Does the viral story about missing hikers "Steve and Natalie Brody" who were supposedly found dead in Alaska's Denali National Park add up? No, that's not true: There were no news reports on the case and several details in the posts about the case are verifiably not real. The website of Interpol does not mention the "Lars Anderson" the story claims they made a statement about.
Many of the viral social media posts about it link to an article (archived here) titled "Tourists VANISHED in Alaska -- 6 Years Later Bodies Found in Ice Crevice under Strange Circumstances" that was posted on August 14, 2025 on an anonymously published website just called "News" that opened:
When Steve and Natalie Brody set out for Alaska's Denali National Park in July 2017, they were ready for the challenge. The Minneapolis couple, both in their early 40s, were experienced hikers who had trekked in the Rockies, the Appalachian Trail, and even Patagonia. They'd planned a 10-day backcountry route through one of Denali's lesser-used trails, carrying high-quality gear, a satellite phone, and a GPS beacon.
For the first three days, everything went as expected. Twice, they checked in with family via satellite phone, reporting good weather and incredible views. On July 10, they sent a final brief message: "Reached the Tlat River. All good. Next communication in 2 days."
That next message never came.
A first and obvious clue there is something wrong is that there is no "Tlat River" and the story never bothers explaining that. However it might simply be a misspelling of Toklat, which is a river in Denali National Park.
Searches on Google News and Yahoo News for news articles mentioning "Steve", "Natalie", "Brody" and "Denali" did not return any results (archived here and here), indicating there were never any media stories about such a missing couple. Their names are not mentioned in the Alaska Bureau of Investigation's list of missing person bulletins (archived here), although if they were found they wouldn't necessarily be on there. However they also didn't appear on a version of that list archived in 2021 either.
Social media posts about the story, for example this one (archived here) frequently used this image:
(Image source: Facebook post by page Royal Mirror)
Lead Stories wasn't able to track down the origin of the picture of the couple, the corpses or the tent, but the landscape is just a screenshot of a stock video (archived here).
The story did contain one other verifiable detail, the "Swedish passport" of "Lars Anderson":
Forensic analysis found Steve had suffered a crushed wrist and the violent removal of his left eye roughly a week before death. Natalie's injuries were minor--bruises and abrasions--but around her neck hung an object that pushed the case into deeper mystery: a Swedish passport belonging to Lars Anderson, a 25-year-old who had vanished in Norway's Jotunheimen National Park in 2009.
Interpol confirmed Anderson's disappearance had remained unsolved, with no record of him ever traveling to the U.S. No known connection existed between him and the Brodys.
According to a search of Interpol's website, the name "Lars Anderson" does not appear on it (archived here), making it doubtful they confirmed anything.
