"Nobody Saw Them Crash": YouTuber Finds Car Of Teens Missing Since 2000 In US
NDTV
A scuba diver, whose YouTube channel "Exploring with Nug" focuses on finding missing property and people, found the car in Tennessee's Calfkiller River.
A scuba diver wiped away the algae on a submerged car's license plate and exclaimed: "It's them!" That discovery of two long-missing American teens' apparent remains was the latest tragic find for a subculture of YouTube sleuths.
Among the platform's viral hits scoring billions of views is a niche of YouTubers who use sonar devices to search waterways for vehicles linked to US missing persons cases -- and the bones they may hold.
That formula was central to revelations this week in a 21-year-old mystery in the southern state of Tennessee, one of a series of cold cases unravelled with the revenue generated by the clicks that these operations' clips generate.
Experts note the larger boom in internet sleuthing has had a mixed impact, with high-profile misfires and the temptation for viral content, but in some key instances the crowd's contribution has been critical.