In the fall of 2020, a young man from Michigan, Isaac Danian, left his parents' home in Grand Rapids. A few weeks later, with little more than two phone calls to his folks, he disappeared, seemingly without a trace.
The story of what happened to him is one-part mystery, one-part pandemic parable. Much of it has been unspooled by journalist David Wolman. He wrote about Danian and another believer, Shukree Abdul-Rashed from upstate New York, who went missing around the same time for the New York Times recently.
We talked to Wolman about the YouTube conspiracy theorist who convinced the men to join him in the South Pacific in hopes of establishing a new Christian society, as well as the mysteries surrounding the two men's disappearance at sea.
Looking for more conversations from Stateside? Right this way.
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Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions.
