3 year old boy missing for 3 days in outback found alive.

[lionking]

https://www.news.com.au/national/ns...s/news-story/ffaa8ac5dd3992c503d776c164e3bbed

There are a number of things not making sense here. I find it difficult that a three year old child would survive that long without human intervention. There is no evidence of how he got out of the house and ended up where he did.

Also police in the article said they had swept the whole area he was found in. It was only 1km from the farmhouse. Were I the father I would have repeatedly searched the areas around the house. Surely he would have been found if he had been in that area the whole three days.

A “family friend” quoted in that article spoke of a mystery car seen the day he disappeared. The same person told reporters that CCTV footage of the time the child disappeared was missing.

Those two things might be red herrings, but there is more to this story than “child walks out, gets lost, found again”. There has to be others involved in my view.

 

[lionking]

I should have added I’m delighted the boy is safe and well.

 

[Checkmite]

I find it difficult that a three year old child would survive that long without human intervention.

Why? Three days is within the body's limits for going without food or water - and he was found drinking so it's not entirely certain he'd gone without water for even that long. The report says he was fairly scuffed up and covered with ant bites, so it's not like he was hidden someplace safe until he could be "found".

 

[lionking]

Why? Three days is within the body's limits for going without food or water - and he was found drinking so it's not entirely certain he'd gone without water for even that long. The report says he was fairly scuffed up and covered with ant bites, so it's not like he was hidden someplace safe until he could be "found".

We are just out of winter in Australia. This is high country. I can’t find exact overnight temperatures, but nearby places got down to 5C. He was in pyjamas.

Want to think through that post again?

 

[lionking]

I did find overnight weather in Putty. It got down to 4C. Adults perish in those temperatures

 

[Checkmite]

We are just out of winter in Australia. This is high country. I can’t find exact overnight temperatures, but nearby places got down to 5C. He was in pyjamas.

Want to think through that post again?

No.

From the report it really does sound like he just barely survived. I don't see what the problem is.

 

[lionking]

No.

From the report it really does sound like he just barely survived. I don't see what the problem is.

Three days with overnight temperatures of 4C?

He might be a 3 year old Bear Grylls, but I am absolutely skeptical about the story so far.

 

[lionking]

A report from the search last night where searchers needed fire wood to keep them warm through the night.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09...-search-for-missing-anthony-alfalak/100435114

Also it was not a tiny search party:

Fixed-wing drones, PolAir, the riot squad, trailbike and mounted officers, divers and hundreds of volunteers from the SES and RFS have spent more than 40 hours searching through rugged terrain.

 

[angrysoba]

The first thing I wondered when I saw your OP was whether he had some kind of learning disability. A 3-year old would usually be expected to be able to describe something that happened to them.

But in the article it says:

AJ, who is autistic and non-verbal, had last been seen at about 11.45am on Friday, and police confirmed just after 11am that the boy was alive.

So I guess not.

Yeah, it does sound strange about the missing CCTV footage unless it just means that the power wemt out at some stage (?). The appearance of a white ute...? Is that unusual in Australia...

I don't know.

 

[Checkmite]

Three days with overnight temperatures of 4C?

It probably was not that cold every single night. And people don't just instantly die because the temperature drops to a certain amount; the Earth retains heat, and wind exposure makes a difference. A single temperature reading taken on a gauge kilometers away and possibly a few meters up in the air, can't tell you the whole story.

People have (also just barely) survived temperatures that cold before.

From the sound of it he's going to have to spend a day or two recovering in the hospital. It's not unreasonable to suggest that he was minutes away from death when he was found.

 

[lionking]

The first thing I wondered when I saw your OP was whether he had some kind of learning disability. A 3-year old would usually be expected to be able to describe something that happened to them.

But in the article it says:



So I guess not.

Yeah, it does sound strange about the missing CCTV footage unless it just means that the power wemt out at some stage (?). The appearance of a white ute...? Is that unusual in Australia... I don't know.

Every farm in Australia would have a ute, not all white, but many.

Police have seized a white ute, so there may be a tale there.

 

[angrysoba]

As for walking off, it definitely happens. My friend's three-year old son once walked out the front door and to the nearest railway station, walked through the ticket gates, and boarded a train. It was only because a junior high school student thought there was something odd about a boy with no shoes or socks sitting on his own a train that she escorted him off at the next station and took him to a police station (in Japan, these are called koban, and most towns have them). Because he's very tall for his age, they assumed he was five, but he was only three and autistic so he was unable to give his name. My friend and his wife finally managed to track him down after calling the various kobans in the area and were alarmed but relieved to find him a few stops away on the train.

Maybe not relevant except that it's not that surprising that he might walk off. It could be that he was scared of the sound of people searching for him and hid (I don't know) as those searching were probably expecting him to appear when called. It sounds as though he did appear when he heard his mother.

I don't know.

 

[angrysoba]

Every farm in Australia would have a ute, not all white, but many.

Police have seized a white ute, so there may be a tale there.

Yeah, I would have thought so too.

So I wondered what this means...

On Friday, the family had noted seeing a “suspicious” white ute on the property, which was then seized from a property at Bulga – 78km northeast of where Anthony was last seen.

I wonder what was so suspicious about it?

 

[lionking]

It probably was not that cold every single night. And people don't just instantly die because the temperature drops to a certain amount; the Earth retains heat, and wind exposure makes a difference. A single temperature reading taken on a gauge kilometers away and possibly a few meters up in the air, can't tell you the whole story.

People have (also just barely) survived temperatures that cold before.

From the sound of it he's going to have to spend a day or two recovering in the hospital. It's not unreasonable to suggest that he was minutes away from death when he was found.

Small children are far more susceptible to loss of body heat. They have little fat and small mass. It’s a rather simple physics problem.

My suspicion is that one of the extended family or an outsider held the child in comfortable conditions for some part of the three days. I find this belief to be far more reasonable.

 

[angrysoba]

Small children are far more susceptible to loss of body heat. They have little fat and small mass. It’s a rather simple physics problem.

My suspicion is that one of the extended family or an outsider held the child in comfortable conditions for some part of the three days. I find this belief to be far more reasonable.

Are you thinking of something like the Shannon Matthews case?

 

[lionking]

Are you thinking of something like the Shannon Matthews case?

I know this case, but I wasn’t thinking about it. I doubt any adult involvement, if there was any of course, was as well planned as that case.

I can guarantee that police will investigate the circumstances of AJs disappearance and will not just file it away.

 

[angrysoba]

I know this case, but I wasn’t thinking about it. I doubt any adult involvement, if there was any of course, was as well planned as that case.

I can guarantee that police will investigate the circumstances of AJs disappearance and will not just file it away.

Yeah, but I am wondering what is being suggested with the gaps in the CCTV footage.

Presumably it could only be erased by someone in the family, which suggests planning.

But if that covers him leaving the property, then what about him returning to the property. Presumably the search teams were still around so trying to, say, drive the kid back to the property from wherever he had been previously held would be difficult.

I mean, could it have been the begining of an elaborate ruse that was aborted...?

Maybe the simplest explanation is that the kid walked off and was found after three days. The other incidental stuff is just a collection of odd things that are not related.

I don't know.

 

[Checkmite]

Small children are far more susceptible to loss of body heat. They have little fat and small mass. It’s a rather simple physics problem.

My suspicion is that one of the extended family or an outsider held the child in comfortable conditions for some part of the three days. I find this belief to be far more reasonable.

His physical condition when found as described doesn't seem to support that.

 

[lionking]

His physical condition when found as described doesn't seem to support that.

Have you looked at the film as the child as he was found (only 500 mtr from the home by the way)? He was sitting in a pool drinking. He smiled as he was found. He is in hospital under observation. He ate a banana when rescued. Show evidence he was moments from death?

He should have been close to death with the temperatures. He clearly wasn’t.

I’d be happy for my suspicions to be disproved. I haven’t seen anything convincing.

 

[Checkmite]

Have you looked at the film as the child as he was found (only 500 mtr from the home by the way)? He was sitting in a pool drinking. He smiled as he was found. He is in hospital under observation. He ate a banana when rescued. Show evidence he was moments from death?

According to the reports he was also all muddy, his legs were all scraped up, and he was covered in ant-bites. They also indicate that he ate a lot more than a banana when he was rescued; according to the ambulance tech "all he wanted to do was eat", once he was finally able to stay awake. So if he had actually been kept somewhere by someone over the last three days, he very certainly was not comfortable; on the contrary, this person must've been abusive, made him to sleep exposed on the ground where he was vulnerable to insects and scrapes, and not fed him during that time.

He is also, in the video that shows him sitting in the creek trying to drink the muddy water, very clearly not wearing what one would typically call "pajamas". At the very least, he is wearing some kind of hooded sweater.