What actually happens when someone goes missing — and how do investigators decide whether a person is lost, hiding, in danger, or simply somewhere they chose to be?

In this episode of No One Is Coming, Lance Still looks past the milk cartons, missing-child headlines, true-crime mythology, and television detectives to examine how missing-person investigations really work. From the disappearance of Etan Patz and the fear that shaped a generation of parents and children, to the enduring myth that you have to wait 24 hours before reporting someone missing, the episode explores what “missing” actually means — and why very different situations can end up carrying the same label.

You’ll hear how law enforcement and private investigators assess risk, why circumstances matter more than an arbitrary clock, what investigators need to know in the first hours, and how search-and-rescue teams use lost-person behavior, terrain, probability models, and tools like FIND to decide where limited search resources should go.

The episode also looks at wellness checks, long-term missing-person cases, the role of ordinary people who notice when something is wrong, and an uncomfortable reality: finding a competent adult does not necessarily mean returning them to the people who were looking for them.

Then the perspective flips. What happens when you are the missing person? We examine why hikers miss decision points, how confirmation bias and sunk-cost thinking can keep people moving in the wrong direction, what search experts mean by “bending the map,” and why the STOP framework — Stop, Think, Observe, Plan — can help when you realize you are lost.

Finally, the episode turns practical: what to do if someone you know goes missing, what police and search teams need to know in the first hours, why honesty matters even when the facts are embarrassing, how location-sharing and trip plans can make someone easier to find, and what you can do now to give the people looking for you a better place to start.

Featuring:

Robert J. Koester, PhD, FRGS, FInSTR: Internationally recognized search-and-rescue researcher and practitioner; CEO of dbS Productions LLC; Co-Editor of the Journal of Search & Rescue; Visiting Researcher at the University of Portsmouth; and Search Mission Coordinator with the Virginia Department of Emergency Management. His work on lost-person behavior examines how different categories of missing people move, make decisions, and respond once they realize they are lost.

John Ferriso: Former NYPD officer who served from 1993 to 2013 and spent part of his 20-year career assigned to the Missing Persons Squad, where he supervised and investigated missing-person cases. He now runs Ferris Investigations and works as a police-procedural technical advisor.

Meaghan Good: Founder of The Charley Project, an extensive online database profiling missing-person cases. She founded the project in 2004 and has maintained it as her vocation ever since.

Jay J. Armes III: Second-generation international private investigator and Founder, President & Chief Investigator of Armes International Investigative Services LLC. Licensed as a private investigator at 18, Armes has spent four decades investigating missing persons, kidnappings, homicides, threats, fraud, and other complex cases in the United States and internationally.

Learn more about the episode and find transcripts, expert information, and preparedness resources at nooneiscomingpodcast.com.

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No One Is Coming is survival for the non-camo crowd: a documentary podcast about disasters, uncertainty, and what ordinary people can do before the plan falls apart.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pandemics: Before Patient Zero —

What happens before a pandemic has a name — when the pathogen is already moving, the evidence is incomplete, and someone has to decide whether a strange cluster of illness is noise or the beginning of something much bigger?

In this episode of No One Is Coming, Lance Still traces pandemics backward from the moment the world notices them to the conditions that make them possible in the first place.

From the first ProMED alert about unexplained pneumonia in Wuhan and the mythology of “patient zero,” to Typhoid Mary, the Black Death, smallpox eradication, polio, cholera in the Bay of Bengal, COVID-19, and Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the episode examines how infectious-disease outbreaks are detected, how epidemiologists work with incomplete information, why early conclusions change, and how politics, trust, conflict, poverty, land use, and human behavior can determine whether an outbreak becomes a global health crisis.

From there, the episode turns to prevention: what can we do before the next one? You’ll hear how zoonotic spillover happens, why disease surveillance can fail even when the technology works, what pandemic preparedness actually requires, how the One Health approach connects human, animal, and environmental health, and what ordinary people can reasonably do without turning themselves into amateur epidemic-intelligence officers.

Featuring:

Dr. Charlotte Hammer: Applied infectious-disease epidemiologist and public-health emergency specialist at the University of Cambridge, specializing in outbreak science, pandemic preparedness, and health security.

Abigail Wright: Global-health specialist with experience at the World Health Organization in disease surveillance, pandemic preparedness, and One Health, including coordinating the One Health High-Level Expert Panel.

Dr. Mark Honigsbaum: Medical historian, journalist, and author of The Pandemic Century, specializing in pandemics and infectious disease.

Sonia Shah: Science journalist, Guggenheim Fellow, and author of Pandemic: Tracking the Next Contagion from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond.

Professor Wanda Markotter: One Health researcher at Future Africa, University of Pretoria, and Director of the Centre for Viral Zoonoses, whose work focuses on bat pathogens and predicting and preventing spillover risk in Africa.

David Quammen: Science writer and author of Spillover and Breathless, whose work explores evolution, emerging infectious disease, and the places where humans and the natural world collide.

Learn more about the episode and find transcripts, expert information, and preparedness resources at nooneiscomingpodcast.com.

Follow No One Is Coming:

• YouTube: @NoOneIsComingPod
• Instagram: @nooneiscomingpodcast
• TikTok: @nooneiscomingpod

No One Is Coming is survival for the non-camo crowd: a documentary podcast about disasters, uncertainty, and what ordinary people can do before the plan falls apart.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when a con artist hijacks your survival instincts?

In this episode of No One Is Coming, Lance Still breaks down how scammers manufacture emergencies, shut down rational thought, and force you to act before you can think. You will learn how to interrupt the panic response and protect yourself when a call or text demands immediate action.

Featuring:

Brett Johnson: Former cybercriminal turned security expert, once dubbed “The Original Internet Godfather” by the Secret Service.

Jenny Radcliffe: “The People Hacker,” a world-renowned social engineer who bypasses high-security systems using human psychology.

Pope Brock: Author of Charlatan, the true story of one of America’s most audacious con men—and an expert on the spectacle, persuasion and psychology of the con.

Jorij Abraham: Managing Director of the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, tracking the international networks and industrial-scale operations behind modern scams.

Eva Velasquez: CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center, fighting on the front lines of consumer fraud defense.

Learn more about the episode and find transcripts, expert information and preparedness resources at nooneiscomingpodcast.com.

Follow No One Is Coming:

• YouTube: @NoOneIsComingPod
• Instagram: @nooneiscomingpodcast
• TikTok: @nooneiscomingpod

No One Is Coming is survival for the non-camo crowd: a documentary podcast about disasters, uncertainty and what ordinary people can do before the plan falls apart.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.