Richard Lyman Griffes was an inventor.

He was also a very well-traveled man.

This time he had ventured to the wilds of Alaska with a specific intention of

testing his latest invention. It was the fall of 2006, and he had invented a survival pod for

camping. Problem was, he hadn't told anyone where he was going or what he was intending to do,

and so he wasn't reported missing for months.

When a search was started, Bensner district went out to look for him after the Mounties

had worked out that he'd bought a bus ticket heading north.

Bus ticket would have taken him to the Alaska Highway, and they discovered that he

had left some personal items at a lodge near White River.

He had apparently told some guests there that he was heading upriver to test his survival

cocoon.

It was bright orange.

Neither he nor the bright orange cocoon have ever been found.

Alaska Dispatch News followed up on his disappearance retrospectively.

Speaking with former Mountie, Sergeant Ben Sewell, nothing has ever surfaced, he said,

although he wonders if one day at least a piece of the orange cocoon might show up somewhere.

Alaska Dispatch said the disappearance never made it into the newspapers at the time, years ago, and they add that his vanishing is like all the others, who over the years have turned to ghosts, their disappearances leaving no trace of them at all behind.

Richard Hasbell was described by his friends and family as a quiet and shy man who because of his mental disability liked

to take off on his own for long bike rides and hikes. It was said to have been his way

of coping with his illness. Although he suffered with this illness, his brother and other members

of his family said that he was always good at reporting back to them and he had always been

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