E Migratorious

On the morning of September 16th, 1994, the police department of Cold Spring, NY received a bizarre call. Two hikers beginning the first leg of the Breakneck Ridge Trail a few miles north of town had witnessed a group of eight individuals milling about on the gravel utility road near the shore of the Hudson River. They described the group as consisting of two well dressed men watching over what appeared to be six “disheveled children”.

The hikers, from a distance, watched as the children darted around on the gravel, often times on all fours, whooping and hollering “...As if they were animals”. The two adult individuals stood near a dark blue, windowless van, occasionally gesturing towards the children when they began rough-housing with one another, but otherwise remaining passive much of time. The scene was strange enough to convince the two to cancel their plans, drive back into town and make a call to inform the authorities of the strange sight they had come across.

Officer Greg Pierse was first to respond to the call and to arrive at the scene. He approached the pair on foot and when asked for identification, the taller of the two extremely pale men handed over a small laminate card with unrecognizable symbols covering it. He informed Officer Pierse that these children were “The best and brightest of them all” and were being taken to a day camp for special children.

Any questions regarding the state of the children's appearances, their erratic behavior or who their parents were was met with either total silence or bizarre deflections.

Officer Pierse called for backup and both men were taken into custody on suspicion of kidnapping, along with the six children. The arresting officers met no resistance from the men, while the children proved extremely difficult, one nearly biting off an officer's index finger.

All audio and video recordings of the questioning (done by Officer Pierse, at his insistence) of John Doe A have been lost due to flooding in Cold Spring in 2011. However, this small portion of the written transcript has survived. John Doe B was never questioned.

JDA = John Doe A

OGP = Officer Greg Pierse

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JDA: “As I said, we assist the children who are the best and the...”

OGP: “''Yes sir, we are well aware of what you claim your job is. What I need to know right now is what your name is, whose children those are and where were'' (inaudible).”

JDA: “''Camp. A special camp. A place for the children that are the best and brightest. Don't you want that for them, officer? To be made into something greater?''”

OGP: “''What camp? Where? It ain't that camp up by Lake Surprise, they're closed this time of year.''”

JDA: JDA is silent for a few seconds “''It's far, too far, but we make the journey all the same. Have you ever seen those Passenger Pigeon migrations Officer Pierse? They blot out the sun for hours at a time.''”

OGP: “Let's stay focused here, I need you to give me more before we can move on.”

JDA: JDA remains silent for approximately one minute, turning his head right, before turning back to make eye contact with OGP

JDA: “''They will be allowed to catch Dutroux. His methods are too harmful and his compulsions have taken priority over (inaudible) beta .''”

OGP: “''Dutroux? We'll look into that name. Now what about your name?''”

JDA: “''Blot out the sun, like a living eclipse. Loose feathers falling like snow.'' “

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Based on testimony of officers on duty that day and those who watched the subsequent recordings, the interview continued on in that manner, no further information concerning the identity of anyone involved nor their actual intentions was given. John Doe A and B were placed in holding cells over night (John Doe B's interview was unusually held off until the next morning).

Immediately following the two John Does being taken into custody, Cold Spring PD called in Child Protective Services to help interview the children who had been transported to a recently shuttered day care center.

The two counselors brought in immediately discovered two salient facts; all six children (four boys, two girls, all approximately seven to nine years old ) were completely non-verbal and none seemed to recognize or understand the working of basic, every day objects, such as a telephone, television or light switch. Even disregarding their unruly behavior, any traditional interview process was impossible. They also did not match the descriptions of any missing children in the national database.

The children were later transported by CPS and State Police to a children's group home near Albany.

The van's exterior and interior was dusted for prints and dozens of photos were taken, but all prints and negatives have subsequently gone missing, possibly due to the actions of Greg Pierse.

The following morning, without going through any proper channels, Officer Greg Pierse released the two as yet unidentified men in what was described as an attempt to “See who they talk to and see where they go”. Their van remain impounded. The chief of Cold Spring PD would later claim he had threatened Greg Pierse with disciplinary action and possible criminal charges, but was never able to see them through.

At 10:36AM on September 17th, John Doe A and B stepped out of the front doors of the Cold Spring Police Station, walked three blocks south, out of view, and vanished.

The only reported sighting of them after leaving the station was six hours later by three men sailing past Bannerman Island in the Hudson River. They reported two pale, well dressed men standing on the narrow eastern shore, away from the castle ruins, looking straight up into the sky for the entire period they were visible.

Without any further sightings and no hits from their fingerprints in the FBI database, the case appeared functionally cold only a week in.

The following day, Officer Pierse failed to show up for his morning shift and all calls to his home went unanswered. An officer was sent to his place of residence east of town, near Fahnestock State Park. With his vehicle in the driveway and no one answering the door, the officer let himself into the raised ranch style home, fearing a medical emergency or foul play. The house was bereft of furniture, appliances, anything that would indicate it was recently occupied. When a full investigative team was called in and the attic was searched, they discovered, hidden between the layers of exposed insulation, 238 VHS and Betamax tapes. The tapes contained, what one FBI investigator later called, “The largest collection of snuff films ever uncovered by any law enforcement agency on earth.”

Almost every conceivable act that could be perpetrated on a human body were present in the hundreds of hours of footage collected, though the majority involved minors. The footage seemed to vary in age from the very recent (based on the attire and background clues) to two of the tapes appearing to be transfers from early nitrate film reals approximately seventy years old.

None of this initially made any sense to investigators as Officer Pierse had been an exemplary, if private, officer. With this discovery and his disappearance though, a massive investigation was launched. Calls were made to emergency contacts and friends, only to discover that not a single person contacted had ever heard of him. His diploma from officer training school and transfer papers to the Cold Spring precinct were, when examined by federal investigators, found to be excellent forgeries.

All traces of the man claiming to be Greg Pierse were complete fabrications, his very existence seemingly created out of whole-cloth.

Greg Pierse's prints were discovered days later on the gate to the impound lot where the van belonging to John Doe A and B had been melted down to slag by the application of a large amount of military grade thermite. He had also raided the Cold Spring PD evidence locker, where a number of confiscated items belonging to the suspects were removed.

Local, state and federal law enforcement spent months attempting to track down “Greg Pierse” and John Doe A and B with nothing but crank calls and dead end leads to guide them. Internal documents, later released by FOIA request, showed that the working theory at the bureau was that Greg Pierse had been placed in the Cold Spring PD by some unknown party to act as damage control and cleanup for whatever it was the two unidentified men were involved with. As this was the waning days of the so-called “Satanic Panic”, cult activity was seriously considered, but eventually ruled out when nothing even remotely pagan or occult was found in relation to the case.

The case was abruptly closed six months later after the discovery of Greg Pierse's body on Knight Island State Park in Lake Champlain, NY in a park bathroom stall. His body had been completely exsanguinated and a number of organs had been surgically removed before death. Of special interest was the recent tattoo above his left shoulder blade. It read:

ACQUISITION BATCH CONSIGNMENT EPSILON

M E A T

Beneath was a series of unknown symbols, believed to be similar to those seen on John Doe A and B's “business cards”.

The Department of Justice stepped in and swiftly closed the case within days of the positive identification of the body. All evidence in federal custody was ordered destroyed. Memos sent to Cold Spring PD made clear that all forward facing discussions of the case were to cease immediately and permanently.

All six children recovered on that mid-September day were eventually institutionalized when it became clear that whatever had occurred to them made it functionally impossible for them to integrate into society. All remain nonverbal to this day.