Couple Vanished on a Mountain Hike in 1995 — Clue Found By FBI in 2024 Shocked Everyone | HO!!!!

MARIPOSA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA — For nearly three decades, the disappearance of Holly Mason Given and Jacob Given haunted the forests of Yosemite and the minds of cold case detectives across California. In July 1995, the engaged San Francisco couple set off for a weekend hike and vanished without a trace.

Their trail log ended at a carved pine known as “Tree 9.” No signs of struggle, no calls for help, just silence. The case faded into local legend—until the summer of 2024, when a wildfire scorched the Sierra National Forest and revealed a secret buried beneath the earth.

A Mystery Born in the Pines

On July 15th, 1995, Holly and Jacob signed the Ridge Hollow trail register at 10:47 a.m., their names nestled between those of families and college kids. Holly, 28, drew a small sun next to their entry: “Looping north past Ridge Hollow. Returning Monday, just the two of us.” Jacob, ever the engineer, double-checked their route with laminated maps and a compass. They were prepared, healthy, and experienced. By all accounts, it should have been an ordinary weekend in the woods.

But the trail markers ended at a dark Jeffrey pine, its bark carved with Roman numerals: IX. “Tree 9” was a landmark known to veteran hikers, but by the mid-90s, it had faded from official maps. The couple’s last confirmed sighting was at this tree. After that, nothing.

For years, search teams combed the area. Helicopters, dogs, and volunteers scoured the underbrush. The only clue was a torn trail log and a single bootprint, smaller than Jacob’s, larger than Holly’s. The investigation went cold. Locals traded whispers: Did they get lost? Attacked by wildlife? Or was there something darker in the woods?

Wildfire Reveals the Unthinkable

On July 14th, 2024, the “Signal Fire” ripped through nearly 7,000 acres of Sierra forest. As fire crews sifted through the ash, Hot Shot leader Miles Ortiz stumbled onto a warped metal hatch in a collapsed embankment. Nearby, the charred remains of Tree 9 stood watch. The hatch, blackened by fire and bent from within, was no ordinary utility cover. It was a bunker door—sealed for decades.

Sheriff Lena Bower, now a seasoned investigator but once a rookie on the Given case, was called to the scene. She remembered the names. She remembered the silence. And as her team unearthed the hatch, they found what no one expected: a sunken bunker, a single sleeping bag, scorched journals, and a half-melted trail camera. No bodies—at least, not at first.

But in the far corner, protruding from the soot, was a human radius bone and a strip of blue nylon—identical to the raincoat Jacob wore the day he vanished.

The Trail Camera That Changed Everything

The trail camera, battered by fire but miraculously intact, held a memory card with dozens of images. When the FBI’s evidence lab digitized the files, the story they told was chilling. The first photos seemed ordinary: deer, hikers, a bear. Then, a series from July 17th, 1995—Holly and Jacob, hand in hand, pausing by Tree 9. But in the treeline behind them, a third figure appeared. Frame by frame, the shadowy presence crept closer. In the final image, only the shadow remained. The couple was gone.

It was the break investigators had waited for. But it raised more questions than answers. Who was the third person? And what happened after the camera stopped recording?

Inside the Bunker: A Cold War Relic or Something Worse?

Excavation revealed a sprawling underground structure: concrete rooms, rusted pipes, and a network of tunnels. The main chamber held a cot, a child’s sleeping bag, and a wall covered in tally marks—647 days, slashed abruptly. In a back room, hundreds of VHS tapes lined the shelves, many labeled with names and session numbers. Some were too decayed to play, but others showed grainy footage of teenagers, children, and adults—all posed against the same concrete wall. All watched.

Forensic teams found a crawl space lined with padding, chains, and a single tray. The blue nylon raincoat was confirmed as Jacob’s. The evidence pointed to something more sinister than an accident or a simple crime—a system designed for observation, confinement, and psychological experimentation.

A Government Experiment in the Wild?

Among the recovered tapes was a training video. A man in a park ranger uniform, badge reading “North Ridge Conservation and Behavioral Studies Unit,” explained the purpose of “Tree 9 Station”: to study long-term psychological responses to isolation and surveillance. “Test subjects are to be introduced via trail-based selection or off-grid extraction methods,” he intoned. “Exit protocol is to be used only in the event of total system breach.”

The implications were staggering. Was Tree 9 a Cold War relic, a behavioral experiment gone rogue, or something even darker? FBI Special Agent Dana Kellerman, leading the 2024 task force, called it “the most disturbing find in California missing persons history.”

Survivors, Secrets, and the Shadow of the Custodian

One name surfaced repeatedly in the tapes and personnel files: “Custodian R. Hollis.” Presumed dead in 1997, his presence lingered in the bunker’s records and in the whispered testimony of a girl named Mara—a survivor found in later footage, who claimed she’d lived underground for a decade. “He said the surface was dying. That we should make a new world below,” Mara told the camera, her voice trembling.

The tapes documented not just Holly and Jacob’s final days, but dozens of others—children, adults, all “subjects” in a program no one had ever publicly acknowledged. Some tried to escape. Most did not.

The Escape—and the Legacy

Holly’s fate was, for years, a mystery. But medical records and sheriff’s reports from 1995 confirm she was found, alone and traumatized, days after her disappearance, wandering the ridge above Tree 9. She spoke of tunnels, cameras, and a girl who helped her escape. Her account was dismissed as shock and hallucination—until the bunker was found.

Each year since, Holly reportedly received anonymous tapes—evidence that the experiment, or its legacy, continued. The final tape arrived in 2024, showing not children, but Holly herself, hands on a control panel, whispering: “Let’s begin again.”

A System, Not a Place

As agents comb the now-collapsed tunnels and sift through decades of evidence, one thing is clear: Tree 9 was never just a landmark. It was a system—a network of bunkers, cameras, and secrets buried beneath the wilderness. The fate of Jacob Given, Mara, and countless others may never be fully known. But the truth, hidden for nearly 30 years, has finally come to light.

And somewhere, in the forests above Ridge Hollow, the legend of Tree 9 endures—a warning, a mystery, and a reminder that some roots go deeper than we ever imagined.