This probably doesn't do much in the way of solving any mysteries, but I have several anecdotes from my early days of paranormal types of things. I've actually been considering them and compiling a list of them, making notes of my thoughts concerning them. Perhaps I'll share more in time.

One in particular doesn't involve me personally but happened in the area that I grew up in. It relates to the first point you made in your discussion concerning child disappearances. The event occurred back in the early '70's when I was just a kid. A little girl vanished from a hiking trail in some mountains nearby where I grew up. As the story goes, her and her family were hiking in the Santa Rita mountains of SE Arizona. She was skipping along ahead as kids will do. She rounded a bend in the trail and was out of sight momentarily. When her parents rounded the bend, she was gone. Her tracks stopped mid stride in the middle of the trail. No sign of struggle, no sounds, nothing. The news of it was quite an uproar in the area as you can imagine, This was the pre-internet era. Searchers tried in vain to find her for quite some time, but eventually they gave up.

I've tried to research the incident on the internet, but have't had any luck so far. Maybe because it happened so long ago? Maybe its been scrubbed? But as far as I know it remains un-solved.