Welcome to Unexplained Extra, with me Richard McLean Smith.

Where for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories and ideas that for one reason

or other didn't make it into the previous show.

In last week's episode, called to the Forest, we heard about the tragic tale of four men

with intellectual disabilities who were mysteriously found dead, high up in the Sierra Nevada mountains,

many miles from where they should have been.

The men were a group of five the night they originally disappeared.

The fifth member, being 25-year-old Gary Matthias, who's whereabouts since then, have remained

unknown.

Some have speculated that Matthias, who had previously suffered about paranoid schizophrenia,

may somehow have been responsible for the deaths.

Many, however, remain convinced that Matthias also died that night, up on that mountain,

just as tragically and innocently as the others, the remains of his body just waiting to be found.

The case, commonly referred to as the Uber County Five, is among one of the more unique

and bizarre mysteries of its kind in recent times.

Incredibly what isn't unique was the attempt to use an apparent psychic to help solve it.

Fairly recently, both the UK and Australia's police forces have been on record to state

that they don't regard supposed psychics as credible, nor do they use them.

And yet, a number of veterans for both forces have also stated that in fact they have.

And in 1993, a survey conducted in the United States revealed that a third of the nation's

police departments, from the largest 50 cities, had consulted apparent psychics in the past.

A quick search online will throw up a number of individuals whose apparent psychic abilities

...