They Called Him Mostly Harmless

I was living in Naples, Florida when the news was first reported that a man had been found deceased inside a tent in the woods of the nearby Big Cypress reserve area. And I remember that the angle of the story was one of mystery as to just how the man had died and that his identity remained undetermined. The case was in the news for a few days, then it essentially vanished and we, the public, moved onto other things.

So I was genuinely a bit surprised to learn that the search to find out just who the person was and how he died had become such a massive undertaking by those people on the Internet who style themselves as amateur sleuths.

This documentary is an interesting look at how those Internet communities, along with law enforcement and the assistance of a sophisticated DNA lab, were finally able to determine who the deceased man, known by his trail hiking name as "Mostly Harmless," actually was, and just what his backstory consisted of.

And the final reveal definitely included some real surprises, once the actual truth is discovered.

Like all of these kind of modern documentaries that look at the world of amateur sleuths who immerse themselves in true crime and other similar unsolved mysteries, there is good and bad and even some extremely ugly aspects to what people will allow themselves to devolve into so far as their emotional investment in a case is concerned.

Worth a watch if you enjoy this particular genre.

I cannot with these internet sleuths, they are ridiculous, sitting at their computers, harassing real people and only thinly doing good things. Then they try to lay claim to discoveries that they are loosely connected to uncovering. Centering a documentary around these people gives them notoriety that they simply do not deserve. The story itself is interesting if you're willing to weed through the self-centered commentary by the sleuths and focus on the mystery. The ending is pretty good, but mostly goes to show how off kilter many of the tangents the "facebook group" took were, just doing too much.

As "They Called Him Mostly Harmless" (2024 release; 89 min.) opens, it is "July 23, 2018", and someone calls 911 to report they found a dead body on a trail in southwest Florida. No name, no credit card, no photo ID. Who is this person? In a parallel story, we are introduced to Christie, who loves to do some internet sleuthing in these types of missing John or Jane Doe cases... At this point we are 10 minutes into the documentary.

Couple of comments: this is the latest from documentarian Patricia Gillespie ("The Fire That Took Her"). Here she reassesses the strange case that is the disappearance of someone nicknamed "Mostly Harmless" on the Appalachian Trail. But in fact, the documentary is just as much about the digital sleuthing communities that are out there to "help" solve unsolved cases like this one. Let me just say that it ain't a pretty picture: petty infighting, name calling, (in)competence, you name, they have it. A reporter from Wired Magazine also gets involved, and the contrast between the reporter and the sleuthing communities couldn't be starker. At just an hour and a half, this documentary clips by in no time.

"They Called Him Mostly Harmless" premiered on HBO several weeks ago, and is also streaming on Max, where I caught it the other night. If you are a fan of true crime documentaries, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

Vances are born unfortunately into chaos they make chaos and leave chaos behind if unfound. This story strip away the myth of connectedness in modern world and introduce the lonely lives that exists in shadows. Retrospectively the sleuths of whom most are falling into the aforesaid shadow realm put up a wholesome collective effort that gives a John doe a name that he himself wanted the world to forget. It's sad yet a mysterious venture of social detective work. A story told well methodically and cleverly. Rather than making a regular true crime doc this sleuthing odyssey is a unique and an inspiring social commentary.

As a fan of various YouTube mystery and crime channels, I recall the tale of Mostly Harmless popping up from time to time. Eventually it was "solved" but the strange, sad and lonely tale retained its interest. If you'd like to hear more about that, I recommend checking out channels on YouTube like Scary Mysteries or Barely Sociable.

What THIS particular documentary represents is the story around the mystery. It's about the toxic and fannish world of True Crime aficionados, the infighting, the clashes, the betrayals and the often sad lives of the people behind the reddit accounts. Yes, the story of Mostly. Harmless is explored, but it's on the periphery.

If you go in knowing what you're getting, that this is as much or more about the amateur forum posters attempting to solve the mystery and give a name to the enigmatic hiker, then you're in for a very fascinating documentary.

But if you're already familiar with the case and looking for a break down or, worse, just looking for a proper investigative mystery, then you will probably come away disappointed and feeling a bit cheated.