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Nome officers disputed how far missing-person rumors had spread

Yes Theory filmed in the roadless town as officers disputed how far missing-person rumors had spread.

Nome police said Joseph Balderas and Florence Piallac were the two unresolved disappearances they carried from the last decade, in a town famous online for people who vanish.

The Bering Sea community of about 3,500 has no roads connecting it to the rest of Alaska. Indigenous residents and advocates long protested slow work on missing Native people before a 2005 FBI review of more than 20 older cases found no serial killer, blaming instead alcohol, ice, and weather in several deaths.

Yes Theory arrived by bush plane after a storm and, on a Sunday without an appointment, walked into the local station. An officer said he flew eight to ten days in a helicopter looking for Balderas near mile 42 and found fox bones and cigarette packages but not Balderas. Piallac's case on the beach had competing theories none of which police could lock in.

The police chief completed ride-along forms and drove them through Nome. He said tragic cases like those two were not the volume of disappearances internet stories implied, though people still wandered into the tundra and died without foul play. Flo's disappearance six years earlier grew large enough that the FBI joined when local investigators needed more help.

The chief said tips on Piallac since then had all failed, but he still wanted anyone who saw something to call in.

Source video: Inside the American town where people Disappear