weather data.

The storm that day was indeed the strongest in 5 years, but the currents and wind could not have carried the boat ashore, especially 50 km inland.

The official version is that unknown persons moved the boat for unknown reasons.

But why and how remains a mystery.

2 weeks after the discovery, the vessel was transported to a secure parking lot.

The investigation continued, but no new clues or explanations were found.

The place where the boat was found showed no signs of heavy equipment, old fires, or shelters.

The feeling was that it had simply been placed there.

While the investigation searched for answers, journalists soon spread the news across the country.

The story of the Annabel resurfaced in the newspapers.

People argued, some talked about a criminal version, others about mysticism, but there were still not enough facts.

Officially, the case remained open.

The boat was real.

The fisherman’s belongings were real.

But what happened between October 1993 and September 2011 remained a mystery.

After the first reports in the press, specialists from the state joined the case.

A team of criminologists arrived in Green Hills 3 days after the boat was evacuated.

They were interested in everything.

The condition of the hull, possible traces of transportation, biological materials.

Samples were taken from all compartments of the vessel.

Particular attention was paid to the bottom.

Experts were looking for traces of fresh soil or organic matter that could explain where the boat had come from.

The results were strange.

There were no traces of sea salt on the hull, which did not correspond to the official version of a sunken vessel.

Moreover, judging by the analysis of the wood, the boat had not spent many years in the water.

The wood was dry without the damage typical of prolonged exposure to the sea.

Biologists found moss and fungal spores on the inner planking, characteristic of a forest environment.

The question arose, if the boat disappeared at sea, how could it have spent most of its time in the forest? Investigators noticed something strange about the items.

Jonathan’s jacket was badly faded, but the buttons and zippers were like new.

A pocketk knife found in one of the drawers had a serial number indicating that it was manufactured in 1999, 6 years after the Annabel disappeared.

This was the first serious discrepancy.

Relatives insisted that there was no knife on board.

So, who put it there? They began to check for possible evidence.

Sheriff Bennett gathered information on all residents of the county who had been in that part of the forest in recent years.

They found only a few reports from foresters and hunters, but none of them had seen a boat there.

Moreover, satellite images from the past 10 years showed no anomalies in the area where the body was found.

Meanwhile, experts continued to study the ship’s log.

Jonathan’s last entry was neatly written.

The ink on the paper had hardly faded, which again did not fit with prolonged exposure to the marine environment.

A chemistry professor from the state university analyzed the ink and paper.

The conclusion, the entry was made no more than 2 years ago.

At this stage, the Federal Bureau joined the investigation.

Their experts conducted an independent examination of all the materials.

The theory that someone had recently hidden the boat in the forest became increasingly likely.

During the investigation, a new lead emerged.

5 km from the site of the discovery.

Hunters found an old abandoned hanger that had been used by loggers in the 1980s.

Traces of dragging were found on the floor, matching the width and shape of the boat’s keel.

According to the data, the traces were no more than a year old.

A new version emerged.

Someone had kept Annabelle in the hanger and then moved it to the forest.

But who and why? The bureau studied all possible routes.

The only way the boat could have been dragged deep into the forest was along an old, long, overgrown dirt road.

However, no reports of heavy equipment moving in the area in recent years had been recorded.

Meanwhile, at the evidence warehouse, investigators continued to examine the contents of the boat.

In one of the cracks under the paneling, they found a small plastic package with two photographs.

The pictures showed Jonathan and Mark amateur photos judging by the print date on the back, 2009.

This discovery turned the case upside down.

How could people who disappeared in 1993 appear in photos 16 years later.

The photos were immediately sent for examination.

Experts confirmed that they were originals with no signs of manipulation.

The film matched samples from the late 2000s.

When viewing the photos, relatives confirmed that yes, these were their brothers, but the location in the photos was unfamiliar.

A wooden wall and a metal pipe were visible, possibly in some kind of hanger or warehouse.

This raised even more questions.

Who took the photos? Where and when? Sheriff Bennett admitted in a closed meeting with federal agents that the case was taking on the characteristics of kidnapping or organized detention.

It was decided to conduct a second search of the entire area.

Dog handlers were sent into the woods to check abandoned buildings.

However, nothing else was found in the hangar or its surroundings.

There were no signs of human presence.

The FBI tried to trace the origin of the knife found on board.

According to the manufacturer, the batch had been sold to a large sports store in New York.

From there, the knife was purchased in cash without a name registration.

The trail went cold.

Against the backdrop of these events, the police began receiving calls from local residents.

People reported strange noises in the forest last year.

The clanging of metal and the muffled hum of engines.

No one paid any attention at the time.

An old forester, Peter Grant, recounted the following.

Last fall, he was walking to an old stream and heard the sound of an engine at night.

When he got closer, the noise stopped abruptly.

In the morning, he found tracks on the old road as if something heavy had been dragged there.

At the time, he thought it was illegal loggers.

Now, his testimony forms the basis of a new working theory.

Someone, possibly a group of people, kept Annabelle in a hanger and then, for some unknown reason, hid her in the forest.

But the main question remained, what happened to Jonathan and Mark? If the photos were real, then at least until 2000, they were alive.

The FBI expanded its search.

They began searching databases of unidentified persons, checking highway camera footage, large stores, and train stations.

There were no results.

The investigation had reached a dead end.

The boat was under guard, and the photos were in the federal archives, but no new clues appeared.

The story of the Annabel was becoming more and more like a mystery in which important pages had been deliberately torn out.

After the case was returned to federal agents, the investigation officially changed status.

It was no longer just a missing boat, but a potential crime against people.

The appearance of Jonathan and Mark’s photographs completely changed the approach.

Federal agents began working with the families.

The Hill and West families were questioned again.

Everyone confirmed that after 1993, there had been no phone calls, letters, or other signs that any of the missing persons might be alive.

The next step was to examine private collections.

It is known that some wealthy collectors, especially abroad, bought rare boats and their wreckage.

Agents managed to find out that in the mid 1990s, for some reason, the Annabel appeared in the unofficial records of a Moroccan maritime antiques dealer.

Through contacts at Interpol, agents established that in 1988, a man named Robert Grayson had attempted to sell an old fishing boat with a history of disappearance, but the deal fell through.

This provided the first clue.

The boat may not have been lying in the sea or in the forest all this time, but had been moved.

Grayson had long since passed away, but his business partner, George Miller, was found in Portland.

Miller confirmed that Grayson had once told him about a boat that had been delivered with great difficulty without specifying where it came from.

When agents showed him a photo of the Annabel, Miller immediately recognized the vessel.

He added an important detail.

During their conversation, Grayson had mentioned that the boat had come in with cargo, but he had not said what the cargo was.

This twist led to a return to the physical inspection of the Annabel.

The boat was thoroughly checked again.

During a second X-ray scan of the hull, a strange double layer of wood was found under one of the sides.

Underneath it was an old metal container.

The container was removed.

Inside were nautical charts, radio parts, several waterproof bags with papers, and most importantly, three rolls of photographic film in metal capsules.

The film was developed in a laboratory.

It contained new photographs.

Some were views of the open sea.

Others were interiors of a warehouse or hanger.

One of the rolls contained two clear photographs.

Jonathan and Mark sitting at a wooden table.

They looked exhausted with long beards and Jonathan’s face was bruised.

In the background was a metal door with a combination lock.

After examining the photos, experts determined that such doors were manufactured by a Canadian company for special facilities in northern regions.

This led to a new theory.

Perhaps the fishermen were being held in one of the former warehouses.

Databases of abandoned buildings in Canada and the northern United States were urgently checked.

Meanwhile, engineers tried to figure out how the container had been built into the hull.

Based on the way it was attached, it looked like a late modification no earlier than 2000.

Someone had deliberately hidden the capsule, perhaps hoping that the boat would be found sooner or later.

Meanwhile, new facts came to light.

One of the agents worked with the Maritime Service Archives.

It turned out that 2 months before the Annabel disappeared, two people registered as maritime folklore researchers had shown interest in it.

Their real names did not appear in the documents, but one of them, someone named Evans, was later mentioned in connection with the smuggling of rare artifacts.

The picture began to become clearer.

Perhaps Jonathan and Mark had accidentally witnessed or participated in an operation to transport something valuable.

Their ship was either used as a cover or simply captured at sea.

A hypothesis emerged.

They could have been intercepted during the storm.

The question of why they survived remained open.

At the same time, experts re-examined the data on the hanger.

In the far corner under the old floorboards, they found fragments of fabric with blood on them.

The biioaterial was sent for analysis and matched Mark West’s DNA.

This meant that at least some of the time the fisherman had indeed been in the hangar.

New questions arose.

Why, after so many years, was the boat pulled into the forest and left there? Why did someone take such a risk? The theory that evidence was being concealed was taken seriously.

Perhaps the group that had held the fisherman captive began a cleanup operation and decided to simply dispose of the boat.

But why didn’t they burn it or sink it? Why did they leave important evidence behind? Some experts put forward another version.

One of the participants, perhaps before his death or departure, decided to leave a message.

That is why the capsule was hidden and the boat was placed in a conspicuous place where it would be found sooner or later.

Meanwhile, investigators began searching for people who might have worked with equipment capable of moving the boat in recent years.

They tracked down two former employees of a private transport company.

One of them, Joel Harper, agreed to testify.

He admitted that last fall he and another driver received a strange order to transport a cargo at night along an old forest route.

They were paid in cash.

The cargo was a boat.

They were strictly forbidden to ask any questions.

The operation was supervised by two masked men.

After unloading the boat in the middle of the forest, they were paid the rest of the money and ordered to leave.

This testimony confirmed the version that the Annabel had been deliberately delivered to the forest.

However, it was not possible to establish the identity of the customers.

Everything was done through frontmen.

The story was becoming increasingly confusing.

One thing was clear.

The disappearance of the Annabel was no accident.

The fishermen were most likely unwitting participants or witnesses to some kind of operation.

They were kept alive for many years and the boat was hidden.

But who was behind it all remained unknown.

After Harper’s testimony, investigators realized that the boat had been deliberately moved to a new location just a year before it was found.

This meant that someone involved in the disappearance was still active.

The FBI stepped up its investigation.

They retrieved footage from drones that had flown over the area in recent years as part of Forest Service operations.

In one of the archive videos from late 2010, experts noticed a dark silhouette resembling a boat near the old hanger.

This confirmed that the boat had indeed been stored there.

They began interviewing former employees of the company that maintained the hangar.

One of them, Robert Mills, recalled that in the 2000s, the warehouse was sometimes rented by a group posing as a film crew.

According to him, strange containers were brought there, and the security guards were armed.

They followed this lead.

It turned out that the lease had been signed by a shell company.

However, the payments for it came from an offshore account that had already appeared in cases involving illegal trade in artifacts.

Everything was pointing to the theory that Annabelle and her crew had fallen into the hands of a group transporting contraband.

Perhaps the fisherman had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But the most important question remained.

What had happened to Jonathan and Mark? Photographs proved that they were alive at least until 2000.

The FBI searched databases of missing persons in the northern United States and Canada.

They were looking for men around Jonathan and Mark’s age without ID with memory loss or signs of being held captive.

3 weeks later, Agent Grayson found a suspicious match.

In 2001, police in Montreal detained a homeless man with no ID who spoke English with a distinctive coastal accent.

The man was disoriented and unable to explain who he was.

6 months later, he disappeared from the shelter.

A photo from the file was compared with archive photos of Mark West.

Biometrics gave an 87% match.

This was a real breakthrough.

The FBI sent a request to Canada.

They began questioning the shelter staff.

One of the nurses, Mary Grant, remembered the man.

He said he had been sailing, that he had been kept in a room without windows.

He often repeated, “Boat, forest, castle.” At the time, his words were dismissed as delirium.

Now they took on a whole new meaning.

Through social services archives, they managed to track down a volunteer who had helped the homeless man.

He remembered that before he disappeared, the man had tried several times to contact someone by phone, but the numbers were not saved.

The investigation realized that someone might have tracked Mark down and taken him back.

The FBI expanded its search.

Soon, a new tip came in.

In 2002, a man with partial amnesia was being treated at a private clinic in Vermont.

He had been found on the side of the road without any identification.

Doctors described him as physically emaciated with old injuries.

Two months later, he was transferred to another facility, but disappeared on route.

Photos from the clinic matched Jonathan Hill’s image, confirming the worst fears.

Someone was deliberately catching and returning fishermen, possibly to eliminate witnesses.

At the same time, an investigation began into what exactly was being transported on the Annabel.

The maps from the container showed not only fishing areas, but also strange roads along old underwater structures, places where, according to rumors, military or historical relics could be stored.

Among the documents, they found a fragment of a letter.

It was only partially deciphered.

The phrase, “Deliver the cargo to the eastern sector, eliminate witnesses,” was visible.

This explained a lot.

Jonathan and Mark could have accidentally stumbled upon an operation to transport contraband.

They were being held possibly in the hope of using them later or eliminating them.

It remained to be seen who was behind this scheme.

One of the threads led to an old smuggling route between Nova Scotia and the northern United States.

Groups had been operating there since the 1980s, transporting artifacts and weapons.

The FBI reopened old cases.

The name Evans, which had come up earlier, reappeared.

He was listed as having ties to the Northern Cross Group, which disappeared from the radar in the late 1990s.

A theory emerged.

By leaving Annabelle in the woods, one of the former members wanted to send a signal or cover their tracks.

Perhaps someone decided to leave evidence before dying or under pressure, but it was impossible to find out who exactly.

All possible witnesses were either dead or missing.

At this stage, the investigation reached a dead end.

The FBI continued to gather information, but no key answers emerged.

Officially, the case was left open.

The Annabel remained in a secure warehouse and Jonathan and Mark’s families were informed of the new developments.

It was difficult for them.

Now they knew that their brothers had survived the storm.

But what had happened to them next remained a mystery.

After analyzing all the data, the investigation was left with several key questions.

The most important one was who after so many years had decided to shine a light on the disappearance of the Annabel by leaving the boat in the forest.

FBI agents returned to investigating people connected to the Northern Cross Group.

Among the former members, only one person remained who could be found.

A certain Thomas Wilkins living under a different name in the southern United States.

He was detained and questioned.

Wilkins initially refused to talk, but when he was shown pictures of the Annabel and photos of Jonathan and Mark, he faltered.

He eventually admitted that yes, the group had indeed intercepted the boat during the storm.

At first, their target was not the boat, but another vessel, but when the Annabel came into the area of the operation, they simply seized it.

They decided not to kill the fisherman right away.

According to Wilkins, one of the main organizers of the operation, known to them only as Evans, believed that they could be used later to divert attention or as a backup channel.

They were held in a hanger.

For the first few years, they were under heavy guard.

Later, control weakened, but it was difficult to escape.

Both fishermen were physically weakened and psychologically broken.

According to Wilkins, by 2000, only a small part of the group remained.

Many participants either disappeared or changed their names.

Wilkins himself admitted that in 2001, he saw Mark escape.

After that, the organizers began to panic.

They moved Jonathan to another location, most likely the same clinic.

But Wilkins could not say who gave the order to leave the Annabel in the forest.

He assumed that one of the former members of the group wanted to break the chain to abandon the boat with the evidence in an accessible place so that the investigation would find it and reopen the old case.

Perhaps it was a lastditch attempt to tell the world the truth or send a message to former accompllices.

However, after questioning, Wilkins committed suicide in his cell.

It was officially confirmed as suicide.

No further questioning was possible.

The FBI concluded that the Annabel had indeed been intercepted during an illegal operation.

Jonathan Hill and Mark West were captured.

Some of the materials indicated that both were alive before the early 2000s.

After Mark’s escape, his trail went cold.

Jonathan was most likely transferred again, but his further fate remains unknown.

While investigators tried to find out if any new participants in the case would surface, the boat was transferred to long-term storage in the federal archives.

The container with the evidence was left as part of the case, officially classified as an unfinished investigation into the aggravated kidnapping of persons.

The fisherman’s relatives, having received new information, insisted on holding a symbolic ceremony.

In Green Hills, in the very harbor where the photo of Annabel once hung, people gathered again.

A new photo was hung on the pier, not only of the boat, but also of the photos of Jonathan and Mark that had been found.

The relatives did not hide their tears.

Now they knew that their loved ones had fought for their lives for many years.

But the fate of both remained unknown.

Where had they been in recent years? Was any of them still alive? These questions remained unanswered.

The Annabel case became one of the strangest stories in the Federal Bureau’s archives.

A boat that disappeared in a storm was found in the woods 18 years later.

Those who hid it and held the fisherman captive took the main secrets with them to their graves.

And in the woods behind the old hanger, tall pine trees still stand.

From time to time, hunters say they hear strange noises at night, as if someone is dragging a heavy load across the ground.

But few dare to investigate.