Everett Ruess found?

[kaptain]

Another chapter in the mystery of Everett Ruess
Jul 02 08 - 07:30 AM

A new chapter is being added to one of the enduring mysteries of the Canyon Country, the fate of Everett Ruess. And this chapter has a San Juan County connection.

Ruess, a gifted and adventurous youth renowned for his writings and art, simply vanished in the canyon country in 1934, at the age of 20. His whereabouts have been the topic of much speculation in the subsequent 74 years. Despite years of search, the desert has not given up its secret about the fate of Ruess.

Now, a Bluff resident is dedicated to investigating the possibility that Ruess was murdered in San Juan County. Dennison

[CarpeyBiggs]

Wow. I am skimming over old posts from the summer when I missed alot of the action. Never saw this.

Any Reuss fans know if anything came of this? Also, very interested in finding a good book about him. Is vagabond for beauty a good one? Or are the collection of journals preferable?

[RedMan]

CarpeyBiggs,

Its a good book, have it sitting on my shelf.
There are two others. All worth reading.
Pretty interesting story. One that makes you go searching for
more info.

[ratagonia]

CarpeyBiggs,

Its a good book, have it sitting on my shelf.
There are two others. All worth reading.
Pretty interesting story. One that makes you go searching for
more info.

What are the other two books you found good?

T

[Mtnman1830]

Dunno how I missed this topic either.

I read Vagabond for Beauty last summer. Pretty good book.

[Iceaxe]

It's official... Everertt Ruess has been found....

DNA results may have solved 75-year-old Utah mystery
By Ben Fulton
The Salt Lake Tribune

He was a 20-year-old California native whose love for Utah's redrock country, longing for solitude and vivid prose fueled the imaginations of environmentalists, artists and writers from Wallace Stegner to Jon Krakauer.

Now, 75 years after he last was seen near Escalante in November 1934, the mystery of Everett Ruess' fate and final resting place may at last be solved.

The latest issue of National Geographic Adventure magazine makes a case that a small burial site discovered last summer near Comb Ridge, a canyon area in southeast Utah, contained the remains of the legendary wanderer and vagabond.

Salt Lake City writer W.L. Rusho, author of a 1983 book on Ruess, said DNA test results received since the article's publication apparently confirm the find. He learned of the test results from Ruess' nephew Brian.

"They [National Geographic] said there was a one in 10 billion chance that it was not Everett," Rusho said Friday. "In other words, it was virtually certain this was Everett Ruess."

Brian Ruess, a 44-year-old software salesman who lives in Portland, Ore., said he had seen only the summarized data of DNA tests on the remains and didn't want to comment beyond saying, "I know it comes as a relief to some of my siblings. It would have mattered a great deal to my father."

National Geographic Society spokeswoman Caryn Davis said definitive results of DNA tests, along with other genetic and forensic tests, will be released Thursday by National Geographic.

The April/May article in Adventure by David Roberts recounts how Denny Bellson, a Najavo from Shiprock, N.M., embarked on a search for Ruess' remains after his sister said their grandfather, Aneth Nez, told her about the murder of a young white man by three Ute Indians he witnessed from afar while walking the area in the 1930s. Nez told his granddaughter, Daisy Johnson, of how he then buried the young man after his attackers left him for dead and took his two burros.

Forensic anthropologists at the University of Colorado at Boulder re-created a skull using bone fragments found at the site. A photo-illustration accompanying Roberts' article matches jaw and facial bones from that skull with surviving photographs of Ruess, noting that the resulting jawbone and teeth are both "a perfect match for Ruess."

Rusho said that while he's prepared to accept that Ruess' remains have at last been identified, unanswered questions remain.

Chief among them is how Ruess ended up in Comb Ridge near Chinle Wash when his last letter to his parents in Los Angeles said he would instead head southwest toward Lee's Ferry, Ariz. In addition, an investigative mission by John Upton Terrell in 1935 at the request of The Salt Lake Tribune found that not one Navajo had heard of or seen a young white man enter their country.

More importantly, Rusho said, is that Ruess once swore never to travel the Utah desert without horse or burro. Rusho recounts in his book Vagabond for Beauty that a March 1935 search team found two burros in Davis Gulch four months after Ruess' disappearance. Gail Bailey took the animals to his home in Escalante, Rusho said.

Rusho asks how Ruess could have traveled the 60 or so miles of rough terrain from Davis Gulch to Comb Ridge without burros.

"The only way he could have done it was to go deep into Navajo country, circle the mountain and come around another way. He could have done that and maybe pick up another animal on the way. Maybe Navajos would have helped him, but why in the world was there no evidence of any Navajo knowing about it?" Rusho asks. "We maybe lost the mystery of where he ended up, but we have a new mystery of how he got there."

Roberts disputes Rusho's account in his magazine article, stating that residents of Escalante said Bailey discovered the burros before search parties had been out to search for Ruess.

Also intriguing is a link between "NEMO" inscriptions found in Grand Gulch and Davis Gulch. NEMO was an alias that Ruess chose toward the end of his life.

The Davis Gulch inscription was found in 1935 and has been submerged by Lake Powell, but photographs match it to the other inscription found in the 1960s.

Speaking from Portland, Brian Ruess said he hopes his late uncle's message of the wilderness' spiritual dimensions remain intact, even if the mystery of his final resting place has been solved.

"It [the burial find] does create almost as many questions as it seemingly answers," he said. "Now that the mystery is removed, I hope we don't lose sight of the man."

http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site297/2009/0425/20090425__Ruess_0426~4_200.jpg
Everett Ruess and his horses in Canyon de Chelly, 1932. Scanned from Everett Ruess, A Vagabond for Beauty by W.L. Rusho



http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site297/2009/0425/20090425__Ruess_0426~6_400.jpg

[accadacca]

:2thumbs: :popcorn:

[Iceaxe]

Mysterious disappearance of explorer Everett Ruess solved after 75 years
University of Colorado, National Geographic report on forensic, DNA evidence regarding Southwest folk hero

University of Colorado at Boulder
Public release date: 30-Apr-2009

The mysterious disappearance of Everett Ruess, a 20-year-old artist, writer and footloose explorer who wandered the Southwest in the early 1930s on a burro and who has become a folk hero to many, has been solved with the help of University of Colorado at Boulder researchers and the National Geographic Society.

The short, compelling life of Ruess, who went missing in 1934 after leaving the town of Escalante, Utah, has been the subject of much speculation. His story has spawned two documentary films, as well as plays, books, magazine and newspaper articles and a T-shirt line, and his name now graces an annual art festival in Escalante.

Ruess is well known for his artwork -- including watercolors and woodcuts of Southwest landscapes -- as well as extensive, romantic journaling of his travels. He was photographed by famous American documentary photojournalist Dorothea Lange, exchanged photos with Ansel Adams, and even merited a chapter in John Krakauer's book "Into the Wild," about another young wanderer, Chris McCandless.

An investigative article in the April/May issue of National Geographic Adventure by David Roberts, who had been probing the Ruess disappearance for years, indicates a Navajo man, Aneth Nez, told his granddaughter, Daisy Johnson, in 1971 that he witnessed the murder of a young white man near Bluff, Utah, in the 1930s by Ute Indians. Nez told her he buried the body in a crevasse on nearby Comb Ridge.

Roberts reported that in May 2008, Denny Belson, grandson of Nez and sister of Johnson, located the burial site and contacted the FBI in Monticello, Utah. FBI investigators then visited the site and took photographs. The enterprising Belson used a Google search using the keywords "missing persons," "1930s," and "Arizona/Utah," and came across stories about the disappearance and speculation about Ruess, said Roberts.

Roberts contacted Ron Maldano, the supervisory archaeologist at the Cultural Resource Compliance Section of the Navajo Nation based in Chimney Rock, Ariz. Maldano conducted a detailed examination of the burial site and determined the remains were likely Caucasian. Roberts put him in touch with two nieces and two nephews of Ruess for mitochondrial DNA samples, which proved inconclusive.

Roberts then contacted CU-Boulder anthropology Professor Dennis Van Gerven, who traveled to the site with doctoral student Paul Sandberg with the support of the National Geographic Society, excavated the remains, and returned with them to CU-Boulder with the permission of the Ruess family.

An analysis of teeth and bones by Van Gerven and Sandberg were used to determine the sex, age and stature of the person. Wisdom tooth eruption, pelvic structure, bone growth markers and femur length indicated it was a male roughly 20 years old and about 5 feet 8 inches tall -- a virtual match for Ruess, said Van Gerven.

The CU-Boulder researchers began a painstaking reconstruction of the fragile facial bones, stabilizing them on a ball of clay. Sandberg used Adobe Photoshop to superimpose photos he took of the remade face onto a frontal portrait of a smiling Ruess and a profile portrait of him, both taken in the 1930s by Lange.

"The next step was to match two points on the photos of the bones to their respective positions on the portraits," Sandberg said. "If the other anatomical points did not match, we could exclude Ruess. But all the points fell into place. The jaw fit, the curve of the nasal bones fit, the rim of the eye orbit fit and the bridge of the nose fit."

The most compelling piece of evidence was the teeth, he said. "Once a single tooth was scaled into position, the size and shape of the other teeth, as well as the morphology of the face above the teeth, matched the portrait. The correspondence was striking," Sandberg said.

"We spent a lot of time making certain that the skeletal images superimposed on the Lange photos remained anatomically exact and were in no way altered by the technique," said Van Gerven.

"But we wound up with a constellation of evidence that was a remarkable match to Ruess," he said. "We had a male about 20 years old, 5 feet 8 inches tall with facial bones that precisely matched the photographs. We concluded it was very, very unlikely that this was not Everett Ruess. But we also knew the final arbiter in this case would be genetic testing."

Van Gerven contacted CU-Boulder molecular, cellular and developmental biology Professor Kenneth Krauter, an expert in DNA analysis. Krauter brought in CU-Boulder research assistant Helen Marshall, who had extensive experience working with DNA. Marshall took two small femur fragments and prepared them by grinding and liquefying them, subsequently extracting, purifying and amplifying DNA samples.

The team members used techniques developed as a byproduct of the Human Genome Project that permitted them to assess the passing of DNA markers from one generation to the next. "We used the most stringent protocols and standards available," said Marshall. "The results were totally blind in the sense that the computer doesn't have an opinion in terms of the DNA marker matches."

High-tech "gene chips," or microarrays, made by Affymetrix Corp., a global company headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., provided Krauter and Marshall with 600,000 separate DNA markers from the femur DNA. These were compared with roughly the same number of DNA markers extracted from saliva samples taken from the two nieces and two nephews of Ruess. As an added precaution, the team also compared the markers with the DNA of 50 people around the world.

CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Matthew McQueen of CU-Boulder's Institute for Behavioral Genetics, consulting with experts at Oxford University in England, statistically analyzed the data. The results showed the nieces and nephews of Ruess -- all siblings -- shared about 50 percent of the genetic markers with each other, and all four shared about 25 percent of the DNA markers from the femur bone samples. The results from the DNA comparisons from the 50 random people from around the world showed a less than 1 percent match, said Krauter.

"It was almost exactly what geneticists would expect when comparing DNA between nieces and nephews and an uncle or an aunt," said Krauter. "This is entirely consistent with the hypothesis that the bones are those of Everett Ruess, and make it virtually impossible that the bones are from an unrelated individual.

"The combination of the forensic analysis and the genetic analysis makes it an open and shut case," Krauter said. "I believe it would hold up in any court in the country."

The wandering spirit of Ruess, whom author Wallace Stegner once compared to a young John Muir, appears to have finally come to rest. The family of Ruess plans to have the remains cremated and scattered over the Pacific Ocean. Case closed.


http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/uoca-mdo043009.php#

[davehuth]

Sometimes science can spoil some of the best mysteries in life...I can recall hundreds and hundreds of speculated endings pondered by the campfire.

[Iceaxe]

Everett Ruess Presentation in SLC

Everett Ruess was a twenty-year-old wilderness explorer, poet, and artist, who left Escalante, Utah in 1934 for a trip into the Colorado River canyon country. He was never seen again. For 75 years, his fate was one of the West's great mysteries. Now, the mystery has been solved. National Geographic Adventure magazine and University of Colorado recently announced that DNA testing had positively identified the remains of Everett Ruess. Please join our friends at the Glen Canyon Institute for the first public forum that brings together the people who discovered the remains of Ruess with family members and scholars who have kept his inspiring legacy alive.

THE FINDING OF EVERETT RUESS:
A 75-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY SOLVED
An Event Presented by Glen Canyon Institute
Monday, June 22, 2009 7:00 pm - Doors open 6:30 pm
Orson Spencer Hall
University of Utah Salt Lake City


Speakers will include:
Richard Ingebretsen, Glen Canyon Institute
David Roberts, National Geographic Adventure magazine
Vaughn Hadenfeldt, Far Out Expeditions
Greg Child, mountain guide, filmmaker, author
Brian Ruess, nephew of Everett Ruess
Michele Ruess, niece of Everett Ruess
W.L. "Bud" Rusho, author, Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty.

Tickets $5 (includes a complementary one-year GCI membership). Students FREE.
For more information, visit http://www.glencanyon.org/ or call (801) 363-4450.

[Iceaxe]

just a heads up.... THE FINDING OF EVERETT RUESS: A 75-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY SOLVED

is this Monday....

http://bogley.com/forum/files/bump1.jpg

[Brian in SLC]

just a heads up.... THE FINDING OF EVERETT RUESS: A 75-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY SOLVEDis this Monday....

You going?

We oughta get a crew and get together beforehand at Big Ed's or the Pie or some such...

Roberts has got a new book just out on Bradford Washburn. Also, with both he and Child there, be interesting to talk to them about Sandstone Spine.

Should be fun. That's a heck of a speaker line up.

-Brian in SLC

[Iceaxe]

I was planning on going but today I managed to bury myself at work so not sure now.... The Pie would be awesome.... Like most U of U students I spent a lot of my misguided youth in that place....

[Brian in SLC]

I was planning on going but today I managed to bury myself at work so not sure now.... The Pie would be awesome.... Like most U of U students I spent a lot of my misguided youth in that place....

Bump for possible folks going to the lecture.

I'll have a spare ticket, I think...

Adult beverage for anyone who helps me carry a couple of books (on the off chance that folks will be signing)...

Shane, you going?

Anyone else?

Pie or Big Ed's warm up pre show?

-Brian in SLC

[nat]

I was planning on going but today I managed to bury myself at work so not sure now.... The Pie would be awesome.... Like most U of U students I spent a lot of my misguided youth in that place....

Bump for possible folks going to the lecture.

I'll have a spare ticket, I think...

Adult beverage for anyone who helps me carry a couple of books (on the off chance that folks will be signing)...

Shane, you going?

Anyone else?

Pie or Big Ed's warm up pre show?

-Brian in SLC

I'm going. I'm not sure I have time for a pre show, but would like to. Around 6?

Nat

[Brian in SLC]

I'm going. I'm not sure I have time for a pre show, but would like to. Around 6?

I think earlier if pizza is ordered, but, Big Ed's for a sandwich and beverage might work, unless folks can make it by 5:30ish.

Geez, Nat, I'll toss my copy of Stone Crusade in for you to sign (ha ha!).

Just kiddin'. Sorta.

You need a copy of it, in either paperback or hardbound? I have, uh, a few extra copies...

Cheers!

-Brian in SLC

[nat]

I'm going. I'm not sure I have time for a pre show, but would like to. Around 6?

I think earlier if pizza is ordered, but, Big Ed's for a sandwich and beverage might work, unless folks can make it by 5:30ish.

Geez, Nat, I'll toss my copy of Stone Crusade in for you to sign (ha ha!).

Just kiddin'. Sorta.

You need a copy of it, in either paperback or hardbound? I have, uh, a few extra copies...

Cheers!

-Brian in SLC

I've actually made a commitment to have an early dinner at home this evening, but would be happy to join you for a beer around 6ish, either Big Ed's or The Pie.

You have an extra copy of Stone Crusade? If so, yeah, I would be interested.

Nat

[Brian in SLC]

I've actually made a commitment to have an early dinner at home this evening, but would be happy to join you for a beer around 6ish, either Big Ed's or The Pie.
You have an extra copy of Stone Crusade? If so, yeah, I would be interested.

Since no one's interested in an early dinner, that rules out the pie. Big Ed's, then.

Paperback or hardbound, or both? 2nd printing, with all the newer Utar photo's added in the back (Sherman musta figured out the kids boulder here, ha ha).

I got a spare ticket if you need too.

Cheers, and, see ya tonight.

-Brian in SLC

[nat]

Since no one's interested in an early dinner, that rules out the pie. Big Ed's, then.

Paperback or hardbound, or both? 2nd printing, with all the newer Utar photo's added in the back (Sherman musta figured out the kids boulder here, ha ha).

I got a spare ticket if you need too.

Cheers, and, see ya tonight.

-Brian in SLC

Paperback is fine. Spare ticket would be great too; thanks.

See you at Big Ed's.

Nat

[Deeps]

I went with my six year old son.

Best part was seeing the never before shown artwork of Ruess. The rest of the presentation felt pretty disorganized. Not to be too critical, but speaking for 10 minutes with one slide on screen and then shooting through 20+ images after the speaker left the podium, saying things like "I'm sure you all know who Edward Ruess is" (c'mon, at least give the Cliff Notes), and lack of outline were distracting.

Daisy's brother was good to hear from. I'm glad I went and was able to hear from him and the niece and nephew of Ruess.

The nephew's lay assessment of the Photoshop bone overlays was spot on... I understand the tech and agree with it in this application, but he's right to be skeptical.

[Brian in SLC]

Best part was seeing the never before shown artwork of Ruess. The rest of the presentation felt pretty disorganized. Not to be too critical, but speaking for 10 minutes with one slide on screen and then shooting through 20+ images after the speaker left the podium, saying things like "I'm sure you all know who Edward Ruess is" (c'mon, at least give the Cliff Notes), and lack of outline were distracting.

I guess I thought it went fairly well. They followed the outline of speakers that were referenced well before hand on the glen canyon website. They also had that outline at the show.

Yeah, it wasn't a show for someone who had no idear who Everett Ruess was. I glad they didn't waste time on an overview, as, at 7 speakers, that would have added a ton of time for a crowd who was there to hear and discuss the details of the discovery of Everett.

They had some AV issues that made for a feel of disorganization, to be sure, but, understandable given the amount of material, venue and tossing that many panel folks together on short notice.

I thought it was really well done. Presentation was good, and, the Q and A was fun. They also hung out until after 10pm which was also a bunch of fun.

My bet is we'll never see a panel of folks like that, or, folks in the audience also pretty intimate with the story, assembled again. Pretty unreal that they were able to pull that off. I feel quite privileged to be able to experience it.

-Brian in SLC

[Scott P]

Remains found in Utah not poet Everett Ruess:

http://kai03.qwest.com/WindowsLive/Media/News/NewsDetail.aspx?cat=National&id=D9BFRGLO0@news.ap.org&client=gadget&qid=0

[Iceaxe]

Looks like the mystery remains....

Family says remains not those of Everett Ruess
By Paul Foy - The Associated Press

A skeleton found in the Utah wilderness last year was not that of Everett Ruess, a legendary wanderer of the 1930s, despite initial forensic tests that seemed to have solved an enduring mystery, his nephew told The Associated Press.

"The skeleton is not related to us," Brian Ruess, a 44-year-old software salesman in Portland, Ore., said late Wednesday.

Everett Ruess vanished in southern Utah in 1934, writing in a final letter to his family in California that "as to when I revisit civilization, it will not be soon" and "it is enough that I am surrounded with beauty."

He was 20 and a gifted poet who explored the Southwest over much of four years. In between journeys, he hobnobbed with famous artists of his time.

Initial DNA tests were termed "irrefutable" months ago by University of Colorado researchers, but one of them said Wednesday he accepted as final the new results from the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, Md.

Utah's state archaeologist, Kevin Jones, had questioned the original results, prompting the family to seek a second opinion.

Jones said a recovered lower jawbone was characteristic of an American Indian's, not a man of European descent, and that worn teeth suggested a lifetime diet of coarse grains. It's not known whose remains were actually found.

"It's what we expected," Jones said Wednesday of results disputing the find. "That was why we raised the questions -- we thought there were problems. I'm delighted at the courage of the family to pursue additional analysis about the identity of their ancestor."

The first forensic results -- combined with a recently disclosed Navajo tale of murder -- seemed to make a powerful case that Ruess' body had been discovered, as recounted in the magazine National Geographic Adventure .

A contributing editor of the magazine, David Roberts, encountered what he called a surprising backlash and even threats after writing the story last spring, but not on scientific grounds. Rather, the legend of Everett Ruess -- long a figure of American West lore -- provoked strong emotions.

Roberts' discovery began with the haunting account of a Navajo elder who, according to a family story, had witnessed the young man's murder by other Indians and waited decades to reveal a burial spot.

Brian Ruess said that part of the story may still be true.

"It might mean there's a skeleton out there, but this isn't the right one. It just means there's a lot of graves out there," he said.

Ruess' supposed remains were found stuffed in a rock crevice against a cliff wall at remote Comb Ridge in southeastern Utah, about 60 miles from Escalante, the town where he set off for his final wilderness journey.

Brian Ruess said he accepts the analysis of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology lab as a pre-eminent authority on DNA testing. Jones believes the first researchers mixed DNA from Ruess' four nephews and nieces with that of the discovered bones, contaminating the results.

University of Colorado biologist Kenneth Krauter, who handled the initial DNA tests, said he did a second round of tests that disproved his original results, but wasn't able to determine how he made a mistake in the first place. He called the Armed Forces results definitive.

"I'm convinced it's extremely unlikely these are the remains of Everett Ruess," Krauter said. "I feel badly for making my judgment in the first place, but it's science, and it's difficult."

Krauter didn't say why he didn't acknowledge his mistake earlier, but said he had strongly urged the family to get a second opinion.

There was no immediate response from National Geographic Adventure editors. Weeks ago, Roberts said he was fully preoccupied trying to reconcile doubts about the discovery. He could not be immediately reached late Wednesday.

The back-and-forth was jarring to the artists' only surviving family members.

"It is an up and a down, and certain members of the family would have really liked closure," Brian Ruess told The AP. "It's an emotional tug one way, and then a tug back the other way."