Kenny Veach

In the fall of 2014, a man from Las Vegas posted a short video on YouTube of himself hiking through the desert mountains north of the city.

The video wasn’t polished. It was the kind of thing outdoor enthusiasts post all the time: shaky footage of rocky slopes, scrubby desert plants, sweeping views across dry valleys, and the voice of the hiker narrating as he went. He was looking for something. He called it the M Cave.

A few weeks later, he went back out into those mountains to look for it again. He didn’t come home.

Snakebit

Kenny Veach was about forty-seven years old in 2014. He lived in Las Vegas and loved exploring the desert. He spent much of his free time hiking the rugged ranges around the city, often alone, and posted videos of his adventures on YouTube under the username “snakebitmgee.” He was experienced, fit and comfortable in remote country.

In late 2014, he became the center of an online story that would follow his name long after he disappeared.

The Cave

It began with a comment.

Under another YouTuber’s video about the Nevada desert, Kenny left a comment describing a strange experience he’d had years earlier while hiking in the area. He said he’d come across a cave in the side of a mountain, shaped like the letter M. As he walked toward it, he wrote, his whole body began to vibrate, more and more strongly the closer he got, until he became frightened and turned back. He said he’d never felt anything like it.

The comment caught people’s attention. Some found it fascinating. Many were skeptical, and some mocked him, telling him to prove it.

So Kenny went looking.

On October 18, 2014, he posted a video called “M Cave Hike,” documenting his search. In it, he hiked through the mountains in the area where he believed the cave was, but he couldn’t find it. He said he would go back and keep looking.

The Last Hike

On November 10, 2014, Kenny is believed to have set out on his third trip to search for the cave, in the Sheep Range, a rugged mountain range northwest of Las Vegas, near Nellis Air Force Base and not far from the vast restricted military land that includes the famous Area 51.

He went alone. He didn’t come back.

His girlfriend reported him missing several days later. Searchers found his white Honda CR-V parked at the head of a trail. On November 22, his cell phone was found near the entrance of an old, abandoned mine shaft in the Sheep Range.

Search and rescue teams and volunteers combed the area. They searched the mine shaft. They searched the surrounding slopes and canyons. They found no other sign of Kenny. His handgun, which he was believed to have carried, was never found.

The Theories

Kenny’s disappearance quickly became the subject of intense online speculation.

Some people connected it directly to the M Cave. They suggested that he’d found the cave at last, and that whatever caused the strange vibration had claimed him. Because the Sheep Range lies near restricted military land, some suggested secret military experiments or a government cover-up. Others proposed even stranger explanations, involving extraterrestrials.

But there are other, sadder possibilities.

The desert mountains around Las Vegas are dangerous. The terrain is steep and unstable. Old mine shafts are scattered throughout the region, many of them unmarked, unfenced and hundreds of feet deep. A person could fall, be injured, become dehydrated, or simply become lost, and their remains might never be found in such a vast, empty landscape.

And there’s another possibility, one that Kenny’s girlfriend raised herself. She told investigators and reporters that Kenny had struggled with depression, and that he had spoken about suicide in the past. She said she feared he may have gone into the desert intending not to come back.

No one knows which, if any, of these explanations is true.

The Comment

I think about the comment that started it all — a few lines written by a man who had a strange experience in the desert and wanted to share it. And I think about the strangers who mocked him and dared him to prove it, and how he went back out into the mountains to do just that.

Whatever happened to Kenny Veach, his story is a reminder that the people we see on our screens are real, and that the words we write to them matter.