Paul Fugate, a 41-year-old National Park Service ranger, disappeared from Chiricahua National Monument, Arizona, on January 13, 1980. On that winter afternoon he was the only permanent staffer on duty. About 2:00 p.m. he told a seasonal employee he would walk a nature trail and asked her to close the visitor’s center if he wasn’t back by 4:30 p.m. Dressed in his gray and green Park Service uniform, he left his radio behind and took only his keys. He was last seen walking toward the monument’s entrance and was never seen or heard from again.

Searches by foot, aircraft, and canine teams across the monument’s 12,000 rugged acres produced no trace. Because the park is near the Mexican border, investigators considered that Fugate might have interrupted smuggling; one park employee later under hypnosis said she had seen him around 4:00 p.m. slumped between two men in a pickup speeding away. In 1983 Cochise County officials said new leads suggested homicide and arrests were imminent, but no charges were filed. Other possibilities—lost or injured, or a voluntary disappearance—have been raised, but no definitive evidence supports any theory.

Anyone who worked at or visited Chiricahua National Monument in January 1980 or who has information about that day is asked to come forward.