A Miracle and a Tragedy: Kenji Iwamura and his SOS

Unexplained Mysteries

Over the years mountaineering has become an increasingly popular hobby. Every year thousands of people take to the planet’s mountains to test themselves, take in the sights, and bask in nature’s beauty.

But mountaineering isn’t a hobby without risks. Mountaineers often get themselves into trouble and require a helping hand from the authorities.

These rescues can be perilous but have become fairly routine. Except in the case of the curious case of Kenji Iwamura and his SOS. What started out as a textbook rescue operation became something much stranger, puzzling Japanese authorities for decades.

Kenji Kawamura: Still Missing

Our story begins on the afternoon of 24 July 1989 in Daisetsuzan National Park, located in the center of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. Two men from Tokyo were mountaineering on the path from Mount Kurodake to Mount Asahidake when they became lost. Rather than following the path they turned around and started heading south, toward the Chubetsugawa River.

When the two men didn’t arrive as expected the alarm bell was raised and the Hokkaido police sent out a rescue helicopter to look for them. It was a large search area, especially since the two men had so deviated from their planned route but luckily the police soon came across a massive SOS sign made up of 19 birch trees, each roughly 5 meters (16 feet) long.

The landscape around Mount Asahidake is challenging, but not especially so (nAok0 / CC BY 2.0)