July 10, 1958. Monterey County, California. 26-year old First Lieutenant Paul Whipkey leaves Fort Ord, the Army base where he is stationed. When he fails to return, he is declared AWOL before being declared a “deserter” 30 days later. Five weeks after he went missing, Whipkey’s abandoned car is discovered nearly 500 miles away in a remote section of Death Valley. Since Whipkey’s body cannot be found, the Army believes he suffered a mental breakdown and wandered into the desert and died. However, Whipkey’s family discovers troubling discrepancies to make them suspect the Army staged his disappearance. In 1982, Whipkey’s status is officially changed to “died in the line of duty”, but he is never found and the full truth about what happened to him is not revealed. Could Whipkey have been recruited by the CIA and sent on a secret mission? Or was his disappearance connected to a previous assignment involving atomic testing? We shall explore all the different potential scenarios as we cover a bizarre military-themed mystery on this week’s edition on “The Path Went Chilly”.

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