Speaker 1: The Colorado River emerges as a tiny stream high in
Speaker 1: a rocky mountain meadow. From that inauspicious beginning, it rolls
Speaker 1: and roams across fifteen hundred miles of the western United States.
Speaker 1: By the time it discharges its power in the Gulf
Speaker 1: of California, it has flowed through a world forever altered
Speaker 1: by its passing. Chief among its creations is the mild
Speaker 1: deep wound in the lime and sandstone of Arizona. Over millennia,
Speaker 1: it has carved down and down into the soft sedimentary rock,
Speaker 1: sculpting the giant natural cleft we now call the Grand Canyon.
Speaker 1: The Grand Canyon has long been a place of wonder,
Speaker 1: inhabited by humans for twelve thousand years. It now draws
Speaker 1: five million tourists and adventurers each year, who flock there
Speaker 1: to hike its trails, clamber on its vast red walls,
Speaker 1: and revel in the almost cosmic scale of one of
Speaker 1: nature's most awesome sights. And yet only five percent of
Speaker 1: visitors ever leave the relative safety of the canyon. Rim
Speaker 1: Deeper down is where its true mysteries are found. Even
Speaker 1: its age is open to doubt. Common geological wisdom dictates
Speaker 1: that the canyon was formed between five and six million
Speaker 1: years ago, but the rock itself poses troubling questions. You see,
Speaker 1: the canyon is missing time. A lot of time rock
Speaker 1: from the Paleozoic era sits atop a layer known as
Speaker 1: the Vishnu Basement rocks, and the roughly one point two
Speaker 1: billion years of geological struct that should separate them is
Speaker 1: simply not there. It was Major John Wesley Powell, a
Speaker 1: soldier geologist and explorer, who in eighteen sixty nine discovered
Speaker 1: this literal manifestation of missing time, and in the century
Speaker 1: and a half since, no one has been able to
Speaker 1: satisfactorily explain the absence. It's a worldwide anomally known as
Speaker 1: the Great Unconformity, but it is greater, more apparent, and
Speaker 1: more visibly complex at the Grand Canyon than anywhere else
Speaker 1: on Earth. All Powell could say by way of explanation
Speaker 1: is that Dame Nature needed this batch of dough very thoroughly.
Speaker 1: Such a large chunk of missing time leaves a vacuum
Speaker 1: into which theories and speculation have inevitably poured. In nineteen
Speaker 1: oh nine, the Arizona Cassette reported on a Smithsonian expedition
Speaker 1: which supposedly discovered a huge expanse of caverns at the
Speaker 1: Grand Canyon, large enough to host thousands of people and
Speaker 1: filled with ancient statues and weapons, each with a distinctly
Speaker 1: Egyptian esthetic. However, with the Smithsonian claiming not to have
Speaker 1: any record of the apparent expedition, many now assume the
Speaker 1: story was simply concocted to sell newspapers. And yet there
Speaker 1: are those who still point to the hundreds, perhaps thousands
Speaker 1: of unmapped caves, and those two, perhaps of a more
Speaker 1: conspiratorial mindset, who speculate about the so called forbidden zones
Speaker 1: of the canyon where exploration is banned and they wander.
Speaker 1: But for the Canyon's most abiding mystery, we have to
Speaker 1: go right to the bottom, where the river still runs
Speaker 1: as it continues its imperceptible and irrevocable shaping of the world.
Speaker 1: To wear Pinned between the canyon walls, the water hurries
Speaker 1: and twists with lethal intensity, and what it snatches rarely,
Speaker 1: if ever, makes it back to the surface. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Unexplained, and I'm Richard McLean Smith. Back in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty seven, twenty two year old Bessie Louise Haley boarded
Speaker 1: a steamship traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Just
Speaker 1: the year before, the aspiring poet and artist from West
Speaker 1: Virginia married her high school sweetheart, Earl Helmic, but after
Speaker 1: spending less than two months living with him in Kentucky,
Speaker 1: he decided to relocate alone to the West Coast. Little
Speaker 1: is known about why she left exactly, but almost immediately
Speaker 1: upon disembarking in Los Angeles, Bessie wrote to her husband
Speaker 1: requesting a divorce. She'd met someone else on board the ship.
Speaker 1: She said that man was twenty nine year old Glen
Speaker 1: Rolin Hyde, a potato farmer from Idaho. It was just
Speaker 1: one of many decisions and counterdecisions that Bessie was wont
Speaker 1: to make, hinting at a natural impulsivity and thirst for adventure.
Speaker 1: On first look, her mercurial nature seemed ill suited to
Speaker 1: a romance with a twenty nine year old potato farmer
Speaker 1: from Idaho. Yet there was much more to Glen Hyde
Speaker 1: than his stolid background would suggest. Glen was a keen
Speaker 1: rafter trained by seasoned rivermen on the salmon and snake
Speaker 1: rivers of Idaho. He once spent six months kayaking fishing
Speaker 1: and hunting the length of Canada's Peace River and back.
Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty two, accompanied by his younger sister Jean,
Speaker 1: he'd even completed a thousand mile river journey from his
Speaker 1: home state to the Pacific Ocean. Perhaps it was something
Speaker 1: in Glen's own aptitude for adventure that appealed to Bessie.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it was just the natural romance of being young
Speaker 1: and at sea. Either way, they quickly fell in love
Speaker 1: on that passenger ship. For his part, Bessie's husband, Earl,
Speaker 1: refused the divorce, but Bessie would not be deterred. After
Speaker 1: promptly moving to Nevada, she established a residency there that
Speaker 1: allowed her to file for divorce on her own terms,
Speaker 1: and on April eleventh, nineteen twenty eight, it was finalized.
Speaker 1: The very next day, she and Glen Hyde were married.
Speaker 1: The newlywed soon settled in Myrtar Place, Glen's farm house
Speaker 1: in Twin Falls, Idaho, where he made a modest living
Speaker 1: growing potatoes and raising sheep. It was a life largely
Speaker 1: tethered to the rigor of farm work, leaving little time
Speaker 1: for the adventure that the young couple both craved. Though
Speaker 1: Bessie learnt to ride horses in her scant spare time
Speaker 1: while working the farm with her husband. The transition from
Speaker 1: the San Francisco art scene to a life of rural
Speaker 1: mundanity began to take its toll. Glen was feeling it too.
Speaker 1: The river waters, never far from its mind, were beckoning.
Speaker 1: Two years earlier, several parties attempted to film a river
Speaker 1: traversal of the Grand Canyon. One succeeded. Led by the
Speaker 1: novice captain Clyde Eddie. The crew of thirteen plus a
Speaker 1: dog and a bear cup became the first expedition to
Speaker 1: complete the journey during the canyon's high water season. Their
Speaker 1: recorded footage brought the river much publicity and didn't go
Speaker 1: unnoticed by Bessie and Glen. The images of wild water
Speaker 1: and towering cliffs were too good to ignore. Bessie and
Speaker 1: Glen made the decision to try and recreate Clyde Eddie's journey.
Speaker 1: It would be a belated honeymoon of thoughts, marrying Glenn's
Speaker 1: lust for the river with Bessie's desire for renown. But
Speaker 1: Glen wanted to go beyond simply repeating the feat. He
Speaker 1: wanted to break the speed record for traversing the canyon
Speaker 1: and in the process make Bessie the first recognized woman
Speaker 1: to make the run. After an arduous summer of farm work,
Speaker 1: the couple left the farm and made their way to
Speaker 1: the town of Green River in Utah, feeling excited and rejuvenated.
Speaker 1: For the next two days, Glen, a practiced boat builder,
Speaker 1: worked tirelessly to build the vessel they would use, at
Speaker 1: a cost of roughly fifty dollars just under a thousand
Speaker 1: by today's standards. He settled on a scow, a broad,
Speaker 1: flat bottomed, wooden boat said to resemble little more than
Speaker 1: a plank box and often described ominously as a floating coffin.
Speaker 1: Scows were common to the rivers of Idaho, where they
Speaker 1: were usually worked by a two person crew, one to
Speaker 1: steer from the front while another steered from the back,
Speaker 1: both using long oars called sweeps. Glen had captained a
Speaker 1: scow on his epic journey to the Pacific just a
Speaker 1: few years earlier. To him, it seemed an obvious, dependable,
Speaker 1: and affordable choice for the more robust demands of the Colorado.
Speaker 1: The Hights named their boat Rain in the Face in
Speaker 1: anticipation of the unceasing spray and rough waters that lay ahead.
Speaker 1: They loaded it with supplies for the journey, including a
Speaker 1: Kodak camera and several journals to record the journey in
Speaker 1: the hope of selling it later, and the rudimentary box
Speaker 1: spring bed. Because this was, after all, their honeymoon, Glenn
Speaker 1: felt confident. He expected the entire journey could be accomplished
Speaker 1: in no more than a month and a half, and
Speaker 1: he estimated their arrival at their final destination of Needles, California,
Speaker 1: by December sixth, certainly no later than December ninth. Despite
Speaker 1: having no prior river rafting experience, Bessie was also in
Speaker 1: good spirits. Upon leaving, Glen assured her that there'd be
Speaker 1: plenty of time on the earlier, calmer stretches of river
Speaker 1: to learn the skills necessary for the raging torrents awaiting
Speaker 1: them on the Colorado, and with that, the pair set
Speaker 1: off into the canyon's stony throat. On October twentieth, nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty eight, the Hides pushed out into the Green River
Speaker 1: to begin the first stage of their journey. By day,
Speaker 1: they paddled along the relatively gentle waters. Then come night,
Speaker 1: they pulled their makeshift bed onto the sandy banks and
Speaker 1: nestled down together beneath the stars in the ageless embrace
Speaker 1: of the canyon rock. Those first few days on the
Speaker 1: river together proved an ideal training ground, as Glen had
Speaker 1: suggested for Bessie to learn the ways of the scow,
Speaker 1: which she quickly got the hang of. After one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty miles, they completed the Green River leg without
Speaker 1: major incident, except for one brief moment as they passed
Speaker 1: through Cataract Canyon when Bessie fell overboard. It's easy to
Speaker 1: imagine the couple laughing as Glen dragged his soaked wife
Speaker 1: from the slowly meandering river, But the Colorado River was
Speaker 1: a different proposition altogether. At Lee's Ferry, a river station
Speaker 1: at the entrance to the canyon, locals spotting Bessie and
Speaker 1: Glen on their boat warned them that it was unfit
Speaker 1: for the rapids down river. Only weeks before, three people
Speaker 1: had drowned when a flood washed the local very boat away,
Speaker 1: a boat far more suited to the river than the
Speaker 1: Hyde's scow. But Glen laughed it off and the couple
Speaker 1: continued on their way. It was on November sixteenth when
Speaker 1: a somewhat harrowed looking, Bessie and Glen arrived at the
Speaker 1: home of Emery Colb in Grand Canyon Village. Colb was
Speaker 1: a photographer who'd opened a local studio with his brother
Speaker 1: Ellsworth in nineteen o six. The Colbs were key figures
Speaker 1: in the history of Grand Canyon tourism. Their photographs of
Speaker 1: mule riding visitors and their own hair raising adventures on
Speaker 1: the river did much to foster romantic impressions of the park,
Speaker 1: so it's no surprise that the promotionally minded Hides sought
Speaker 1: Emery out. By this point, Bessie and Glen had been
Speaker 1: on the river for nearly a month. They were almost
Speaker 1: three hundred miles into their journey, eighty eight miles into
Speaker 1: the canyon proper, and on course to break the speed record. Still,
Speaker 1: they needed to restock and were eager for respite from
Speaker 1: the endless bob and weave of the rapids, the unrelenting
Speaker 1: pressure to observe and react to the waters every whim.
Speaker 1: In search of both supplies and different scenery, they height
Speaker 1: the five thousand foot climb up Bright Angel Trail to
Speaker 1: Grand Canyon Village, now a tourist hub through which most
Speaker 1: visitors access the park. In nineteen twenty eight. It was
Speaker 1: a hamlet of just a few buildings, tucked on the
Speaker 1: southern rim of the canyon. Emery received the pair warmly
Speaker 1: and invited them to his home for the night. It
Speaker 1: was immediately clear to Colb that the Hides, and Bessie
Speaker 1: in particular, had been left a little shaken by their
Speaker 1: journey so far. That night, over dinner, Bessie described one
Speaker 1: incident in which the scow had tipped over suddenly in
Speaker 1: the Colorado's rapids, sending Glen plunging deep into the churning
Speaker 1: waters below. The memory of Glen swimming for his life
Speaker 1: while Bessie alone in the boat had suddenly found herself
Speaker 1: not only responsible for her husband's rescue, but the scowl
Speaker 1: upon which both of their lives depended had clearly left
Speaker 1: a haunting impression on the young woman. It was then
Speaker 1: that Colb also realized the couple had neglected to bring
Speaker 1: life jackets with them. Emory Colb was so concerned by
Speaker 1: the couple's unpreparedness for what he knew lay ahead, he
Speaker 1: invited them to stay with him and his wife over
Speaker 1: winter in Grand Canyon Village, but once again Glen neglected
Speaker 1: to heed the warning it was vital. He said that
Speaker 1: they make it to the town of Needles within a
Speaker 1: week to stay on track for the record. In any case,
Speaker 1: he thought they'd already overcome the worst that the river
Speaker 1: had to offer. Before they departed Grand Canyon Village, Glen
Speaker 1: asked Emory to take their photograph, promising to collect and
Speaker 1: pay on their return. Emery captured the couple against a
Speaker 1: wall of stacked stone, standing side by side with slicked
Speaker 1: hair and rugged outdoor clothing. Glen holds his hat jauntily
Speaker 1: in one hand, the other thrust deep in his pocket,
Speaker 1: while Bessie looks every inch the twenties adventurer, her hair
Speaker 1: slicked back, the fur collar of her leather aviator jacket
Speaker 1: pulled up high around her jaw. Over the years, researchers
Speaker 1: of ponder whether the photo hints at discord or unease
Speaker 1: between the hides. For Emory call, at least, there was
Speaker 1: little doubt that Bessie seemed nervous, reluctant even to leave
Speaker 1: the safety of the canyon, as if she knew that
Speaker 1: nothing good waited for her back down on the river.
Speaker 1: As the pair prepared to descend back into the bowels
Speaker 1: of the canyon, Emory's young daughter appeared, wearing fine feminine clothing.
Speaker 1: Emory watched as Bessie observed the child, muttering to herself,
Speaker 1: I wonder if I will ever wear pretty shoes again.
Speaker 1: Then the couple made their goodbyes and headed off back
Speaker 1: to the canyon, eventually disappearing out of sight as they
Speaker 1: turned into the Bright Angel Trail, while Emory watched on uneasily.
Speaker 1: Back at the river landing, the Hides found a stranger
Speaker 1: standing next to their scowl. The man was a friend
Speaker 1: of Emery's named Adolf Gilbert Sutro, a wealthy tourist enjoying
Speaker 1: a tour of the Southwestern States. Sutro made the Highs
Speaker 1: a proposition. If they would carry him a day down river,
Speaker 1: he would happily take photographs of the experience for them.
Speaker 1: Perhaps eager for company and possibly keen for more promotional material,
Speaker 1: or maybe just happy to help out a fellow traveler,
Speaker 1: the Heights readily agreed. Adolf Sutro was not unfamiliar with danger.
Speaker 1: He was an adventurer himself, though with the air variety
Speaker 1: rather than water. He learned to fly with the right
Speaker 1: brothers and had set several solo records for seaplane flights twice.
Speaker 1: He'd been plucked from the wreckage of a crash in
Speaker 1: San Francisco Bay. Yet he was horrifying by his time
Speaker 1: on the river with the Hides. Over a short seven
Speaker 1: mile stretch, they encountered some of the worst rapids on
Speaker 1: the course. They got stuck in a fierce eddy for hours,
Speaker 1: and the Scowl was nearly pummeled to driftwood by a
Speaker 1: crashing descent through granite gorge. The Hides and Sutro spent
Speaker 1: an uneasy night sleeping in the sand on a small
Speaker 1: beach before limping into hermit camp the next morning. The
Speaker 1: whole experience haunted the aviator. Later, he would write, my
Speaker 1: unfailing guiding light in life has been the precept that
Speaker 1: it is better to be an alive coward than a
Speaker 1: dead hero. I disembarked permanently at the very first landing spot.
Speaker 1: The photos that Sutro took of the heights tell a
Speaker 1: very different story to the one taken by Emery Colb.
Speaker 1: There are far fewer smile for a start. One picture
Speaker 1: in particular captures the intensity on Glen's face as he
Speaker 1: stares dead ahead down their course behind him. Bessie's mouth
Speaker 1: is a firm line, as if she is girding herself
Speaker 1: for what is to come. In Sutro's opinion, it was
Speaker 1: a miracle that the Hides had made it that far.
Speaker 1: At the point where they parted company, they traveled three
Speaker 1: hundred seventy five miles and had four hundred thirty more
Speaker 1: to go. Sutro watched them depart, relieved to be alive,
Speaker 1: but like everyone else who'd met the Hides along the river,
Speaker 1: he left them worried for their safety. Sutro's final glimpse
Speaker 1: of the Hides as they slipped around the next bend
Speaker 1: would be the last time that anyone saw Bessie or Glen,
Speaker 1: alive or dead. Well, no one would ever see Glen
Speaker 1: hide again. As for Bessie, well, that is more complicated.
Speaker 1: When the Hides didn't appear in Needles in early December,
Speaker 1: the alarm was quickly raised. Glen's father, suspecting something amiss,
Speaker 1: rushed to the area. He hired native trackers and even
Speaker 1: persuaded Dwight Davis, the then U S Secretary of War,
Speaker 1: to mobilize an air search. He drafted the Coal Brothers
Speaker 1: in to help, too. Emery who'd never quite got his
Speaker 1: worry about the young couple out of his mind, was
Speaker 1: only too happy to help. Then, on December nineteenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty eight, the pilot of a small plane spotted something
Speaker 1: caught in rocks some hundred forty miles south of where
Speaker 1: Adolph Sutro had waved them off. It was the Hyde's boat.
Speaker 1: When they found the scow, they were sitting upright and
Speaker 1: stocked full of supplies. The hide's coats and boots were
Speaker 1: also still on board, as was Glen's gun, Bessie's journals,
Speaker 1: and the Kodak camera. Bessie's final journal entry was dated
Speaker 1: November thirtieth, and the last photo was later determined to
Speaker 1: have been taken sixty miles up stream. The gunwale was
Speaker 1: scarred by forty one deep scratches, one for each day
Speaker 1: of the trip between October twentieth and November thirtieth, but
Speaker 1: there was no sight or sign of the hides. The
Speaker 1: search began in earnest, up and down the nearest stretch
Speaker 1: of river, and in the surrounding canyon, but still they
Speaker 1: found nothing. Investigators eventually came to the seemingly obvious conclusion
Speaker 1: that Bessie and Glen had met their end in one
Speaker 1: of the river rapids, but why then was the boat
Speaker 1: still upright and river worthy with less than a foot
Speaker 1: of water taken on board. Perhaps clinging to hope, Glenn's
Speaker 1: father insisted that the couple must have attempted to hike
Speaker 1: out of the canyon and might have gotten lost in
Speaker 1: the countless folds of rock and trail. But, as others
Speaker 1: pointed out, if that were true, why would they have
Speaker 1: left their food, boots, and warm clothing in a perfectly
Speaker 1: serviceable boat. That's when the speculation about the character of
Speaker 1: the Hides themselves began. Word got around that Glen was
Speaker 1: an abusive husband, leading some to theorize that his behavior
Speaker 1: had worsened due to the stress of life on the raft,
Speaker 1: leading him to murder Bessie before fleeing the crime or
Speaker 1: taking his own life. Others suggested that it was Bessie
Speaker 1: who had in fact committed the murder, either in self
Speaker 1: defense or after becoming tired of Glenn's abuse. In response,
Speaker 1: close friends and family came forward to say that Glenn
Speaker 1: was actually a devoted and gentle husband who loved Bessie dearly,
Speaker 1: and there the story may have concluded. Unresolved, but in
Speaker 1: the end, just another disappearance in the American wilderness, a
Speaker 1: familiar tale of courage colliding with hubris and recklessness. But
Speaker 1: as the years went by, a series of strange developments
Speaker 1: began to emerge to fan the embers of the mystery
Speaker 1: and keep it a flicker. In nineteen seventy one, a
Speaker 1: rafting tour made can but Diamond Creek, a landing spot
Speaker 1: just a dozen miles from where the Hyde's scowl was discovered.
Speaker 1: As night fell, the guide gathered his group around the
Speaker 1: campfire to regale them with the forty year old mystery.
Speaker 1: As he reached the haunting anticlimax of the tale, an
Speaker 1: elderly member of the group stuck her hand up to
Speaker 1: quieten him. She knew the story well, she said, because
Speaker 1: she was Bessie Hyde. As the stunned group looked on,
Speaker 1: she explained that the rumors had been true all along.
Speaker 1: Glenn was an abusive husband whose temper did indeed worsen
Speaker 1: during their time on the river. According to the woman,
Speaker 1: when she begged him to end the expedition early, he
Speaker 1: beat her into submission. So what did you do, the
Speaker 1: guide asked, half joking, I stabbed him. The woman reply
Speaker 1: light without missing a beat. The woman then explained how
Speaker 1: she'd thrown Glen's body into the white water and watched
Speaker 1: it disappear, before hiking out of the canyon alone. When
Speaker 1: she eventually reached the town of Peach Springs, Arizona, she
Speaker 1: caught a bus and began her life anew, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if I say I murdered him now, the woman said,
Speaker 1: because no one will believe me anyway. That part turned
Speaker 1: out to be true. No one did believe her, not
Speaker 1: least because the mysterious woman was at least four inches
Speaker 1: taller than the five foot nothing Bessie Hyde. The woman
Speaker 1: later recanted her story. Five years later, in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: human remains were found in a canoe. It wasn't on
Speaker 1: the river, however, but in the boat house, belonging to
Speaker 1: none other than Emery Colb. The male skeleton was discovered
Speaker 1: shortly after Emery's death by his grandson and occasioned immediate
Speaker 1: speculation that the corpse belonged to Glen Hyde. A bullet
Speaker 1: found inside the skull implied that Emery had murdered him.
Speaker 1: Did the experienced canyon traveler followed the hides down river,
Speaker 1: perhaps in a misguided attempt to save Bessie from her fate.
Speaker 1: It's a darkly romantic notion, but here too, such a
Speaker 1: neat if grim conclusion twists away like the river. Decades later,
Speaker 1: a local sheriff scuring photographs in the Grand Canyon Museum
Speaker 1: identified the remains as belonging to an unidentified suicide victim
Speaker 1: found in the national park back in nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 1: The body could not be Glen Hyde, but quite what
Speaker 1: it was doing in Emery Coolb's boat house is another mist,
Speaker 1: entirely one of the many secrets that the Grand Canyon
Speaker 1: is unlikely to ever give up. In nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: sixty four years after the Hyde's disappearance on the Colorado,
Speaker 1: a woman named Georgie White Clark died. She was eighty
Speaker 1: one years old. Georgie spent nearly fifty years working as
Speaker 1: a river guide up and down the Colorado. She was
Speaker 1: a vastly experienced rafter, the first woman to raft the
Speaker 1: canyon and the first to swim it, Known for her
Speaker 1: Leopard Prince swimwear and a ponchant for confronting the waters
Speaker 1: at full speed. In short, Georgie was a legend so
Speaker 1: integral to the culture of the canyon that in two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, a rapid was even named after her
Speaker 1: at Mile twenty four. Yet for all her fame, there
Speaker 1: were things that no one knew about Georgie Clark. After
Speaker 1: her death, friends of Georgie's entered her home for the
Speaker 1: first time. Throughout decades of friendship, they had never been
Speaker 1: invited inside. While collating her belongings, they stumbled across an
Speaker 1: intriguing discovery. First, they found a birth certificate. It revealed
Speaker 1: that Georgie White Clark had not been born Georgie White Clerk.
Speaker 1: Her first name was Bessie de Ross. Both White and
Speaker 1: Clark were the surnames of ex husbands, and according to
Speaker 1: other documents that were found, Georgie was born in Oklahoma
Speaker 1: and brought up in Colorado, not Chicago, as her friends
Speaker 1: had been led to believe. Clearly, Georgie Clark was not
Speaker 1: the woman that people thought she was, So who was she?
Speaker 1: In a bedside drawer buried beneath faded lingerie, Georgie's friends
Speaker 1: also found a pistol comparison with the gun seen in
Speaker 1: several of the photographs found on Bessie and Glenn's Kodak
Speaker 1: suggests that it may well have been the very same weapon.
Speaker 1: And beneath that was the most startling discovery of Awe
Speaker 1: her marriage certificate belonging to none other than Bessie and
Speaker 1: Glenn Hyde. So what are we to make of all this?
Speaker 1: It is tempting to believe that Bessie Hyde escaped a
Speaker 1: bad situation on that wild water in nineteen twenty eight
Speaker 1: and returned to slay that dragon repeatedly over the next
Speaker 1: half century, that Bessie was the first woman to raft
Speaker 1: the canyon, after all under a different name. But if
Speaker 1: Georgie Clark was Bessie Hyde, it still only answers half
Speaker 1: the question. Glen's fate still lingers unanswered and obscured by
Speaker 1: a century of passing water. And if Georgie wasn't Bessie Hyde,
Speaker 1: what are we to make of that marriage certificate? How
Speaker 1: did it come into Georgie's possession? And what did she
Speaker 1: perhaps know and keep secret about the Hyde's final confrontation
Speaker 1: with the White Maelstrom of the Colorado. With Georgie's death,
Speaker 1: maybe the final grasp of the truth drifted away forever
Speaker 1: into history, and rumour left only to be recounted on
Speaker 1: endless starry nights around campfires in the canyon. All that
Speaker 1: remains is the memory of a young couple who once
Speaker 1: braved a river powerful enough to change the world, who
Speaker 1: became just one of the many stories fossilized forever in
Speaker 1: those folds of Arizona Rock. Remember, before she became a rafter,
Speaker 1: Bessie Hyde was a poet. So I'd like to leave
Speaker 1: you with a verse from an unnamed poem found in
Speaker 1: her collection, Wandering Leaves. Oh, Mamma, dear, please come. My
Speaker 1: Dolly must be drowned. When I put her on the creek,
Speaker 1: she sunk without a sound. We Betty's eyes filled with tears.
Speaker 1: Where could poor Dolly be? Perhaps she'd turned into a
Speaker 1: mermaid and drifted out to see This episode was written
Speaker 1: by Neil McRobert and produced by me Richard McLain Smith.
Speaker 1: Neil is the creator and host of his own brilliant
Speaker 1: podcast called Talking Scared, in which he discusses the craft
Speaker 1: of horror, writing with everyone from Ta Nanaeeve Do to
Speaker 1: the god of horror himself, Stephen King. I can't recommend
Speaker 1: it highly enough. Thank you as ever for listening to
Speaker 1: the show. Please subscribe and rate it if you haven't
Speaker 1: already done so. Unexplained will be coming to YouTube very
Speaker 1: shortly in video form, so please watch out for future
Speaker 1: developments there. You can subscribe to the channel at YouTube
Speaker 1: dot com, Forward Slash at Unexplained Pod. You can also
Speaker 1: now find us on TikTok at TikTok dot com. Forward
Speaker 1: Slash at Unexplained Podcast. Unexplained is an Avy Club Productions
Speaker 1: podcast created by Richard McClain smith. All other elements of
Speaker 1: the podcast, including the music, are also produced by me
Speaker 1: Richard mcsmith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook is now available
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