Land of the Lost

Yesterday, I stumbled across something called the Doe Network. It is a bit morbid, but I was fascinated. This network is dedicated to discovering the identities of John/Jane Does found over the years. I had a vague recollection of hearing about something like this, but had no idea...

If you have time, read this article. It is an inspiring story of how this network came to be.

The sheer number of unidentified victims and missing persons out there is staggering. I just briefly scrolled down the John/Jane Does and saw page after page after page of unidentified people. There are several thousands. Many are victims of probable crimes, and some were found after more innocent events (car accidents and such). I just found the entire matter very, very sad.

The saddest thing that I realized was that many of these missing people and found people do not match. That means that there are more people out there that have not been found. And even worse, there are many people out there that have been found, but were not reported missing. Ugh.

Now, being the goofball I am, I decided to try to find a missing girl from Texas. So I put on my cape and spent about 45 minutes on the search. I did everything I could think of to find her. She did not appear to be one of the Jane Doe’s listed. So, I thought she must still be alive. I was actually giddy. I started checking Google for any entries for her. I even checked to make sure she didn’t have a Facebook page… she didn’t. All I could find was articles about how she went missing.

I’m an idiot. As if these people hadn’t done this already. Did I really think that I was going to find her – in 45 minutes? If she was just a runaway, do I really think she would have a Facebook page using her real name? Maybe she didn’t want to be found. Even as I type this, I roll my own eyes! I’m ridiculous.

Still, I think this is such a remarkable project and I wanted to share it with you. I wish I could help these poor people: both the living looking for the lost, and the lost who cannot speak for themselves.

Most poignant to me was the comment in the article: "The one real fear in life is not death -- the greatest monster of all is the unknown.”