Daniel Lester Jones, known as Dan, was 25 when he disappeared into the waters near Sitka, Alaska, on a September day in 1989. He and companion Daniel Novcaski were on a fishing trip near St. Lazaria Island when they failed to return and were reported missing by a wife. Foggy conditions hampered the U.S. Coast Guard search and rescue effort from Sitka.

Investigators found Jones’s 13-foot Boston Whaler anchored just offshore from St. Lazaria Island with food, gas, and some halibut aboard, suggesting the men had transferred to Novcaski’s larger 17-foot fiberglass vessel. Some contemporaneous reports describe a 16-foot halibut skiff with two men capsizing near the island; the larger boat they were believed to be on was never found. Both men are presumed deceased, but their bodies were never recovered.

Did anyone in the Sitka area at the time see a larger vessel or notice anything unusual around St. Lazaria Island that September?