Hello everyone, for the last few months I have been creating long form write-ups on a variety of unsolved cases. If you are interested in other lengthy write ups you can find them on my profile- https://www.reddit.com/useQuirky-Moto.
Months ago, I was asked to cover the inexplicable case of Judy Smith, a woman who went missing from Philadelphia or perhaps Massachusetts, only for her body to be found in North Carolina months later. The case was famously covered on the show Unsolved Mysteries, and it is strange enough to warrant a long, hard look at the case and a comprehensive timeline. I hope you are able to learn something new about this semi well-known case.
Background
Judy Smith was born Judith Eldridge in Massachusetts in 1946. Right out of high school Judy married for the first time. Her husband and she had been married very shortly when in an attemot to avoid the draft, he fled to Sweden. Judy went in search of her young husband but soon returned to the states empty handed and filed for divorce. Years later, Judy married Charles Bradford a man who worked in the racehorse industry. They had two children together, Craig and Amy, but unfortunately the marriage did not last and soon Judy found herself jobless and raising two children by herself. Rather than fret, Judy got a job and enrolled in nursing school. Judy was known to study in all of her free time and soon became a successful home health care nurse. In 1986 at age 40, Judy was caring for a man who was recovering from throat surgery when she met her patient’s son, a well to do lawyer named Jeffrey Smith. Jeffrey said he was impressed by how Judy cared for his father and asked her on a date. Judy and Jeff had several things in common, both had been divorced single parents who raised children alone, and Jeffrey worked in healthcare as well, except he was a lawyer. The couple both enjoyed going to plays and Celtics basketball games. After seven years together, Jeff and Judy moved in together and three years later the couple married in Nov., 1996.
According to friends and family, Judy was a rather assertive and independent person. She was no stranger to travelling alone. Judy had been to Europe on her own a few times, and when her children were pre-teens, she took them to Europe for a backpacking adventure. Judy also independently traveled to Thailand where she went hiking and visited friends. While Judy wasn’t the epitome of fitness, she was an active person who enjoyed walking, hiking, and sightseeing. She was also known to be a go-getter who once helped an AIDS patient who was having a medical crisis on a plane. So, while Judy was kindhearted and considerate, she wasn’t thought to be naive and was able to take care of herself in a variety of different situations.
The disappearance
Five months into her new marriage on April 9th 1997, Jeffrey prepared to attend a conference in Philadelphia that was taking place from Wednesday April 9th-Friday April 11th at the Double Tree hotel in downtown Philadelphia. Judy decided to accompany her husband to Philadelphia and planned to do some sightseeing in the area. Afterwards, the Smiths were going to New Jersey to spend the weekend with some friends before flying back home.
On April 9th in the morning, Judy accompanied her husband to Logan International Airport to fly to Philadelphia, but discovered at the gate that she could not board as she did not have her photo ID. Judy encouraged Jeffrey to take the 1:30 pm flight and assured him that she would take a flight later that day and meet him in Philadelphia. According to relatives, the Smiths took public transport to the airport and Judy apparently took the bus back home and retrieved her ID. Jeffrey flew to the conference while Judy returned home and booked a flight for later that day. Judy boarded a 7:30 pm flight and arrived at the hotel in Philadelphia at approximately 9:30 pm.
Once at the hotel, the couple purchased some snacks and went to bed. The next morning Jeffrey awoke and ate breakfast at the complimentary buffet downstairs while his wife was still asleep. When he returned to the room Judy was in the shower. The two talked about several things, and Judy explained that she planned on taking the PHLASH bus in order to see the famous sights such as the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. The Smiths planned on meeting up at the hotel in the evening to attend the conference’s 6 pm cocktail party together. With that squared away, Jeffrey attended the conference. Sometime in between 9 and 10 am a hotel concierge recalled seeing a woman matching Judy’s description ask how to get to the PHLASH bus stop. The woman was in her 50s, with shortish hair, wearing a dark colored coat, blue jeans, and white tennis shoes, carrying a bright red backpack. (Picture of the Judy wearing the backpack here).
At approximately 5:30 pm Jeffrey who was done with the day’s sessions returned to the hotel room expecting to find Judy waiting for him. Judy wasn’t there, so Jeffrey attended the cocktail hour in the hopes his wife was already visiting at the party, but she wasn’t there either. For the next 45 minutes, Jeffrey floated between the room and the party hoping to find Judy. At approximately 6:15 pm Jeffrey told the concierges that his wife had not returned from sightseeing and the hotel staff began calling local hospitals. At 6:30 pm, Jeffrey hopped in a taxi and instructed the driver to take the PHLASH bus route slowly so he could look for his wife. In one interview Jeffrey recalled that he made the driver go so slow it angered those stuck behind him. After a few hours without any sign of Judy, Smith called the police to report his wife missing. Shockingly, the PPD told Jeffrey that he couldn’t file a report until it had been twenty-four hours since the last final sighting of Judy. After lodging some complaints with some high-ranking officials within the city, a missing person’s report was taken for Judy Smith on the morning of April 11th, 1997 (Lewis, 1997).
Jeffrey called his step children and asked them to check the house in case Judy had gone home, and he also asked that they would check the answering machine, but there were no messages of note and the house was empty.
A check of the hotel room showed that Judy had left with her signature red backpack, her wallet, the jewelry she normally wore including a diamond engagement band and a simple silver wedding ring, and the clothes on her back. Jeffrey estimated that she had approximately $200 dollars with her at the time.
According to later interviews with Philadelphia investigators, Judy, or someone with her name did in fact buy a USair ticket on the 7:30 pm flight into Philadelphia. Her ticket was used to make the flight and her seat was occupied on the flight into Philadelphia (Justiceforjudy.org). At the time of the Smiths’ trip, regulations that required photo identification to board a plane had only been in effect for 18 months and Judy had flown only one other time during that time frame. Additionally, police have a luggage tag from Judy’s suitcase that showed that she took the 7:30 pm flight, and that her bag did not travel to Philadelphia with Jeffrey earlier in the day (AP, Oct 4th, 1997).
Sightings
As news of Judy’s disappearance spread, many people called the police station to report various sightings of Judy.
One PHLASH driver remembered picking up Judy in the early afternoon at Front and South streets, a stop near the Double Tree.
There was also a reported sighting of Judy entering the Greyhound bus station at 11th and Filbert sometime in the early afternoon. This station is a common place for tourists to use the bathroom and is only a 10-minute walk to the DoubleTree hotel. One report claims Judy was seen entering and then exiting the station but most reports mention only entering the station. This area was close to Philadelphia’s Chinatown and Jeffrey speculated that Judy may have gone to Chinatown for lunch as she loved both Chinese and Thai food, but no restaurant owners remembered seeing Judy that day.
There was yet another sighting of a woman who looked like Judy at around 3 pm near the hotel; witnesses claimed this woman seemed disoriented.
A number of sightings were reported over the next few days in the waterfront area of the city called Penn’s Landing. A variety of people claimed to have seen Judy. Some witnesses said she seemed confused or dazed. Judy’s two children, her son in law Jay, and Jeffrey looked into these sightings and discovered that there was a homeless woman in the area who looked strikingly similar to Judy and it is believed that many witnesses saw this woman rather than Judy Smith. This local resident looked so similar to Judy that at one point Judy’s son Craig crossed the street thinking he had discovered his mother, only for it to be the other woman. Police officers and volunteers stopped this woman a number of times as well.
One transient in the area, a man named David, was insistent that he saw Judy, not the other woman, on the night of April 10th in the Penn’s landing area, either resting or sleeping on the bench. He was insistent it was Judy, and not the other woman as he knew the other woman from the neighborhood. Judy’s son believes this story is credible as David was coherent and very willing to be interviewed, even though there was nothing to be gained from his testimony and he was simply happy to help the family. He also identifed Judy from a collection of photos, something many other witnesses were unable to do.
On April 11th an employee at a Macy’s department store in Deptford, New Jersey believed that she interacted with Judy Smith in the morning on that day. She described the clothes Judy wore, right down to the old red backpack. This shopper told the employee, that she was buying some dresses for her daughter but laughed because her daughter often disliked the pieces that she purchased for her. Judy’s family confirmed that this was acurate and affirmed that Judy sometimes shopped at Macy’s. The customer appeared to be slightly disoriented as she asked a young woman in the store to leave with her, thinking that the other customer was her daughter or a someone else she knew. One report says that Judy asked another customer in the store about menopause, a very odd subject to talk about, especially with someone you don’t know in a department store.
This mall complex was in Deptford, New Jersey, a bus ride away from Philadelphia, across the Delaware River. According to newspaper reports, NJ Transit Buses had routes which traveled from downtown Philly to Deptford hourly, and the stop was very close to the mall the sighting took place at, meaning it was possible for Judy to have boarded the bus and ended up in Deptford quite easily. Unfortunately, the Macy’s didn’t have security footage which showed this customer and the woman paid for her purchases in cash.
After a second story ran in the newspaper on April 14th, a variety of other witnesses came forward with stories. The most famous report came from a Society Hill hotel employee who explained that a woman who matched Judy’s description stayed in the hotel from April 13th-15th. The woman appeared to have psychiatric problems and did a variety of strange things during her stay such as touch herself very noticeably in front of the window (it’s unknown if this was in her room or in the lobby), speak in tongues, and finally claimed that “the emperor” would help her pay for her stay at the hotel. This wacky guest was remembered by several employees including the hotel manager, a woman named Abby Gainer, who alerted the police. The strange guest told the employees that she wanted to stay at the hotel for another night but didn’t have the funds to do so. She later said she would get the money via a Western Union wire transfer from “the emperor” (Altman, 1997).
The nearby Best Western Hotel had a similar situation with a similar woman. Concierge Tyrone Taylor remembered that on the 15th, a woman matching this description entered the hotel to use the telephone in the late afternoon. The woman was speaking loudly and said that “the emperor of China” was going to pay for her stay as she did not have the cash to pay for a night at the hotel. Taylor reported that the woman was well dressed and did not appear to be a transient. Both hotel employees reported that the woman was a heavyset blonde in her 50s, wearing heavy dark makeup, eye glasses with tape on the side, and nicer clothes. Gainer reported the woman was sporting an expensive looking scarf with camels and roses on it. The woman, who signed in as "H. K. Rich/Collins," did not have any luggage with her and was wearing very different clothes than Judy was last seen in. When Taylor called the police to report his sighting, he gave the strange guest a call (she must have left a telephone number) and told her she could have a free night at the hotel. She arrived at the Best Western but police decided that the woman was not Judy Smith (Altman, 1997). The hotel sightings were nothing more than a red herring. Over the next few months various sightings were reported but none seemed to pan out. Many of the sightings were believed to be other people who looked like Judy. After all history has shown that false eyewitness sightings are incredibly common in cases of missing persons.
Philadelphia PD’s investigation
Philadelphia PD launched an inquiry into the disappearance of Judy Smith on April 11th, 1997. Jeffrey tried to report Judy as missing in the late evening hours of April 10th, but the police told him to wait 24 hours. Smith, however, was a well-connected man and after a few complaints to both a Pennsylvania state representative and the mayor (both men were attorneys and knew Jeffrey from previous work functions), Jeffrey was able to file a report in the early morning hours of the 11th. The Smith family made and hung flyers in the area. Judy’s children joined the search and followed up on sightings around the tourist areas of Philly. Police interviewed Jeffrey, Judy’s children, and others in order to retrace Judy’s last steps. Judy left behind her passport at her home in Massachusetts meaning she could not have easily left the county. The Smith’s two landline records were checked but nothing out of the ordinary was found.
After interviews and searches of the area, Philadelphia PD announced that they believed Judy had never made it to Pennsylvania at all and speculated that Judy went missing from the Boston area. This speculation was based on a couple of things.
First, investigators did not believe Jeffrey’s story that Judy couldn’t catch the flight due to a lack of photo ID. Police thought that this story was odd and did not believe a seasoned traveler like Judy would forget her license at home before heading to the airport.
Later investigation showed that someone named Judith Smith took a 7:30pm flight into Philadelphia and flight manifest showed that the ticket was used to make the flight that evening, however, the entire incident is still odd to many amateur sleuths and professional investigators.
Another detective thought it was odd that while Judy had clothes and belongings in the hotel room, she didn’t have any cosmetics with her. Further, detectives noticed that there were few soiled items of clothing in the room meaning that if Judy was in Philadelphia on the 10th, she wore the same jeans and coat that she was wearing the night before. Judy’s children reported that this wasn’t uncommon for their mother as she wasn’t a frilly person. They also said that their mother only wore makeup on occasion and not while traveling so these things didn’t seem out of the ordinary to them. (Personally, I have also wondered if Judy did have some makeup, but it was in her backpack at time. I know plenty of women who don’t wear much makeup, but if you looked in their purse or bag you might find some lip stick or powder.)
Investigators went on to say that no one but Jeffrey could place Judy in Philadelphia during this time frame. This announcement resulted in several eyewitnesses who claimed that they had seen Judy at the hotel. One receptionist from the hotel claimed that on April 9th in between 9-10 pm, she saw Judy arrive at the hotel and greet her husband in the lobby. She said that Jeffrey gave Judy flowers and the two appeared to be apologizing to each other. (Jeffrey said this was the case except Judy gave him the flowers). One concierge remembered a woman in her 50s with a coat and old red backpack ask him how to get to the PHLASH bus stop at around 10 am on April 10th. He knew it was after 9 am because that is when his shift started. Finally, a conference goer named Carmen Catazone, who was sitting in the lobby also recalled the flower incident from the night before. The woman did not know Jeffrey personally, but recognized him from the conference. Jeffrey was a moderator for a variety of sessions and was very overweight so he was easily recognizable. These witness’ accounts seem to line up with Jeffrey’s story. As far as I can tell the flower story had not been released to the press at this point.
Finally, Philadelphia PD divulged that Jeffrey wasn’t fully cooperative, as he wouldn’t submit to a polygraph. Jeffrey denies this and said that as a lawyer he knew that polygraphs are fallible. Further, he claims that he was willing to take a lie detector if it was given by an outside agency such as the FBI, but Philadelphia police declined this scenario. These are the four reasons investigators used in order to prop up their theory that Judy wasn’t in Philadelphia at all. Despite witness sightings, this theory is a popular on online to this day.
Aftermath and Discovery
After several weeks Jeffrey returned to the Boston area and tried to resume his normal life. He drastically cut back his hours at the office reporting that he could not focus on his work. Smith attempted to keep his wife’s case in the spotlight doing interviews whenever he could and eventually landing a spot on the show Unsolved Mysteries. On the show, one friend of the couple called the marriage “tenuous” but modern articles on the case mention that the police could find no one who reported concerns like these about the couples’ relationship. In independent interviews Judy’s adult children denied witnessing any warning signs in their mother’s new marriage. Eventually, Jeffrey hired three private investigators to look for Judy. The PIs faxed over 9,000 missing posters to police departments and hospitals all over the country hoping that someone would recognize Judy.
Five months after her disappearance in September 1997, a man and his son were hunting in the Pisgah National Forest near Candler, North Carolina, a short drive from the city of Asheville. On a steep incline one-quarter mile from a picnic area, which itself was a mile from hike from the nearest parking area, the duo found what appeared to be a human bone. They alerted the police who responded to the scene. Over an area approximately 300 feet in diameter, investigators found most of a human skeleton which had been wrapped in a blue blanket and buried in a very shallow grave. Scavenging animals had dug up the skeleton and a few bones had been carried away. The skeleton was determined to be female. The woman was dressed in thermal underwear under her jeans, hiking boots, socks, a t-shirt, a bra and a jacket. Nearby in two different holes, a blue vinyl backpack and a men’s shirt had been buried. The backpack contained some winter clothing and 80 dollars. The shirt contained a pair of $110 Bolle brand sunglasses, as well an additional $87. A paperback mystery novel was also found nearby. She carried no ID. The slope where the body was discovered was near some hiking trails, but the hill itself was steep and at an elevation of 4,000 feet, the search was difficult. The incline was so severe that one investigator crushed his sciatic nerve attempting to search the area, an injury which required major surgery.
Early coverage of the body’s discovery in the Asheville Citizen Times, initially reported that the police found a body belonging to a woman who they believed to be in her 20s dressed in hiking clothes (Ball, 1997). Several days later, the medical examiner assessed the bones and concluded that the skeleton was that of white woman in her 40s or 50s, who was about 5’3” tall with shortish light brown hair. There were cut marks in the woman’s bra and t-shirt which indicated that she had been stabbed in the chest area, however, no cause of death could be determined. Some reports mention that there was trauma to the woman’s ribs. The decedent also had a severely arthritic right knee (some reports say it was her left knee), extensive fillings and dental work in her molars, and some animal hair on her shirt, which may have been horse hair. The woman did not seem to be a transient due to her nice clothes and dental work. The death was ruled a homicide as the woman had been wrapped in a blanket post mortem and buried. The ME determined that the body had been there for 1-2 years prior. For several weeks the skeleton remained nameless in the ME’s office.
On September 9th, a small blurb about the unidentified body ran in an Asheville, North Carolina paper. 65 miles away in Franklin, NC, an ER physician named Parker Davis was looking at missing poster which had been faxed to the hospital he worked at when he noticed that the woman on the poster had a severely arthritic knee. He remembered the story of the skeleton from the paper who had a similar knee problem. On a whim he called the police who were able to get a copy of Judy’s missing poster. After a preliminary check, the ME contacted Jeffrey in order to obtain a copy of Judy’s dental records. The records were a match, and by the end of September 1997, Judy had her name back. Friends and family were also able to identify Judy’s diamond engagement band with a pear-shaped stone and wedding ring which had been found on or near the body. Some early reports say that the woman had no jewelry and that Judy’s wedding ring was missing, but later reports say that it was found near the body. The area of the burial was searched on at least three occasions so it is possible the rings were not found until later. Missing was Judy’s wallet, red backpack, and some jewelry that she typically wore (it’s unclear what jewelry this is referring to). The coat she was last seen wearing was nowhere to be found and the clothes she was dressed in, as well as those in the backpack were unable to be identified by family or friends. The shirt buried nearby was a men’s shirt and was believed to belong to the killer, not Judy. Furthermore, the sunglasses did not appear to be Judy’s as Judy’s kids said she wasn’t the type to spend over $100 on sunglasses. The sunglasses are an athletic style and to me look like men’s or unisex sport sunglasses.
Buncombe County Investigation
Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department took over the case from the PPD after Judy’s identification. Once it was determined that Judy was the woman in the woods, several residents in and around Asheville reported that they had seen Judy or had interacted with her in the April shortly after she was last seen in Philadelphia. For example, one woman thought Judy had stayed at her hotel from April 10th-12th, one woman who worked at a souvenir shop near the Biltmore house (a tourist attraction near Asheville) thought that she spoke to Judy who said she was from Boston and that her husband was a lawyer. Another woman who worked in a store recalled that Judy with her red backpack. She claims that Judy bought a toy truck and approximately $30 worth of sandwiches. There were two other sightings of a person resembling Judy in the area in a gray sedan. One person claimed to have seen Judy near the Pisgah National Forest in a gray sedan chock full of stuff. This witness said that the woman was looking for a place to camp. Another person saw a woman in a gray sedan in the same area. All sightings occurred in the week or so after Judy was last seen in Philadelphia. Of course, it goes without saying that, eyewitness testimony can be unreliable and the human mind is susceptible to suggestion.
North Carolina investigators traveled to Philadelphia to retrace Judy’s steps. They have said that they don’t believe that PPD did a poor job but simply wanted to cover their bases. Two detectives flew to Philadelphia and determined that Judy probably been there at least briefly before traveling to the Pisgah National Forest. They reported that there was no indication that Judy had been abducted or otherwise forced to travel south. It appeared she at least started the journey of her own volition. In all the sightings of Judy in North Carolina, she was alone.
Buncombe county deputies were able to rule out Jeffrey as a suspect rather quickly, although they concede that anything is possible and Jeffrey could be involved however unlikely it seems. Jeffrey was ruled out based on his size and health. Jeffrey was a morbidly obese man who investigators noted began huffing and puffing when walking quickly or climbing stairs. Because of this they did not believe Jeffrey could have disposed of his wife’s body especially in such an inaccessible area of the forest. Furthermore, they could find no evidence that Jeffrey rented a car in Philadelphia adding to the logistical problems with Jeffrey being a suspect. On top of his lack of car, Jeffrey had less than 12 hours to dispose of Judy’s body as he was seen in the lobby of the hotel at 9:30 pm, and then was moderating a session of the conference at 9:30 am. Driving to the Pisgah National Forest from Philadelphia takes approximately nine hours one way meaning he did not have time to kill and dispose of his wife. One podcast on the case mentions that police could find no large withdrawals of money from the Smith’s accounts which could have indicated the hiring of a hit man or a paid accomplice. (I could find no other corroboration of this claim so take this with a grain of salt.) Jeffrey also kept his wife’s case in the spotlight and suffered many hardships in the wake of his wife’s disappearance. Besides the one woman who was interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries, no other friends or family reported that there were issues in marriage that they were aware of.
Philadelphia police also struggled with Jeffrey’s size as carrying and disposing of a dead body is quite taxing and it is doubtful that Jeffrey could have done this on his own. However, they say that Jeffrey is still as suspect as he could have killed his wife in Boston or had an accomplice.
With the most obvious suspect cleared, investigators moved on to other lines of inquiry. They searched the surrounding areas hoping to find people who had seen Judy which is how the discovery of the woman in the gray car was made. Police also searched a nearby horse farm as Judy was known to like horses and had what could have been horse hair on her body, but nothing definitive was found.
Other information

• Philadelphia investigators looked at the Smith’s phone records and determined that there was no unusual activity on either of their phone lines that would indicate that either of the Smiths were having affairs. Neither Jeffrey or Judy had cell phones. If Judy was having an affair at the time, none of her friends could provide any insight or speculate as to who it was. There was a computer in the house which was searched, but it is unknown if the computer was connected to the internet.
• When Judy went missing Jeffrey believed that she had approximately $200 on her person. About $500 dollars in cash was found among Judy’s things in the hotel room. Judy also disappeared with her ID, her credit card, and her phone card. To this day, there has been no activity on either card.
• Judy’s description varies from source to source. Some sources report that she was “heavy set” or “top heavy”. Others say she was 130 or 140 lbs., which is more average size for a 5’2” woman. In some pictures Judy looks to be of a larger build, but in some photos, she appears smaller. Whether these weights were a misprint or Judy was someone whose weight fluctuated regularly is unclear. It is not a very important detail but it is a discrepancy I wanted to point out.
• Judy had been to North Carolina only once and had no connection to the area. She had once been to Raleigh to visit Jeffrey who was at a weight loss clinic. Jeffrey said that he loved the area and thought about moving, but the couple never returned to the state. Family also said that Judy had once traveled to Tennessee or another nearby state with a former patient but that had been years earlier.
• Judy Smith is also the name of a famous "Crisis Manager." This Judy Smith was the inspiration for the hit show "Scandal" with actress Kerry Washington. This woman is not the same Judy Smith who went missing in 1997.

Suspects
Gary Michael Hilton, sometimes called the national park killer, is a suspect in Judy's disappearance. In 2008 Hilton was arrested for a murder in a national forest and was later linked to three other murders, all of which took place between 2005 and 2008. Hilton, who was in his 50s and 60s at the time, killed hikers in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina and he is considered a suspect in many other murders in surrounding states such as Arkansas, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Hilton, who loved the outdoors, would often stalk hiking trails, camp sites, and other areas known for outdoor recreation to find victims to terrorize. His crimes were tended to be opportunistic and his motive most often was monetary. Hilton held down a series of jobs from 1997 to 2007 but did not work full time. He was also a drifter who moved from place to place. Hilton usually assaulted and robbed his victims of their wallets, atm cards, cash, and valuables. His victims were male and female, young and old. He seemed to prefer victims who were isolated and alone did not try to find a specific type of person otherwise. One thing that is interesting about Hilton as an offender is that it appears that he did not commit any violent crimes before he was 58 or 59 years old. Hilton has a very long rap sheet but most of his crimes were relatively minor such as possession of marijuana, carrying a pistol without a license, soliciting false donations for charity, carrying a police baton, and DUI. Once arrested several violent incidents that Hilton had been a part of came to light but he had never been convicted of them in the past. Most people agree someone with does not start a life of violent crime in their 60s. Many believe the Gary Michael Hilton has more victims then are currently known.
John and Irene Bryant, an eclectic couple in their 80s, were hiking in the Pisgah National Forest in 2007 when they were attacked by Hilton. Hilton killed Irene, and then kidnapped her husband in order to use their ATM cards and withdraw money before killing John as well. Irene's body was left only miles from where Judy's body was found 10 years earlier. This is one of the most convincing pieces of evidence that Hilton may have been involved in Judy's murder as well. However, it is important to note that Judy was not robbed and Hilton did not bury any of his known victims. Judy's murder also took place 10 years before any Hilton's other murders. Some blogs or more unofficial sources on the case mentioned that Hilton was believed to be in Georgia at the time of Judy's disappearance, but this isn't known for sure. If you are interested in learning more about the crimes of Gary Michael Hilton this reddit post is a really good place to start. This post did a good job of putting it all in one place so thank you u/lisagreenhouse.
Another offender who was in the Asheville area at the time of Judy's disappearance was a young man named Lewis Kyle Wilson. In the early 2000s Wilson was arrested after assaulting and robbing a sex worker he had brought home to his property. There's not a lot of information on Wilson online, but he was living in Asheville and would have been 19 at the time of Judy's disappearance. I cannot find any evidence that Wilson actually killed anyone but he does have a history of violence towards women and was in the area at the time so he is sometimes mentioned online as a possible suspect. One sex worker Wilson was known to frequent was the victim of an unsolved homicide that happened in 2006; Wilson is the prime suspect in that crime.
In 2016, only a couple of miles from Judy's burial site in the Pisgah National Forest, a lone hiker in her 60s was attacked, raped, and left tied to a tree. Thankfully, the woman was found alive and taken to the hospital. Some have wondered if this crime was connected to the Judy Smith homicide but there is no hard evidence of this and the rapist remains unknown.
Theories
Amnesia is one possible explanation for Judy’s disappearance. The family believes that Judy was injured or otherwise suffered a bout of dissociative amnesia which caused her to become confused or forget her identity. This is supported by the sightings of a confused or disoriented Judy in Philadelphia. The family believes this explains why Judy traveled to the Pisgah National Forest apparently of her own free will.
One theory is that Judy and Jeffrey had an argument that spurred an angry Judy to leave the area, whether she left from Boston or Philadelphia. After she left the area and traveled south to North Carolina, she met with foul play.
In a similar vein, some believed Judy willingly traveled to North Carolina to meet up with someone, perhaps a friend or a secret boyfriend. The ID incident at the airport was simply a cover so Judy could converse with this person who she wanted to meet. Once in North Carolina she met with foul play perhaps at the hand of the person she went to meet.
One theory Jeffrey explored was that Judy was suffering from mental illness and had a psychotic break. Being a lawyer, Jeffrey was able with some legal maneuvering to obtain all of Judy’s medical records from her adult life, including a physical she had had only months before hand. There was no indication that Judy had ever had any mental health concerns. Neither she or her doctors ever mentioned anything that would have pointed to any mental health problems, even minor ones such as anxiety. According to Jeffrey, Judy’s newest physical reported that Judy was in good mental and physical health (Lewis, 1997 and Trace Evidence Podcast).
Other sleuths have speculated that Judy traveled to North Carolina because she was questioning her sexuality. Asheville at the time was known for having an LGBT community. This theory is pushed forward by one interview on the Unsolved Mysteries segment as Judy’s friend says, “If you are looking for a mystery man, there wasn’t one.” Some have said that this implied that Judy had met a mystery woman, not a man. However, this theory is full of holes. No friends or family ever had any indication that Judy was questioning her sexuality. Judy had been married to men on three occasions and had other boyfriends as well. This explanation fails to explain why this realization would cause Judy to unexpectedly travel hundreds of miles and cease contact with her children. It also fails to explain who killed Judy.
Others have speculated that Judy was tricked into going to North Carolina. Perhaps she met someone while sightseeing who offered her a ride and that person abducted her or drove her to North Carolina for some reason.
Personally, I have always wondered if Judy was suffering from early onset dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. This would be a similar theory to the psychotic break theory; however, I believe this explains why Judy was described as both disoriented and acting normal in different sightings. I am by no means an expert, but if I understand correctly, patients with these conditions can get very confused and agitated but can also have times of acting completely lucid. I think this theory can explain why Judy forgot her license at home before flying, and can also explain her disappearance. I think it is possible Judy got on the wrong bus and ended up first at the Deptford mall and then eventually North Carolina, simply getting more and more lost each day. Of course, this hypothesis does not solve Judy’s murder, it simply gives an explanation for her travels.
A final theory that is prevalent online is the idea that the doe found in Pisgah National Forest was not Judy at all and was instead misidentified. While this is always possible and something I have entertained from time to time, Judy was matched via dental records, her arthritic knee, and her distinct engagement ring with a pear-shaped stone. If the doe was not Judy, then the mystery becomes even stranger, and now includes the identity and murder of yet another woman. While the odds of a similarly aged woman, with a bad knee, similar dental work, and a plain silver wedding band accompanied with a fancy diamond engagement ring, who was not Judy being murdered in the forest is possible, I believe that it is not very likely. Proponents of this theory point to the ME’s report that the doe had been in the forest for over a year, while Judy had been missing only five months at the time of her discovery.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Full list of sources are in part two- https://unsolved.com/gallery/judy-smith/
link to part 2 https://www.reddit.com/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/kky2l2/when_a_body_is_found_600_miles_away_extensive_two/

Note for Narrators: I will never approve this story for narration. It is a story of trauma and abuse; it is not a fun creepypasta for your channel, nor something for you to profit off of. If I discover you've used it regardless, I will pursue every legal action available to me.
TW: Child abuse.
When I recall my earliest memories, Charlene is ever present. My father’s co-worker, she’d been in my life from the beginning; she brought him a cupcake the day he announced my mother was pregnant with me. A few days after I was born, she strode into the hospital (I was a particularly difficult c-section, and both my mother and I had to stay in the hospital for a week or so) and presented my mother with flowers and me with a little stuffed toy. Who needed a babysitter when she was constantly calling up and offering to babysit?
“It’ll be nice,” she told my parents. “You can go out and get dinner, just the two of you. The baby will be fine.” My father was touched by her generosity but my mother suspicious; she seemed just a tad too insistent, too eager to burrow her way into our lives.
Of course, it didn’t help that Charlene had a visible crush on my father. She never directly crossed the line—it was the giddiness when she spoke to him, the eager smiles when he walked into the office, the puppy-like enthusiasm with which she followed the events of his life that gave it away. Co-workers teased him about it; my father was flattered but a loyal husband; my mother seethed with loathing.
Charlene remembered my birthday every year, and gave me a gift each time it rolled around. I’ve no memory of this—I can’t recall what she looked like, the timbre of her voice or if I enjoyed her presence—but I’m told she was a frequent guest, swinging by our house a few times per week to say hello.
I don’t know when, exactly, it stopped, or what the catalyst was, but by the time I entered first grade, Charlene was little more than the name of a woman I couldn’t remember having met—a nebulous, malignant entity that seemed to frighten my parents but meant little to me.
Charlene was dangerous, they told me.
Charlene wasn’t our friend anymore.
I was never afraid, in those days. At six years old I only cared about swishing the little skirt on my school uniform when I twirled around in circles, or playing with the parachute at recess, or what we were having at snack time. My greatest fear was not getting to the bottle of pink paint before Stacy, she of the paint-monopolizing fingers, during art class.
And so I can’t say our daily checklist of Survival Skills particularly alarmed me. Every morning my parents would pull up in front of my school to drop me off and run me down the questions:
“What do you do if a stranger asks you to get in their car?” they asked.
“Run away and find a grown-up,” I said. I knew the answers like the back of my hand by this point.
“What if they tell you Mommy or Daddy sent them?”
“They’re lying. Run away.”
“What do you do if a woman named Charlene tries to talk to you?”
“Go get a teacher.”
“Do you remember what Charlene looks like?” I shook my head. “Can you remember her hair color?”
“Blonde.”
“That’s right. And what do you do if she ever tries to grab you?”
“Scream and fight and run to a grown-up.”
And so it went. Every day. For years.
We lived in a mid-sized city but were involved in a small community; my father worked 18 hours a day, often in multiple shifts, to climb out of a economic status many would label “the working poor” and send me to a private Catholic school. It was nothing fancy, but it was safe and welcoming and a good education—extremely important to my father who’d grown up knowing a level of poverty I truly can’t imagine, and was working full time at 14 to help his parents pay the bills—and the tuition was expensive but manageable, even if it meant he often went to work with holes in his shoes and socks and skipped a meal so that he could purchase my school books.
We could never seem to get ahead.
Small private schools truly are like small towns: everyone knows everyone else’s business, and St. Mary’s was no exception. The children had all grown up together, the parents all mingled and made small talk at birthday parties, and collectively we all attended Sunday mass. It wasn’t long before the information made it’s way out, though I’ve never been sure if it started as a rumor or if my parents broached it with the others privately.
Either way, the parents and teachers of St. Mary’s began to keep an extra eye out for me. I was checked on multiple times during recess. Other teachers would swing by my classroom on their break to make sure everything was okay. Parents would pass me in the playground and check in:
“Anybody bother you today, kiddo?”
“Nope.” Nobody ever bothered me, and they seemed pleased by the answer. Mostly I was annoyed at having to answer the same question every day.
My father was a city bus driver, and as anyone who grew up as the kid of a bus driver can tell you, it’s like having an army of watchful aunts and uncles who are not only able to casually track your whereabouts in the city but are trusted with your safe travel. Riding a bus might prove potentially dangerous for others, but you’re untouchable when you’re the one kid sitting up front and on a first name basis with every driver.
Years later, I found out my father spread the word about Charlene amongst his co-workers. She’d left for another job at that point but still lived in the city, and every driver was on the lookout. My school was on one of the bus routes, and every time I saw a bus drive by during recess I’d run up to the fence and wave, knowing it was likely to be my Dad or someone else I knew. The drivers all used CB radios to communicate back then, and every time they saw me at school or out and about they’d give my Dad an update:
“Little Beef at recess, doing fine.”
“Little Beef walking down Hudson with Mom.”
“Little Beef and friends at Forest Park, Mom’s watching.”
Etc.
Ignoring the indignity of a nickname like “Little Beef” (I was a chubby child and prone to imitating pro-wrestlers I saw on TV; these were dark times and I don’t want to talk about it) this was also how I got busted trying my first cigarette at twelve. A driver spotted me and my best friend Julie down by our local bodega, taking half-assed drags off of a pilfered cigarette and pretending to like it. Immediately radioed my Dad. I was grounded before I even got home. (Little Beef was not pleased.)
It’s hard to say when the escalation began. I only know it started with the phone calls.
My father arrived home to find my mother in tears. All day the phone rang, she said. All day. He’d been at work and I’d been at school and she’d been alone. The phone rang and rang and yet every time she picked it up there was nothing, just a terrible, menacing silence and, later, breathing. She was afraid; he was worried; I wondered what was for dinner. We changed our phone number.
The calls continued.
Shortly after it was time for my school’s annual Halloween carnival. My favorite time of year, I was excited to dress up and play games and eat too many caramel apples. My mother, eager to be involved in my schooling, was an active member of the PTA and their head of treasury. It was from this fund that the money for our Halloween carnival and other various holiday celebrations came; parents and teachers donated to ensure we took fun field trips and enjoyed haunted houses and age-appropriate Christmas parties. A lovely thing.
Then the money went missing. All of it. The PTA’s treasury had been wiped out.
This was discovered two days before the Halloween carnival when another PTA member went to retrieve some money to buy supplies. Horrified, she reported it to my mother, who collapsed sobbing. Sure, it was possible a parent or teacher could’ve stolen it, but was it likely? In a school this small, with a community this tightly-knit? And my mother was the head of treasury; this felt targeted.
The tension in the school, and my home, skyrocketed. You couldn’t walk through the hall or the school parking lot without finding a group of parents clustered together, talking quietly but intensely. The air was shifting, the adults around me suddenly alert and on guard; a pack of dogs catching the scent of a predator.
I was in third grade when the picture arrived. Dad got off work early and swung by to pick me up, a rare treat. We walked into the front door to find my mother red-faced, sobbing, visibly shaking. Before she could say anything my father demanded I retreat into my room. I whined; he raised his voice, a thing he seldom did; I slunk off to my room, pouting.
It was a family photo, taken at the old Sears photo studio a year or so earlier. Dad, Mom and I smiling into the camera. Dad’s arm slung around Mom’s shoulders. Me sitting on Mom’s lap.
Except Mom’s face had been scratched out and on the back, in bright red marker, it read:
“THEY’LL BE MINE, BITCH.”
Like something out of a bad Lifetime movie.
After that, I had my very own security guard at school. Or, rather, one of the school’s two security guards hung out wherever I was at the time: the playground at recess, the parking lot waiting for Mom, the cafeteria, moving from one classroom to another. Teachers stroked my hair like I was a scared animal, other parents constantly smiled at me with tender, sympathetic smiles. And, underneath, of relief, a brief flicker of: thank God it’s not my child.
Things were mostly quiet for a while after that. Mom still reported menacing phone calls. She mentioned hearing someone walking around our home—the crunch of leaves a telltale sign—and later when Dad went to look, there were footprints in the soft dirt beneath the window.
The day my mother cried about hearing someone tapping at the windows and rattling the door handle, my father set up shop in front of our front door. With little more than a rifle and a chair, he dosed in front of that door throughout the nights. Waiting for the first sign of anything. Waiting for Charlene to make her move when he was home, to try and harm his wife or kidnap his little girl.
Years later, when I’d long been in the full flush of adulthood and he’d knocked back a few too many whiskeys, he told me he’d briefly considered killing Charlene. A preemptive strike against the woman terrorizing his wife and plotting to steal his child. He shoved the idea away quickly, full of shame. But still, it had been there, and the remnants of it lingered.
After all, we all say things like “I’d do anything to protect my family.” But how many of us are ever truly put to the test?
Strange to think it all came to a horrific end over the pettiest of crimes:
All the money from my parents’ bowling league treasury was stolen.
And then the police arrived at our door, and took my mother away in handcuffs.
My generation was the first of its kind. That is to say, the first digital natives. At 37 years old, I’m on the older end of the millennial generation; old enough to remember the days before cell phones, young enough to have never known life without a personal computer. And it’s odd to realize this is precisely what allowed my mother to commit so many crimes without notice for so long. And, later, what would ultimately prove to be her downfall.
It was a perfect confluence of factors that led to my childhood being what was it. We live in a world of constant surveillance, extraordinary technology, elaborate fraud detection. But in the 80s and early 90s? There’s wasn’t anything of the sort, at least not widely available enough to be of use.
My father, a wonderful, protective and doting father came out of a horrific background. Abuse I truly cannot fathom, with a sadistic alcoholic for a father who tortured his two sons and weaponized masculinity to immunize them to any influence that might save them. After all, only pussies cry. Only pussies need therapy. And we all know what happens to pussies, don’t we?
“You want something to cry about, pussy? I’ll give you something to cry about.”
Ad nauseam throughout childhood until it’s so ingrained you have no chance of escape, not even in adulthood. An abuser’s greatest advantage is teaching a child to ignore the monsters under their bed, but to fear the monsters in their head. Couple that with growing up in the 50s and 60s, an era when it was believed PTSD was something only veterans had, a man beating his wife and children was “unfortunate but none of our business,” and therapy came with a stigma so powerful it was essentially social suicide (and, again, only for “pussies”), and you wound up with a loving man riddled with unchecked PTSD, the paranoia and over-protectiveness that often comes with it, and an unflinching belief in his wife. He trusted her with his child and all the money he earned and it never occurred to him, not even once, that it might not be a good idea.
After all, he was so grateful to escape the Hell of his own childhood and create a happy family. Why wouldn’t he believe her?
He called the police early on, when Charlene seemed determined to torture our family, but given that there was no substantial proof, there wasn’t much they could do. And later, my mother begged him not to call again; they hadn’t done anything useful last time, remember? What would be different this time? Besides, our family—my father’s family—believed in handling problems in-house.
“We take care of our own,” my grandfather had always told his sons, nevermind the relentless abuse he inflicted upon them.
And so my father took care of his own; he sat in front of our front door with a rifle, and wondered if he’d have to kill a woman.
He never had the slightest idea that everything that had controlled so much of our lives up to this point was nothing more than my mother’s lies.
He had no idea she was abusing his only child while he worked 18 hours a day to put food on the table and give her the education he so desperately wanted for her. Or that his own experience with abuse had made him vulnerable to people who would use that to their advantage.
And he certainly had no idea that his wife had not only stolen all the money he brought home and asked her to put into their savings, but had committed dozens of felonies in his name, racked up thousands of dollars in credit card debt (credit cards he didn’t even knew he had), took money from her daughter’s school and had various sources of income he’d never even been aware of.
And it wasn’t the first time she’d done it.
When I think of my childhood, I remember how little my father was around. Certainly not his fault—he was working such long hours to provide for us—and most importantly, when he was home he was home. Every memory I have of going to a park, or playing with my toys, or being read to sleep involve him. He taught me to cook, made me chicken soup from scratch when I was sick, cuddled with me in bed when I was sad, or lonely, or scared. He was, in many ways, the only parent I had.
My mother stayed at home, ostensibly to raise me. She loathed it. Parenting’s not for everyone, I suppose. Despite being the one that was around all the time, I have no memory of her ever playing with me, or reading me a book, or taking me to the park. I try to search my memory, figure out if it’s simply the fog of time, but nothing ever comes up. All I remember of her in my youth was the visible contempt she held for me whenever I was around.
Well, that and her temper.
Abuse is hard to fathom when you’ve grown up in it. All the more so when it doesn’t resemble the popular media portrayals. I was never beaten; my mother never broke any of my bones. She was simply unpredictable, known to fly into a rage at the drop of the hat, often for reasons I didn’t see coming or couldn’t understand. She screamed and threw things at me, slapped me in the face so often and so suddenly I’d long stopped crying about it and flinched whenever she moved too quickly. If I did something that displeased her, she’d tell me she had breast cancer.
It miraculously cleared up the next day once she’d forgotten about it, only to reappear the next time I did or said something she didn’t like.
She abandoned me in parking lots and grocery stores as a punishment—the panic of being left behind meant to teach me a lesson. (The lesson was never quite clear.) She threatened to take me to the family priest and force me to confess my sins (at six, I wasn’t quite sure what those sins were). She sobbed uncontrollably when I told her not to slap me, screamed about how her mother whipped her with tree branches and scarred up her legs. (Her legs were astonishingly scar-free.) She hid her behavior from everyone, especially my father. And at the end of every outburst she’d turn to me with big, watery blue eyes and a quivering voice and ask, “Don’t tell Daddy, okay?”
And so I didn’t.
My mother was fired from her first job for theft.
And her second.
And her third.
And many thereafter, although there was apparently a break somewhere between the third and the fifth. I guess even dedicated thieves need to relax.
My mother stole her first husband’s life savings (the man she married before my father), several thousands from her brother and parents, and the college fund my great aunt set aside for me.
But her true masterpiece occurred during her marriage to my father. The crimes included but were not limited to:

• welfare fraud
  
• identity theft
  
• credit fraud
  
• grand larceny
  
• document forgery
  

And that was just was she charged with. She’d committed so many crimes in my father’s name, it took years and an army of lawyers to sort it out. There was a legitimate fear he might go to jail for her deeds.
She had two social security numbers both for her--and myself, each card with a slightly different number. If that doesn’t seem like such a big deal, understand that even a single number difference in a social security number equals an entirely new identity. She had numerous aliases; several people knew her by different names, and were oblivious to her actual family life.
She took out credit cards in my name when I was but an infant.
Hell, she even briefly got a job as a photographer at the local newspaper until being fired once they realized her qualifications were nothing but lies.
As for Charlene?
She was nothing more than an innocent woman with a crush on my father. Perhaps a tad too eager for his attention. But beyond that, utterly innocent, and utterly unaware of the drama she’d been dragged into or the potential threat to her life. The calls, the photo, the theft, the menace, all of it: a fiction created by my mother. And for what? To hide her theft? To disguise her child abuse? To ward off a woman she felt was a threat to her marriage? Because she was bored?
Hell if I know. The truth’s never been her forte.
My parents divorced shortly after her arrest began the unraveling of her deception. My father was awarded sole legal and physical custody. Mom spent some time in jail, though not nearly as much as you might think—a charming white woman with no history of violence (I never spoke of the abuse until I was an adult) and white collar crimes? Prisons are over-crowded and she wasn’t their target demographic. Besides, a lot of people elected not to pursue damages against her for the sake of myself and my father, a kindness we've never forgotten; we were already barely treading water.
My mother carried on her in usual tradition for a while. She dated two men in rapid succession after her divorce, the second of which she nearly married, and she stole enormous amounts of money from both. Again, jail time—just not as much as you might think. She enjoyed several lengthy hospital stays after faking various illnesses, as was her favorite past time whenever someone confronted her about her bullshit. She “borrowed” obscene amounts of money from coworkers and friends that never seemed to be paid back. She stole things from my home and sold them off for petty cash, left a trail of angry landlords and loan officers and bewildered casualties in her path of destruction.
And then, finally, she was trumped by technology.
No longer able to get by with her usual routine, she settled down a bit. Worked a steady job for a few years, before eventually being diagnosed with MS and going to live in a care facility. Which is not to say she’s a changed woman: I still field phone calls from collection agencies (she gives them my number in place of hers) and landlords who think I’m her (because she’s used my name in the past) and “family friends” who loaned her a great deal of money to pay for my funeral expenses only to realize with quite a shock years later that I am very much alive. (I’ve died or been gravely injured in a great many of her “I need money” stories.)
At the recommendation of my father, we hire a lawyer every year to make sure she hasn’t taken out a life insurance policy. On me. Which is not to say that I fear my mother trying to kill me—I absolutely do not. We are just very, very aware she would seek to capitalize off of my untimely demise were it to arise.
We still speak, my mother and I. While I’m occasionally of two minds about it, I’ve a strong sense of familial duty and it’s an aspect of myself I value deeply. But we’re not close; I don’t know if she realizes that.
I visit her once a month or so at the care facility, mostly to make sure she’s being treated well enough. She strokes my hair and pats my cheek and calls me her “baby girl” and prattles on to any caregiver who will listen about what a wonderful daughter I am, and what a wonderful job she did of raising me. She enjoys referring to me as her "disabled daughter," a reference to my PTSD. She enjoys the coos the nurses offer her--such a brave, loving mother, having raised a disabled child!--seemingly without the realization that she's the cause of said PTSD.
Once, about three years ago, I thought of Charlene again. Mom’s never been one to part with answers: ask her about any of the abuse or crimes or lies and she’ll claim them never happened, even if you’re waving the documentation in front of her. Still, I couldn’t quite help myself.
“Mama, remember Charlene?”
“Who, honey?”
“Charlene. The lady you thought wanted to hurt you and kidnap me? Remember?”
She shook her head. “No, honey,” she said, “I don’t know who that is.”
She wasn’t lying. After all these years and a mountain of bullshit, I can spot her lies a mile away. And this was true. She had lied so much, and so often, to so many people and perhaps even herself, she’d forgotten the foundational myth of her child’s early life.
The day before their wedding, my maternal grandfather pulled my Dad aside and said, “be careful around my daughter. She’s a bit of a liar.”
My father was stunned, bewildered, and had no response. No further context was given, the warning never elaborated upon. My grandfather changed the subject immediately, and continued on like nothing had ever happened.
I think about that often.
“She’s a bit of a liar.”
Grandpa, you have no fucking idea.

Alright y'all,
My last DD post aged quite well and figured I'd put something else together for you.
That last DD post was on ACU - Aurora Solar Technologies. Posted on January 9th, 2021 with a share price of .375. Closed February 12th, 2021 at a price of .74. With their new Saas product just being released, I still believe there is a ton of upside there. Here's the post if you want to take a look:
https://www.reddit.com/Canadapennystocks/comments/ktkod0/acuv_aurora_solar_dd_for_an_undervalued_green/
Let's get into the next company, shall we. CMC - Cielo Waste Solutions. This one is also in the renewable energy space and imo, is probably better upside right now at their current prices. Currently own appx. 190K shares of CMC at about .095.
Essentially what this company does is take waste, put it through their process, and end up with renewable transportation diesel, jet fuel, and naphtha fuel. They can take almost any feedstock other than glass and metals, including wood, plastics, tires, construction waste, and municipal organic and solid waste.
From their website -
"All developed countries throughout the world require a minimum blend of renewable diesel be used in all transportation diesel fuel. Cielo’s renewable fuel can be used in highway, air, ocean, and railway sectors, and as a fuel in remote off-grid communities. Cielo's renewable naphtha will be used in the diluent, condensate and gasoline blending markets."
They've been working on this process for 17 years and have gotten to the point at their main facility, where they are able to have the process creating 1000 litres per hour of renewable fuels. The site is operating 24 hours a day. As of right now, they have an agreement to take CP's old rail ties and are using that wood as the feedstock.
At this main facility in Aldersyde, Alberta, they will be upgrading the plant this summer to expand the capacity to 2000 l/h. They have also ordered the equipment they'll need for the desulphurization of the fuels they produce. This will allow them to get a better price for the fuels and also allow them to be used in more applications. This is expected to be installed by end of Q1 2021. In November they signed a pre-sale commercial deal to sell 60,000 litres in anticipation of this desulphurization, at $1.25 per litre.
The great thing is that Cielo has a very effective, easily duplicated process now. They have agreements in place with Joint Venture partners to build another 5 facilities throughout Alberta. They are expected to break ground in Dunmore(Q2 21), Grand Prairie(Q4 21), Calgary and Edmonton(Q2 22). They have also purchased land in Medicine Hat, unsure when construction starts there. The CEO has stated he wants 40 facilities underway throughout North America in the next 5 years.
For the Dunmore facility, the plan is to build it to allow for 12,000 litres per hour capacity or 100 million litres per year of high-grade renewable fuel. The CEO anticipates that they will convert 200,000 tonnes of garbage into fuel to meet these numbers per year.
There is an active group on CEO.ca where one of Cielo's board members, Lionel Robbins, frequently visits. He is a wealth of information and is very accessible to anyone with questions. I'd recommend anyone interested to go through his old posts where he covers pretty much everything. Here's his post history link:
https://ceo.ca/@lionel
As far as how the Joint Ventures work with Cielo, the JV partners are responsible for putting up 100% of the initial funds to build the facilities. Here's how the numbers work out, per Lionel:
"@Lionel - Good morning everyone. I have seen quite a bit of information with regards to Cielo's revenue share on JV's, short term cash flow, etc, so I just wanted to put out a bit of information from the MOU's and some previous PR's, to summarize... u/r.p.56 has most of the information correct here in terms of the JV agreements between RenewableU/Cielo, SeymouCielo and any follow-on JV's. The JV partner is responsible for sourcing 100% of the funds to build and commission the new facility, and then will receive 70% of the profits per year until they receive the equivalent of that build cost back, with Cielo getting the other 30%. Once the cap cost recovery is complete, Cielo will then receive 50.1% of the profits going forward, with the JV partner getting the other 49.9% That gives Cielo some significant cash flow even during the cap cost return phase, as they will have no debt involved in the project. In terms of the estimated 24 month period to build, Cielo has positive cash flow at that point as well, receiving 7% of the cap cost to manage the builds. They would receive the 7% as the build draws are taken, giving them some consistent cash flow throughout the 24 months before the plants actually fire up. With most of the JV projects estimated to cost in the $50M to $80M range (depending on initial volume planned), 7% on several JV's is not a small number for Cielo to see in their pockets while waiting for the cash flow from operations. Cielo will also be ramping up to the last phase of Aldersyde during that time, to produce 2000 LPH and have its own sales revenue for additional cash flow."
Here's some more info from Lionel on various aspects of the business and Process:
2020-09-09
"I am communications director for Don, as well as a board member so obviously I can’t divulge anything but already public information, but will do my best. Just a clarification on Aldersyde’s breakeven point, it’s about 350 litres per hour production, not per day. The upgrades recently completed and noted in most recent PR, will allow Cielo to ramp up to that point, and beyond to an estimated 1000 lph which will create some positive cash flow for Cielo while the full scale facilities are being constructed across the province and beyond. For the question of feedstock, every facility can accommodate multiple feedstocks so it won’t be a matter of directing a single source to one specific plant. Lots of excitement and positivity out in Aldersyde these days. The tour with the Alberta provincial government ministers, and others, couldn’t have gone any better. Alberta is setting themselves on a path to diversifying their economy to have less reliance on O&G, and have Cielo firmly in their sites now as a part of that plan. Finance Minister Travis Toews had positive comments on his social media feeds right after the tour. For anyone already in the Calgary area, or planning to be in the near future, Don loves giving tours so please feel free to check in with us on available date and times."
2020-09-10
"On terms of production for the commercial-scale facilities, the design Cielo has is “modular” in nature, where each unit will be able to produce an estimated 2000 lph. The goal for each facility is a minimum of 2 modular units, or 4000 lph capacity to start, but that can be increased quite easily, with the only holdup being the availability of feedstock volumes. It takes approximately 3.5 tonnes of feedstock to make 2000 lph. In large volume areas such as Edmonton, Calgary, etc, it’s conceivable that feedstock agreements could justify facility builds to accommodate much more than 4000 lph to start, with the JV’s in places like Grande Prairie, Medicine Hat, etc likely starting at the 4000 and ramping up from there at a later date.
In terms of interest for more refineries, there are several MOU’s in place for joint venture facility builds. RenewableU has offer to build in Grande Prairie, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge and Halifax, with plans for additional. Seymour Capital has a MOU for Calgary facility, and several indigenous groups have expressed interest for a JV as well. There is interest from US and overseas, but first focus is getting a few Canadian facilities built.
In terms of tinkering with the mix to allow multiple feedstocks, it’s more a matter of specific temperature mix by feedstock type, no actual adjustment to equipment is needed, so facilities can transition through various feedstocks quite easily and quickly.
Unfortunately most of the details on the CP Rail tie feedstock agreement aren't public as of yet so I can't answer your specific question just yet. CP is excited about the project, and wants to time the full release of details for when they are ready on their end. In more "generic" terms for feedstock handling and processing...
all type of feedstock eventually ends up in what essentially is "powder" form at the end of the day. The feedstock is first processed through a grinding facility that breaks it down into manageable size (about 2" or less), and then goes into a second grinding facility (which will be on site at all facilities, compared to using 3rd party feedstock processors to deliver it in the 2" format) which utilizes sound bombardment to pulverize the feedstock into a fine 50 to 100 micron powder (about the consistency of flour). That powder is then mixed with the used motor oil, to make it a slurry (it's much easier to heat up a slurry-type liquid than heat up a solid feedstock). The slurry then goes through the patented Thermo-Catalytic-Depulmerization process to convert into distillate, which then goes through a separation process to separate into diesel, kerosene and naphtha. So they won't really "drop the feedstock off at the gates" per se, but it will end up being processed into the manageable feedstock, to them be delivered to the facility where it is kept in a designated storage area, waiting to be converted into the powder, to then make it's way into the facility and through the process. I am definitely NOT the tech guy in this equation, so I may be over-simplifying it a bit. I've been through enough plant tours with Don and Mark to have a pretty good idea of that whole process, but will never profess to be an expert! I hope that answers your question.
typically I wouldn't see them "mixing" feedstocks at random, as there may be issues with specific contaminants, etc, but yes that would be possible. When we are using feedstocks that don't have much for nasty contaminants in it, we are analyzing some of the ash waste for potential fertilizer applications as a bonus revenue source, so if we can ensure that certain type of feedstock produce a "useable" waste, as opposed to landfilling them or putting down disposal wells, then we will want to ensure we are taking advantage of that by not mixing that feedstock with others that prevent that."
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CMC has recently seen a share price spike in the last few weeks. I believe this is partially due to Bob McWhirter from BNN recommending the company in a National Post article. Anand Varun also mentioned them on BNN Market Call.
For anyone looking for more info on CMC, here's a few videos of their CEO going over their process and some investor materials.
Process explanation and facility walkthrough - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m44VPAjkwCA&t=2s
CEO Interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMYsasotbgo&feature=emb_logo
Investor Materials - https://www.cielows.com/investor-materials/
In conclusion, I think CMC is undervalued right now and will be on a lot of people's radar in the not too distant future. Part of me loves the play because I'm very confident I'll make good money from it. The other part of me loves the play because these guys are going to eliminate millions of tonnes of garbage within a few years and way more as time goes on. They'll turn that trash into renewable diesel, which would otherwise be decomposing in a landfill somewhere releasing greenhouse gases and polluting the local environment.
If you got this far, thanks for reading. Let me know what you think below.
All the best,
Kyle

I've made a post on here previously about how entitled and selfish my mother is, so for anyone interested: link
Since that post, numerous people have messaged and commented that I should cut ties with my mother. I'd honestly considered it for a long time but always made excuses to not do it. After months of thinking it over, I had a handful of reasons to keep contact with her and a mountain of pain that she's caused over the years. So I decided to cut her out of my life.
It's been 4 months now and I feel great! I didn't think it would create such a difference in my life but oh my god, the thought of not having to hear her southern fake sweet grandma voice make racist, homophobic comments about my friends or lecture me about wasting my life because I didn't live it to her wishes makes me so elated beyond words!
The only time it's not great is when I have my sisters message me saying "so mom did this...shocker..." and we all get pissed off at her new levels of entitlement and stupidity.
Her current stupidity has us all pissed off for different reasons.
My mom never told her brothers or father that I cut her out. She probably didn't want to look like she failed at parenting (especially since she's the only one of her siblings to have ever had kids), so when they sent the Christmas money to her and said to divide it amongst us 4 girls (including me) she never corrected them.
(WARNING: Math will be found in the next paragraph, apologies but it is accurate and important)
Instead, she messaged my sisters (and me but I have her blocked), and asked them what they wanted for Christmas. We all know her game, each family member sends $100 per child, 4 children with 3 gifts each means a total of $1200 in her bank account. She never gave us the full amount of that money, ever. What she would do is ask what we wanted, and either buy the cheapest version of it or buy what she thought we needed/would like and never spend more than $20 per child. Meaning, she was given $1200, spent $80 or less, and kept $1120 or more every year. That woman is still in debt somehow.
My sisters and I figured this out years ago and reasoned that while we were small children under her roof, that's fine, you need to house us, feed us, clothe us. Kids are expensive. But when we turned 16 and were made to get a job and pay for our own phone bill, car payment, car insurance, groceries, clothes, etc., yeah...no, give me my fucking money.
So when she asks "What do you girls want for Christmas?" they responded like we have every year "Cash". She apparently tried to argue that 2020 has been hard for her and that she couldn't afford to give much this year, my sisters fired back with "That's cool, what did our uncles and grandfather send you? If you don't remember we can just call them and ask." That got her to begrudgingly admit what they sent and say it'll be deposited into their accounts soon.
Then she ended it by saying that she wasn't going to send me my money, she was going to just hold onto it until I spoke to her again. My older sister blew up at her for this. Point blank told her that she was either being manipulative so that I would talk to her, or she was being a thief and trying to pocket someone else's money. My mom tried to ignore her but my sister wouldn't let up on this. Eventually, my sister messaged me and told me what was going on.
I was pissed off, but not that surprised by this. I had honestly forgotten all about receiving Christmas money. I expected a card or something but was just going to send it back to them anyway like I never received it. So really, she could've sent me a check and when I sent it back she could've just pocketed it then? Would have saved everyone this mess. Realizing that, when my sister asked what I wanted to do about this I told her that while the money would help because 2020 has been hard financially if she could somehow get the money from our mom then to just split it among her and my other sisters. I don't have a relationship with those family members anymore and taking money from them, even meant as a gift, seems wrong.
My sister said she understood and would pass the message along. But oh my god I am still pissed off that my mom is doing this! I feel like she's not trying to be a thief here, but more a manipulator. When I cut ties with her and said my goodbyes in an email, she replied by saying that she would respect my wishes but also told a story of how she cut out her mom when I was just a little girl, and months later her mom shows up unannounced to my birthday party and while they didn't speak during the party, they did talk afterwards, they reconciled and were very close until the day her mother died. I felt like that story was a giant red flag saying "I'll show up in your life when I want to and you'll have to talk to me! Then you'll forgive me and we'll be mommy and daughter again!"
HELL NO! Any attempts to manipulate me into talking to her is messed up and will not work! I feel like this is just the first of many attempts to come, but until I see a hard change in her I refuse to let her back into my life.
Sorry for the incredibly long story, wanted to post it here because reading a lot of these Entitled Parents stories are what helped me see how truly toxic my mother is because she is so similar to the Karens in most of these stories. If you have a toxic parent, then please know that you can cut them out of your life and you should not let them back in unless you feel ready to. Don't let them pull petty mess like this to make you talk to them, it's messed up, and giving them what they want will only encourage their poor behavior!
Edit: Ok wow, was not expecting this much attention! Thank you all so much for all the rewards and the comments! Would like to reply to some questions/clarify some things that are brought up in the comments.

1. "Since you're all adults now, why don't your uncles and grandfather just mail you the money to your own homes?" They used to, but over the years I've moved a lot and my sisters have fallen on hard times where they have to frequently move back in with my parents or couch hop so it became hard for extended family to even know what city we were living in. They eventually gave up and just started sending it to my mom again. Easier that than some random stranger getting a check meant for us and now having their bank information. Also, grandfather is in poor health, and with no one else living near him and his meds not helping his mental state, he signed over power of attorney to my mom and now she plays with his bank account whenever she wants.
2. "Tell your uncles and grandfather you aren't in contact with your mom anymore." I did consider this at first, and for two reasons I chose not to. 1 is that I have never had a realtionship with them outside of her. Meaning, I only talked to them when we visted. No phone calls, no emails, no written letters, literally did not acknowledge their existence unless made to be in the same room as them. The reason is that they're all entitled, homophobic, racist, full of themselves religious nut bags that I want nothing to do with and haven't wanted a relationship with ever. But, played nice because it was what she wanted. She's not in my life now so I don't really care about them.
3. "Tell your uncles and grandfather she's taking the money and not giving it to you or your sisters" They know. They don't care. They send it and write it off as "she's always been like that" and "it's not our place to come between your dispute". Really? You give her gasoline and a lit match and then tell me it's not your fault she set herself on fire when you knew she would? Again, give no fucks about cutting these people out.
4. "Why cut your mom out?" I honestly had to rewrite this post 6 times because I kept catching myself going on a rant about what all she's put me through over the years. But the highlights are: called the cops on my dad repeatedly when she was losing a verbal dispute with him (he was 6'2 and she's 5'2, all she had to do was say he threatened her and they'd show up), drove my dad crazy until he divorced her, she conned the courts into thinking he was an abusive monster so she could get custody (Alabama in the 90s, wasn't hard to do that), my dad gets diagnosed with a terminal illness and is living off of government aide because he's too sick to work so she has him thrown in jail for not paying child support because his government aid isn't enough to cover it and his treatments, he died when I was 19 and she to this day speaks ill of him and blames all thats wrong in her life on him, I came out of the closet at 16 as bisexual and she back handed me, called me a "sinning harlot" and put me in her version of pray the gay away camp until it was deemed illegal to keep me out of school any longer. She told us after the divorce that she wouldn't remarry unless we approved of the man, years later she brings a man home after their 1st date and immediately we don't like him, she ignores us and marries him 3 months later. He's been an abusive narcissist since day 1 and is now enabling her newfound drinking problem.

This is a throwaway, and all the identifying details that I could change have been changed. I’ve tried to shorten this up, but it’s still a woe-is-me pity party epic.
My SO (30m) and I (35f) got together during a time in my life where I was not looking for a relationship, I had left Dud, my previous fiancé (now 36) when I had discovered his plans to cheat on me right about the time our child (now 10) would have turn 1yo.
Dud was not a good partner to me, for years, but I was young, naïve and he was my first everything. First love, first relationship, first abuser. I didn’t have any proof that he had actually cheated yet so when he asked me to not leave him I said “ok, but I get to see your phone w/e I ask for it.” He agreed, one month later, I’m feeling insecure so I ask to see his phone for the first time, he says no, I said ok, stopped sleeping with him and called my dad for money help (Dud had all the money, I handed over every paycheck and cash tip, and he maxed out the one credit card I had from before I dated him), packed a uhaul and left him a few days later. He didn’t ask me to stay, barely said goodbye.
He was a shit partner, and I’m sorry to say it but, a shit parent too. Neglecting our baby while I was as work, inviting people over who had threatened to be violent with me while I was pregnant for the purpose of causing a late term miscarriage. Dud wanted his buddy more than his family. Please know I was FAR from good to him right at the discovery, I’m ashamed to admit that the on the day of discovery I fucking lost it, I hit him (more than once all in one go, he didn’t have bruises or scratches, but I abused him), I yelled, I screamed, I cried and there emerged a part of myself I never knew existed. Gods above and below, I’m ashamed that this part of me exists.
I moved several states west to where I had family who could house us while I figured out what to do. I sign up for school, start looking for a job, start feeling all alone, overwhelmed, etc., and he follows us west, makes a lot of promises that I so wanted to be true, then abandoned us in an untenable situation, I went through with court mediation instead of court court, but he admitted to abandonment while sworn in for it. With two working adults it would’ve been alright, but as it was I had to drop out of school. CS is a joke, Dud falsifies his total income, doesn’t claim cash he makes doing part time free lance, which is more than half of his take home pay.
Cut a couple of years later, new state, trying school again, struggling but my child is fed, clothed and sheltered. I can breathe just enough to start feeling like maybe I can date casually, no one being introduced as special. Then I meet SO at work. Blah blah blah, shortening some months, relationship starts, goes well, move in together, my son loves him, we start parenting together. I was working my first office job as a temp-to-ft hire and I guess our BC failed because I found out I was pregnant. I told him, and he seemed excited, joyful even. Wanted to tell his family right away. 4 weeks later I find out he’s on Tinder, and Snapchat, he’s deleted me and my son off his SM, he’s been cheating for who knows how long. Lying to all these young women about who he is, what his life is like, just serial ONS and him debasing himself begging to hook up some more. I lost my shit. Again.
This is mortifying but I lashed out physically. I hit him, he tried to kick me, almost got my belly and I hit him again and we struggled. At the end of it I had a hairline fracture to my arm, he had bruises and we left. My son and I spent the night at an old coworkers house, she was very kind but we weren’t going to be able to stay. We broke up, I had to ask for family help again to leave. SO follows a couple of months later, wants to be a part of the kids lives. I had an apartment, a FT physically demanding job, my first ex is pushing his way back into my life by leveraging my oldest kid. He’s all in on protecting my oldest and asks to stay with us while he gets settled. I make the mistake of letting him. I was lonely, 7 months pregnant, hormonal and horny af and he wanted to sleep together. I set down some weak boundaries that, ofc, he stomps all over. He gets an apt in the same development. We coparent, sleep together, spend most of our free time together, but aren’t together. I give birth, he’s there supporting me.
He gets more romantic with me while simultaneously hooking up with others. My lease is up, he asks me if we can be together again, I agree, not knowing about the continuing tomcatting. I was such an idiot. I am an idiot. I continue to act idiotically. He at that point supposedly stopped, we talked about getting married for a lot of reasons. Ended up marrying, I, at this point, thought it was all behind us, that he finally loved me enough, I was finally enough. IDIOT.
We move to a state where we would be able to afford more for our kids, and guess what happened. SO decides to try it all over again. Snapchatting his high school ex (one of the many ONS) to say he doesn’t love me, trying to hook up with young women in our new state, in his dumbest of dumb actions he actually thought he was talking to super hot SC models… dude was msging a few bots and a woman who was trying to drum up custom for her camming/sex work business. (No hate to sex workers, lady seemed to be making bank, seemed to not be in distress or trafficked, but I was not in a place to think that through at the time and check on her.)
This latest DDAY was a few years ago now, 4? 5? Idk. I’m too ashamed to ask family for help again. The years haven’t been kind to me, a few medical issues/emergencies and a degenerative disease have left me disabled enough to be unable to do work that doesn’t need a degree, but not enough to qualify for assistance to get a degree or SSDI.
Years of not being able to trust anyone have made me an anxious, angry, boring person; the physical pain is a huge hurdle I’m actively working on, and I’ve got an appointment with a therapist soon (wait time was stupid long).
What has my SO done since DDay2?
It took him YEARS to read that Love Languages book. He acts like I should give him a standing ovation and not have any more doubts, because he read a book.
He spoke to a Betterhelp therapist about his cheating ONE TIME and when she had nothing to say about it in that session I guess he took that as he has no work to do on himself and never did it again.
He has continued to be a good father, a good provider, but I can’t trust him.
I have no friends, no family near by, he’s my only adult. I’ve been isolated (through my own fault) since before the pandemic, but now that my body is betraying me as well I can’t even trust myself. His phone is unlocked, but I know that checking is worthless, if he wants to cheat he’s intelligent enough to figure out how to erase the evidence.
I’ve given him the websites, shown him the subreddits, told him how I feel, asked him how he feels, what he thinks… and nothing. He keeps telling me he isn’t forcing me to stay. But he’s made it impossible to leave. I love him, but I cycle through being disgusted by his actions of the past, frustrated by his not doing the work of reconciling, and hope that he will "see the light". I just don’t know what to do.
Divorce and separation don’t seem to be in the cards, I can’t afford a lawyer, or to move out. I feel utterly trapped but I also love the damn man. I want to trust him. When I think about what I want for the future, its still him, but he’s happy and I’m happy, and we’re past this crap. I don’t know how to tell him in a way that clicks for him. That makes it real. I’m still getting triggered weekly, my resentment is growing. I’m turning into an embittered untrusting short tempered person that I do not like. I’m working on some of my own shortcomings, but damn…. I was such an idiot. I am an idiot.

Oh and uh short burn of the century comin soon. Flamethrowers should arrive just in time.

-Elon Musk
Oh Elon, sorry to steal your thunder. But GME will make TSLA vol look like TLT. Jeff haunting your every accomplishment yet again.
I’m back with the final warning bell. The next time I post in 2021 will be to recap the squeeze’s results and post gain porn along with u/Deep_Fucking_Value, u/SIR_JACK_A_LOT, u/Tomatotowers, and more. This is the last stop before the moon mission.
It’s currently not too late. But after Q3 earnings on Dec 8th, it will be. And of course, as always, not financial advice. Just for bragging rights and entertainment. Here goes:
Here’s a comprehensive GME overview for all new and returning WSB-monkeys. Sit down and grab some tea. This is a long one unlike the previous posts.
GME Overview:
The GME story can be broken up into 2 main theses. The first is a deep value play which has credibility all on its own. The second is an infinity short squeeze like we’ve never seen before in history, which has credibility all on its own. When combining the two, you get the trade of a lifetime.
In all my (albeit limited) days, I have never EVER seen a trade set up like this before. I’ve pored over every source of historical finance material I can get my hands on, and still have nothing to reference to. IMO, this will look more like the 2008-MBS bet, or the Ackman 2020-COVID “Hell is coming” bet, than TSLA, OSTK, KBIO, or VW.
Just a fucking face-ripping, out-of-nowhere, legendary-HOF-ticker bet that will bankrupt some funds and get people fired - and of course, with no community other than WSB’s name next to it in the history books (and if I could pencil in our lovely GME discord hosted by u/BadElf21 and u/RoaringKitty’s YT stream).
Let’s begin.
Act 1 - The Set Up:
Q: Why is GME so heavily shorted in the first place? Why are we betting the long? Aren’t they going bankrupt ala Blockbuster? If not, are we just trading this short term like a HTZ/CCL meme stonk?
A: NO. This is a fundamentally solid deep value play at its core.
First let’s go back a few years. We must give the shorts due credit in order to understand where we are now. GME has been profitably shorted since 2013 when the market correctly bet on the digitization of video games and spread of mobile gaming. Some data here:

• GME sales have plunged from $9.5 billion in fiscal year 2011 to $6.4 billion in fiscal year 2019.
  
• GME Annual EBITDA has dropped from $839 million in fiscal year 2011 (before the last console cycle) to only $111 million in fiscal year 2019.
  
• Net income has fallen off a cliff from $339 million in fiscal year 2011 to a staggering loss of $470 million in fiscal year 2019.
  
• In the two most recent quarters alone, GME lost another $277 million.
  

The shorts are betting on $0.
However, in the last 12 months, GME has shown that their terminal velocity does not lead to bankruptcy. GME has a strong balance sheet. Cash on hand is worth over $12 a share. Net cash is worth over $5 a share and is FCF positive (nixing the bankruptcy thesis). They also paid off $125M in debt last month just to show Moody’s they are healthy due to their incoming console cycle FCF (which may lead to possible bond upgrade, enticing more institutional investors).
So give the shorts credit. They had a legitimate case until the last 12 months, when George Sherman (CEO), Reggie Fils-Aime (ex-Nintendo, current GME board member), and others have been conducting a phenomenally well executed turnaround.
That explains why we currently have ~70M shares short out of ~65M shares outstanding - but they’re all now caught on the wrong side of the trade.
In case the severity of the short interest hasn’t hit you yet, there is a bigger market for shorting GME than the business of GME itself. This is not even taking into account the long holders (Senvest, Ryan Cohen, Burry, Donald Foss, Sherman, Hestia/Permit) which takes ~25M shares out of circulation. So short interest in reality could be around 180%+ of true float.
A true head-scratcher.
And a worthy opponent.
But they’re wrong.
Act 2 - Avengers, Assemble:
Q: Why am I so sure GME is prime to blow? Isn’t this just another meme stonk hunch driven by WSB and Michael Burry hype? How can a few online gamblers and a few activist investors turn a dying business into a trade of a lifetime?
Couldn’t the shorts be right? Also, hasn’t it blown already?
A: NO AGAIN.
Let me show you the ridiculous Avengers team we have. By Avengers team, I mean all the bullish cases:
1) Ryan Cohen
Iron Man of the bunch, some call him the Dog-Man.
This guy is a crazy entrepreneur. He took on Bezos with a pet food company (CHWY) and won. Let me repeat - he beat Jeff Amazon without AWS subsidizing his loss leaders.
In other words, he built Markk I (CHWY) in a tiny cave with scraps all by himself with his dad, and now that he has billions, he wants to build nanotech Markk 50 (GME). Read up on this guy. He’s as crazy and as smart as they come.
He also wrote a scathing letter to GME leadership, but if you read between the lines, he’s not addressing the existing board, who had only been there temporarily. He’s setting this letter up in order to potentially offer a takeover bid (rumor mill - unconfirmed).
Either way, GME leadership needs to address this letter in the Q3 earnings call on Dec 8th - which means they need to either post a good quarter, provide good guidance, or add color to existing developments.
Otherwise George Sherman (Cpt America)’s ass is out the door and Cohen takes over as the leader of the Avengers through a vote or buyout. Either of which requires shares to be recalled.
One more thing to note about RC. There has been no 13D/A filling since his initial purchases. Which means he is STILL IN. He has not sold a single share.
2) GME Leadership and activist investors - Guardians of the Galaxy, Dr. Very Strange Burry, and the old Captain trying to fit in with the youngsters:
Dr. Very Strange Burry - AKA Big Short Man. Supreme numbers aspie who might have a screw loose but is unmatched at spotting contrarian trades. *Edit 2: BTW for those asking about his holdings drop. He's trimming to stay under 5%, but still has a large position:

• Q1: 3,000,000 shares worth $10,500,000
  
• Q2: 2,750,000 shares worth $11,935,000
  
• Q3: 1,703,400 shares worth $17,375,000
  

Hestia/Permit/Senvest - Contrarian, activist investors.
Cpt George Sherman - Boomer CEO who knows what he’s doing.
Reggie Fils-Aime - Beloved ex-Nintendo President.
3) Bond repurchase
GME just bought back $125M of debt maturing in 2021. Who cares? Yes - normally this is a nothing burger even for a micro-cap, but if the shorts are betting on $0 - this is clear evidence against that bet.
Secondly, rumor mill has it that this debt repurchase plus positive Q3 earnings/guidance will allow Moody’s to upgrade their 2023 debt to A or maybe higher.
This is HUGE because it allows institutional investors to long GME without further restrictions. In other words, they may not be allowed to long companies with B- debt. Once this is upgraded, more buyers are allowed to come in.
Very underplayed story here.
4) TA - When the stars and crayons align. Here’s an excerpt from our resident astrologist u/JayAreW:

Ignoring the short squeeze element of GME and just looking at chart action, there are two elements that are important to keep track of. The cup and handle pattern and $15.80.
While my trading style is 90% technical analysis, there are certain elements which I shy away from – mainly chart patterns. However, it is important to at least recognize the obvious ones because if you see it, chances are others see it too. The main pattern I keep an eye out for are the massive cup and handle patterns. This is an example from Pring figure 1.
The buy signal is traditionally a breakout above the handle, and a good estimate for price target is the distance from the base of the cup to the handle, added to the breakout point. A recent example of this is $JMIA (daily - figure 2). Notice not one, but two failures to break the top of the handle and the subsequent parabolic run. Compare $JMIA with $GME and you see almost the same pattern (daily – figure 3). The traditional buy signal would be a breach above the red line (~$15.80). The difference between $JMIA and $GME is that $JMIA was far more condensed; the pattern played out over a period of a few months where $GME’s cup and handle started in late 2019. Playing this pattern exclusively, I would expect a price target of roughly $27, stretched out over a period of weeks/months and not as explosive as it’s African counterpart (assuming a squeeze doesn't happen between now and then). Typically, any chart pattern calls for a retest of the breakout point, so don’t be surprised if $GME retraces to $15.80 and look for a bounce there as confirmation that the breakout is on. The other important element is the $15.80 price. Not only is it the breakout point for the cup and handle pattern, but it coincides to a price point which I believe was a major short-selling entry point (fig 4). Notice the nearly 20% gap down on 33 million of volume. This type of action doesn’t just happen with selling alone and I believe massive short positions were opened on that day.
This $15.80 then represents a breaking even point for those shorts if they have not closed their positions (and we have no real reason to believe they have). Breaking even is a huge psychological barrier for people when a trade isn’t going their way and often times represents an exit point for crowded positions. Most of the shorts were already underwater - above $15.80 and that water begins to boil. I believe this position is becoming borderline untenable for existing short positions and is a crowded and disastrous trade. So to recap, $15.80 not only serves as an important chart pattern breakout point, but the proverbial “line in the sand” for existing short positions.

JeffAmazon here again: Note Jay and I don’t agree on a few major points, but are nevertheless both seeing bullish action to come very very soon.
5) Product Mix
GameStop is expanding their product mix to include monitors, PC parts, and more. GME is no longer a Disc-Drive only store (which is fine itself), but an all-things-tech e-commerce growth start up. Or you can at least bet that’s the narrative.
GIVE ME THAT F-ING CHWY SALES MULTIPLE.
6) Three signs of a bubble: leverage, lack of liquidity, and consensus.
This is an inverse bubble - it will rise as quickly as other bubbles drop. KBIO and VW are often quoted as short squeeze examples. Those are wrong comparisons. The only similarity is the fact that shorts were involved.
Instead, think of any other market bubble. It’s simply about leverage, lack of liquidity, and consensus. We have all 3 in GME. Everyone thinks GME will go like BlockBuster to $0 and is using leverage to short (by definition and current SI).
So instead, think of Burry’s 2008 MBS trade, Ackman’s 2020 COVID trade, PTJ’s Black Monday Trade, or Chanos’ Enron trade.
Same thing, different direction. Will go up as fast as the others went down.
And oh boy do we lack liquidity. Crowded party, one exit.
7) Phenomenal numbers due to current console cycle.
$GME bull Rod Alzmann (Uberkikz on Stocktwits) has great breakdowns on Q4 EPS/order count due to console cycle. He tracks orders by order number among a slew of other information here.
Check out his models. In short, we expect over $5 EPS in Q4 base case. Which is bananas.
8) MSFT Partnership gross margin
GME is getting free money from Satya Nadella.
Conservative estimate $180M, 100% margin for 2 years.
9) January and April option OI
OI in option calls for Jan and April are almost 4X that of Decembers. Is GME going to exercise the ITM calls for a squeeze? Why are they so insanely large? Who are these buyers? WTF are they doing?
No clue. But something is about to go down.
Note put call skew isn’t that low, so no infinity gamma squeeze yet, but it will come as GME obtains meme status.
10) Most importantly, YOU.
CNBC and other misled, egoistic mass media companies and institutional investors continue, time and time again, to look down upon the new generation of traders and laugh at WSB.
Tell me, which one of them has read all of Moody’s credit reports on GME? Which one of them live streams collaborative GME DD 20+ hours a week for 6+ months straight? Which one of them tracks order flows by the f-ing second based on skimmed CC data? Who scours GameStop to see how leadership is treating their employees and customers at a testimonial level? Do they even know about the bond repurchase?
They don’t know jack s-.
Act 3 - The Trade
What more evidence do you want? Time for action.
First, the PT. u/ronoron summed it up well:

A 3 billion market cap (not even 0.5x of their revenues) would already leave GME at $46/share.Going back to their 2013 peak at around 6 billion market cap would leave them at almost $100/share already, not the $56 peak/share. The algos trading still can't appreciate the fact that GME halved its number of outstanding shares a while ago.
For comparison. Bestbuy is trading at almost ~0.7x of revenues with lower gross margins. Nordstrom is almost at 0.4x of revenues despite the bigger liability their department stores are having through corona (never mind their uglier balance sheet). GME is still hovering just above 0.2x revenues because stinky shorts overestimated how bad corona would be for GME (e.g. delayed console cycle, digital consoles becoming widely popular).”

PT can easily be over $100. The JeffAmazon target is $420 which gives them about ~$25B market cap at a P/S ratio of 5, maybe 4 with console cycle revenue. That wouldn’t even be considered an euphoric price with today’s growth stocks. For comparison, NVDA is 22, TSLA is 20, and CHWY is 5.
Timing: This all hinges on Dec 8 earnings. If GME misses (it historically has), Cohen will use this opportunity to attack leadership and take over as CEO. Therefore, GME leadership needs to provide a great earnings report or else Sherman will lose his job.
Here’s my responsible trade (do whatever you want): All in calls and shares now. If IV and $GME is sky-high before earnings, sell half to secure profit. If GME misses and tanks, bet your bottom dollar a takeover bid will be announced shortly.
In all honesty, I'm going to probably hold everything through earnings WSB style.
My positions: 1/15/21 $30Cs, shares
(I would buy April $30Cs too, but I'm all tapped out of cash).
Shorts and longs both have their cases. All the cards are on the table. Which side are you on?
If I missed anything, comment and I will update above. I’m aiming to make this the final stop for all high-level GME DD.
*Edit 1: Educate yourself right now on IV crush (in short, we expect a lot of vol now, so option prices are high. After earnings, expected vol normally decreases, so your option prices will normally drop). GME is the king of IV crush after earnings. If you're playing FDs, prepare to get destroyed like always. Safer bets are LEAPs or FDs after earnings.
*Edit 2: All these beat earnings recently: SNE, MSFT, BBY, BBBY, NTDOY, ATVI, TTWO, JWN, M, KSS

Hey everyone! I'm the host of the Retro Spectives Podcast. Over the past two years, I've played 50 classic games for the Pod, reviewing and discussing each in detail. I thought I'd share (in brief) what I thought of those 50 games. Its remarkable how many of these old games have stood the test of time...and dissapointing when they haven't.
1. Doom - 8/10
What was once revolutionary and strange is now simple and elegant. Doom is fast paced, at times frantic, circle strafing, demon slaying goodness. It's a bit too easy (even on ultra violence) and the quality of maps is pretty uneven, but it's still a blast to glide through maps filling enemies full of lead.
Should I play it today? If you have any interest in the FPS genre at all, you should definitely give doom a spin.
2. Banjo Kazooie - 6/10
The collectathon to end all collectathons, Banjo Kazooie sees you go from world to world picking up every single item that moves...in order to unlock more opportunities to collect things. The tight level design houses hundreds of items without having to wander aimlessly over huge areas.
Should I play it today? If you like collecting shinies in a 3D platformer, this is one of the definitive examples of the genre. Otherwise, you might find it all a little pointless and struggle to understand the appeal.
3. Prince of Persia: Warrior Within - 8.5/10
Takes the modular platforming and acrobatic combat of Sands of Time and improves upon both - unfortunately, this was at the expense of the story. What was once a whimsical and atmospheric coming of age story has become tarred with edginess, big boobs and an emo soundtrack to match. The time twisting stuff is fun, but it lost a lot of what made the first magical.
Should I play it today? Absolutely. The gameplay is still heaps of fun, both the platforming and the combat that lets you string different moves together. Just be aware that the story and cutscenes are going to come across as ridiculous.
4. Castlevania: SOTN - 8.5/10
The first Castlevania to fully embrace Metroid’s level design structure - turns out it was a match made in heaven. The game is gorgeous to look at, has an incredible soundtrack, and is fun to explore. The combat goes from being tough to spammy to basically irrelevant as you grow stronger and stronger. A delight to play through and tour the castle, but the inverted castle ends up being a disappointment.
Should I play it today? Yep! Very fun and relaxed metroidvania. Doesn’t have the depth of something like Hollow Knight, but it's almost worth it for the aesthetics alone.
5. Red Alert 2 - 9/10
In my mind the strongest of any command and conquer game, maybe tied with C&C Generals (although that’s a very different game). It looks great, with units and even building chock full of personality. The single player campaign has lots of fun quirks to keep missions interesting. Units tend to be overpowered in one aspect but with very large drawbacks in others. The perfect single player RTS
Should I play it today? It's a pain to get working on Windows 10, but if you persevere you’ll get one of the most fun RTS campaigns ever made.
6. F-Zero GX - 7/10
Don’t let the cartoony visuals fool you - F-Zero GX is an absolutely brutal racing game. It's insanely fast, filled with risk/reward mechanics to push yourself to the absolute limit, and has zero catchup mechanics. There’s no blue shell, no rubberbanding for yourself or the AI - and if you fall off the edge of many tracks that don’t have rails in certain sections? You crash, race over.
Should I play it today? If you’re new to the racing genre, stay far away. F-Zero GX is a cold and harsh mistress. If you have plenty of experience with racing games, then it's a revelation, and will probably wind up being one of your favourites. I was new and bounced off it, but I've gained respect for it the more time that passes.
7. Ape Escape - 5/10
Sneakily catch monkeys in PS1 levels hovering in space. You end up having 8 different gadgets at your disposal which let you overcome obstacles and catch monkeys in different ways. Awful draw distance and reliance on every dualshock gimmick available (ape escape was the demo game for the analog sticks) ends up making it physically frustrating to play. The level design doesn’t lend itself to stealth nearly as well as I’d like.
Should I play it today? I don’t think so. The monkeys being cute doesn’t help the otherwise bland environments and pretty stock standard 3D platforming. I just can't get behind the control scheme either, it's gimmicky fun for a bit and then you start getting hand cramps as you slam the stick in circles to hover.
8. Silent Hill 2 - 7/10
Incredible atmosphere. Disturbing and touching story. Awful gameplay. Silent Hill 2 isn’t only scary, it's a disgusting and repulsive place, and the psychological implications of that are fascinating. Its a pity the gameplay is mediocre in the extreme - repetitive and mindless combat, and endless wandering through identical hallways to pick up items for stupid puzzles. It's particularly disappointing when you’re lost and going round in circles, and feel the razor tight tension slowly fade away.
Should I play it today? If you can put up with the gameplay, and are happy to have a walkthrough ready, the story of Silent Hill 2 is something special. If you’re after an enjoyable game overall though, you’re going to have a bad time.
9. Quake - 9.5/10
Quake today is most famous for its multiplayer, but before that its single player campaign blew everyone’s nips off. Layered level design, every enemy is projectile based or clearly telegraphs their attacks, and the grenade launcher is magnificent to work with. The environments are drab and brown, but the gameplay is absolutely top notch. Doom is great, but having a true 3D space is just more fun to bounce around in.
Should I play it today? Absolutely. Quake lacks the colours and real world locations of its build engine counterparts (blood, duke, shadow warrior) but has the best gameplay of any of them. Having no hit scanners, the joy of moving in a true 3D space, and bouncing grenades everywhere leads to a super fun FPS experience.
10. Megaman Battle Network 3 - 7.5/10
Sitting somewhere between pokemon and a deck builder, Megaman Battle Network 3 is a game that took me by surprise. You wander around, collecting cards and battling enemies in real time, before you get a chance to use the cards from your decks to attack. The overworld is maze-like and confusing, the story is typical pokemon-like nonsense - but the card game is incredibly well put together, with different strategies and tactics available all the way throughout.
Should I play it today? If you like card games, MMBN 3 is still a blast to play through - just be aware that you’ll have to put up with some dull wandering about getting into random battles in order to get to it.
11. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater - 8/10
2 Minutes. Grind, kickflip and olley your way around a small map, collecting letters, getting a vhs tape, and trying to get the highest score you can. Tony Hawk’s is pure, simple fun. It doesn’t have manuals, you can’t go as nuts with combos like you can in later games - but its two minutes of joy as you skate around in circles.
Should I play it today? It's not the flashiest Tony Hawk’s game, but will give you 4 or 5 hours of skating fun. If you want something simple and enjoyable, go for it!
12. Pokemon Snap - 8/10
There are not enough photography based games out there. Pokemon Snap is a rail based shooter where you’re shooting camera shots of cute pokemon. You get rewarded for the pokemon being centre frame, large and facing you, and nailing some shots can be quite difficult. There’s something relaxing and comfy about going through these theme parks trying to get the best shots possible, and there really isn’t anything quite like it.
Should I play it today? It's great fun! It's not challenging, it's not stressful, Pokemon Snap is just a few hours of comfy pokemon tourism.
13. Max Payne - 8.5/10
Max Payne relishes in its parody and homage of noir and gangster films, with a bleak narration that is nonetheless gleefully self aware. The dark and blizzard filled New York is the perfect setting for the seedy tale. Gameplay is average, with third person bullet time not helping with enemy hp and damage being infinitely pumped the more successful you are at taking them out.
Should I play it today? If you have any interest in noir, the story will be an absolute delight. The third person gameplay isn’t awful, it's just not great, and the rubberbanding of enemy health and damage never ceases to be frustrating.
14. Kirby’s Nightmare in Dreamland - 3/10
Kirby is the perfect children’s game. It gives you a bunch of different power ups, each of which let you easily faceroll through every level. This is a 2D platformer with no challenge, and one that basically does nothing interesting with all the possible cool power ups. I found it very annoying that there was rarely a way to use powerups in different ways to access different secrets etc. - its just about holding right on the control stick and pressing attack every now and then.
Should I play it today? If you’re 10 years old this game is perfect, no stakes and a warm and friendly atmosphere. Everyone else should give it a miss.
15. Thief Gold - 9/10
To this day, one of the greatest stealth games ever made. Open and sprawling level design that encourages you to explore every nook and cranny in order to rob the place blind. An emphasis on actually being stealthy, with shadows being safe havens and enemies being things you run away from. Environmental storytelling is a bit weak, and some maps are straight up awful (thieves guild) but otherwise a great stealth game.
Should I play it today? If you like stealth games, absolutely - but you’re going to need to get used to actually being a thief. This is no deus ex or dishonored where you go full superhero within a few level ups.
16. Policenauts - 6/10
Before Hideo Kojima made MGS, he decided to make a visual novel riffing off (ripping off?) Lethal Weapon, but set in space. He nails the hard sci-fi stuff, with a well thought out space station/orbital, but fails miserably in the soft social/political sphere. Still a good story overall, but a heavily flawed one - very pretty as well. The ‘gameplay’ is endlessly frustrating though - you have to exhaust dialogue options and clicking on every object, usually twice, to progress the story.
Should I play it today? I don’t think so. I think you should watch this longplay and you’ll have a more enjoyable experience overall.
17. Psychonauts - 9.5/10
Psychonauts is a brilliantly inventive 3D platformer, setting its levels inside the minds of other characters, all of which have their own personality quirks and issues. It's pretty amazing when characterisation gets fleshed out in this kind of detailed way, and at the end of each level you have a great and memorable understanding of what makes each person tick. Its funny and fun, although the gameplay still winds up being fairly typical 3D platformer fare.
Should I play it today? Yes! Even if you’re not super into collectathons or platformers, Pscyhonaut’s personality and humour carries it above and beyond.
18. Cave Story - 8/10
One of the original indie darlings, Cave Story has unfortunately been eclipsed by modern takes on the genre. It's still fun to shoot and jump through, and it's ending (and true ending) are still a worthy challenge, but playing it today it's a bit hard to understand what all the fuss was about. Incredible soundtrack though, give both the original and remastered versions a listen (new is garbage).
Should I play it today? You should, it's still fun - but it's not anything incredible. Go in expecting a good 2D platformer and you’ll have a good time.
19. Diablo - 8.5/10
Diablo is one of the granddaddies of the ARPG genre, but honestly it couldn’t be further from modern ARPGS. It’s stripped back, chock full of atmosphere with its zoomed in view, has haunting music and you can easily get stunlocked to death. It's a game that feels dangerous and threatening and never stops being so. Forget skill trees and rpg optimisation - you’re just trying to survive.
Should I play it today? Yes. Diablo is fantastic, and its atmosphere will suck you right in. Just be aware that this has more in common with Rogue or even Dark Souls than anything resembling an ARPG today.
20. The Lost Vikings - 3.5/10
Before Blizzard started cranking out RTS games, they made this puzzle/platformer called The Lost Vikings. At first it seems very cool, figuring out how to maximise the strengths of your 3 different vikings - but then you miss a jump and are forced to repeat the level from scratch. Ultimately, fusing deadly traps with puzzle solving is not a good mix - the punishment is way too high and being forced to repeat puzzle steps because of a stray jump is not fun.
Should I play it today? Only if you’re a glutton for punishment and enjoy repeating puzzles endlessly. The platforming is just too punishing.
21. Call of Duty - 8.5/10
The original Call of Duty is surprisingly still a fantastic FPS game to this day. As far as hitscan shooters go, it's a smooth and varied experience. It's got far better visual clarity than the murky newer CODS, and far less waiting at doors for allies to open them. Being able to hipfire effectively in close combat ends up being a lot of fun as you run through levels as well. Just don’t play on veteran, no health regeneration OR hp packs is completely stupid (even with quicksaving).
Should I play it today? If you enjoy hitscan FPS campaigns, then yes - the original COD is still a lot of fun to play through. I’d put it on par with Black Ops and just a bit below Cod 4.
22. Vagrant Story - 5.5/10
Vagrant Story is a complicated beast. It's got a fantastic story, dropping you in the midst of a multi-factional struggle and not explaining it to you. The characters speak to one another in Shakespearean prose, and the camera work on the cutscenes is wonderful. I bounced pretty heavily off its RPG gameplay systems, which seemed to favour sheer complexity over actual depth - it throws endless stats at you when it boils down to matching the right weapon to the right enemy.
Should I play it today? If you like JRPGS, then yes. If you don’t, even if the story is great, it's probably not worth slogging through the menu simulator gameplay.
23. Halo - 8/10
Halo represented a dramatic shakeup for the FPS genre with all of its console innovations. 2 weapon limit, regenerating health, auto aim, slow and clunky movement speed. And for all that, it's still bloody fantastic. Play on legendary, learn the ins and outs of maximising grenades, popping shields with plasma pistols and above all moving with intent, and you’ll have a great time. The level design is repetitive, but the baseline combat is so strong it barely matters.
Should I play it today? Yes. Halo 1 is better than you think - battling squads of covenant, and the multi-way battles are still delightful to engage in. There are some stinkers here (The library) but overall it's a fun game to fight through.
24. Viewtiful joe - 6.5/10
You play an average joe sucked into the world of a comic book movie. You brawl your way through goons, and use your powers to slow and speed up time and whoop enemies to death. Fairly dull gameplay against regular enemies as you move through the levels and some truly fantastic boss fights with clear tells and deadly patterns. I found constantly slowing down time to be the optimal strategy which did disrupt the flow somewhat.
Should I play it today? If you like 2D brawlers and don’t mind the aesthetic, you’ll have a good time. I’m a bit over the comic book look and think that platinum games’ 3D titles end up being more fun though.
25. Armored Core - 4/10
Before From Software became famous for their Souls series they were the ‘Armored Core’ guys. It's mech on mech combat, in a dark world where the only thing you’re interested in is your paycheque. Resolve union disputes by killing the protestors, it's what mercenaries are for. Unfortunately, the controls for Armored Core are completely and utterly awful and it ruins what would otherwise be a pretty cool game.
Should I play it today? No, the controls are just too bad. If you can put up with it the game has a pretty deep customisation system that is fun to mess around with.
26. Katamari Damacy - 10/10
Katamari Damacy has a simple premise. Roll things up into your sticky ball. The more things you roll up, the larger your sticky ball gets, and the larger the objects you can roll into it. But then you start thinking about taking this to its logical end...and a smile might just creep onto your face. Wonderful zany levels, a simple premise executed to perfection, and a glorious soundtrack - what’s not to love?
Should I play it today? Absolutely. This is one of the most universal games ever made, and I’d happily recommend it to anyone and everyone. Check it out!
27. Heroes of Might and Magic 3 - 8/10
HOMM 3 remains one of the most highly regarded TBS games ever made, and with good reason. Good faction diversity, crazy spells, an interesting tactical layer, and deep layers of micromanagement. I will say you shouldn’t go in expecting anything ‘comfy’ - this is an incredibly complicated and deep strategy game and the game doesn’t do much to teach you how to play it.
Should I play it today? You should, but be aware of what you’re getting yourself into. It's a tough strategy game from top to bottom, and you’ll probably need to do some external reading to better understand how it all works..
28. Crystalis - 2.5/10
I hate crystalis. Its ‘action’ gameplay is endlessly repetitive. Its story is dull and uninspired. It has secret triggers that spawn in NPCS in random locations that you need to speak to for progress. And it has compulsory grinding to beat bosses - you literally do zero damage if you’re too low a level. Awful game, with okay bossights and soundtracks being its only assets. Don’t play this trash.
Should I play it today? No.
29. Sonic the Hedgehog - 6/10
I went into Sonic expecting a fast platformer. Instead, I got a precision platformer that seemed to delight in tricking me and punishing me any time I tried to move with any speed. The game deliberately trolls you with traps if you’re moving without paying attention. That said, it's a pretty fun 2D platformer, and it was fun to speedrun specific levels once I’d memorised them.
Should I play it today? Maybe. If you like precision platformers you’ll have fun with it, but I can’t say it's anything crazy special. Has some fun levels and some bad ones (water levels suck).
30. Archimedean Dynasty - 8.5/10
Archimedean Dynasty is a submarine arcade sim set far in the future where mankind has retreated their entire civilization below the sea. You play a washed up pirate who gets caught in the middle of a conspiracy, and have to unravel it while making cash as a mercenary. Incredible worldbuilding with an awesome manual, and low visibility submarine dog fighting make for a winning combination.
Should I play it today? Yes, but it's going to take some time to learn the controls and pilot your sub effectively. It's worth it though, and is still an arcade experience at heart.
31. Tribes: Vengeance - 5.5/10
The single player mode of Tribes Vengeance is unfortunately not nearly as robust as I hoped for. Tanky enemies with heaps of hitpoints, a generic plot with the stupid trope of people not even talking to one another and repetitive mission structure ends up being a mediocre experience overall. The spinfusor is still fun to fire, but tribes will always be brilliant in the multiplayer sphere.
Should I play it today? Unfortunately, no. There’s some fun to be had here, but the tournament you play near the start ends up being the most fun. Tribes is best as a multiplayer CTF game.
32. Sly Cooper - 6/10
A weird take on a 3D platformer, with stealth, instant kills on hit (for both you and enemies), and ‘sticky’ platforming, where you grip ledges and pinpoints. Cool character design, well told (if silly) story, and with enough variety to keep you entertained. As the game goes on starts to get a little repetitive though, best parts are when you’re being chased and need to move fast to avoid dying.
Should I play it today? Mainly for the platformer enthusiasts. Has a fun twist on normal 3D platformers but once again nothing spectacular.
33. System Shock - 7/10
One of the very first immersive sims ever made, and oh boy you can feel it. The UI is an unreadable mess at first glance, the movement is like being on roller skates, and the gunplay is hitscan hell in narrow corridors. Underneath all that is a great environmental story on a somewhat realistic space station that is fun to explore. And I think the UI and controls become pretty usable over time.
Should I play it today? This one is for the immersive sim fanatics only. There is something special here, but you have to put up with some serious problems in order to fully appreciate it.
34. Freelancer - 6/10
You play a freelancer in space on a galaxy spanning adventure to unravel the mystery behind an artifact. And yes, ancient aliens are involved. Great dogfighting and beautiful visuals in an unfortunately sterile world where there is nothing worthwhile to discover. The main story is enjoyable enough, the mandatory randomly generated side missions are infuriating.
Should I play it today? Yes, but be aware of the mandatory grinding to actually enjoy the story missions. This is not a game about freelancing or exploration, it's about enjoyable dogfights and an enjoyable (if predictable) story.
35. Castlevania - 5/10
The OG castlevania. Incredibly restrictive platforming and combat - no mid-air movement, jump always has a specific amount of height and distance, no momentum on movement or jumps. Whip is only left or right. Despite this enemies often attack from above or below and from all angles. Maybe this was acceptable back in the day but it was super annoying for me, I want my range of movement to better meet the challenges.
Should I play it today? No. I didn’t enjoy most of the time I spent playing it, and I found some bosses actually ridiculous (Death) without cheesing it with holy water.
36. Lunar: Silver Star Story - 1/10
The worst game I’ve ever had the misfortune to play. Atrocious story that romanticized teenage love in a vomit worthy way, is filled with generic anime garbage, and justifies genocide in the name of religion. Gameplay so grindy and repetitive I wept tears of joy when I could finally put the controller down and stop playing. JRPGS are objectively the worst genre of video game ever made, and this sorry excuse for a game proves it.
EDIT - I use 'objectively' here as a way to exaggerate my disdain, not to claim I genuinely hold the only correct opinion on video games in the known universe.
Should I play it today? No.
37. Hitman: Codename 47 - 3/10
The closest you can get between crossing stealth with a puzzle game. Very unlike the modern Htman games that are about choice, the original Hitman game is about solving its assassination puzzles in very specific ways. Most of the time it's obscure and inconsistent to figure out, with only a couple of very good levels (Traditions of the Trade being a stand out). What’s worse, sometimes there is no tricky, and you just need to shoot a bunch of people - and there’s no way to tell the difference.
Should I play it today? No, it's too annoying. The moden Hitman games do it better by having the weird puzzle kills be optional instead of literally the only way to get through the game without murdering every single person.
38. Earthworm Jim - 6/10
Weird and ridiculous setting, tough platforming, odd combat - all adds up to one of the more unique 2D platformers I’ve ever played. I found the boss fights fun, but I think the super zoomed in perspective is something I’ll never get used to, it's pretty common for these old platformers. Shooting your gun locks you in place, leads to a fairly stiff stop and start progression.
Should I play it today? If you play your platformers for their aesthetics, Earthworm Jim is awesome. Not super high on the fundamental gameplay though, but the boss fights are fun.
39. Splinter Cell - 9/10
Splinter Cell is a stealth game on console done right. The fundamentals are rather similar to Thief actually - taking your time to sneak through shadows and find holes in enemy patrols, but with linear straightforward levels instead of enormous mansions and ruins to explore. It's a tighter and leaner stealth experience but one that still hits the right notes for me. Different movement speeds on the mousewheel is a really good idea. Story is a little jingoistic for my liking.
Should I play it today? Yes, it's a fantastic stealth game, and even looks pretty slick. Those levels in the rain are still very comfy.
40. Dark Messiah of Might and Magic - 8/10
Dark Messiah is a first person physics ‘em up where enemies die more to being kicked off cliffs and slipping on icy ground than your actual weapons. The stealth is broken, offensive magic is useless, but using physics to win fights is a lot of fun. It does start to wear thin, but mercifully ends before it gets too repetitive. Garbage story, enjoyable gameplay.
Should I play it today? Yep! Good fun still, even if you’ve seen all its tricks about two thirds of the way in. Get used to kicking your way to victory.
41. No-one Live Forever - 8.5/10
NOLF is a stealth/fps hybrid that riffs off James Bond, Austin Power and Get Smart, but underneath its layers of satire is a very satisfying story. It puts some fantastic female characters front and centre as they have to deal with the reality of sexism in the 60s, being overlooked, ignored and underestimated at every turn. The gameplay is so-so, with inconsistent stealth and mediocre gunplay, but the story more than makes up for it!
Should I play it today? You absolutely should! There’s one scene towards the end, in particular, that has great dialogue and character work but it's fantastic throughout. It's funny and entertaining with something of real substance underneath.
42. Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusades - 7/10
This is an oddball - a console RTS set in an original fantasy world with an RPG layer of customising and upgrading your troops. And it switches to a third person brawler so you can personally take on enemy squads. It all works pretty damn well once you get a hang of the controls, and is about the best implementation of a console RTS you could ask for. Certainly better than Halo Wars.
Should I play it today? I think a controller based RTS is always going to be strictly inferior to one on a mouse and keyboard, but if you can get over that there’s something of value here. It's novel, but executed well.
43. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - 2/10
The only saving grace of LOTR: The Two Towers is the IP it's based on. Dull and repetitive combat, where you often just switch between heavy attacks and the same combo move over and over. Half the time the gameplay doesn’t really correlate to the events in the movie, as it throws hundreds of orks at you as you’re walking around. Bad boss battles, spammy enemies, easy to get stunlocked - the game is no fun.
Should I play it today? Watch the movie trilogy instead.
44. Super Mario World - 8/10
Super Mario World is a non-stop theme park of new ideas. It's never content to let a new mechanic sit idle, and throws new things at new pretty much every single level. It's chaotic and messy, but it never runs out of novelty in the entire play time. In fact, I would have liked to see deeper development of many of the mechanics present - but I guess that’s what super mario maker is for.
Should I play it today? Yes. It's not a tight and controlled experience, the very opposite - its a loose and wild platformer gone mad. A lot of fun to play through for the first time.
45. Thief 2 - 9.5/10
Thief 2 sees the world undergo a steampunk industrial revolution. Gone are the fantastical ruin diving, replaced mainly with mansion and industry theft. And mostly, it's for the better. Level design, environmental storytelling have improved dramatically, even if some of the magic of the original was lost. There are some dull missions, but holistically the bar has been raised. Fantastic.
Should I play it today? Yes, but play Thief Gold first. You appreciate Thief 2 more for what it does different, and the changes that the industrial revolution have brought.
46. Super Metroid - 8/10
Super Metroid features some incredibly modern feeling metroidvania level design. I find it straight up astonishing how well put together the world is - it nails the process of getting a powerup and using it to progress through an area, before the world opens up like an onion yet again. The platforming is wonky as hell and by the end of the game you’re an invulnerable tank, but the level design is true genius.
Should I play it today? Yes. It's not as pretty as SOTN, nor does it have as good a soundtrack, but the feeling of progression is stronger and the smaller world achieves what SOTN does in a far more compact space.
47. Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War - 5/10
Unfortunately Warhammer 40ks single player campaign is mediocre at best. The mission objectives are uninteresting, the units get caught up on one another full stop (particularly when mixing armour with infantry) and later missions turn into a resources slog of constantly building up to max pop. The voice acting is fantastic though, they do space marines justice in the cutscenes.
Should I play it today? The multiplayer is still good for LAN parties but don’t bother playing the single player, just play RA2 instead.
48. Dark Souls - 9/10
We cheated for our episode 50 and did a newer game, one of my favourite of all time - Dark Souls. The game has incredible environmental storytelling, a devious main plot thread, challenging but fair and varied combat and has unparalleled level design to this day. Seriously, the way the world fits together is still a masterstroke that From (or anyone) is yet to top. I love it to pieces even if the second half of the game is a bit of a let down - mostly saved by the 10/10 DLC rounding it out.
Should I play it today? Absolutely. The combat has been refined, the music has gotten better and the systems have been better explained, but nothing touches the level design and Dark Souls still holds up extremely strongly on all fronts.
49. Civilization 4: Beyond The Sword - 8/10
CIV 4 is wonderful turn based strategy goodness. Civics let you personalise your civilization to your liking and huge stacks surprisingly leads to a deeper combat situation. In Civ V I always felt I just made a thousand longbowmen and grinded my way to victory - you cannot do this in CIV 4. Overall, Civ 4 is the better combat based strategy game, which is where most of the fun lies in these games long term.
Should I play it today? Not for newcomers to the TBS genre, it's difficult and punishing of going to war at the wrong time and in the wrong way. If you’re tired of only building 4 cities in Civ V and having the game punish you endlessly for expanding, it might be time to give Civ 4 a spin.
50. Burnout 3 - 9.5/10
Burnout 3 makes racing games half about racing, and half about smashing like a madman into enemy cars. It takes things like rubberbanding, usually a terrible thing in a racing game, and makes it an asset, by putting all the focus on car to car combat. The campaign has lots of different modes to break up the racing, with the crash mode being a particularly fun distraction. Oh, and the soundtrack is unbelievably good, 45 tracks with not a single bad one amongst them.
Should I play it today? Absolutely. What a goddamn banger this game turned out to be.
Phew, and that's it! A lot of excellent games there. If I had to highlight just one, it would definitely be Katamari Damacy. Its pretty much a perfect game. Play it and enjoy!