Look closely into the daily goings-on of any town or city, and soon enough, you'll come

across something a little unsavory or unsettling.

A strange paradox when you consider that such places are often held up as examples of

our superior sense of civility. We need not be so hard on ourselves, however. Considering

the number of different people and ideas all crammed in together in these places, it's

a wonder they function at all. That said, when things happen there that aren't to our liking,

we have only ourselves to blame, and it is only through ourselves alone that we can rectify

such unwanted situations. The same cannot be said for the town of Castle Rock, the principal

location and title of the recent Hulu TV series based on the works of Stephen King. Without

wanting to give anything away, the show essentially details the life of a seemingly quaint and

quiet town in which darkness in one form or another appears especially drawn to it. I was

reminded of this show when researching this week's story, though I would never suggest an

entire town or in this case a whole region was preternaturally susceptible to unfortunate

things. If I were to believe that such things were possible, however, this place would certainly

provide a compelling case study. The Uber Sutter area of which Uber City is the principal

city begins 10 miles to the north of Sacramento and stretches northwestwards toward the

foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. In the early 18th century, much of the land

which would eventually encompass most of Uber County, including the Uber City area, was

sold to a highly controversial individual named John Sutter. Around 150 years later, the county's

name would become synonymous with one of the United States' most enduring and tragic mysteries.

You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard McLean Smith.

In the early 19th century, Johann Sutter had been wanted for fraud in his home country of Switzerland

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