The Friend

2001, six-year-old Haley Zaga was on a hike with her grandparents in a very rural part of Arkansas called the Upper Buffalo Wilderness Area. They had taken this trail that brought them up to the top of this bluff. On the return trip, by about 1130,

they're making their way down, and Haley spots a waterfall off the side of the path. She asked her grandparents, can we go check out this waterfall? And it seemed like the only way they could get down would be by climbing a tree and descending over this cliff. They told Haley no.

And Haley, being a six-year-old, sat down on the trail and she said, well, if you're not gonna take me to the waterfall, I'm not gonna move. Her grandparents said, okay, we're gonna leave you. Haley stood up and she's like, wait for me. And as they're walking, Haley. For the next 90 minutes the grandparents just ran all up and down this trail and

they never found her. They ran down and they called police. The largest search and rescue mission in the history of Arkansas was launched for Haley Zaga. But after two days really no progress had been made. 51 hours into the ordeal there were two searchers. They're about two miles away from where she'd gone missing. They spotted her. She was sitting next to this book with her feet dangling in the water. And when she saw them, she kind of waved

and they said, are you Haley Zaga? And she said, yeah. And she had a couple of scratches, but overall she seemed okay. After Haley had regained some of her strength, investigators asked her what happened. and that she looked down. And then when she looked up again, not only were her grandparents gone, but she was looking at this wall of trees.

She just kept walking in this direction that she didn't recognize. She said it got dark and she slept on top of that bluff. And then the next day she walked down the bluff and she made it to the river. Then she walked along the river until she found a cave

where she slept. Then the next day when she got up, she was found. And so they asked her, you know, are you sure that's where you were? And she said, yeah, that's where Alicia told me to stay. And they were like, who's Alicia? And she said, she's my imaginary friend. I met her on the bluff. And they say, how did you get down the bluffs?

And Haley said, Alicia brought me to a trail and she led me down the bluffs. And she stood in front of me Investigators are now starting to think maybe this isn't an imaginary friend. They ask Haley, can you describe what Alicia looks like? And Haley said, she has black hair, brown eyes, she's a little bit shorter than me, she's four years old, she likes to tell jokes and she likes to sing songs.

Haley's parents and the investigators went back to treating Alicia as an imaginary friend. Now Haley's case was all over the news. Her interview where she said this imaginary friend, that was put in print. And after it was published, there were some readers that realized there was another little girl who had gone missing in the exact same spot as Haley 23 years earlier. She was 4 years old, she had black hair, brown eyes, her name was Alana, and she had died on those blocks. It got national media attention.

News outlets were saying this imaginary friend was actually Alana and that she was Haley's guardian angel. Haley posted a video to her YouTube channel where she tells her story. In the story, she talks about her imaginary friend. In the story, she talks about her imaginary friend. She says, I don't know who or what she was, but she saved my life.