The SOS Sign Incident - An Unsolved Mystery

In 1989 two hikers called for help in one of Japan's beautiful national parks. After police searched for them from a sign they had seen from above, investigators learned that two hikers were not responsible for the SOS sign.
The subsequent events would lead down a mystery that is still unsolved to this day.

My links:

Music used:
Myuu - Blackout
The SOS Theme - Barely Musical
CO.AG - Operative Code

Business Inquiries:

[ZoeHarrisbbvkp]

I almost wonder if there were two hikers, one injured and one not. The other goes to find help, dies in an undiscovered spot and now it looks like only one hiker was there.

[modergav]

How Ironic. You make an sos sign, and because of you 2 people were saved but you never were.

Life is weird.

[HotCoco_]

I think the most remarkable part of this entire incident is that there's a hiking trail that actually has a landmark known as the "fake safe rock."

[vaszgul]

What if someone else got lost the same way, found the axe, and was like "oh wow a free axe, what a lucky day!" and left with it not noticing the pile of bones to the left or realizing they fucked up a crime scene.

[wanderinghistorian]

One thing is certain, that second pair of hikers owe their lives to a dead man's work.

[blankspace]

Audio engineer here. Just wanted to throw in my two cents and say that often recordings taken outdoors can sound deceptively "dry" that is to say lacking much noticeable reverb. In a completely open space, there isn't much for the sound to bounce off of and low foliage can diffuse incoming sound such that it doesn't bounce off the ground. Even a cliff face might not have the appropriate geological shape to create a reverb if the space it faces is very large and open. That recording sounds like it could very well have been taken outside.

[badweetabix]

3 points I want to make:
1) In 1989 very few people had private internet access and there were no such thing as Google Map. This means anyone who ventures out into the great outdoors had to use paper maps and even then very few maps were published for outdoors areas such as national parks that included areas off the beaten path. The vast majority of map published at the time were for cities and highway driving.
2) While it seems a no brainer to us that anyone lost in Iwamura situation just had to go down to the stream and follow it to the nearest town, you are assuming he knows about the lay of the land and that he was experience in hiking mountain trails. Having been an outdoors enthusiast for nearly 50 years, I can tell you people who live in the cities and being unfamiliar with such activities will make seemingly obvious mistakes such as taking what they think is a shortcut away from any trails or wander off because it's nature so it must be good and since it's good it must be safe. They also never plan for contingencies such carrying water and energy food, a compass, additional clothing, and most of all letting someone know where they are going and when they plan to return.
3) Japanese police despite or perhaps because of the very low violent crime rate in Japan are very reluctant to continue investigating a case if it can be attributed to something like misadventure/accident. Since it was Iwamura's backpack and probably his bones, the Japanese police will not want to rock the boat and investigate the inconsistencies such as how he could had chopped down trees without an ax or why his parents cannot confirm it is their son's voice on the recording. One of the interesting and disturbing thing to me is how the Japanese authorities always assume remains found in Aokigahara Forest (aka Suicide Forest) is in fact a suicide and not a homicide. It seems to me it would be the perfect dumping ground for murderers or serial killers,

[hummingmostbird]

As for his parents not recognizing the voice as his, I don't think that's too strange. Between the fact that they hadn't seen him for at least 5 years, the tape being recorded over (likely on a crappy mic built in to his tape player), and the fact that the tape was at least somewhat exposed to the elements for several years, it's quite possible that the audio had degraded a bit and/or his parents didn't have a great memory of his voice.

[n-steam]

"It's a woman with O-Type Blood"
> are you sure it's not a man with A-type blood?
"It's a man with A-Type Blood"

[UniverseOliveTree]

I cant believe the safe rock had an evil twin the whole time.

[SuchNewt]

Throwing it out there: the claim that birch wood would be harder to cut through because it's a "hard wood" is incorrect. "Hard wood" refers to wood from flowering trees (angiosperm), "soft wood" is from primarily evergreens like pine (gymnosperm). Just to put this into perspective, balsa wood is a "hard wood".

That being said, yeah, cutting down trees is way harder than people think.

[JS-oboh]

Unless the searchers were using metal detectors, it does not surprise me no one found the axe especially after 5 years. The foliage and vegetations in the area would had easily grown over any such items left in the undergrowth.

[Lightspeedloser_]

RIP to some guy that spend all that time making the SOS

[clarkclements]

Sounds to me like a collection of missing people. All who went missing at different times because of the confusing rock

[kylebutler]

A couple of thoughts.
1. At 3:19 if you pause and read, the SOS sign was made by 'stacking fallen trees'. Fallen trees could mean trees naturally fallen and collected by Iwamura. Not necessarily felled by him.
2. At 3:35 if you pause you'll see two cameras were also found. What clues were found on that camera film?

[zx]

I once got lost (just for 10 minutes lol) in Khamar-Daban mountains (south-East of Russia, Siberia). It was a mountain side with no trees, only some harsh grass and some pine bushes (pine would not grow into trees that high in the mountains. It only forms bushes). Believe it or not - there was no echo whatsoever. I was shouting my lungs out, but I had a feeling as if the sound disappears a few feet away from me. It was DEAD silent. No background noise, no echo, no wind, no nothing.

[robingoodfellow]

One thing I’ll say, in regards to the ‘only 9 miles from civilization’ comment, is that, when you’re there and actually hiking, it can be really unclear just how near/far help might be. My GF and I did a hike in Washington and ended up taking the wrong trail down. It’s notoriously poorly marked. It’s supposed to loop back around to the trailhead, but our path put us on service/logging roads. We had little idea how near/far we were to the trailhead and only a vague direction which way to head in. In this area, the service roads are many, and the area is remote. We ended up walking for about 4 hours (after an extensive hike) before opting to bed down with our meager supplies. It was supposed to be a day hike, so, while we weren’t hopeless yet, there was an underlying fear present. We started to walk again in the morning, out of water, out of food, sleep deprived and exhausted. We opted to stop, considered our options, nearly turned around to head back the way we came (thinking we’d overshot the trailhead or maybe missed some marker). We eventually decided to continue, only to find that we were, at that point, less than a half mile from the trailhead, my vehicle, and our way out. We were close to getting ourselves hopelessly lost, going in circles, and further worsening our chances, despite only ever being a few miles out from our destination.

All that to say, when you’re in the wilderness, especially when you’re unfamiliar with the terrain/local area, it can be incredibly easy to get lost. We weren’t even really turned around, just missed our trail. I’ll end by saying that, in our situation, we would’ve been fine - we could’ve just turned around, done the hike in reverse and gotten our way back, but still - it was eye-opening just how easy it was to get completely lost, even with ‘civilization’ so near.

Just a perspective on why someone might choose not to walk in, what is for them, a random direction.

[_Opalescence]

Something about this seems to suggest that there's multiple people who have gone missing but the scenario makes it seem as if there's only one.

[SiriusPunk]

Okay, theory:
He did meet someone on the trail, and they unknowingly got lost together. He became injured and the other person, still believing they were on the safe ridge, created the SOS sign as a placemarker to tell rescue crews where to look, and then continued on in order to get help.
Eventually this person, still basing their direction off the incorrect idea that they were on the safe ridge, and most likely exhausted from making the sos sign, succumbed to the elements.
Back at the sos sign, losing energy, our guy moved as high up as he could ("I cant go higher") in order to shelter outside of the clearing where he was exposed to the elements.
Knowing he was losing energy, before moving he recorded a shouted SOS message and left it playing in a hollow by his original position (presumably he had been sat against the tree and thought this hollow would keep the tech dry in poor weather), and then crawled his way up to the sheltered spot he had described.. truly believing help would come, see the SOS, and hear his recording.
Eventually he succumbed either to his injuries or the elements, still waiting on the rescue party.

[sarahpiaggio]

If I had a tape recorder in a situation like that, maybe I'd record myself shouting for help in case I didn't have strength later.... but I'd definitely record my name, relatives names, what happened to me and how I got in that situation as well as personal messages to family. It seems that he assumed everyone would know who he was....