Learned Unreal Engine for this video and for some topics I want to cover in the future. First time using the engine but I hope you guys like it🖤 By the way, if yall have any mysteries you wanna see covered, feel free to submit them here or email me: NightmareExpo@gmail.com
Does anyone else find it bittersweet yet heartwarming that at the end of the day, the SOS sign _did_ end up saving someone? The rescuers admitted they wouldn't have found the two hikers that were saved without the sign. Whether it was built by Kenji, or someone else who was lost, someone on the brink of death used the last of their strength to construct a massive SOS that ended up miraculously saving two strangers' lives years later.
I’m surprised the sign wasn’t moved at all in the years after Kenji and the other hiker created the sign. if these storms were somewhat normal, how did the wood not get moved by the massive wind and rain?
I find it so striking that I believe it's the solution to this mystery. The sign is on a large plane without many trees, therefore it has a great visibility. So from a small elevation, the sign is visible. Doesn't it make sense that hikers who go the same "wrong" way, sooner or later see the large SOS from an elevated position? When lost in the woods with bad weather, you see a large SOS 500 meters away, a little bit further down, doesn't it make sense to approach that sign? The whole case and the "many different persons" make sense when you view the case without the boundary of time. Chances are high that over the years, several lost hikers spotted the sign and approached it in hopes that it makes search parties find them faster. So over the years the belongings of several different people are gathered there, bones from different people remain there, etc. Maybe the one who built the SOS wasn't alone and it was in fact a hiking group who then tried to push on instead of waiting there for help.
Two notes about the recording. 1. "sasa" is bamboo. presumably he's stuck in an area of thick bamboo? 2. The way Japanese works, they don't have the heavy use of pronouns that we do in English and is heavily context based. Grammatically there is no difference between "Help me" and "Help us"
Also weirdly enough, when going to the Wikipedia page and translating one of the Japanese news articles that were sourced, it came back as a man AND woman's remains
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Bro your sound design in these videos really just pushes the creepiness factor right where it needs to be. I get chills watching just from the noises and sounds alone. Absolutely phenomenal work.
Maybe Kenji build the sign BEFORE getting injured, on the tape he says "I'm at the location where I first met the helicopter". Maybe he built the sign, saw a helicopter and ran chasing after it screaming for help. While chasing after it he slips and falls, breaking several bones. Maybe he thought the helicopter saw him and would be back, his voice so ragged from screaming after the copter and in so much pain he could barely yell, he used his last bit of energy to make the recording, his voice hoarse and the recording quality so poor he would sound nothing like himself, and find his way back to the S.O.S. sign. As for the sign itself, the S.O.S. sign could have been made from downed trees and branches that he dragged into the clearing over the course of several days.
Yeah there's a lot of confusing elements but it seems most likely to me that this was all him and that the parents didn't recognize his voice for other reasons. I mean, I barely recognize my own voice over a recording. It sucks we don't have concrete proof of everything but we never really can in tragedies like this.
"Maybe Kenji build the sign BEFORE getting injured" sums up nicely how nexpo prefers to gymnastically avoid the most obvious explanation in favor of something more exciting and suspenseful. To the physical reasons his voice may have sounded different in those circumstances add the fact that his family was grieving and in shock and it probably made them more likely to question such things as his voice on the recording not sounding exactly how they were used to. And the fact the police hasn't oficially marked the bones as his - that's probably just their protocol for cases where they cannot prove who those bones belong to by scientific methods with high enough certainty, which was likely the case due to the bones' state, it doesn't mean they weren't sure they were his. Nah but it's way more likely that there was a whole ahh different person whose existance there are NO traces of, that's the simpler explanation xd it's still an interesting story anyway.
@@TotoroK9I doubt that. Your voice in recording IS your real voice, unless the recording device is low quality. You see, we hear our own voice reverberate through our bones, making it sound different. His parents would have recognized that same voice because that is how they always hear it.
They put a rope... honestly. Just put a proper sign, or paint the rock with "safe rock" or something similar. Don't mark the rock you are not supposed to pay attention to...
@@AudreyLudlow Example photos from the source shows the rock in a misty environment where you wouldn't be able to make out any details but a silhouette and that's how it tricks people.
If it's still as badly marked as back then, that would be baffling. With there being no shortage of cheap and easy solutions to marking it (a simple sign would do., you got all sorts of reflective paints, glow in the dark paints, etc etc) Plus anyone going hiking in complex terrain ought to have a competent flashlight with them. Just basic outdoors 101. A sign if properly implemented sticks out well enough to be noticed.
Also marking it with rope and stuff probably makes some people think it's the correct one even more. Surely they could come up with something better than rope. I don't know, put up a sign or paint the whole thing with a red ❌ or something lile that. That's a pretty universal sign of "Not this one".
I lost my bro in an avalanche accident in the Inyo National Forest so hiking/mountaineering stories like this always hit different. Mountains are strange. Elevation/low oxygen does weird things to people. You could hike for hours and see only one other person. Whenever you hear a hiker say “blonde hair? Green necklace? Oh yeah, I saw him three days ago when coming down the pass.” Lines like those always give me chills. Brilliant stuff Nexpo!
Mountains are indeed strange, some of them notoriously ominous. I like how you brought that up about them. Something that seems so natural and fixed, while actually being some of the most unpredictable and dangerous places to be. I’ve met quite a few hikers in my experiences, great people, great community. Saddened to hear about your bro I wish you and those close to you the best
I can relate. I was hiking up with family on a visit to Montana. It was bear country (after all, most of Montana is) and I was on edge since I've never had to worry about bears before. We were going up a mountain trail and passed by this young women who, had this shocked, nervous look on her face. Then she greeted us as we passed by, but then briskly said, "please be careful around here, I think there's a bear stalking me." We showed concern, but she continued down to headquarters and we went up but then took a different trail down. I thought about her for a long time after that. Then 5 months later, I saw on some news segment that in that same park a young women's remains were found. Mauled by bear. I still feel uneasy whenever I think about it, her last moments in fear...
I really love watching Nexpo videos. The cgi stuff or whatever you do for the reenactment stuff reminds me of the old true crime shows I used to watch with my mom growing up.
Two different people at the same spot just not at the same time. Either a person or a group get lost and build the SOS sign, then some time later Kenji gets lost and wind up at the SOS sign. This would explain why he yells SOS being influenced by seeing the sign.
That's what I thought, too It's obviously a place where people constantly get lost in, because a few years later, two more hikers take the same exact path and get lost in the same exact area Kenji did.
There's no distinction between "save me" and "save us" in the Japanese used here. "Tasukete kure" is just the command form of the verb meaning to rescue (tasukeru) and a politeness verb indicating a request for a favor (kureru, meaning that someone would be giving you aid.) Japanese often omits nouns if it's clear what you are talking about. E.g., you could just say "tired" instead of "I am tired." Similarly, "tasukete kure" is asking someone to do a rescue of an implied "me/us." In this case, "kureru" is one of 2 "give" verbs, and is the one used when the speaker will be the recipient of the preceding action. It could be a singular "me" or a plural "us;" nothing in the language used indicates either way.
Seconded. There's no distinction between singular and plural in the words used on the tape-and the language in general lacks plural forms except for specific words, so there's nothing unusual about the lack of specification, either. Translating it unequivocally as "help me" is inaccurate- it would be more correct to think of it as "please help," something that makes no distinction as to the number of people involved.
Yeah, I noticed other people pointing this out. It isn't strange and yeah, for americans it may be confusing, but my language is the same. For example, americans define things and animals as "its", but we don't have that distinction. Also, we only have a plural form for "they". So I understand that some americans may be confused by how other languages work.
@@dss1733 I didn't say that...?I just pointed out that all languages have their own particularity at some points, and I just gave an example that my language is the same: some things are lost in translation because words/grammar differs and sometimes it's hard to understand the context.
I wish more people would use PlayStation 2 SFX whether it's in a documentary or as an Easter Egg in a 2000s styled video game, it just makes sense for such cases like those.
You have to wonder if the parents didn’t recognize the voice because Kenji is obviously not in a good state of mind but even more importantly his voice was probably very hoarse from screaming for help for days.
Still doesn't explain how the SOS was made or where the tools to make it ended up. To me it sounds like Kenji was very inexperienced given that he went up before a storm, so I don't know why he wound have the tools in the first place even if we don't worry about their disappearance.
@@waterdragon1908maybe this is all separate incidents being chalked into one? Perhaps someone else made the sign and died (or used the remains of a deceased fellow missing person and then either made it to safety on their own or died) and kenji found it, started searching, got lost himself, and also died.
Also since recordings can sometimes sound different from what a person sounds irl, and factor in that the parents hadn't heard his voice in 5 years, all these small factors probably came together to make the voice sound completely alien to them.
No mention or explanation for why the hotel manager literally said nothing about this missing man…ever? Not only did he not immediately contact police or file a missing persons report at any time, he just continued living like the dude never existed?
Dude you single handedly got me through the toughest times of my life. When I was homeless, a smile came across my face every time I saw a new vid from you on a public computer. When I was in the throes of addiction, you were my light at the end of the tunnel. When I was assaulted, you helped me to smile through it all. I owe you everything. Nexpo is the absolute greatest storyteller of all time, and anyone who hasn’t already, hit that subscribe button!!
you left out the part where it was taken photos of the area from the air. "In regards to the SOS sign, the Japan Forestry Agency and the Japan Geographical Authority took a look at previous topographic map data used to find aerial photographs, in which it was confirmed that the SOS sign was in the images taken on 20 September 1987." meaning that the sign was there for almost two years before the story takes place.. edit : i know Kenji went missing in 84. i pointed out the first known date of the SOS sign because it's possible he or someone else could have made it? just knowing that the sign was there almost two years before they found it and a body that clearly couldn't have made it raises a lot of questions.
Just wondering where you saw this info at? Really interesting just wanted to see if you knew another source for info about this case. The debunking of the SOS sign would kinda scramble this case completely, i suppose meaning it was possible there were other deaths there previously (maybe making the woman one of the many). Crazy stuff to wrap my head around.
@@izzy6094 Barely Sociable also did a video about the SOS Sign titled "The SOS Sign Incident - An Unsolved Mystery." At 8:23 of Barely Sociable's video, he references page 13 of the Mainichi Shimbun evening edition on July 28, 1989 which states, "On the 28th, it was found that the letters "SOS" were reflected in the aerial photograph taken by the Forestry Agency and the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan on September 20, 1987 to create a map. This photo was taken from a point about 3,700 meters above the sky. In the photo, the width of the letters "SOS" is about o.9 mm. The first "s" is a little unclear and difficult to understand, but the last "S" can be confirmed. It's barely noticeable in the photo, but it's clear to the naked eye. The agency and others take aerial photographs every five years."
Why not put a HUGE sign by the fake safe rock that says “FAKE SAFE ROCK” “NOT TO BE USED AS LANDMARK” and a similar sign be the ACTUAL safe rock saying “SAFE ROCK” “USE AS LANDMARK”. Wouldn’t that make sense?
Hiking is one of those things where you can find every level of ease or difficulty to meet your needs and preferences, from literally _paved_ trails with trash cans, toilets, benches and no way to get lost or stub your toe ..... to trails where you can't even see a trail, no amenities, and plenty of ways to get lost or break your spine. The "hard core" hikers prefer those trails, and they also tend to prefer nothing manmade as far as the eye can see. "I came here to get AWAY from signs" is what they would say about the 'Fake Safe Rock' sign. And I'm just talking about American hiking. -Japanese culture is even more obsessed with aesthetics and balance with nature. So while I totally agree with the sign idea, it's easy to guess why there isn't one.
22:52 seriously would it kill someone to simply put up a sign in front of Safe Rock that says (Safe Rock go ➡️) and another sign in front of the other rock that says (Fake Safe Rock turn back) because that would be way more helpful for hikers
if kenji was missing for ~5 years prior, it's entirely possible his parents just forgot what his voice sounded like and were less likely to be able to recall his voice if the first time hearing it in years was him screaming in distress. people underestimate how easily and quickly you can forget people who are missing/dead especially when you have no recordings of them. i forgot my father's voice only about 2-3 years after he passed and that was with me making an effort to remember it with no recordings available.
@@jmgonzales7701 all it is just bureaucracy or bad luck. You got to remember things like testing is still new, the FBI data base that's used for DNA testing isnt even that old it started in 1998
No, parents don’t just forget their children’s voice. That’s such a shitty take to assume and base your opinion off of. I heard an old friend talking to a gas station employee whom I hadn’t seen in over 12 years recently and immediately knew it was him and when I walked over to confirm it bam, there he was. I can agree you might “forget” what it sounds like until you actually hear it but that’s not what you’re saying.
@@jmgonzales7701 it might be small in terms of land area, but it's got 120 million people and its population was higher in the past. additionally, the first established kingdom in Japan began in like 50 AD, so it's been around for over 2000 years, so there's been plenty of time. also gotta point out that japan being a cultural focus of many westerners simply means you're going to hear more about it online than, say, Kenyan mysteries or Bulgarian cold cases.
1. There’s no mention that he might have sustained the injuries after building the SOS sign. 2.a) As someone of slight stature I literally move tons of weight in a day. Albeit it is on 10lb increments, but one can move logs using leverage to cut down on the work required. Levers can move mountains. 2.b) Logs can be rolled, decreasing total work substantially. 3. a) Not recognizing a terrified and frantic voice doesn’t mean it isn’t that person. Not to mention the distortion of an old cassette tape in the elements. 3. b)The man sounded frantic and terrified, not injured and clinging on to life. He probably sustained the injuries after he recorded and built the sign. 4. Weathered remains might give inaccurate results. How tall was the man compared to the woman who was initially identified? What about their foot sizes? 5. Don’t make your safe landmark next to your identical dangerous landmark.
Thank you for also mentioning that the tape was prolly in the elements for so long that it may have started distorting or was not in the best of shape when found. If it was also played on loop, that would've helped the process. Thanks to Nexpo, I watched a few other Ytbers cover this case and I'm still a bit baffled by it lol.
Regarding point 4 - the more fragmentary remains are, the harder it is to determine anything from them. Age, sex, height - they're all difficult to determine even if you have a perfectly preserved, complete skeleton. The length of the long bones of the legs are relational to height, but two people with the same length femur can have total heights that differ by inches. Same with foot size - the bones are informative, but the soft tissue does SO much to determine the final size, so it's difficult to say for sure
Good point, they didn’t look like large logs from the photos either, more like large branches, maybe 50 lbs? Any adult, even injured, could have dragged them into place.
This was basically my thought process watching the video, and I was getting increasingly annoyed as it went on. It seemed like Nexpo was using some moon logic to argue the logs couldn't have been moved by one person to make this more mysterious than it really is. Summing the weight of all the logs together to show a human could lift it was so dumb. Also, where is he getting the idea that the trees had been axe'd down? Trees fall over in the wind. And even if they were axed, wouldn't the simpler solution that the guy did actually have an axe, they just didn't find it?
@@joecaldwell9881 because it was gigantic, big enough to see from the sky in bad weather, but sure it was branches. it was probably from ww2 when a pilot went down, but yeah...branches
People always assume that the sign was made _after_ the injury, believing that Kenji got lost in the woods before injuring himself and becoming stranded, and only then built the SOS sign. However, it is far more likely that Kenji made the sign prior to fracturing his arm and leg, an injury he could of gotten either whilst running after the helicopter to flag it down, a general accident, or even due to attempted suicide after losing all hope of being rescued. It might seem to make more sense that if Kenji wasn’t injured, and even had enough energy to make such a large sign, that he’d have no reason to be stuck in one location and would instead just keep walking. However, I believe it’s much more likely that, after going in the wrong direction over incredibly rough terrain and then crossing a river, that Kenji felt continuing was either pointless or too difficult, and he may have felt that staying where he was would make it easier for rescuers to find him (the advice now given to hikers in case they ever get lost in the woods, as it’s much harder for rescuers to find you if you wander further and further away from where you were last seen or meant to be).
Two main things. The old man in the hotel should have reported Kenji missing and Kenji should've turned back immediately upon feeling on the wrong trail. rip
Okay, let's try and clean the info because the sources are confusing as hell. I can't even confirm the "two cameras" thing. - In 1982 there was no SOS sign. In 1987 there was. Confirmed by aerial photography from forestry services. - It was made of clean-cut birch trees, 16-19 of them or so. - Sources differ on whether there are birch trees in the area... - Kenji Iwamura went missing in 1984. He had a walkman and four cassette tapes (and maybe a camera, unconfirmed). - His family reported his disappearance and a search was organized, days to a week after he was gone. - This search included a 30mn helicopter flight -- helicopters were expensive and budgets were low at the time. - In 1989, the SOS sign is properly found. - The police finds remains (possibly scattered) on site, first misidentified, corresponding to a male, same age range as Iwamura. - The two fractures were apparently near the left shoulder and the right thigh. - They also find belongings including toiletry (plus a good luck charm from his region), the walkman and cassette tapes and backpack. - I can't confirm two cameras, can't confirm a small tripod, can't confirm a "human skull", can't confirm a notebook, can't even tell if there were 1 or 2 bags. - The walkman apparently had a weak loudspeaker, it couldn't be heard beyond a few meters. - The recorded SOS message had no background noise -- remarkable given just the wind can ruin it. - Sources differ on the message content: whether he "met" or "saw" a helicopter and if he really said he was on top of the cliff - Sources concur on the bamboo bushes making it really hard to go back up. - Sources differ on whether you can escape the site just by following the river or such. - The parents identified Iwamura's belongings and only could not confirm the voice. I think that's pretty much all of it. Sources are all third-hand, original second-hand articles are from 1989 and in Japanese (and possibly ripe with yellow journalism). I have no idea what the police actually said, no idea what exactly was found on site and contradictory information on the recording and the site's accessibility. The only first-hand info' is the recording, the pic' of the sign and footage of objects found where again, I can't even see a single cameras. I'll stand by my theory but this is hearsay level of reliability.
was that your theory? If not, I really want to learn what your theory is. the information you provided is already incredible. I'm sure people will understand nothing here is stable in any way, I'm just really curious.
The central problem with your theory is the same problem the initial rescuers of the two Tokyo hikers had. They assumed those two had made the sign. You assume Kenji was at least involved in making the sign. It's very possible, even likely, that the sign was made by OTHERs either before or after he disappeared, and those people were either never found or eventually made their way off the mountain and didn't read the news or just never came forward when their sign made headlines. If there are already two known incidents within a few years of people needing to be rescued in that exact area, and the mountain is known for having confusing trails, it's not unreasonable to propose that others have also gotten lost in that area. As far as I know from my own research into this case (I can read Japanese, though deciphering kanji on blurry 1980s scans can be tough!), there was never any analysis done on the wood itself to determine roughly when it was cut beyond noting it was done at least a couple of years before the Tokyo hikers were found. It's also worth noting that the parents COULD NOT CONFIRM it was him on the recording; they didn't say it wasn't him. Tis can be explained by the fact that it was a cassette tape recording, he was yelling in extreme duress, and he was speaking in a very unconventional manner that is not normally done. People misidentify recordings, both audio and visual, of loved ones all the time. It's hardly proof that someone else recorded the message. That said, I suspect the SOS sign is unrelated to Kenji. I also think there's a reasonable possibility that it was not made by people in distress at all, but was perhaps some sort of survival project done by a group of experienced hikers at some point. It's very hard to believe that even two people made it, whoever did it had to have an ax and likely ropes and other materials to move everything, and most people in genuine danger would probably rather exert their energy on something else such as finding food/water/shelter. If this was the case, it's unlikely the creators would have come forward if they even heard about it at all (this did make national news, but not everyone reads the paper) because it would be considered an embarrassment.
Something else to consider is how long it had been since he disappeared. A lot of people seem to think that without past recordings, they could recall the voice of a loved one easily. But I've had very close family members that have passed 2+ years ago, and without video or audio, I couldn't imagine their voices to save my life, no matter how much time I spent with them in the past. With the rough walkman audio and unusual emotional state he was in (a state his parents had likely never had to hear him in), after being missing for that many years it's entirely possible that his parents really couldn't remember his voice. If not just error or failing to think outside the box, this feels intentionally dramaticised to make the case sound as mysterious as possible. Which would be a shame if it were true because the story itself is already morbidly interesting.
@@BelleAn185 Exactly! The parents not being able to make a positive identification on the audio really means nothing. And honestly even if the audio were perfect, they remembered his voice very well, the speech and emotions were normal, etc... plenty of people would still hesitate to say "yes, that's my son" because it is an acknowledgment that he's dead. Seeing as the body to this day was never formally identified through labwork, I can see parents, probably unconsciously, saying they don't know if it's him or not. And agreed. This is definitely a highly dramatized retelling of an event that's already extremely mysterious. I'm confused over how OP just zeroed in on one particular theory and ran with it while leaving out many other details readily available in English (Iwamura himself was an interesting character, and based on what the Japanese press released of his personality, it seems unlikely he'd just stay with a random fellow hiker he happened to meet on the trail). I was excited to see Nexpo cover this case but IMO he dropped the ball and just went for the drama without looking at the victim as a person and the general culture of the country it occurred in.
I feel like that theory makes a lot more sense. Occhams razor and everything: either whoever made the sign is dead (yet no other bodies were found) - or it was made by people who were alive and well, and like you said, they’d be embarrassed to come forward considering the extensive rescue efforts it resulted in. Just thank god it ended up saving those two hikers anyway.
It’s also possible that he made the sign _before_ getting injured. Although it might seem to make more sense that if he had the energy to build a large sign, then why not use that energy instead to just keep walking until you find help, but Kenji was obviously very lost and might of felt he had a better chance waiting where he is for rescue to find him (the advice now given to hikers if they ever get lost in the woods).
@@Me12222exactly, I’ve seen like three kids say this now which annoys tf out of me for some reason lol. Also the logs were BIG and Cleanly cut which is a very easy thing to identify, it’s not a hunch or a guess it’s provable and anyone saying things like this just ignored those aspects.
if that weren't true i'd be disappointed it's once again another case that's been covered 100 times. I guess it's a good thing there aren't any new mysteries out there to cover
@@AsphyxiaLaguzespecially given that the helicopter pilots were so impressed by it. Which also makes think that it would have been in records somewhere if another hiker had been rescued after making that sign.
@@AsphyxiaLaguz Something that big wouldn't be disturbed so easily. I live near nature reserves and when people make little forts with branches, they stay for over a year.
Yeah. If multiple people have ventured off the trail, then multiple people, at different times, could have ended up at that clearing. That makes the most sense. In fact the different voice on the tape could be yet another lost soul. A sign should be posted at both "safe" rocks
My first thought, too. People get lost there often, it seems. Also, mountains are hard to search - the tools might be around among other stuff. But then also: the hidden stash, the bones, the helicopter, the voice etc. This is too much weirdness. I have no idea anymore... *There is a way to determine the time the trees got cut by looking at annual rings. Anyway, interesting story. Well told. Thank you for this.
I am always blown away with how you can take a creepy story, and make the telling of that story into an art form in and of itself. It's incredible how good you are at this. Bravo.
Nexpo as a layman, im kinda dissapointed you didnt delve into a few of the key details. Like 1. In the recording he mentions he met a helicopter and presumably had an exchange for a pick up location? Why didnt investigators or you look into that more? 2. You mention a hatchet, but didnt mention if investigators found hatchet marks on the trees, or if they were just previously fallen trees he rolled into locations to make the SOS 3. What leads you to believe he broke his bones prior to making the SOS? If theres no concrete timeline, wouldnt it make sense he broke his bones after making the sign once he became desperate and tried to descend the treacherous cliff he mentions in his recording? 4. All things considered the only reason to believe there was a 2nd person is that the parents didnt recognize his voice from the walkman, which who knows if it could even be discernable from a recording of a wounded, exhausted, malnourished person on a 1980's walkman Overall I loved it, but it seems like we traded graphical story telling over research - but I cant imagine how hard it is learning Unreal Engine, and hope there doesnt have to be a trade-off in the future once you become comfortable with it
Someone in the comments mentioned Japanese has words that basically have no “distinction”. “Save me” and “save us” is basically the same. So is “i saw a helicopter” and “i met a helicopter”. So it’s likely he heard or saw a helicopter, screamed but the helicopter didn’t see or hear him, so he decided to record on the tape and play it in the hopes of someone or something hearing him either to save his voice or in case he ran out of energy to scream. It’s also entirely possible someone else or a group built the SOS sign before or even after him (since ppl claim helicopters fly over that area regularly, which idk if i believe that, they probably only do it when someone is reported missing and since he wasn’t reported missing by the hotel staff, it’s likely that the sign wasn’t spotted for a while bc they had no reason to fly over that area). It’s likely that the people who built that sign probably started walking again after they realized no help was coming so they might be way deeper in the forest and died there. Another theory which i don’t really believe but could be possible is that the men they found thanks to the SOS sign maybe did build it but since they where so disoriented and confused might have not even remembered it. Imo they should’ve just analyzed the wood. Forensics can even determine where someone was killed based on the dirt under their fingernails. Doesn’t seen that difficult to determine how long the wood has been laying there right? And i hate to say it but this probably wouldn’t have been a mystery if the hotel reported him missing after 6 hours and he probably would’ve survived too.
@@fattucus1361Not necessarily. This was the 80s, so it's possible that one person may have used two cameras with different kinds of film for different situations. This was more common than you might think back then.
1. Literally nowhere is it even remotely implied he had correspondence with a helicopter and talked to a pilot or anything close to it, what?? 2. He focuses an awful lot on clearing the trees, and specifically mentions that investigators also said the trees were cut and positioned and it would take 2 days to do it - why are you implying there’s some other explanation for this he didn’t mention? That’s a weird assumption to make. 3. That’s a fair point. 4. No, there’s also the missing tools to make it possible for him to have cleared the area and cut the trees down, as previously mentioned, which means a second person would have had to cut them down or taken the axe with them. It’s like you didn’t watch the video.
His death was pretty straightforward. It was a guy with clear survival knowledge, stayed in one spot, made himself a shelter(the whole in the ground), and was doing his best to make noise, which is also what the tape recorder probably was if not delerium. It is just nobody was looking for him. Japanese authorities mixing the bones up and trying to cover things up is par for the course unfortunately. They arent allowed to make mistakes even though miles and miles of bureacratic red tape make them happen all the time.
Identifying sex from bones is not a very accurate science unfortunately. It is very common for bones to be misidentified and have to be corrected later.
To be fair, it's entirely possible to misidentify bones. As any anthropologist will tell you, you can't easily identify male/female from bones, even the pelvis.
There is nothing to indicate that they were hiding or covering anything up. It is true as others have pointed out that bones can be misidentified. The chain of events may be exactly as they described it. Not every incident that takes place is mired in a deep conspiracy. Often things are simply.what they are and there is no sinister cover up.
Let’s say the tree logs were all around 150lbs. Idk if Nexpo has ever moved tree logs before but at that weight you could definitely drag them by yourself. We also don’t know how long it took to find the logs, plus I never heard it explicitly stated these logs had felling markings consistent with being chopped down. “How else would person A get them?” Simple. Nexpo indicated this environment was “volatile”. Trees easily fall in nature during storms, and somewhat often, in fact. ESPECIALLY the lighter ones. So it’s very plausible that Type-A blood made the SOS sign by himself. Do we know Kenji’s BT? How do we know the fractures came before the SOS sign? How do we know the trees were felled and not brought down by wind? Do we know Kenji’s hobbies? Such as photography? I didn’t hear any mention about the cameras. Why was there soap, a towel, and toothpaste? - I think, factoring in a YES answer to my above stated questions that he was type-A, was 5’3”, and obtained those fractures from some other circumstance, that he indeed definitely made that recording, and made the SOS sign by himself. Initially I also had questions with how they identified the bones, sign forensic analysis would use skeletal structures that are sex-specific like the pelvis. If there was no pelvis, the skull is also rather thicker on a man than a woman. Perhaps he got fractures at some point after he was starving, and his bones had become frail from lack of nutrition? That could take 2-4 weeks depending on his energy consumption and his weight. Again, he didn’t need tools to make that SOS sign. - you cannot make refusals to believe a set of events in an extreme circumstance. I’ve heard people in situations say that someone they know sounds “like a completely different person” under certain factors. A life or death circumstance definitely fits those criteria. I find it very plausible that Kenji was indeed the only one there, granted the height and blood type matches records, two conveniently undisclosed pieces of information. -If this is Japan’s strangest unsolved mystery, they need better investigators cuz Death note is really setting the bar high for me 😂
Exactly. I love Nexpo's videos, but the way he assumes the existence of an entirely new person and vaguely alludes to a cover-up conspiracy is frustrating. Kenji was alone, and built the sign himself with fallen trees. That's really the only explanation.
I'm always kind of grain of salt about skeletal analysis anyway unless they have they entire set and can sample the hormones ever since I heard of the Jane Doe case in the '80s where investigators were positive they were looking at the skeletal remains of a pregnant cisgender woman only to later have the case exhumed, discovering that they were actually looking at an unknown transgender woman (who obviously wasn't pregnant--and so much for the 'yoUr bOneS doN't LiE' crowd) following more specific tests that are just not often done. I don't trust the bones to be clear indicators of anything until they exhaust all options🤷♂Lots of things happen to your bones throughout your life. Hormones change the shape of them. Nutrition alters their density. It's a bit wild people put so much credence into the 'educated guess' of examiners. It probably was just Kenji there, no one else. Besides, wouldn't a lady hiking in the mountains be a little more prepared than a bar of soap and some toothpaste? Not even a toothbrush? For real---that's man shit.
maybe a small group of people got lost and built the sign, eventually leaving the area, and this dude wondered across the sign and decided it was a better bet than traversing while injured
It actually sounds like a good possibility, but I wonder why no-one spoke up about it if the previous group made it out alive, especially if the case was big enough to make it to international news. Unless that group also met their demise on that mountain, I suppose.
@@asdkotablehonestly this to me is probably the scariest outcome It’s already scary thinking about people getting so easily lost in mountains, and a whole group would be a reminder that there’s probably hundreds of people out there still lost, their remains still possibly undiscovered in the most obscure locations
I think you're missing a huge possibility here...he could have sustained the fractures AFTER building the sign. Also, an axe isn't a requirement to take down a tree, it just makes it easier. One alternative would be to look for dead trees - you can push those down with your bare hands (I don't recommend trying it, especially with tall trees - the top could snap and fall back on you), and as a bonus, they're usually lighter than fresh wood since they've generally dried out some. I used to do this as a kid, and birch trees were especially easy do this with.
This is my biggest problem with this video right now. I was looking around at his sources as he states the logs were cleanly cut but I don't see anything mentioned about it in the sources not paywalled.
1) Why couldn't the sign be built before injury? 2) Could "met the helicopter" be misunderstanding/mistranslating/misremembering "saw a helicopter"? I don't speak Japanese 3) Old cassette tapes sound terrible at the best of times. I wish I knew the chance of Kenji's family just not recognising his voice. 4) That double rock fakeout has to be a deliberate trap to lure unsuspecting hikers off the path. 5) If the tapes are Kenji's, and he died with them, why would a hypothetical second man not say "we"? 6) Incredible video, looked great, Nexpo always delivers. 7) Maybe the birch trees just did that. 8) Could any potential axe/tool be lost in the river after a terrible fishing attempt, or lodged in a wonded animal, or stolen by some fucking bird, or tossed in a fit of delirium or a rage?
@@ILikedGooglePlus I know Japanese, the part of the recording in the video makes no mention a helicopter. The man shouting in the recording also does not use any personal pronoun, (very common in Japanese) so it could just as easily mean help me or help us.
answer to no 5. japanese relies HEAVILY on context and doesn't have pronouns like english does. so, if you want to say 'help me" or 'help us' it's the exact same phrase. if the second person does in fact exist, he could have said 'us' for all we know. but we weren't there to know for a fact that he was with another person, so we assume he said 'help me' no 8. if the axe was thrown, i think it would've been found by that reporter considering he wanted to look for other clues in the surrounding area and he also found Kenji's bag in the ground.
This is exactly what I have thought. This SOS sign could have been done by someone - a group, after discovering remains and bones. Just like that, "hey, this must be the place that need to be marked! let's mark it! someone will see it" or something like that. Ofcourse, another mystery appear - why someone would not let anyone know that they constructed such landmark... but .... knowing how japanese thinking works I can imagine this happened.
It was likely built after he went missing. Japanese forestry services have the sign in aerial photographs from 1987, but not 1982, and while it's possible the forest service only does aerial surveys once every five years, if they didn't find it while they were looking for Kenji in 1984, my instinct is to say it probably wasn't there. If the bones were 1-3 years old (Nexpo never said if the age of the bones was reclassified) when they were discovered in 1989, that couldn't have been Kenji, but probably belonged to the person who built the sign.
@@tomeq82 It wouldn't surprise me if a group of locals spent a decent amount of time going down there to build the sign, knowing it was somewhere that hikers who took the wrong turn would end up.
Probably not that easy to remove. That rock is extremely heavy and a massive amount of its size and bulk is under ground. It was also mentioned that the rock did have something to indicate it was the wrong one to follow. Further, since it is a naturally occurring part of the landscape they may not want to dig it out and impact the natural landscape. Also, it was very foggy and dark and stormy. Good chance they might have not seen the demarcation that it is the wrong one. Hiking through deep.uninhabited wilderness is an "at your own risk" type activity. There are no guarantees of safety once you are out there. It is critical that you be continually be aware of your position, your.location and your heading. You don't navigate deep wilderness as if it were a city park.
Keep in mind that Mt. Asahi is a wilderness preserve, not some manucured city park. They're not going to destroy natural features in order to make it easier to hikers to navigate. Hikers should be prepared when entering any wilderness and that usually means bringing a map and surveying the trail instead of relying on landmarks.
It seems like it would be due to the direct translation. Seems like he used a word that means "saw" or "met" depending on the context of the sentence, but typically is translated as met.
As someone who's learning Japanese-- it was absolutely bone chilling to hear the person who made the tapes utter each syllable with such dire need in his voice. I love listening to these videos when I'm playing games and I had to pause for a moment, replay the voice, and just ponder for a minute. The way you put such an ominous atmosphere in these videos are absolutely amazing, keep up the great work.
Just a silly theory that can probably be refuted: the SOS sign could have been made by another group of hikers who got lost and were able to leave the Mt. on their own, leaving the sign and not giving testimony when the case was famous. Man, the case is soooooo strange
The remains are puzzling, but the SoS was definitely made by a group before whoever died there stumbled onto it. Once something like that is made it's not going away and whoever did it knew it would help who ever would be stuck there in the future. I would like to think that who ever made it just forgot that they did, because they didnt do it out of urgency but because they could. If it was something serious and out of urgency you don't tend to forget.
This was along the lines of my thinking. Maybe it wasn't all built by one single lost hiker. Maybe it was happened upon in fragments by different groups/individuals who all worked to complete it.
Considering all of the evidence -- including things that aren't mentioned in the video -- the incident is made much less mysterious. As other people have suggested, it's unclear when the bone fractures occurred. They could have happened before or after the SOS sign was built. Hell, they could have been caused by the animals that chewed on his bones. Brown bears live in the area, and they certainly have the strength. While Unreal Engine made the video a lot more engaging, it also leads to misinformation. According to the evidence, 19 birch trees were used to make the SOS sign. In Nexpo's video, while he mentions the number 19, he showed 16 logs, neatly laid out digital-clock style. Simple math shows that the sign didn't look like that. Now, I'm not saying that this tears apart his whole video, or whatever -- it obviously doesn't. It's just misleading. Not Nexpo's fault, necessarily; reconstructions are going to be imperfect. However, he does leave out key pieces of evidence, which causes misinterpretations of its own. Allow me to make a simple explanation that fits the available evidence. Kenji Iwamura chooses to go on an ill-advised hike in the mountains. He gets lost. He comes across a clearing, and cleverly decides to make a sign. What from? The fallen birch trees nearby. He doesn't need an axe or a similar implement. He just needs to drag trees around. He shelters in a hole, shouting out every so often. At some point, he records himself for some reason that makes sense to him at the time. Sadly, he passes away in the hole. Bears find him, and do what bears do. Five years pass. The sign remains visible throughout, but nobody is looking for it; it's in a remote location, and relatively small. (Even so, the sign is there; it's visible in aerial photos taken in 1987, but not 1982.) Then, in mid-1989, two men get lost in the same area. The sign is finally spotted, and the two men are found. Kenji's remains are discovered around the sign, and soon afterward, so are his possessions. Later on, the recording of his shouting is played to his parents. They listen to this recording, one that's been in the elements for half a decade. Unlike what this video suggests, Kenji's parents are unable to definitively say whether it is or isn't their son. Is this how things actually happened? Hell if I know. But it fits available facts. There are details that remain unclear (why the recording was made, and what he intended it to mean, most notably), but that doesn't detract from things. A certain metaphorical razor tells us that we shouldn't make theories more complex than they need to be.
the japanese translation is also wrong and misrepresented. pronouns aren't mandatory in japanese language, you don't say "help me" you just say "help" and the me is understood implicitly. its a pretty basic fact about japanese you can figure out with one google search so its a bit annoying
The only thing that confuses me is doesn't the tape recording say something about a helicopter? If Kenji wasn't lost at the time of the other hikers' helicopter rescue, then what helicopter is the tape referring to? That's the only thing that seems mysterious to me here, all things considered.
This should be the top comment. These are exactly my thoughts after watching it. I feel like for a Nexpo video, this was uncharacteristically lazy with the writing and overall "story". There really wasn't much here, and he just seemed to be grasping at straws to wrap something up in a neat tight bow, regardless that there were other, more realistic explanations for what was happening. Hell, I watch a ton of Bushcraft and survival videos and he made a LOT of assumptions about the abilities of someone in that environment and what would be physically possible for someone, etc. Some more research prior would've done this video a lot of justice.
@@universeobserver3710 Kenji went missing in 1984; the two men got lost in 1989. I presume that when the former was reported missing, a copter searched for him, and for whatever reason, failed to spot him or the SOS. (Bad weather? Carelessness? No idea.)
Right? It seemed as if the mention of a helicopter is blatantly ignored in the investigation. In my opinion, if he did actually see a helicopter pass by it would make sense for him to find hope in creating an sos sign. He gets stranded, spots a helicopter flying over him, chases it back to somewhere where the Sasas were all while shouting for help, but ultimately fails to catch the attention of the helicopter. He realizes he can’t be screaming all the time cause it’s wasting energy so he records that voice tape to replay over and over again. He thinks to himself, okay, this place is clearly going to get flown over again by helicopter soon so he rolls some fallen birch branches to create an SOS sign in hopes of him being spotted the next time a helicopter passes. He makes a hole to keep his belongings safe & decides to stay near his sos sign until help arrives. Help never arrives, he dies alone, is spotted by wild animals, ravaged and those animals create the fractures he has on his bones. I feel like it’s a better explanation that Nexpo doesn’t consider
The weight doesn't matter much since logs roll, but even if they were lifted most people would choose to move one side and then the other. A single person lifting one side of a log would be carrying half of its weight at most, and they would probably choose smaller ones to make the job easier, so you're looking at around 75 pounds? That's like... an average 10 year old. Even as a 5'3" woman, this would be no problem at all.
Its a very strange mystery, but one thing I don't quite understand about the voice recording is the person speaking references meeting a helicopter, yet Kenji wasn't reported missing for about a week after he disappeared. This presumably means the voice isn't his or he survived for far longer than expected, long enough to spot a rescue helicopter. It would seem others would have to be involved, but as you touched upon it seems bizarre not to mention their existance. I don't really have any likely theories, my only other reading of the SOS is that a helicopter did make contact with them and for whatever reason couldn't get them, so left in order to return later and whatever reason didn't, but even that seems massively far fetched.
Another strange thing is that it was mentioned that bones belong to a person that died 1-3 years before, and if we assume that the bones belong to Kenji it would mean that he survived 2-4 years as he went missing 5 years prior.
The part of the recording played in the video does not actually mention a helicopter. "エ・ス・オ・ウ・エ・ス・タ・ス・ケ・テ・ク・レ・ス・リ・ア・ゲ・テ・ク・レ" Directly translated the meaning is something like "SOS, do help", with each mora punctuated with a pause. Also in Japanese personal pronouns are not really used so this could really just as easily mean either "help me" or "help us". If he heard a helicopter it could be a helicopter flying for any other random reason than a rescue mission, it's not like rescue searches are the only reason helicopters are ever flown. Honestly, the police probably got this one right. The dude got lost in the storm, built the sign, recorded a message for some reason and hurt himself along the way, most likely after or while building the sign. As presented in the video, bone identification is really inaccurate. His voice might be different because he is shouting and trying to sound clear while he is exhausted and worn out.
@@crackedkisyushka True, perhaps multiple people disappeared in the same area over the years? After all the story starts with missing hikers being found nearby completely unrelated to the sign or the body.
yeah you would think the police would've focused on this detail. I imagine helicopter traffic would've been logged somewhere for safety reasons. But if the scenario you proposed is true where a rescue helicopter tried but failed to pick them up initially (maybe they were not in a spot that they could land safely), then the pilot/s never reported the hikers as missing.
As someone who has studied recognising sex from bones (wrote my thesis in university about it), it's completely possible to get the wrong sex if there is no pelvis. The bone measurements are compared to other bone measurements which have a known sex and if the sample happens to have big males and big females it's completely possible for the bones of a smaller man to register as female. It becomes even more problematic if the collection used isn't of the same ethnicity/population the one being tested belongs to, some population have bigger and some smaller sexual dimorphisim. To get accurate results there needs to be big sample sizes of all different ethnicities and populations (as time also changes the results). For example currently in America the computer program Fordisc 3 is used in forensics to recognise the sex, and it's really accurate for Euro and African Americans, less so for other ethnicities. In Fordisc it's possible for the bones of the same person register as both male and female, especially if the person being tested isn't a modern American. When I did my own tests small male bones had more chances of being wrong (I only tested few characteristics) than big female ones. It's all basically mathematics in the end and reality doesn't always work as maths tells us. (sorry for bad English, I'm not a native speaker, it's also been years since I was in university so I might have gotten details wrong or explained bad).
I lived in Asahikawa for over a year, and I highly doubt the medical institute’s credibility. Asahikawa is a small city in the middle of the countryside, and likely doesn’t have very high quality equipment or professionals when compared to other parts of Japan.
@@HeatherMason-fi1qr especially if power pressure is making you think that they are what they say they are. If I gave you some bones and told you what I think and what others think chances are you are going to say I see that too. If they had a skull(which I don't think they had Dental records could've helped
The sign was made roughly 2-3 years after kenji went missing, a likely theory for the S.O.S. being recorded was that he was delirious and thought he was using a walkie-talkie
I keep seeing comments about how Kenji likely sustained the bone fractures after building the sign, but I feel like we’re overlooking the fact that these bones suffered under “volatile” weather conditions and scavenging animals for FIVE YEARS. Isn’t it entirely possible that these fractures occurred over time due to the elements?
It certainly is. Plus, depending on the expertise, tools and technology available, errors can very easily be made. Especially for bones left out in the wild for that long.
Bones that break after death, especially long after death have different breakage patterns than what happens while a person is alive, tending to have jagged edges at the break since the tissue has dried out postmortem, whereas living tissue will have more clean and sharp fractures. If a few days went by before he died there could have even been evidence of the tissue healing itself.
@@wheedlerApparently not advanced enough to tell the gender, though. Considering how botched the initial investigation was with the remains they found, it’s possible they simply got it wrong like the bones’ gender as well. There was a similar issue with another case where two women went missing during a hike around the 2010s and their bones were discovered, where investigators initially thought one of them broke their leg during their hike, but they were never able to conclusively figure out if it was broken before or after they died because of the intense amount of weathering and animals chewing on the bones. There is a certain point where it’s difficult to determine how/when a bone is broken, especially if it’s left exposed to the elements over the course of several years. I wouldn’t be too quick to believe their bone was broken while they were alive.
Making a video using 3D renders of the areas your talking about and also narrating beautifully is insane, this is a great introduction to this channel.
Honestly this is one of his poorer quality videos. The information and sources lack the depth they usually have. Go look at his past videos, those are the real good ones
The worst thing about getting lost in the woods is that is becomes a literal Maze. Even if they try to add roadmarks sometimes roadmarks will blend in with previous roadmarks causing your brain to think youre going in circles (even if you are not). The best thing is having actual maps posted periodically with a "you are here" arrow. Nobody will get lost.
Do you know this from experience? I ask because it sounds like it and is interesting. Would you comment your story? It could help some other people avoid the same mishap or atleast be aware of it. ❤
I've found myself turned around and lost in my local woodlands a few times, and this isn't like the deep dark woods this is a fairly small area of woodland that's a popular walking spot but I've still managed to end up unable to get back onto the main trail to the carpark.
@@santsi7306 Yes, I almost got lost at the Goat Rock hiking trail. No service and the sun was setting while I was deep inside the trail. I began panicking however, I trusted God foremost and my gut feeling. Always trust your first thoughts because they come from intuition which is what can save you in a moment like this. Overthinking will absolutely make you lost. During this trail a very similar thing occured where two trail marks are so identical that you begin to doubt and that's when you begin panicking which can cause you to go in circles even more before it's too late and now its nighttime and you are screwed. Just keep walking and trusting the markers if they are any. If all is lost try to make it onto a pubic road and avoid any trails that seem maintained but are unmarked. Water often tends to flow downhill after winter making these "trails" that lead to nowhere but deep woods.
Hello ryan my name is Cloud, and I’ve recently begun watching your content. I must say, I’ve managed to watch all of your videos in quite a short span of time, 😅 and I’m thoroughly impressed with your work. It’s clear how much effort you put into your channel. My favourite video of yours is the one about Smart Schoolboy 9. I genuinely couldn’t sleep for days after 😭watching it-it was that gripping! I do hope you’ll consider making a part two, as there have been some new developments surrounding the case.
Wow, I’ve watched Nexpo for many years and I can definitely say that this episode is a masterpiece. The mystery, the atmosphere, narration, pacing, visual effects… everything. Well done man.
It's a death funnel. Many hikers making the same mistake all ending at the same place. The SOS sign was probably made by many different people over time. Probably started by the 1st and added on to by the others who came across it seeing it as a landmark. They all probably became trapped by the SOS sign. Believing it to be a place where people have been rescued before in the past.
But why would only one body be found? If this was a death funnel, why aren't there any other remains. Even with erosion and other natural things that would move bones around, there would still be evidence of other bodies
@@Arlothed1noTo add to that……. Wouldn’t erosion have moved at least some of the logs away from their intended spot? If ppl who are lost are placing just one or two logs in place and then leave
@@taebundy658where some logs rotting and others weren’t? That would indicate it being added too. You can tell the difference between when some were cut down.
It's interesting that no one thought to try and age the birch trees by tree-ring dating. This would at least give an indication of which year the trees were cut.
@@austins.2495tree ring dating uses geographical data for the area to determine what year the rings correspond to, so yea it can tell which year or approximate year the tree was cut, little buddy
it is important to note that if these birch logs were 16 ft long they couldve been already cut by some sort of logging operation since most saw timber logs are cut 16 feet long
Wouldn't logs like that be cut perfectly cleanly, not as if cut by a hand tool? Wouldn't there be other logs not used in the sign left over nearby? It should be possible to tell if logging happened in that area, anyways - they have aerial photos and everything.
The thing that confused me the most is that in the tape, he says something about meeting a helicopter? Did I miss something, or was that never brought up again?
I don't speak Japanese but judging from the comments left by people who do. The word that he used could also mean "saw". So he probably meant that he "saw" a helicopter.
You popped up on my feed today and I took a chance. I absolutely loved it! You are very talented and told the story with utmost respect. There are a few RUclipsrs that I follow that I create individual playlists for so I can watch their content when I am in the mood and you sir just made me create a new playlist. I look forward to watching every video.
My explanation for this is that-- 1. The SOS sign might have been built way before Kenji ever got there. Maybe another lost group of hikers who found their way out by themselves, and left it there. 2. It's possible that after being in the elements for so long, the cassette tape somewhat degraded and that's why his voice wasn't recognizable. 3. The bones were probably just bad forensic work, I've heard it's hard to tell apart male/female skeletons sometimes. Once they had a clear lead they re-examined them.
If other people built the SOS sign then why have they never come forward after the fact? Why are there no records of people being rescued from that area before? Did the people who made it simply disappear and NEVER BREATH A WORD about what happened? And if they didn't make it out, then why were there no bone, no belonging, no evidence that anyone was there before Kenji?
I feel like a strong possibility you're omitting is that the SOS sign also predates Kenji. Since Kenji and the rescued duo of hikers both ended up there, who's to say more haven't in the past?
That's a strong possibility. If the rock leading the wrong way was so commonly mistaken for the right one, it's likely many went down that way by mistake. Assuming they did so in groups, they probably found a way out together. But solo hikers would struggle if disoriented
I feel like it's unlikely, because the SOS sign was placed across a small river. Most people lost out there would have no reason to cross that river, because there's no river to cross on the original path, so it would clearly only take you further from the path. However, in the recording, Kenji's voice had given out and he states that he saw a helicopter, indicating that he was likely running after and yelling for the helicopter. The helicopter likely went out past the river, leading to Kenji running across the river in chase. No other lost hikers would ever have a reason to cross that river.
There’s no evidence that the sign predates him. The earliest record of its existence was September 20th, 1987, 3 years, 2 months after kenji went missing and 2 years before it was found.
1) The sign can be seen from satelite data. A range of time of a few months where it's not there and it's there coincinde with Kenji going missing. 2) Voice quality on the tape sound terrible, also, he was screaming, not speaking. Hence why familly might not recognize his voice, we are more used to hear our familly talk than scream, and we do sound different while screaming our lungs out. 3) Injury can have happened AFTER sign was built, maybe even during it (tree falling on him), and maybe it's the reason he died there and did not try to keep going. 4) The log don't have to be carried, they can be draged, or rolled. Weight doesn't really matter that much. 5) Everyone is looking for "an axe" but I've read nothing about the actual "cut" mark on the trees. Are they actually cut by an axe ? Or maybe a saw ? And if it was a handsaw, from a multitool or something, it can explain why he carried one, it could have broke at one point, and then left where it broke, and then rusted away over the years, hence why it was never found. 6) Police wont identify the bones as Kinji's cause they have no concrete proof, knowing what happen and prooving what happen are two different things. No conspiracy there. 7 As you can gather, I strongly disagree with Nexpo's conclusion, I think occam's razor apply quite well.
I'm currently trying to find the exact spot on Google maps satellite, is there any coordinates? I don't see why you wouldn't be able to see these giant birch logs 30 years later. They take a long time to completely decompose.
@@Boogmon my best guess is around 43.61832655171019, 142.8466124613505, proximity to the river, and the same "brown shape" as in the aerial photograph we have of the sign at the time. Can't see anything on any google earth history data though. But it would make sense sign was cleared out after a bit so future search party wouldn't get confused by it.
You can find what looks like a pile of logs down the slope at 43°37'10.21"N 142°50'43.17"E especially on the pictures from 25/06/2014 if you look back in history. The area (brown shape of wetland) looks similar to the one in the old aerial photos, and it's closed to the river. It would make sense actual sign was clearup after they found it in order to not confuse future search parties.
I think it is an Occam's razor scenario. I don't think he built the SOS sign. I think it's way more likely he stumbled upon it on accident in this clearing and decided to camp out and wait for help. We don't know who built the SOS, but it makes sense that one would be there considering it's in a big clearing next to a popular mountain trail.
When it comes to who made it, it makes the most sense to just say someone put it there for future hikers. Whoever made it just forgot or was probably not even local I doubt someone died there after making it or was lost. It had to have been someone with experience who found the clearing and thought it would be a good way to help people. If Kenshi had no experience I doubt he would've been the one to make it, and if he is injured and panicked he wouldn't have even thought of it.
Cold Cases always have an essence of dreadful mystery to them, especially those that revolve around disappearances. Imagine getting lost in the woods and dying alone in the dark, only for your remains to be discovered so badly damaged that they're misidentified. The best case scenario is that those are Kenji's remains and his family was given closure, followed by the worst case in that those are someone else's unidentified bones and Kenji's either abandoned in the woods, or they never found his body.
I feel like splitting the 2 people at the end at different times makes more sense. An uninjured more prepared hiker with a presumed axe would have extra provision and built the sign. He saw a rescue helicopter and chased it or left knowing it'll never come back. Then kenji, injured, found the sos sign and rested there, stashed his bag close.
Your narration style, and tone is brilliantly suited for the macabre/creepy stories. The ambience produced, makes it so much more immersive! Kudos, brother!
Something I found really misleading and kind of disingenuous was that Nexpo makes a big deal about the maximum total weight of the logs. Astonished that a woman could lift THREE TONS. I'm sure he doesn't believe anyone could really lift 3 tons but it's actually fairly simple for any woman to lift 150 pounds, which was the lower weight of the logs that was displayed. With fractured bones? No, that would be a different story, but the odd insistence on the upper weifht limit seemed very weird to me ... Like .. it's really obvious that no one except Superman is lifting 3 tons, so why even act like that figure is relevant? Why not stick to the weight of the logs themselves instead of the group as a whole?
because there really isnt a mystery here. it was probably a man not a woman the same man on the recording and im sure the recording was shit and the man was panicked and hurt causing his voice to change and his parents to not recognize him. , and he probably moved the logs without broken bones one at a time and then ran out of food and water and then got injured and died. occams razor the simple theory is usually the correct one. thats why the case is closed now its only a mystery if you make assumptions about things that probably didnt happen
In fairness, not any woman nor man for that matter can easily lift 150 lbs, even with proper technique involved. Taking this into account, the overall point he was trying to highlight is that someone with fractured bones should have been completely unable to collectively carry 3 tons worth of logs. There was nothing misleading or disingenuous about it, rather it'd be more correct to say the way he introduced the point was confusing is all, which is very different.
UE has become such an incredible tool for creative people. It's very intuitive and easy to use, which is unique for a game engine. You no longer need years of study and industry experience to even touch such a complex piece of software. Even with only basic knowledge and store-bought assets you can create incredible works for visualization and art, and of course interactive pieces and games if you have the knowledge. Coupled with Blender, Natron and Wax you can create a lot of amazing stuff, all for free. Screw adobe and their overpriced BS. With all the free/open-source options out there, it's never been easier to put your dreams on the screen.
Imma just say it cause I NEED IT TO COME BACK, *why do we not get the Nexpo intro anymore* it really got me into the vibe of a Nexpo video, like somehow the intro took away everything that was happening IRL and fully immerses me, without the intro a Nexpo video just doesn't give the same vibes :(
I don’t want to nitpick, but trees are often found dead from beetlekill or fires. They’ll just be laying on ground… otherwise known as “deadfall.” And while it varies from tree to tree, while it might overall weigh 400 pounds, it doesn’t take nearly as much force to roll that tree in to place; or pick up one end and angle it to the location you want.
@@mr_mickel were they though, exactly?/ That could have been just an estimate. The one single picture we have of the SOS is a distant, blurry aerial view
So I've not watched this channel for a couple years now (probably last thing I've watched prior was about the Elan school). And wow. The production quality was real good in prior videos, but now its straight up some of the best you can find, my expectations are blown out of the water. Thank you for creating such great content, Nexpo.
Learned Unreal Engine for this video and for some topics I want to cover in the future. First time using the engine but I hope you guys like it🖤
By the way, if yall have any mysteries you wanna see covered, feel free to submit them here or email me: NightmareExpo@gmail.com
That's pretty cool, nice see YT creator use Unreal Engine :D
Dude your shit is awesome. The video quality still increasing after masterpieces like the Gemini video is nuts. Keep it up man
The forest decided to do a little trolling.
I really miss the old intro and theme song! Just to let you know
@@Nexpo Dude learned unreal engine for a video, the dedication is crazy 😭 Love u Nexpo
Does anyone else find it bittersweet yet heartwarming that at the end of the day, the SOS sign _did_ end up saving someone? The rescuers admitted they wouldn't have found the two hikers that were saved without the sign. Whether it was built by Kenji, or someone else who was lost, someone on the brink of death used the last of their strength to construct a massive SOS that ended up miraculously saving two strangers' lives years later.
I’m surprised the sign wasn’t moved at all in the years after Kenji and the other hiker created the sign. if these storms were somewhat normal, how did the wood not get moved by the massive wind and rain?
@@canvassedworldThese were heavy logs, maybe they moved just a little bit, it was heavy rain and strong winds, but not a typhoon... I guess?
@@gasmaskz yeah I suppose, maybe the geography of it prevented heavy winds from reaching that low. Who knows 🤷♂️
I find it so striking that I believe it's the solution to this mystery. The sign is on a large plane without many trees, therefore it has a great visibility. So from a small elevation, the sign is visible.
Doesn't it make sense that hikers who go the same "wrong" way, sooner or later see the large SOS from an elevated position? When lost in the woods with bad weather, you see a large SOS 500 meters away, a little bit further down, doesn't it make sense to approach that sign? The whole case and the "many different persons" make sense when you view the case without the boundary of time. Chances are high that over the years, several lost hikers spotted the sign and approached it in hopes that it makes search parties find them faster. So over the years the belongings of several different people are gathered there, bones from different people remain there, etc. Maybe the one who built the SOS wasn't alone and it was in fact a hiking group who then tried to push on instead of waiting there for help.
how come there were two hikers lost nearby at the same time the helicopter found the sos sign for the first time? i can't believe its a miracle
Two notes about the recording.
1. "sasa" is bamboo. presumably he's stuck in an area of thick bamboo?
2. The way Japanese works, they don't have the heavy use of pronouns that we do in English and is heavily context based. Grammatically there is no difference between "Help me" and "Help us"
"Met" and "saw" can be similar/contextual too
thank you for pointing that out!! the japanese thing.
Also weirdly enough, when going to the Wikipedia page and translating one of the Japanese news articles that were sourced, it came back as a man AND woman's remains
I heard zaza for some reason
I was gonna point that out. I know that you can add -tachi to make something plural but if you're screaming out for help, it's really unnecessary.
no matter what really happened, the thought of someone dying so slowly right next to an SOS sign is harrowing.
In general dying alone sIowy is so scary whether it's a forest, desert, room, etc...
👻 Love spine-chilling horror stories? Follow us for more terrifying tales that will keep you up at night! 😱 Don’t miss out on the creepiest stories, dark legends, and haunting mysteries. Hit that follow button and join us… if you dare! 🔥
@@iaqh absolutely. discoveries like this break my heart, just the pain and loneliness is unimaginable.
Bro your sound design in these videos really just pushes the creepiness factor right where it needs to be. I get chills watching just from the noises and sounds alone. Absolutely phenomenal work.
The music is way too loud - video game noises are extremely insensitive also lmao
@@TobyLerone76Agreed, it's distasteful.
The rain is calming
Maybe Kenji build the sign BEFORE getting injured, on the tape he says "I'm at the location where I first met the helicopter". Maybe he built the sign, saw a helicopter and ran chasing after it screaming for help. While chasing after it he slips and falls, breaking several bones. Maybe he thought the helicopter saw him and would be back, his voice so ragged from screaming after the copter and in so much pain he could barely yell, he used his last bit of energy to make the recording, his voice hoarse and the recording quality so poor he would sound nothing like himself, and find his way back to the S.O.S. sign.
As for the sign itself, the S.O.S. sign could have been made from downed trees and branches that he dragged into the clearing over the course of several days.
I was also going to say you should never underestimate what someone can do while pumping sheer adrenaline
Yeah, this just seems obvious to me. Like, he was clearly there for a while, of course he made the sign before he became incapacitated.
Yeah there's a lot of confusing elements but it seems most likely to me that this was all him and that the parents didn't recognize his voice for other reasons. I mean, I barely recognize my own voice over a recording. It sucks we don't have concrete proof of everything but we never really can in tragedies like this.
"Maybe Kenji build the sign BEFORE getting injured" sums up nicely how nexpo prefers to gymnastically avoid the most obvious explanation in favor of something more exciting and suspenseful. To the physical reasons his voice may have sounded different in those circumstances add the fact that his family was grieving and in shock and it probably made them more likely to question such things as his voice on the recording not sounding exactly how they were used to. And the fact the police hasn't oficially marked the bones as his - that's probably just their protocol for cases where they cannot prove who those bones belong to by scientific methods with high enough certainty, which was likely the case due to the bones' state, it doesn't mean they weren't sure they were his. Nah but it's way more likely that there was a whole ahh different person whose existance there are NO traces of, that's the simpler explanation xd it's still an interesting story anyway.
@@TotoroK9I doubt that. Your voice in recording IS your real voice, unless the recording device is low quality. You see, we hear our own voice reverberate through our bones, making it sound different. His parents would have recognized that same voice because that is how they always hear it.
I facepalmed so hard at “fake safe rock” you’d really think they’d have a better navigation marker lmao
They put a rope... honestly. Just put a proper sign, or paint the rock with "safe rock" or something similar. Don't mark the rock you are not supposed to pay attention to...
@@AudreyLudlow Example photos from the source shows the rock in a misty environment where you wouldn't be able to make out any details but a silhouette and that's how it tricks people.
If it's still as badly marked as back then, that would be baffling. With there being no shortage of cheap and easy solutions to marking it (a simple sign would do., you got all sorts of reflective paints, glow in the dark paints, etc etc) Plus anyone going hiking in complex terrain ought to have a competent flashlight with them. Just basic outdoors 101. A sign if properly implemented sticks out well enough to be noticed.
@@AudreyLudlow
Of course, it’s the Nope Rope. Surely everybody can understand that 😐
Also marking it with rope and stuff probably makes some people think it's the correct one even more. Surely they could come up with something better than rope. I don't know, put up a sign or paint the whole thing with a red ❌ or something lile that. That's a pretty universal sign of "Not this one".
I lost my bro in an avalanche accident in the Inyo National Forest so hiking/mountaineering stories like this always hit different. Mountains are strange. Elevation/low oxygen does weird things to people. You could hike for hours and see only one other person. Whenever you hear a hiker say “blonde hair? Green necklace? Oh yeah, I saw him three days ago when coming down the pass.” Lines like those always give me chills. Brilliant stuff Nexpo!
may your bro rest in peace❤
Sorry man
Why do humans enjoy such dangerous activities?
Mountains are indeed strange, some of them notoriously ominous. I like how you brought that up about them. Something that seems so natural and fixed, while actually being some of the most unpredictable and dangerous places to be. I’ve met quite a few hikers in my experiences, great people, great community. Saddened to hear about your bro I wish you and those close to you the best
I can relate. I was hiking up with family on a visit to Montana. It was bear country (after all, most of Montana is) and I was on edge since I've never had to worry about bears before. We were going up a mountain trail and passed by this young women who, had this shocked, nervous look on her face. Then she greeted us as we passed by, but then briskly said, "please be careful around here, I think there's a bear stalking me." We showed concern, but she continued down to headquarters and we went up but then took a different trail down. I thought about her for a long time after that. Then 5 months later, I saw on some news segment that in that same park a young women's remains were found. Mauled by bear. I still feel uneasy whenever I think about it, her last moments in fear...
I really love watching Nexpo videos. The cgi stuff or whatever you do for the reenactment stuff reminds me of the old true crime shows I used to watch with my mom growing up.
And the PS1 inventory graphics! So cool!
Two different people at the same spot just not at the same time. Either a person or a group get lost and build the SOS sign, then some time later Kenji gets lost and wind up at the SOS sign. This would explain why he yells SOS being influenced by seeing the sign.
Yeah.. easy case closed, NEXT.
or the two rescued hikers had to sacrifice one to keep their bellies full and swore to never rat out the other
dosent explain the parents having no clue who the person was on the tapes found i kenjis backpack
It wasn’t Kenjis voice though
That's what I thought, too
It's obviously a place where people constantly get lost in, because a few years later, two more hikers take the same exact path and get lost in the same exact area Kenji did.
There's no distinction between "save me" and "save us" in the Japanese used here. "Tasukete kure" is just the command form of the verb meaning to rescue (tasukeru) and a politeness verb indicating a request for a favor (kureru, meaning that someone would be giving you aid.)
Japanese often omits nouns if it's clear what you are talking about. E.g., you could just say "tired" instead of "I am tired." Similarly, "tasukete kure" is asking someone to do a rescue of an implied "me/us." In this case, "kureru" is one of 2 "give" verbs, and is the one used when the speaker will be the recipient of the preceding action. It could be a singular "me" or a plural "us;" nothing in the language used indicates either way.
Seconded. There's no distinction between singular and plural in the words used on the tape-and the language in general lacks plural forms except for specific words, so there's nothing unusual about the lack of specification, either. Translating it unequivocally as "help me" is inaccurate- it would be more correct to think of it as "please help," something that makes no distinction as to the number of people involved.
As yet another Japanese speaker, this is a really well written explanation!
Yeah, I noticed other people pointing this out. It isn't strange and yeah, for americans it may be confusing, but my language is the same. For example, americans define things and animals as "its", but we don't have that distinction. Also, we only have a plural form for "they". So I understand that some americans may be confused by how other languages work.
@@CyberWarezz05 american is not a language ..no need to assume everyone speaking english is an american
@@dss1733 I didn't say that...?I just pointed out that all languages have their own particularity at some points, and I just gave an example that my language is the same: some things are lost in translation because words/grammar differs and sometimes it's hard to understand the context.
I love the fact that Nexpo used PlayStation 2 Menu sound effects in the video, it really sets in the atmosphere of this whole situation.
I liked the little survival horror game graphics for the inventory items too
agree i’m obsessed with the vibes of this vid it feels strangely comforting but that’s probably the nostalgia XD
Glad I'm not the only one who heard the PlayStation 2 sfx 😅
I was going to say the same thing. Those sounds are absolute perfection.
I wish more people would use PlayStation 2 SFX whether it's in a documentary or as an Easter Egg in a 2000s styled video game, it just makes sense for such cases like those.
usually i’m not easily scared by real life events, but this case keeps sending chills through me. you’re an incredible story teller
You have to wonder if the parents didn’t recognize the voice because Kenji is obviously not in a good state of mind but even more importantly his voice was probably very hoarse from screaming for help for days.
Still doesn't explain how the SOS was made or where the tools to make it ended up. To me it sounds like Kenji was very inexperienced given that he went up before a storm, so I don't know why he wound have the tools in the first place even if we don't worry about their disappearance.
@@waterdragon1908maybe this is all separate incidents being chalked into one? Perhaps someone else made the sign and died (or used the remains of a deceased fellow missing person and then either made it to safety on their own or died) and kenji found it, started searching, got lost himself, and also died.
Also since recordings can sometimes sound different from what a person sounds irl, and factor in that the parents hadn't heard his voice in 5 years, all these small factors probably came together to make the voice sound completely alien to them.
Also it's been 4 years or something after he's dead.
Or it was made by a killer that placed his victim there
No mention or explanation for why the hotel manager literally said nothing about this missing man…ever? Not only did he not immediately contact police or file a missing persons report at any time, he just continued living like the dude never existed?
bro forgor💀
I think nexpos "investigation" of this case is honestly lacking. 👎
Literally could’ve just forgotten about the dude
@@aidenv5630 his stuff was there in the room he wouldnt forget are you serious?
@@frakismaximus3052 good thing hes not an investigator, hes just telling a story.
Garfield: "Oh boy, I hope this Nexpo video isn't TOO scary!"
Nexpo: "...Monday."
im a Garfield fanatic and my first thought when he said that was "oh god."
The scariest Nexpo moment is episode 1 of lost media, when he says
"................Among Us"
The scariest word you can say to an adult
Lol underrated
Lmfao
Dude you single handedly got me through the toughest times of my life. When I was homeless, a smile came across my face every time I saw a new vid from you on a public computer. When I was in the throes of addiction, you were my light at the end of the tunnel. When I was assaulted, you helped me to smile through it all. I owe you everything. Nexpo is the absolute greatest storyteller of all time, and anyone who hasn’t already, hit that subscribe button!!
My condolences, I hope life is treating you much better ♥️ I agree, his talent is amazing and deserves the recognition!
Damn. Sounds like you're doing better now, though. Keep on living brother.
you left out the part where it was taken photos of the area from the air. "In regards to the SOS sign, the Japan Forestry Agency and the Japan Geographical Authority took a look at previous topographic map data used to find aerial photographs, in which it was confirmed that the SOS sign was in the images taken on 20 September 1987."
meaning that the sign was there for almost two years before the story takes place..
edit : i know Kenji went missing in 84. i pointed out the first known date of the SOS sign because it's possible he or someone else could have made it? just knowing that the sign was there almost two years before they found it and a body that clearly couldn't have made it raises a lot of questions.
Just wondering where you saw this info at? Really interesting just wanted to see if you knew another source for info about this case. The debunking of the SOS sign would kinda scramble this case completely, i suppose meaning it was possible there were other deaths there previously (maybe making the woman one of the many). Crazy stuff to wrap my head around.
@@izzy6094 he read this at Wikipedia
@@izzy6094 Barely Sociable also did a video about the SOS Sign titled "The SOS Sign Incident - An Unsolved Mystery." At 8:23 of Barely Sociable's video, he references page 13 of the Mainichi Shimbun evening edition on July 28, 1989 which states,
"On the 28th, it was found that the letters "SOS" were reflected in the aerial photograph taken by the Forestry Agency and the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan on September 20, 1987 to create a map. This photo was taken from a point about 3,700 meters above the sky. In the photo, the width of the letters "SOS" is about o.9 mm. The first "s" is a little unclear and difficult to understand, but the last "S" can be confirmed. It's barely noticeable in the photo, but it's clear to the naked eye. The agency and others take aerial photographs every five years."
Yes, but Kenji went missing in 1984.
Kenji went missing in 1984
The aerial photos show the sign in 1987
They find the sign and the body in 1989
These new animations add such a fitting aesthetic to the video and this channel, props for the effort !
Nexpo literally makes almost tv production quality on RUclips at this point imo.
@@tonyyao4785 exactly he's a legend
Correct! It’s exceptional!
@@Bruno_Bhydtyep one of the best to ever grace this godforsaken website.
Thanks AI it’s the first ai touch I actually like in modern media
Why not put a HUGE sign by the fake safe rock that says “FAKE SAFE ROCK” “NOT TO BE USED AS LANDMARK” and a similar sign be the ACTUAL safe rock saying “SAFE ROCK” “USE AS LANDMARK”. Wouldn’t that make sense?
Seriously, wtf is going on with whoever takes care of the trails in Japan?
They are too lazy to remove that darn fake safe rock
Please Lord Give me a sign! 🙏
Hiking is one of those things where you can find every level of ease or difficulty to meet your needs and preferences, from literally _paved_ trails with trash cans, toilets, benches and no way to get lost or stub your toe ..... to trails where you can't even see a trail, no amenities, and plenty of ways to get lost or break your spine. The "hard core" hikers prefer those trails, and they also tend to prefer nothing manmade as far as the eye can see. "I came here to get AWAY from signs" is what they would say about the 'Fake Safe Rock' sign. And I'm just talking about American hiking. -Japanese culture is even more obsessed with aesthetics and balance with nature. So while I totally agree with the sign idea, it's easy to guess why there isn't one.
Hahaha that's all I could think about when he talked about the rocks. They put up....rope? As if that was enough for everyone to understand? Haha
22:52 seriously would it kill someone to simply put up a sign in front of Safe Rock that says (Safe Rock go ➡️) and another sign in front of the other rock that says (Fake Safe Rock turn back) because that would be way more helpful for hikers
if kenji was missing for ~5 years prior, it's entirely possible his parents just forgot what his voice sounded like and were less likely to be able to recall his voice if the first time hearing it in years was him screaming in distress.
people underestimate how easily and quickly you can forget people who are missing/dead especially when you have no recordings of them. i forgot my father's voice only about 2-3 years after he passed and that was with me making an effort to remember it with no recordings available.
for such a small country japan has a lot of mysteries and accidents
@@jmgonzales7701 all it is just bureaucracy or bad luck. You got to remember things like testing is still new, the FBI data base that's used for DNA testing isnt even that old it started in 1998
No, parents don’t just forget their children’s voice. That’s such a shitty take to assume and base your opinion off of. I heard an old friend talking to a gas station employee whom I hadn’t seen in over 12 years recently and immediately knew it was him and when I walked over to confirm it bam, there he was. I can agree you might “forget” what it sounds like until you actually hear it but that’s not what you’re saying.
@@jmgonzales7701 it might be small in terms of land area, but it's got 120 million people and its population was higher in the past. additionally, the first established kingdom in Japan began in like 50 AD, so it's been around for over 2000 years, so there's been plenty of time.
also gotta point out that japan being a cultural focus of many westerners simply means you're going to hear more about it online than, say, Kenyan mysteries or Bulgarian cold cases.
If you read up on the incident, you'll find that Kenji's parents didn't categorically deny that it was him; they weren't sure either way.
1. There’s no mention that he might have sustained the injuries after building the SOS sign.
2.a) As someone of slight stature I literally move tons of weight in a day. Albeit it is on 10lb increments, but one can move logs using leverage to cut down on the work required. Levers can move mountains.
2.b) Logs can be rolled, decreasing total work substantially.
3. a) Not recognizing a terrified and frantic voice doesn’t mean it isn’t that person. Not to mention the distortion of an old cassette tape in the elements.
3. b)The man sounded frantic and terrified, not injured and clinging on to life. He probably sustained the injuries after he recorded and built the sign.
4. Weathered remains might give inaccurate results. How tall was the man compared to the woman who was initially identified? What about their foot sizes?
5. Don’t make your safe landmark next to your identical dangerous landmark.
Thank you for also mentioning that the tape was prolly in the elements for so long that it may have started distorting or was not in the best of shape when found. If it was also played on loop, that would've helped the process. Thanks to Nexpo, I watched a few other Ytbers cover this case and I'm still a bit baffled by it lol.
Regarding point 4 - the more fragmentary remains are, the harder it is to determine anything from them. Age, sex, height - they're all difficult to determine even if you have a perfectly preserved, complete skeleton. The length of the long bones of the legs are relational to height, but two people with the same length femur can have total heights that differ by inches. Same with foot size - the bones are informative, but the soft tissue does SO much to determine the final size, so it's difficult to say for sure
Good point, they didn’t look like large logs from the photos either, more like large branches, maybe 50 lbs? Any adult, even injured, could have dragged them into place.
This was basically my thought process watching the video, and I was getting increasingly annoyed as it went on. It seemed like Nexpo was using some moon logic to argue the logs couldn't have been moved by one person to make this more mysterious than it really is. Summing the weight of all the logs together to show a human could lift it was so dumb.
Also, where is he getting the idea that the trees had been axe'd down? Trees fall over in the wind. And even if they were axed, wouldn't the simpler solution that the guy did actually have an axe, they just didn't find it?
@@joecaldwell9881 because it was gigantic, big enough to see from the sky in bad weather, but sure it was branches. it was probably from ww2 when a pilot went down, but yeah...branches
People always assume that the sign was made _after_ the injury, believing that Kenji got lost in the woods before injuring himself and becoming stranded, and only then built the SOS sign. However, it is far more likely that Kenji made the sign prior to fracturing his arm and leg, an injury he could of gotten either whilst running after the helicopter to flag it down, a general accident, or even due to attempted suicide after losing all hope of being rescued. It might seem to make more sense that if Kenji wasn’t injured, and even had enough energy to make such a large sign, that he’d have no reason to be stuck in one location and would instead just keep walking. However, I believe it’s much more likely that, after going in the wrong direction over incredibly rough terrain and then crossing a river, that Kenji felt continuing was either pointless or too difficult, and he may have felt that staying where he was would make it easier for rescuers to find him (the advice now given to hikers in case they ever get lost in the woods, as it’s much harder for rescuers to find you if you wander further and further away from where you were last seen or meant to be).
Two main things. The old man in the hotel should have reported Kenji missing and Kenji should've turned back immediately upon feeling on the wrong trail. rip
was about to say the same thing
Okay, let's try and clean the info because the sources are confusing as hell. I can't even confirm the "two cameras" thing.
- In 1982 there was no SOS sign. In 1987 there was. Confirmed by aerial photography from forestry services.
- It was made of clean-cut birch trees, 16-19 of them or so.
- Sources differ on whether there are birch trees in the area...
- Kenji Iwamura went missing in 1984. He had a walkman and four cassette tapes (and maybe a camera, unconfirmed).
- His family reported his disappearance and a search was organized, days to a week after he was gone.
- This search included a 30mn helicopter flight -- helicopters were expensive and budgets were low at the time.
- In 1989, the SOS sign is properly found.
- The police finds remains (possibly scattered) on site, first misidentified, corresponding to a male, same age range as Iwamura.
- The two fractures were apparently near the left shoulder and the right thigh.
- They also find belongings including toiletry (plus a good luck charm from his region), the walkman and cassette tapes and backpack.
- I can't confirm two cameras, can't confirm a small tripod, can't confirm a "human skull", can't confirm a notebook, can't even tell if there were 1 or 2 bags.
- The walkman apparently had a weak loudspeaker, it couldn't be heard beyond a few meters.
- The recorded SOS message had no background noise -- remarkable given just the wind can ruin it.
- Sources differ on the message content: whether he "met" or "saw" a helicopter and if he really said he was on top of the cliff
- Sources concur on the bamboo bushes making it really hard to go back up.
- Sources differ on whether you can escape the site just by following the river or such.
- The parents identified Iwamura's belongings and only could not confirm the voice.
I think that's pretty much all of it. Sources are all third-hand, original second-hand articles are from 1989 and in Japanese (and possibly ripe with yellow journalism). I have no idea what the police actually said, no idea what exactly was found on site and contradictory information on the recording and the site's accessibility. The only first-hand info' is the recording, the pic' of the sign and footage of objects found where again, I can't even see a single cameras.
I'll stand by my theory but this is hearsay level of reliability.
Who let the furry out of the basement 💀
@@GeneralKenobi69420It’s called logical thinking
@@spamton_main cringe
was that your theory? If not, I really want to learn what your theory is. the information you provided is already incredible. I'm sure people will understand nothing here is stable in any way, I'm just really curious.
@@spamton_main goober
The central problem with your theory is the same problem the initial rescuers of the two Tokyo hikers had. They assumed those two had made the sign. You assume Kenji was at least involved in making the sign. It's very possible, even likely, that the sign was made by OTHERs either before or after he disappeared, and those people were either never found or eventually made their way off the mountain and didn't read the news or just never came forward when their sign made headlines. If there are already two known incidents within a few years of people needing to be rescued in that exact area, and the mountain is known for having confusing trails, it's not unreasonable to propose that others have also gotten lost in that area. As far as I know from my own research into this case (I can read Japanese, though deciphering kanji on blurry 1980s scans can be tough!), there was never any analysis done on the wood itself to determine roughly when it was cut beyond noting it was done at least a couple of years before the Tokyo hikers were found.
It's also worth noting that the parents COULD NOT CONFIRM it was him on the recording; they didn't say it wasn't him. Tis can be explained by the fact that it was a cassette tape recording, he was yelling in extreme duress, and he was speaking in a very unconventional manner that is not normally done. People misidentify recordings, both audio and visual, of loved ones all the time. It's hardly proof that someone else recorded the message.
That said, I suspect the SOS sign is unrelated to Kenji. I also think there's a reasonable possibility that it was not made by people in distress at all, but was perhaps some sort of survival project done by a group of experienced hikers at some point. It's very hard to believe that even two people made it, whoever did it had to have an ax and likely ropes and other materials to move everything, and most people in genuine danger would probably rather exert their energy on something else such as finding food/water/shelter. If this was the case, it's unlikely the creators would have come forward if they even heard about it at all (this did make national news, but not everyone reads the paper) because it would be considered an embarrassment.
Something else to consider is how long it had been since he disappeared. A lot of people seem to think that without past recordings, they could recall the voice of a loved one easily. But I've had very close family members that have passed 2+ years ago, and without video or audio, I couldn't imagine their voices to save my life, no matter how much time I spent with them in the past. With the rough walkman audio and unusual emotional state he was in (a state his parents had likely never had to hear him in), after being missing for that many years it's entirely possible that his parents really couldn't remember his voice. If not just error or failing to think outside the box, this feels intentionally dramaticised to make the case sound as mysterious as possible. Which would be a shame if it were true because the story itself is already morbidly interesting.
@@BelleAn185 Exactly! The parents not being able to make a positive identification on the audio really means nothing. And honestly even if the audio were perfect, they remembered his voice very well, the speech and emotions were normal, etc... plenty of people would still hesitate to say "yes, that's my son" because it is an acknowledgment that he's dead. Seeing as the body to this day was never formally identified through labwork, I can see parents, probably unconsciously, saying they don't know if it's him or not.
And agreed. This is definitely a highly dramatized retelling of an event that's already extremely mysterious. I'm confused over how OP just zeroed in on one particular theory and ran with it while leaving out many other details readily available in English (Iwamura himself was an interesting character, and based on what the Japanese press released of his personality, it seems unlikely he'd just stay with a random fellow hiker he happened to meet on the trail). I was excited to see Nexpo cover this case but IMO he dropped the ball and just went for the drama without looking at the victim as a person and the general culture of the country it occurred in.
I feel like that theory makes a lot more sense. Occhams razor and everything: either whoever made the sign is dead (yet no other bodies were found) - or it was made by people who were alive and well, and like you said, they’d be embarrassed to come forward considering the extensive rescue efforts it resulted in. Just thank god it ended up saving those two hikers anyway.
It’s also possible that he made the sign _before_ getting injured. Although it might seem to make more sense that if he had the energy to build a large sign, then why not use that energy instead to just keep walking until you find help, but Kenji was obviously very lost and might of felt he had a better chance waiting where he is for rescue to find him (the advice now given to hikers if they ever get lost in the woods).
@@cyka666 would have to see where the bamboo areas are that he apparently got trapped in to understand the whole picture
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, you never, EVER underestimate what a person running on pure adrenaline can do.
Parents lifting cars or those horror stories from military vets purely trying to survive come to mind
while this is true for short bursts of superhuman strength, it is quite literally impossible for an injured person to make that SOS sign
@@Me12222exactly, I’ve seen like three kids say this now which annoys tf out of me for some reason lol. Also the logs were BIG and Cleanly cut which is a very easy thing to identify, it’s not a hunch or a guess it’s provable and anyone saying things like this just ignored those aspects.
@Me12222 didn't Hugh Glass get mauled by a grizzly bear and then crawl 200 miles with a broken leg?
That’s a cute sentiment but this isn’t how adrenaline works. So what you learned was wrong lol
This is next level work, never seen anything like this style. Keep it up, it’s very unique!
I've heard this story covered by so many people, but you visualized it better than anyone else. We get a real sense of what the area was like. Thanks!
if that weren't true i'd be disappointed it's once again another case that's been covered 100 times. I guess it's a good thing there aren't any new mysteries out there to cover
Why couldn't the SOS sign have been made years before Kenji got there? Maybe he saw it and decided camping there was his best chance.
It could have but why would it not have been disturbed/destroyed by storms?
@@AsphyxiaLaguzespecially given that the helicopter pilots were so impressed by it. Which also makes think that it would have been in records somewhere if another hiker had been rescued after making that sign.
@@AsphyxiaLaguz Something that big wouldn't be disturbed so easily. I live near nature reserves and when people make little forts with branches, they stay for over a year.
This is the most reasonable answer. So it’s false lol. I’m right there with you on the thinking though. But that’s not the answer we yearn for 😂
@@AsphyxiaLaguz because they're 16 feet long birch trunks stacked on each other
It s possible that the SOS sign was made by a different person at a different time. Before Kenji even got there.
Yeah. If multiple people have ventured off the trail, then multiple people, at different times, could have ended up at that clearing. That makes the most sense. In fact the different voice on the tape could be yet another lost soul. A sign should be posted at both "safe" rocks
My first thought, too. People get lost there often, it seems. Also, mountains are hard to search - the tools might be around among other stuff. But then also: the hidden stash, the bones, the helicopter, the voice etc. This is too much weirdness. I have no idea anymore...
*There is a way to determine the time the trees got cut by looking at annual rings.
Anyway, interesting story. Well told. Thank you for this.
Yeah, I think either the sign pre-dated Kenji, or he made it before he was injured.
Which would lead to another mystery of who built the SOS sign
yeah the sign can be seen in a satellite image from 1987, 2 years prior.
I am always blown away with how you can take a creepy story, and make the telling of that story into an art form in and of itself. It's incredible how good you are at this. Bravo.
Nobody ever thinking, “Hey, we should put up a sign” for the fake safe rock is insane
TNT the damn rock
They were like “Okay we named the safe rock…what should we name the bad rock?” “Fake safe rock?” “Taro…you’re a genius!”
First 3 minutes alone has given me chills. That’s how you make an enthralling intro. Truly impressive.
Literally just searched you up to find something to watch and this couldn’t have come out at a better time
lol same
Same I have been doing this all day
Ive done this countless times. Every time i think of Nexpo's vids i look it up and he uploads 😂😂😂
I love your pfp I have the same one for my email account lol
SAME!
I can't get enough of these chilling thrillers and horrors. This channel is great. I'm hooked
Never thought someone saying "Monday" could send a shiver like that through my spine
You probably get scared of Mario 64 too
@@EinSilverRose brother I'm just excited for the content
Okay, Garfield.
@@zenny410 heh, you beat me to it
I think mistery youtubers like nexpo are scum. Imagine someone making a quirky spooky video about your family member unalived
Nexpo as a layman, im kinda dissapointed you didnt delve into a few of the key details. Like
1. In the recording he mentions he met a helicopter and presumably had an exchange for a pick up location? Why didnt investigators or you look into that more?
2. You mention a hatchet, but didnt mention if investigators found hatchet marks on the trees, or if they were just previously fallen trees he rolled into locations to make the SOS
3. What leads you to believe he broke his bones prior to making the SOS? If theres no concrete timeline, wouldnt it make sense he broke his bones after making the sign once he became desperate and tried to descend the treacherous cliff he mentions in his recording?
4. All things considered the only reason to believe there was a 2nd person is that the parents didnt recognize his voice from the walkman, which who knows if it could even be discernable from a recording of a wounded, exhausted, malnourished person on a 1980's walkman
Overall I loved it, but it seems like we traded graphical story telling over research - but I cant imagine how hard it is learning Unreal Engine, and hope there doesnt have to be a trade-off in the future once you become comfortable with it
In the original reports the trees are mentioned to have been cleanly cut and moved
Someone in the comments mentioned Japanese has words that basically have no “distinction”. “Save me” and “save us” is basically the same. So is “i saw a helicopter” and “i met a helicopter”. So it’s likely he heard or saw a helicopter, screamed but the helicopter didn’t see or hear him, so he decided to record on the tape and play it in the hopes of someone or something hearing him either to save his voice or in case he ran out of energy to scream. It’s also entirely possible someone else or a group built the SOS sign before or even after him (since ppl claim helicopters fly over that area regularly, which idk if i believe that, they probably only do it when someone is reported missing and since he wasn’t reported missing by the hotel staff, it’s likely that the sign wasn’t spotted for a while bc they had no reason to fly over that area). It’s likely that the people who built that sign probably started walking again after they realized no help was coming so they might be way deeper in the forest and died there.
Another theory which i don’t really believe but could be possible is that the men they found thanks to the SOS sign maybe did build it but since they where so disoriented and confused might have not even remembered it.
Imo they should’ve just analyzed the wood. Forensics can even determine where someone was killed based on the dirt under their fingernails. Doesn’t seen that difficult to determine how long the wood has been laying there right? And i hate to say it but this probably wouldn’t have been a mystery if the hotel reported him missing after 6 hours and he probably would’ve survived too.
It was mentioned that the hole where the ID was found also had 2 cameras so that would suggest a second person.
@@fattucus1361Not necessarily. This was the 80s, so it's possible that one person may have used two cameras with different kinds of film for different situations. This was more common than you might think back then.
1. Literally nowhere is it even remotely implied he had correspondence with a helicopter and talked to a pilot or anything close to it, what??
2. He focuses an awful lot on clearing the trees, and specifically mentions that investigators also said the trees were cut and positioned and it would take 2 days to do it - why are you implying there’s some other explanation for this he didn’t mention? That’s a weird assumption to make.
3. That’s a fair point.
4. No, there’s also the missing tools to make it possible for him to have cleared the area and cut the trees down, as previously mentioned, which means a second person would have had to cut them down or taken the axe with them. It’s like you didn’t watch the video.
His death was pretty straightforward. It was a guy with clear survival knowledge, stayed in one spot, made himself a shelter(the whole in the ground), and was doing his best to make noise, which is also what the tape recorder probably was if not delerium. It is just nobody was looking for him. Japanese authorities mixing the bones up and trying to cover things up is par for the course unfortunately. They arent allowed to make mistakes even though miles and miles of bureacratic red tape make them happen all the time.
Identifying sex from bones is not a very accurate science unfortunately. It is very common for bones to be misidentified and have to be corrected later.
To be fair, it's entirely possible to misidentify bones. As any anthropologist will tell you, you can't easily identify male/female from bones, even the pelvis.
@@anzaca1 I totally agree, it is the having to cover it up because you cant be percieved as makinga mistake part that is rotton to the core.
He had no survival knowledge. That's the problem. He wasn't known to go hiking either.
There is nothing to indicate that they were hiding or covering anything up. It is true as others have pointed out that bones can be misidentified. The chain of events may be exactly as they described it. Not every incident that takes place is mired in a deep conspiracy. Often things are simply.what they are and there is no sinister cover up.
Another beautiful work of art, I just love these videos.
Let’s say the tree logs were all around 150lbs. Idk if Nexpo has ever moved tree logs before but at that weight you could definitely drag them by yourself. We also don’t know how long it took to find the logs, plus I never heard it explicitly stated these logs had felling markings consistent with being chopped down. “How else would person A get them?” Simple. Nexpo indicated this environment was “volatile”. Trees easily fall in nature during storms, and somewhat often, in fact. ESPECIALLY the lighter ones. So it’s very plausible that Type-A blood made the SOS sign by himself. Do we know Kenji’s BT? How do we know the fractures came before the SOS sign? How do we know the trees were felled and not brought down by wind? Do we know Kenji’s hobbies? Such as photography? I didn’t hear any mention about the cameras. Why was there soap, a towel, and toothpaste?
- I think, factoring in a YES answer to my above stated questions that he was type-A, was 5’3”, and obtained those fractures from some other circumstance, that he indeed definitely made that recording, and made the SOS sign by himself. Initially I also had questions with how they identified the bones, sign forensic analysis would use skeletal structures that are sex-specific like the pelvis. If there was no pelvis, the skull is also rather thicker on a man than a woman. Perhaps he got fractures at some point after he was starving, and his bones had become frail from lack of nutrition? That could take 2-4 weeks depending on his energy consumption and his weight. Again, he didn’t need tools to make that SOS sign.
- you cannot make refusals to believe a set of events in an extreme circumstance. I’ve heard people in situations say that someone they know sounds “like a completely different person” under certain factors. A life or death circumstance definitely fits those criteria. I find it very plausible that Kenji was indeed the only one there, granted the height and blood type matches records, two conveniently undisclosed pieces of information.
-If this is Japan’s strangest unsolved mystery, they need better investigators cuz Death note is really setting the bar high for me 😂
Yep you addressed the main points I was about to comment on.
@@JayIngemarwas*
@@johnapple3907 Bro is acoustic smh… But thank you.
Exactly. I love Nexpo's videos, but the way he assumes the existence of an entirely new person and vaguely alludes to a cover-up conspiracy is frustrating.
Kenji was alone, and built the sign himself with fallen trees. That's really the only explanation.
I'm always kind of grain of salt about skeletal analysis anyway unless they have they entire set and can sample the hormones ever since I heard of the Jane Doe case in the '80s where investigators were positive they were looking at the skeletal remains of a pregnant cisgender woman only to later have the case exhumed, discovering that they were actually looking at an unknown transgender woman (who obviously wasn't pregnant--and so much for the 'yoUr bOneS doN't LiE' crowd) following more specific tests that are just not often done. I don't trust the bones to be clear indicators of anything until they exhaust all options🤷♂Lots of things happen to your bones throughout your life. Hormones change the shape of them. Nutrition alters their density. It's a bit wild people put so much credence into the 'educated guess' of examiners. It probably was just Kenji there, no one else.
Besides, wouldn't a lady hiking in the mountains be a little more prepared than a bar of soap and some toothpaste? Not even a toothbrush? For real---that's man shit.
Can we appreciate the videogame level graphics in this video, rather than crappy AI garbage? This gives me hope. Thanks nexpo
maybe a small group of people got lost and built the sign, eventually leaving the area, and this dude wondered across the sign and decided it was a better bet than traversing while injured
It actually sounds like a good possibility, but I wonder why no-one spoke up about it if the previous group made it out alive, especially if the case was big enough to make it to international news. Unless that group also met their demise on that mountain, I suppose.
@@asdkotablehonestly this to me is probably the scariest outcome
It’s already scary thinking about people getting so easily lost in mountains, and a whole group would be a reminder that there’s probably hundreds of people out there still lost, their remains still possibly undiscovered in the most obscure locations
Yeah that's what I thought there maybe lost of lost bones of dead bodies that hasn't been found yet on that wide forest completely abandoned
This is some next level video excellent editing, top quality sound effects too.
I think you're missing a huge possibility here...he could have sustained the fractures AFTER building the sign.
Also, an axe isn't a requirement to take down a tree, it just makes it easier. One alternative would be to look for dead trees - you can push those down with your bare hands (I don't recommend trying it, especially with tall trees - the top could snap and fall back on you), and as a bonus, they're usually lighter than fresh wood since they've generally dried out some. I used to do this as a kid, and birch trees were especially easy do this with.
The video did mention the logs were cleanly cut though, which would contradict them being dead trees that were just pushed over
This is my biggest problem with this video right now. I was looking around at his sources as he states the logs were cleanly cut but I don't see anything mentioned about it in the sources not paywalled.
@@JamStellar this is my biggest hang up! I wish he'd point out the exact source as I've never been able to find one detailing it in the past!
Theres a pastebin link with sources in the description
@@JamStellar could also have been leftover fallen lumber from the likes of forestry[wildfire prevention] or logging.
1) Why couldn't the sign be built before injury?
2) Could "met the helicopter" be misunderstanding/mistranslating/misremembering "saw a helicopter"? I don't speak Japanese
3) Old cassette tapes sound terrible at the best of times. I wish I knew the chance of Kenji's family just not recognising his voice.
4) That double rock fakeout has to be a deliberate trap to lure unsuspecting hikers off the path.
5) If the tapes are Kenji's, and he died with them, why would a hypothetical second man not say "we"?
6) Incredible video, looked great, Nexpo always delivers.
7) Maybe the birch trees just did that.
8) Could any potential axe/tool be lost in the river after a terrible fishing attempt, or lodged in a wonded animal, or stolen by some fucking bird, or tossed in a fit of delirium or a rage?
@@ILikedGooglePlus I know Japanese, the part of the recording in the video makes no mention a helicopter. The man shouting in the recording also does not use any personal pronoun, (very common in Japanese) so it could just as easily mean help me or help us.
theres no difference between help us and help me in japanese. he could have meant either
answer to no 5. japanese relies HEAVILY on context and doesn't have pronouns like english does. so, if you want to say 'help me" or 'help us' it's the exact same phrase. if the second person does in fact exist, he could have said 'us' for all we know. but we weren't there to know for a fact that he was with another person, so we assume he said 'help me'
no 8. if the axe was thrown, i think it would've been found by that reporter considering he wanted to look for other clues in the surrounding area and he also found Kenji's bag in the ground.
maybe the birch trees just did that
It would be helpful if they reported if the trees had cut marks or were blowdowns
One theory: the SOS sign has nothing to do with Kenji. The sign was built by an unrelated person before or after Kenji died.
seems like the most logical answer to me, just as the SOS sign had nothing to do with the hikers
Yeah. No big mystery. Sometimes I can't find my axe and I know where I left it
This is exactly what I have thought. This SOS sign could have been done by someone - a group, after discovering remains and bones. Just like that, "hey, this must be the place that need to be marked! let's mark it! someone will see it" or something like that. Ofcourse, another mystery appear - why someone would not let anyone know that they constructed such landmark... but .... knowing how japanese thinking works I can imagine this happened.
It was likely built after he went missing. Japanese forestry services have the sign in aerial photographs from 1987, but not 1982, and while it's possible the forest service only does aerial surveys once every five years, if they didn't find it while they were looking for Kenji in 1984, my instinct is to say it probably wasn't there. If the bones were 1-3 years old (Nexpo never said if the age of the bones was reclassified) when they were discovered in 1989, that couldn't have been Kenji, but probably belonged to the person who built the sign.
@@tomeq82 It wouldn't surprise me if a group of locals spent a decent amount of time going down there to build the sign, knowing it was somewhere that hikers who took the wrong turn would end up.
I love the work you put in these videos nexpo absolutely brilliant but I was wondering can you continue the most darkest lost media series
The idea of making the video VHS horror game style is absolutely insane,and the graphics line up perfectly with the story,u r the goat bro
That false safe rock business pisses me off so much omg. I can't belive they STILL haven't removed it or at least marked the rocks clearly jfc
I'm trying to leave a comment like this regarding the rock issue but for some reason it gets deleted.
Probably not that easy to remove. That rock is extremely heavy and a massive amount of its size and bulk is under ground. It was also mentioned that the rock did have something to indicate it was the wrong one to follow. Further, since it is a naturally occurring part of the landscape they may not want to dig it out and impact the natural landscape. Also, it was very foggy and dark and stormy. Good chance they might have not seen the demarcation that it is the wrong one. Hiking through deep.uninhabited wilderness is an "at your own risk" type activity. There are no guarantees of safety once you are out there. It is critical that you be continually be aware of your position, your.location and your heading. You don't navigate deep wilderness as if it were a city park.
Japan has extreme respect for nature. They wouldn't just remove it. But they could at least put a sign up.
@@The-Man-On-The-Mountain youtube does that to me A LOT. My totally innocent comment just don't appear and I have no idea what I did wrong
Keep in mind that Mt. Asahi is a wilderness preserve, not some manucured city park. They're not going to destroy natural features in order to make it easier to hikers to navigate. Hikers should be prepared when entering any wilderness and that usually means bringing a map and surveying the trail instead of relying on landmarks.
"Where I first met the helicopter" feels like it was never addressed, right?? Or am I missing something
Yeah he pulled that out of nowhere
It seems like it would be due to the direct translation. Seems like he used a word that means "saw" or "met" depending on the context of the sentence, but typically is translated as met.
@@cheeseeygamer2997 ...But I think the point they're making is at no point does the story address how or when Kenji ever interacted with a helicopter.
As someone who's learning Japanese-- it was absolutely bone chilling to hear the person who made the tapes utter each syllable with such dire need in his voice. I love listening to these videos when I'm playing games and I had to pause for a moment, replay the voice, and just ponder for a minute. The way you put such an ominous atmosphere in these videos are absolutely amazing, keep up the great work.
Just a silly theory that can probably be refuted: the SOS sign could have been made by another group of hikers who got lost and were able to leave the Mt. on their own, leaving the sign and not giving testimony when the case was famous.
Man, the case is soooooo strange
The remains are puzzling, but the SoS was definitely made by a group before whoever died there stumbled onto it. Once something like that is made it's not going away and whoever did it knew it would help who ever would be stuck there in the future.
I would like to think that who ever made it just forgot that they did, because they didnt do it out of urgency but because they could. If it was something serious and out of urgency you don't tend to forget.
This was along the lines of my thinking. Maybe it wasn't all built by one single lost hiker. Maybe it was happened upon in fragments by different groups/individuals who all worked to complete it.
Why wouldn't they come forward once the story became famous in the news?
@@miguelzurita3216land survery records indicate that it showed up around the time the man went missing
@@WeGoToMars yea this was my only issue
Considering all of the evidence -- including things that aren't mentioned in the video -- the incident is made much less mysterious.
As other people have suggested, it's unclear when the bone fractures occurred. They could have happened before or after the SOS sign was built. Hell, they could have been caused by the animals that chewed on his bones. Brown bears live in the area, and they certainly have the strength.
While Unreal Engine made the video a lot more engaging, it also leads to misinformation. According to the evidence, 19 birch trees were used to make the SOS sign. In Nexpo's video, while he mentions the number 19, he showed 16 logs, neatly laid out digital-clock style. Simple math shows that the sign didn't look like that. Now, I'm not saying that this tears apart his whole video, or whatever -- it obviously doesn't. It's just misleading. Not Nexpo's fault, necessarily; reconstructions are going to be imperfect. However, he does leave out key pieces of evidence, which causes misinterpretations of its own.
Allow me to make a simple explanation that fits the available evidence. Kenji Iwamura chooses to go on an ill-advised hike in the mountains. He gets lost. He comes across a clearing, and cleverly decides to make a sign. What from? The fallen birch trees nearby. He doesn't need an axe or a similar implement. He just needs to drag trees around. He shelters in a hole, shouting out every so often. At some point, he records himself for some reason that makes sense to him at the time. Sadly, he passes away in the hole. Bears find him, and do what bears do.
Five years pass.
The sign remains visible throughout, but nobody is looking for it; it's in a remote location, and relatively small. (Even so, the sign is there; it's visible in aerial photos taken in 1987, but not 1982.) Then, in mid-1989, two men get lost in the same area. The sign is finally spotted, and the two men are found. Kenji's remains are discovered around the sign, and soon afterward, so are his possessions. Later on, the recording of his shouting is played to his parents. They listen to this recording, one that's been in the elements for half a decade. Unlike what this video suggests, Kenji's parents are unable to definitively say whether it is or isn't their son.
Is this how things actually happened? Hell if I know. But it fits available facts. There are details that remain unclear (why the recording was made, and what he intended it to mean, most notably), but that doesn't detract from things. A certain metaphorical razor tells us that we shouldn't make theories more complex than they need to be.
the japanese translation is also wrong and misrepresented. pronouns aren't mandatory in japanese language, you don't say "help me" you just say "help" and the me is understood implicitly. its a pretty basic fact about japanese you can figure out with one google search so its a bit annoying
The only thing that confuses me is doesn't the tape recording say something about a helicopter? If Kenji wasn't lost at the time of the other hikers' helicopter rescue, then what helicopter is the tape referring to? That's the only thing that seems mysterious to me here, all things considered.
This should be the top comment. These are exactly my thoughts after watching it. I feel like for a Nexpo video, this was uncharacteristically lazy with the writing and overall "story". There really wasn't much here, and he just seemed to be grasping at straws to wrap something up in a neat tight bow, regardless that there were other, more realistic explanations for what was happening. Hell, I watch a ton of Bushcraft and survival videos and he made a LOT of assumptions about the abilities of someone in that environment and what would be physically possible for someone, etc. Some more research prior would've done this video a lot of justice.
@@universeobserver3710 Kenji went missing in 1984; the two men got lost in 1989. I presume that when the former was reported missing, a copter searched for him, and for whatever reason, failed to spot him or the SOS. (Bad weather? Carelessness? No idea.)
Right? It seemed as if the mention of a helicopter is blatantly ignored in the investigation.
In my opinion, if he did actually see a helicopter pass by it would make sense for him to find hope in creating an sos sign. He gets stranded, spots a helicopter flying over him, chases it back to somewhere where the Sasas were all while shouting for help, but ultimately fails to catch the attention of the helicopter. He realizes he can’t be screaming all the time cause it’s wasting energy so he records that voice tape to replay over and over again. He thinks to himself, okay, this place is clearly going to get flown over again by helicopter soon so he rolls some fallen birch branches to create an SOS sign in hopes of him being spotted the next time a helicopter passes. He makes a hole to keep his belongings safe & decides to stay near his sos sign until help arrives. Help never arrives, he dies alone, is spotted by wild animals, ravaged and those animals create the fractures he has on his bones. I feel like it’s a better explanation that Nexpo doesn’t consider
I just can’t get over the fact that there is a “Fake Safe Rock” 😂 like, maybe we could have devised a more reliable failsafe? Or maybe a sign?
I don't know how you made this video, but you did, and it's incredible! Everything about the videography and animation is stunning!
The weight doesn't matter much since logs roll, but even if they were lifted most people would choose to move one side and then the other. A single person lifting one side of a log would be carrying half of its weight at most, and they would probably choose smaller ones to make the job easier, so you're looking at around 75 pounds? That's like... an average 10 year old. Even as a 5'3" woman, this would be no problem at all.
Its a very strange mystery, but one thing I don't quite understand about the voice recording is the person speaking references meeting a helicopter, yet Kenji wasn't reported missing for about a week after he disappeared.
This presumably means the voice isn't his or he survived for far longer than expected, long enough to spot a rescue helicopter.
It would seem others would have to be involved, but as you touched upon it seems bizarre not to mention their existance.
I don't really have any likely theories, my only other reading of the SOS is that a helicopter did make contact with them and for whatever reason couldn't get them, so left in order to return later and whatever reason didn't, but even that seems massively far fetched.
Another strange thing is that it was mentioned that bones belong to a person that died 1-3 years before, and if we assume that the bones belong to Kenji it would mean that he survived 2-4 years as he went missing 5 years prior.
The part of the recording played in the video does not actually mention a helicopter.
"エ・ス・オ・ウ・エ・ス・タ・ス・ケ・テ・ク・レ・ス・リ・ア・ゲ・テ・ク・レ"
Directly translated the meaning is something like "SOS, do help", with each mora punctuated with a pause. Also in Japanese personal pronouns are not really used so this could really just as easily mean either "help me" or "help us".
If he heard a helicopter it could be a helicopter flying for any other random reason than a rescue mission, it's not like rescue searches are the only reason helicopters are ever flown.
Honestly, the police probably got this one right. The dude got lost in the storm, built the sign, recorded a message for some reason and hurt himself along the way, most likely after or while building the sign. As presented in the video, bone identification is really inaccurate. His voice might be different because he is shouting and trying to sound clear while he is exhausted and worn out.
@@crackedkisyushka Simple, bone identification is very inaccurate and many factors could lead to inconsistent aging.
@@crackedkisyushka True, perhaps multiple people disappeared in the same area over the years?
After all the story starts with missing hikers being found nearby completely unrelated to the sign or the body.
yeah you would think the police would've focused on this detail. I imagine helicopter traffic would've been logged somewhere for safety reasons. But if the scenario you proposed is true where a rescue helicopter tried but failed to pick them up initially (maybe they were not in a spot that they could land safely), then the pilot/s never reported the hikers as missing.
i love that you don’t just talk you add the graphics and details. you make everything so much more eerie i love it
I love your videos man.....the sound design...the retro vibe.....the effort you put in them.....and your voice ....truly an experience ....
As someone who has studied recognising sex from bones (wrote my thesis in university about it), it's completely possible to get the wrong sex if there is no pelvis. The bone measurements are compared to other bone measurements which have a known sex and if the sample happens to have big males and big females it's completely possible for the bones of a smaller man to register as female. It becomes even more problematic if the collection used isn't of the same ethnicity/population the one being tested belongs to, some population have bigger and some smaller sexual dimorphisim. To get accurate results there needs to be big sample sizes of all different ethnicities and populations (as time also changes the results). For example currently in America the computer program Fordisc 3 is used in forensics to recognise the sex, and it's really accurate for Euro and African Americans, less so for other ethnicities. In Fordisc it's possible for the bones of the same person register as both male and female, especially if the person being tested isn't a modern American. When I did my own tests small male bones had more chances of being wrong (I only tested few characteristics) than big female ones. It's all basically mathematics in the end and reality doesn't always work as maths tells us. (sorry for bad English, I'm not a native speaker, it's also been years since I was in university so I might have gotten details wrong or explained bad).
I lived in Asahikawa for over a year, and I highly doubt the medical institute’s credibility. Asahikawa is a small city in the middle of the countryside, and likely doesn’t have very high quality equipment or professionals when compared to other parts of Japan.
Doesn't mean much education isnt going to be any different than anywhere else. When it comes to resources that's where you could be right.
determining sex solely off of old remains is also not a cut and dry thing, reclassification is not uncommon
@@HeatherMason-fi1qr especially if power pressure is making you think that they are what they say they are.
If I gave you some bones and told you what I think and what others think chances are you are going to say I see that too. If they had a skull(which I don't think they had Dental records could've helped
@@miguelzurita3216 I’m sorry my phrasing may not have been the best, but yes, human resources is what I was referring to.
The sign was made roughly 2-3 years after kenji went missing, a likely theory for the S.O.S. being recorded was that he was delirious and thought he was using a walkie-talkie
Interesting choice to scream into a walkie-talkie while enunciating every syllable to be clearly heard over a long distance.
I just found this channel and am amazed at the quality and production? Wow, good job to all who worked on this
I keep seeing comments about how Kenji likely sustained the bone fractures after building the sign, but I feel like we’re overlooking the fact that these bones suffered under “volatile” weather conditions and scavenging animals for FIVE YEARS.
Isn’t it entirely possible that these fractures occurred over time due to the elements?
It certainly is. Plus, depending on the expertise, tools and technology available, errors can very easily be made. Especially for bones left out in the wild for that long.
Bones that break after death, especially long after death have different breakage patterns than what happens while a person is alive, tending to have jagged edges at the break since the tissue has dried out postmortem, whereas living tissue will have more clean and sharp fractures. If a few days went by before he died there could have even been evidence of the tissue healing itself.
I think medical technology in 1989 was advanced enough to tell the difference.
Like the other guy mentioned, they were probably capable of telling the difference.
@@wheedlerApparently not advanced enough to tell the gender, though. Considering how botched the initial investigation was with the remains they found, it’s possible they simply got it wrong like the bones’ gender as well. There was a similar issue with another case where two women went missing during a hike around the 2010s and their bones were discovered, where investigators initially thought one of them broke their leg during their hike, but they were never able to conclusively figure out if it was broken before or after they died because of the intense amount of weathering and animals chewing on the bones.
There is a certain point where it’s difficult to determine how/when a bone is broken, especially if it’s left exposed to the elements over the course of several years. I wouldn’t be too quick to believe their bone was broken while they were alive.
I swear i can't get enough of your videos ! Keep up the good work my friend and a massive thanks to you.
10:34 The heck happened to your left eye, dude?!? 😮
Making a video using 3D renders of the areas your talking about and also narrating beautifully is insane, this is a great introduction to this channel.
Honestly this is one of his poorer quality videos. The information and sources lack the depth they usually have. Go look at his past videos, those are the real good ones
I saw this covered on Barely Sociable. It still crosses my mind every now and again, and that recording haunts my memory. It's absolutely unsettling.
so THATS where I remember this story
I knew I had heard this stuff before, that’s where
The worst thing about getting lost in the woods is that is becomes a literal Maze. Even if they try to add roadmarks sometimes roadmarks will blend in with previous roadmarks causing your brain to think youre going in circles (even if you are not). The best thing is having actual maps posted periodically with a "you are here" arrow. Nobody will get lost.
Do you know this from experience? I ask because it sounds like it and is interesting. Would you comment your story? It could help some other people avoid the same mishap or atleast be aware of it. ❤
I've found myself turned around and lost in my local woodlands a few times, and this isn't like the deep dark woods this is a fairly small area of woodland that's a popular walking spot but I've still managed to end up unable to get back onto the main trail to the carpark.
@@santsi7306 Yes, I almost got lost at the Goat Rock hiking trail. No service and the sun was setting while I was deep inside the trail. I began panicking however, I trusted God foremost and my gut feeling. Always trust your first thoughts because they come from intuition which is what can save you in a moment like this. Overthinking will absolutely make you lost. During this trail a very similar thing occured where two trail marks are so identical that you begin to doubt and that's when you begin panicking which can cause you to go in circles even more before it's too late and now its nighttime and you are screwed. Just keep walking and trusting the markers if they are any. If all is lost try to make it onto a pubic road and avoid any trails that seem maintained but are unmarked. Water often tends to flow downhill after winter making these "trails" that lead to nowhere but deep woods.
Hello ryan my name is Cloud, and I’ve recently begun watching your content. I must say, I’ve managed to watch all of your videos in quite a short span of time, 😅 and I’m thoroughly impressed with your work. It’s clear how much effort you put into your channel.
My favourite video of yours is the one about Smart Schoolboy 9. I genuinely couldn’t sleep for days after 😭watching it-it was that gripping! I do hope you’ll consider making a part two, as there have been some new developments surrounding the case.
Wow, I’ve watched Nexpo for many years and I can definitely say that this episode is a masterpiece. The mystery, the atmosphere, narration, pacing, visual effects… everything. Well done man.
It's a death funnel. Many hikers making the same mistake all ending at the same place. The SOS sign was probably made by many different people over time. Probably started by the 1st and added on to by the others who came across it seeing it as a landmark. They all probably became trapped by the SOS sign. Believing it to be a place where people have been rescued before in the past.
But why would only one body be found? If this was a death funnel, why aren't there any other remains. Even with erosion and other natural things that would move bones around, there would still be evidence of other bodies
@@Arlothed1noTo add to that……. Wouldn’t erosion have moved at least some of the logs away from their intended spot? If ppl who are lost are placing just one or two logs in place and then leave
@@taebundy658where some logs rotting and others weren’t? That would indicate it being added too. You can tell the difference between when some were cut down.
It's interesting that no one thought to try and age the birch trees by tree-ring dating. This would at least give an indication of which year the trees were cut.
Thank you!!!!
It would tell us how old the trees were when cut, not how long ago they were cut. Stay in school, little buddy 👍
@@austins.2495tree ring dating uses geographical data for the area to determine what year the rings correspond to, so yea it can tell which year or approximate year the tree was cut, little buddy
@@cosmemi thanks for clearing that up. The audacity of some ppl...
your videos and editing skills are spectacular. you basically make documentaries at this point, I love it
it is important to note that if these birch logs were 16 ft long they couldve been already cut by some sort of logging operation since most saw timber logs are cut 16 feet long
Wouldn't logs like that be cut perfectly cleanly, not as if cut by a hand tool? Wouldn't there be other logs not used in the sign left over nearby? It should be possible to tell if logging happened in that area, anyways - they have aerial photos and everything.
The thing that confused me the most is that in the tape, he says something about meeting a helicopter? Did I miss something, or was that never brought up again?
I don't speak Japanese but judging from the comments left by people who do. The word that he used could also mean "saw". So he probably meant that he "saw" a helicopter.
You popped up on my feed today and I took a chance. I absolutely loved it! You are very talented and told the story with utmost respect.
There are a few RUclipsrs that I follow that I create individual playlists for so I can watch their content when I am in the mood and you sir just made me create a new playlist. I look forward to watching every video.
the music at the end of these videos is so comforting
Buddy! A present to US on YOUR Birthday?!?
WHAT THAT'S CRAZY WE HAVE THE SAME BDAY I'M PUMPED
Theres a star maaan
I feel bad he has a huge black eye on his birthday...
@@markjackson3531i think its a birthmark. he has it in other videos
My explanation for this is that--
1. The SOS sign might have been built way before Kenji ever got there. Maybe another lost group of hikers who found their way out by themselves, and left it there.
2. It's possible that after being in the elements for so long, the cassette tape somewhat degraded and that's why his voice wasn't recognizable.
3. The bones were probably just bad forensic work, I've heard it's hard to tell apart male/female skeletons sometimes. Once they had a clear lead they re-examined them.
If other people built the SOS sign then why have they never come forward after the fact? Why are there no records of people being rescued from that area before? Did the people who made it simply disappear and NEVER BREATH A WORD about what happened?
And if they didn't make it out, then why were there no bone, no belonging, no evidence that anyone was there before Kenji?
it's a little poetic in a way that despite the sign not saving kenji, or whoever made it, it still ended up saving someone somehow
I feel like a strong possibility you're omitting is that the SOS sign also predates Kenji. Since Kenji and the rescued duo of hikers both ended up there, who's to say more haven't in the past?
That's a strong possibility. If the rock leading the wrong way was so commonly mistaken for the right one, it's likely many went down that way by mistake. Assuming they did so in groups, they probably found a way out together. But solo hikers would struggle if disoriented
I feel like it's unlikely, because the SOS sign was placed across a small river. Most people lost out there would have no reason to cross that river, because there's no river to cross on the original path, so it would clearly only take you further from the path. However, in the recording, Kenji's voice had given out and he states that he saw a helicopter, indicating that he was likely running after and yelling for the helicopter. The helicopter likely went out past the river, leading to Kenji running across the river in chase.
No other lost hikers would ever have a reason to cross that river.
There’s no evidence that the sign predates him. The earliest record of its existence was September 20th, 1987, 3 years, 2 months after kenji went missing and 2 years before it was found.
1) The sign can be seen from satelite data. A range of time of a few months where it's not there and it's there coincinde with Kenji going missing.
2) Voice quality on the tape sound terrible, also, he was screaming, not speaking. Hence why familly might not recognize his voice, we are more used to hear our familly talk than scream, and we do sound different while screaming our lungs out.
3) Injury can have happened AFTER sign was built, maybe even during it (tree falling on him), and maybe it's the reason he died there and did not try to keep going.
4) The log don't have to be carried, they can be draged, or rolled. Weight doesn't really matter that much.
5) Everyone is looking for "an axe" but I've read nothing about the actual "cut" mark on the trees. Are they actually cut by an axe ? Or maybe a saw ? And if it was a handsaw, from a multitool or something, it can explain why he carried one, it could have broke at one point, and then left where it broke, and then rusted away over the years, hence why it was never found.
6) Police wont identify the bones as Kinji's cause they have no concrete proof, knowing what happen and prooving what happen are two different things. No conspiracy there.
7 As you can gather, I strongly disagree with Nexpo's conclusion, I think occam's razor apply quite well.
I'm currently trying to find the exact spot on Google maps satellite, is there any coordinates? I don't see why you wouldn't be able to see these giant birch logs 30 years later. They take a long time to completely decompose.
@@Boogmon my best guess is around 43.61832655171019, 142.8466124613505, proximity to the river, and the same "brown shape" as in the aerial photograph we have of the sign at the time. Can't see anything on any google earth history data though. But it would make sense sign was cleared out after a bit so future search party wouldn't get confused by it.
You can find what looks like a pile of logs down the slope at 43°37'10.21"N 142°50'43.17"E especially on the pictures from 25/06/2014 if you look back in history. The area (brown shape of wetland) looks similar to the one in the old aerial photos, and it's closed to the river. It would make sense actual sign was clearup after they found it in order to not confuse future search parties.
I think it is an Occam's razor scenario. I don't think he built the SOS sign. I think it's way more likely he stumbled upon it on accident in this clearing and decided to camp out and wait for help. We don't know who built the SOS, but it makes sense that one would be there considering it's in a big clearing next to a popular mountain trail.
When it comes to who made it, it makes the most sense to just say someone put it there for future hikers. Whoever made it just forgot or was probably not even local I doubt someone died there after making it or was lost. It had to have been someone with experience who found the clearing and thought it would be a good way to help people. If Kenshi had no experience I doubt he would've been the one to make it, and if he is injured and panicked he wouldn't have even thought of it.
i swear these videos always give me a chill down my spine when i watch them. cant wait for the next one
Cold Cases always have an essence of dreadful mystery to them, especially those that revolve around disappearances. Imagine getting lost in the woods and dying alone in the dark, only for your remains to be discovered so badly damaged that they're misidentified. The best case scenario is that those are Kenji's remains and his family was given closure, followed by the worst case in that those are someone else's unidentified bones and Kenji's either abandoned in the woods, or they never found his body.
I feel like splitting the 2 people at the end at different times makes more sense. An uninjured more prepared hiker with a presumed axe would have extra provision and built the sign. He saw a rescue helicopter and chased it or left knowing it'll never come back. Then kenji, injured, found the sos sign and rested there, stashed his bag close.
Your narration style, and tone is brilliantly suited for the macabre/creepy stories. The ambience produced, makes it so much more immersive! Kudos, brother!
Great channel , great peesentation in the videos, great topics. This is one of my favorite channels.
Great audio mix man! Those knocks freaked the freak out of me man
Something I found really misleading and kind of disingenuous was that Nexpo makes a big deal about the maximum total weight of the logs. Astonished that a woman could lift THREE TONS. I'm sure he doesn't believe anyone could really lift 3 tons but it's actually fairly simple for any woman to lift 150 pounds, which was the lower weight of the logs that was displayed. With fractured bones? No, that would be a different story, but the odd insistence on the upper weifht limit seemed very weird to me ... Like .. it's really obvious that no one except Superman is lifting 3 tons, so why even act like that figure is relevant? Why not stick to the weight of the logs themselves instead of the group as a whole?
Yeah it's a weird thing to focus on
because there really isnt a mystery here. it was probably a man not a woman the same man on the recording and im sure the recording was shit and the man was panicked and hurt causing his voice to change and his parents to not recognize him. , and he probably moved the logs without broken bones one at a time and then ran out of food and water and then got injured and died. occams razor the simple theory is usually the correct one. thats why the case is closed now its only a mystery if you make assumptions about things that probably didnt happen
You don't even need to lift them either, just push and roll them.
@@piprod01 The logs and the SOS sign was after all at the bottom of a valley - rolling logs downwards takes little effort.
In fairness, not any woman nor man for that matter can easily lift 150 lbs, even with proper technique involved. Taking this into account, the overall point he was trying to highlight is that someone with fractured bones should have been completely unable to collectively carry 3 tons worth of logs. There was nothing misleading or disingenuous about it, rather it'd be more correct to say the way he introduced the point was confusing is all, which is very different.
I really really love the new unreal engine and other renders and editing in this video. It adds so much, it's beautiful.
UE has become such an incredible tool for creative people. It's very intuitive and easy to use, which is unique for a game engine. You no longer need years of study and industry experience to even touch such a complex piece of software. Even with only basic knowledge and store-bought assets you can create incredible works for visualization and art, and of course interactive pieces and games if you have the knowledge. Coupled with Blender, Natron and Wax you can create a lot of amazing stuff, all for free. Screw adobe and their overpriced BS. With all the free/open-source options out there, it's never been easier to put your dreams on the screen.
dude this looks soo much like a video game with a good story
PERFECT background audio for my workout, glad i saw this in my recommendations! Thank you Nexpo!
Imma just say it cause I NEED IT TO COME BACK, *why do we not get the Nexpo intro anymore*
it really got me into the vibe of a Nexpo video, like somehow the intro took away everything that was happening IRL and fully immerses me, without the intro a Nexpo video just doesn't give the same vibes :(
I don’t want to nitpick, but trees are often found dead from beetlekill or fires. They’ll just be laying on ground… otherwise known as “deadfall.”
And while it varies from tree to tree, while it might overall weigh 400 pounds, it doesn’t take nearly as much force to roll that tree in to place; or pick up one end and angle it to the location you want.
He specifically said that they were cut.
@@TheCrimsonS4gehe’s making that up. He isn’t relying on very many sources and is speculating throughout.
@@Tymannosourus so its purely coincidence that all the logs were the same length?
@@mr_mickel were they though, exactly?/ That could have been just an estimate. The one single picture we have of the SOS is a distant, blurry aerial view
So I've not watched this channel for a couple years now (probably last thing I've watched prior was about the Elan school).
And wow. The production quality was real good in prior videos, but now its straight up some of the best you can find, my expectations are blown out of the water. Thank you for creating such great content, Nexpo.
The renders are crazy on this one....The unreal engine is truly unreal with your stuff!!!!
I love you so much nexpo. your work has gotten me and my cousin through so much. I cannot comprehend that this content is free.
Appreciate the support friend 🖤
@@Nexpo no problem man, you genuinely are something special
What are the
Hey Google end text speech undo comment
@@lpc9929 Oh no way it's scented candle dude