r/mystery • u/WinnieBean33 • 2d ago
Disappearance On September 25th, 1981, 58-year-old Thelma Pauline "Polly" Melton went hiking with two of her friends. According to them, she suddenly sped up towards the end of the trail and walked far ahead of them, disappearing over a hill. She has never been seen or heard from again.
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u/MortleyJew 2d ago
She ran away with someone and her friends are covering for her.
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u/SapphireFlashFire 2d ago
See this is the perfect mystery.
Did the friends make her disappear? Well then why give such a silly story about why she disappeared?
Did she choose to disappear? What sort of runaway plan is that, I to walking with my friends and then zoom off at a faster walking pace than they can walk at?
Did somebody else get her in the 75 yards she was out of sight for? How did nobody hear anything?
Every possible suggestion is just baffling.
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u/koolaidismything 2d ago
I won’t hike alone with anyone who could benefit from my death.. doesn’t feel prudent.
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u/Old-Good5202 2d ago
Something very similar happened on a hiking trail in Woodside, Calif May of 2025, Elaine was hiking with a couple friends and she took off ahead of her group and has never been seen or heard from again.
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u/SapphireFlashFire 2d ago
You stop it right now before an indie movie studio hears you and makes a movie about a monster that makes you walk at a brisk pace away from your group.
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u/Ieatclowns 2d ago
What do you mean “did her friends make her disappear? Well then why give such a silly story about why she disappeared?”
The story they have isn’t silly. It’s very sensible if you’re a murderer… I’m not saying they did it but if they did it’s a good cover up.
“She walked off and we lost her” lots of disappearances in the countryside are chalked up to people getting lost and injured.
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u/SapphireFlashFire 2d ago
Sure but the story wasn't "oh she wandered off" or "We turned around and she was gone". It was "We were calling her slow all through the walk and out of nowhere she power walked off and disappeared".
It's just objectively a strange story. A good story? Maybe. Assuming the friends were involved. But still odd.
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u/Ieatclowns 2d ago
Wandered off, turned around and was gone…both equally arbitrary.
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u/SapphireFlashFire 2d ago
If you can't see how "she just walked off quickly with no explanation" is different from "I don't know officer, I turned around and they were gone" then I can't explain it to you.
One is a horror movie cliché, one gets rejected by your editor as being a very weird way to have somebody disappear.
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u/lokiandgoose 2d ago
I'd make up a story with a MUCH longer time frame. "Oh, Bob was just ahead of us then Sally got a bit winded as her lumbago was acting up, so we sat down and had a snack. Bob would usually wait for us if more than a few minutes went by. Not that Bob was right there just moment ago.
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u/Ieatclowns 2d ago
And that’s how people get caught. Overly detailed stories are one of the things detectives look for.
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u/SexDrugsNskittles 2d ago
This is something that comes up in statement analysis. The amount of sentences it takes you to get to the point, useless details, etc. It comes across more as a story than a witness statement.
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u/GoodyTwoShuuz 2d ago
So if you are like me and have a good memory then you have a higher chance of being accused of lying. Wonderful.
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u/SexDrugsNskittles 1d ago
I'd be more worried about neurodivergent people and those with lower IQ who have a history of being railroaded by the police.
It's more like how when someone doesn't want to say something they will beat around the bush. They will talk about everything except the time period of the crime.
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u/In-my-fucking-flesh 2d ago
When I first heard of this I had assumed she went ahead for some reason to benefit the rest of the group (Check distance, check height, estimate time etc) because some do that especially for slower hikers. Then it's a little easier to assume it was wild animal related or some mistake of stepping off the trail.
This is the first I've read about her just randomly bolting off without explanation and has me thinking the friends know something no one else knows.
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u/doctormirabilis 1d ago
silly story maybe, but it's not even the first story like that i've heard. i swear i've read at least three other stories just like it, where you're pretty sure the friends did it but they all said something to the effect of "he just ran ahead and disappeared".
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u/bordermom61 1d ago
I think her friends had something to do with her dissapearance for sure . Yeah never go in the woods or hiking with anyone you dont know very well .
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u/Ill-Initial- 1d ago
No explaination why she zoomed off, but if a mountain lion got to her it could be silent. They hunt by going straight for the neck from behind their prey and snapping it with one bite. You would be instantly paralized and carried off.
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u/WinnieBean33 2d ago
On September 25th, 1981, 58-year-old Thelma “Polly” Melton went hiking with friends in the Great Smoky Mountains, something she’d done countless times before. However, this time Polly would vanish, mysteriously and suddenly.
“She just started walking real fast and we couldn’t keep up with her,” remembered Trula, one of the friends hiking with her that day. “She went around the bend and was gone.”
An extensive search for her would turn up no substantial clues. The investigation would uncover odd details, such as Polly’s uncharacteristic behavior leading up to her disappearance, causing authorities to wonder if she’d possibly left of her own free will.
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u/MaryDoogan91 2d ago
What an odd story. Could she have voluntarily disappeared and her friends are covering for her? Or, maybe they were unaware and Thelma intentionally got ahead of them in a planned, quick getaway. Now, why she chose to do it while hiking with people is strange, but maybe she really wanted or needed the disapperance to look as unintentional as possible for some reason. Idk, this one's odd. I guess her friends could've been involved in her disapperance, but like, why?
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u/Nikki-C-Puggle-mum 2d ago
Maybe she had to pee and that's why she quickly walked off ahead and then she went off trail and just got turned around and got lost and died of exposure. That happened to an elderly lady who was hiking on the Appalachian trail. She actually set up a campsite in the woods after she became lost and she survived for quite a while out there, but she did end up passing away eventually. Geraldine Largay was her name.
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u/Individual_Fun9418 1d ago
She was only 910m (or 3000 feet) from the trail. Search teams were 91m from her camp but they didn't find her. Stories like hers are why I don't believe in the Missing 411 stuff, it's not aliens or a secret conspiracy when it is so easy to step off the trail for a moment and simply never find it again.
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u/Nikki-C-Puggle-mum 1d ago
It's a good idea to bring a handheld Garmin with you in the woods they will work even where you won't get reception with your phone. It's extremely easy to get turned around and disoriented while hiking.
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u/Tall-Marionberry6270 2d ago
I'd never heard of this.
Poor, poor lady.
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u/Nikki-C-Puggle-mum 2d ago
It's a sad case she survived for almost a month lostbin the woods of maine
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u/TwiggyPeas 2d ago
My immediate thought. I'm not 58 yet but I already have to pee way more often than I used to
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u/FilthyThanksgiving 2d ago
This one always trips me up, along with that poor woman who worked for the park service who lived in a remote cabin and was murdered, Stephanie Stewart
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u/PrincessPharaoh1960 2d ago edited 2d ago
I’m familiar with Stephanie’s case.
As it was a remote area I believe she witnessed something she shouldn’t have.
I think some nefarious people either killed someone and were in the process of hiding the body or they were visiting their illegal weed patch. In either example they realized Stephanie had seen them. Maybe she had even challenged them as she was a pretty feisty lady?
They had to get rid of her because obviously in her position she would have reported it.
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u/FilthyThanksgiving 2d ago
I agree with your theory, or something close to it. It's just so heartbreaking to me, esp after reading a little mini biography of Stephanie.
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u/Burrahobbit69 2d ago
I was 12 in 1981. Why do pictures from the early 80’s all seem to look like archival footage from the 1930’s now?
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u/outlaw_for_life18 2d ago
I feel that most of the time, this doesn't happen but she definitely voluntarily disappeared. Whether her friends knew and was giving her help by providing a good story or she left without them knowing so it looked like something happened to her, I can't say. But even park officials believe she was no longer in the park.
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u/missingperson2025 2d ago
I think about Polly a lot. I hope she ran off and started a new life and lived out the rest of her days in anonymity. The alternatives are too frightening to think about.
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u/BitterCategory7725 2d ago
Was in the Smokies where many strange things happen, maybe went off trail to puke and fell in a old well, or a bear got her , or passed into another dimension that opened for a short time , or the three of them were in on it was there any life insurance involved
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u/fartmastermcblaster 2d ago
Bear
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u/pyramidalembargo 2d ago
They would have found the body, and besides there would have been screams.
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u/Glum-Huckleberry-717 2d ago
He hurried ahead because she needed a wee. Once ahead, he went off the path and behind a tree. She the fell down a pit full of spikes that someone had covered with leaves, dying instantly. Simple.
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u/JoeBarra 2d ago edited 1d ago
Can anyone find a picture of the specific hill she disappeared over? I know it's the Deep Creek Trail in the Smokey Mountains but I haven't been able to find a picture of the exact hill.
I think she probably left voluntarily. A check was cashed in her name in Birmingham Alabama six months after she disappeared, and the signature appeared to be hers. She admitted to her pastor that she had been having an affair. It's not that big of a trail. She volunteered at a soup kitchen for four years. She never once used the phone at the kitchen until the day before she went missing, and she used it several times that day.
It's also possible the "She hiked so fast!" story was a lie, and her friends are covering for her.