Did a boy scout named Eric Langford disappear in the Airondirac forests of New York State in 1989 and did he mysteriously return in 2001? No, that's not true: The fictional tale about a kidnapping appeared on a YouTube channel that published fake stories about mysterious disappearances in the past. Several details in the story don't match up with reality and there were no news reports about any of the events in the video
The story appeared in a video (archived here) published on a YouTube channel named "UNKNOWN Files" on December 13, 2025 with a title that read "Boy Scout Vanished in 1989 -- Returned 12 Years Later With a Terrifying Story of Imprisonment". The narration of the video opened:
In the summer of 1989, 14-year-old boy scout Eric Langford disappeared without a trace in the Adirondack forests of New York State. The search operation became one of the largest in the region's history, but it yielded no results. Three weeks later, the boy was declared dead. His parents spent the rest of their lives not knowing what had happened to their son.
But in the fall of 2001, a man walked into the Albany police station claiming to be Eric Langford. A DNA test confirmed the impossible. The boy who had disappeared 12 years ago was alive.
What he told investigators revealed one of the most horrific kidnapping stories in American criminal history.
Eric Langford was an ordinary teenager from the suburbs of Albany. 14 years old in 8th grade, he was interested in baseball and model airplanes.
Note that some other online versions of the story misspelled "Adirondack" as " Aderandac", possibly due to relying on automated transcription, for example here (archived here).
Click below to watch the video on YouTube:
This is what the thumbnail image of the video looked like:
(Image source: thumbnail of video on "UNKNOWN Files" YouTube channel.)
According to a Google News search, there were no news articles mentioning "Eric Langford", "missing" and "Adirondack" that confirmed the story (archived here).
It would also not be possible to declare someone dead after only three weeks. New York law (archived here) stipulates:
§ 2-1.7 Presumption of death from absence; effect of exposure to
specific peril(a) A person who is absent for a continuous period of three years, during which, after diligent search, he or she has not been seen or heard of or from, and whose absence is not satisfactorily explained shall be presumed, in any action or proceeding involving any property of such person, contractual or property rights contingent upon his or her death or the administration of his or her estate, to have died three years after the date such unexplained absence commenced, or on such earlier date as clear and convincing evidence establishes is the most probable date of death.
The channel "UNKNOWN Files" has posted a slew of "missing person" stories (archived here) in the past, all following the same pattern:
(Image source: animation of video titles and thumbnails found on the "UNKNOWN Files" YouTube channel.)
This one from June 29, 2025 (archived here) titled "Two Tourists Vanished in Utah Desert in 2011 -- in 2019 Bodies Found Seated in Abandoned Mine..." was debunked by Lead Stories here:
