Several cases tell of people walking on trails where one hiker walks ahead and mysteriously disappears. When the others rush up to the spot, they find nothing out of the ordinary and the missing hiker is never found.

Other cases tell of a mysterious fog or mist engulfing a person and the person is never seen again.

What strange forces are causing these disappearances?

Some have suggested alien abduction, others blame satanic practices. Regardless of the theories, these people have never been found.

About one hundred million years ago, a stag beetle evolved along with the dinosaurs. Its length was about twenty-five feet and the jaws of the male protruded out from its head by another five feet. The hard outer shell of this beetle was like armor plating, which most carnivores could not penetrate.

Its main food supply was the dinosaur. When the dinosaur faced extinction, the beetle adapted to the environment and, through attrition, became smaller. Today, the beetle is approximately twenty inches. The adult beetle feeds on sap and soft fruit.

As with all evolutionary creatures, there are a few that do not follow the normal path.

There is one offshoot of the stag beetle that is unknown by today’s entomologists. It is five feet long and the male mandible is eighteen inches long. They hide underground and can travel quickly through most soil types, including clay. They have one other feature that has evolved over the years. They emit a fog or mist to envelop their prey, which paralyzes them.

The male then pulls the prey underground where it is shared with the female and the larvae. In the past, their main food supply was animals in the forest. One animal could feed two beetles and a dozen larvae for a couple of months.

As man has expanded his living space outward, the natural environment of these beetles has gotten smaller to where the beetles were in danger of extinction.

Out of necessity, they inadvertently preyed on people who came close to their dens. Like with the forest animals, the beetle would spray the mist from their concealed position underground to engulf the person.

The person would be paralyzed, and with its large mandible, the beetle would pull the person underground. When the mist dissipated, usually within seconds of being sprayed, the person was gone and no trace of any ground disturbance was noticed.

Underground, the male and female would eat the juices of the person. The larvae would eat the hard parts, skin, organs and bones.

The larvae take about seven years to develop into adults. Once they reach adulthood, they mate and lay new larvae.

The beetles that started capturing humans as their food transferred the taste of human flesh to the larvae. The newly formed adults preferred humans as their main food source.

With no natural predators, the beetle population doubled in seven years.

With unlimited food supply the larvae started to develop faster from seven years to ten months and developing ever changing defenses.