Featured Image Credit: Family handout
Topics: Photography, Social Media, World News, Hawaii
Kit Roberts
Topics: Photography, Social Media, World News, Hawaii
A man who hasn't been since going hiking up the 'Stairway to Heaven' took a photo which could hold the key to his disappearance.
On February 27 2015, a teenager named Daylenn Pua took to the steps of a hiking trail in Hawaii - known as the Haiku Stairs or 'Stairway to Heaven' - and since that day, the 17-year-old has never been seen again.
Daylenn was in Hawaii visiting his grandmother when he decided to make the trip up the stairs.
The steps were built in World War Two to provide access to US navy communication facilities on the island of Oahu. This was constructed following concern for Hawaii after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, which brought the US into the war.
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The path consists of '3,922 steps across the Ko'olau range' and not only this, but it's actually 'illegal' - trespassers at risk of being fined a ticket worth $700 if caught on the trail, Oahu Hike states.
It explains: "The stairs have to be accessed after trespassing behind Haiku neighborhood."
And what's more, the stairs are 'weathered and sometimes not trustworthy' the hike a tricky 'continuous and steep path'.
So why do people try and climb the stairway? Well, the site notes it leads to a spot which provides what are 'easily the best views across Oahu'.
Despite his grandma warning him against the trip, Daylenn went anyway, making sure to keep in communication with his grandma, sending her photographs of himself along the way.
However, he never returned home.
An enormous search party was launched to find him, including US navy drones and among the evidence was the photos he had sent to his family while on the hike.
This is where things get creepy.
That's because when you zoom in on the photos, you can clearly make out the figure of someone - or something - crouching down in the undergrowth.
It's not known who this person was, or why they were in that location.
It could be something innocuous like a fellow hiker relieving themselves in the bushes, but it could also point to something far more sinister.
There's no mistaking it either, there is very clearly a figure crouching in the pictures.
Pua has now been missing for nine years, and what happened to him remains a mystery.
As he was never found, there's no way to know if he is alive or dead, and if he has died then what caused his death.
But it difficult not to creeped out by the sight of the mysterious figure following him up the stairway on a hike from which he would never return.
Could it have something to do with his disappearance?