Key facts
- Name: Kenneth Lee “Kenny” Veach
- Born: 1967, Las Vegas, Nevada (exact date not publicly confirmed)
- Age at disappearance: 47
- Last seen: November 10, 2014
- Location: Sheep Range, Desert National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada
- Height / weight / hair: 5’8″, 140 lbs, brown hair
- Status: Still missing — NamUs MP27018
- Investigating agency: Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department
The man who walked into the desert
The last thing anyone ever found of Kenny Veach was his cell phone, lying in the dust beside an abandoned mine shaft in the Nevada desert.
It was November 22, 2014 — twelve days after the 47-year-old told his family he was heading out on a short overnight trip. Searchers had already found his vehicle at the trailhead, exactly where his girlfriend said it would be. The phone sat near a vertical shaft that appears in the opening minutes of his own YouTube video, roughly a four-hour hike from his car. There was no note, no gear, no sign of a struggle. Just the phone, the shaft, and the desert.
Nearly twelve years later, nothing else has ever surfaced. No remains. No equipment. No confirmed clue. A man who had spent more than two decades walking alone through the Mojave and the Great Basin — filming it all for a small, devoted YouTube audience — walked into the Sheep Range on November 10, 2014, and never walked out.
The hiker behind the username
His viewers knew him as “snakebitmgee.” The name was earned, not chosen: Veach had a habit of picking up rattlesnakes, and one of them bit him. His videos were rough and magnetic in equal measure — multi-day solo treks across Nevada and California desert, nights under open sky, animal bones and desert curiosities hauled home to decorate his Las Vegas house.
He hiked the way almost no one dares to. No GPS. No compass. No maps. “I solo hike across mountain tops that most people wouldn’t dare go,” he wrote once. “I have been in more caves than I can count. I play with rattlesnakes for fun.” That confidence nearly killed him years earlier, when he blew out his left leg on a mountaintop in triple-digit heat with a single cup of water left — an ordeal that ended with a helicopter rescue. He kept hiking anyway.
Around 2013, Veach quit his job as a service technician for a coffee company to try to make it as an inventor. He claimed to have designed an improved toilet paper holder and submitted it to the television show Shark Tank. He even tried to sell his house with a condition attached that no buyer would accept: whoever bought it had to hire him as caretaker and let him keep decorating the place in his singular style. There were no takers.
The M Cave
In June 2014, Veach typed a comment under a YouTube video called “Son of an Area 51 Technician.” It would become the most consequential paragraph he ever wrote.
He said that while hiking near Nellis Air Force Base, he had found a hidden cave — and that its entrance was “shaped like a perfect capital M.” He entered every cave he found, he said. This one was different:
“As I began to enter this particular cave, my whole body began to vibrate. The closer I got to the cave entrance, the worse the vibrating became. Suddenly I became very scared and high-tailed it out of there. That was one of the strangest things that ever happened to me.”
The comment traveled. Some viewers were enthralled. Others called it fiction. The geography did the rest of the work: the Sheep Range, part of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge about 40 miles north of Las Vegas, sits near restricted military land, and the supposed cave was described as only seven miles from Nellis Air Force Base. Never mind that researchers later noted the areas in Veach’s own videos lie at least 20 miles from the Groom Lake/Area 51 site — the military connection was internet lore from the start, and lore doesn’t need coordinates.
The second trip
Stung by the skeptics and encouraged by the believers, Veach went back. In October 2014 he returned to the desert with a 9mm handgun and a video camera, determined to find the cave again and settle it. He couldn’t find it. On October 18, 2014, he uploaded the footage as “M Cave Hike” — a video in which he narrates run-ins with a tarantula, a desert tortoise, and a black ram watching him from a ridge. No cave.
The comments were merciless. He was a liar, they said; go back and prove it. Buried in the replies was one that reads unbearably now: “No! Do not go back there. If you find that cave entrance, don’t go in, you won’t get out.”
He went back anyway.
The final hike
November 10, 2014. Veach told his family it would be a short overnight trip. He gave his girlfriend no specifics about where he was going. The national missing-persons database entry notes he was last seen in Las Vegas, having called to say he was going camping.
Then nothing. He was never seen or heard from again.
The search
When he didn’t come home, his girlfriend, Sheryon Pilgrim, reported him missing. What followed was one of the bigger volunteer efforts the area had seen: more than 30 search-and-rescue members working the Sheep Range on foot across three separate searches, plus a helicopter flyover.
They found his vehicle at the trailhead, where Pilgrim said it would be. Then, on November 22, the phone — on the ground near the abandoned shaft, the same shaft at the start of his “M Cave Hike” video.
Red Rock Search & Rescue Commander Dave Cummings told Las Vegas’s News 3: “We found his cell phone close to a very vertical old mine shaft and we can’t find another trail. It doesn’t mean that he’s down the mine shaft, but we have tracked him as far as we can.”
They checked inside the shaft. He wasn’t there. Neither was any of his camping gear. The desert had given back a phone and a vehicle, and kept everything else.
Theories: what might have happened
No official conclusion has ever been announced. Honest coverage of this case means calling speculation what it is. Here’s where the credible accounts point.
His girlfriend’s account. In a comment on Veach’s own video — quoted at length by Nevada Magazine — a woman identifying herself as his girlfriend Sheryon Pilgrim wrote that she didn’t believe it was an accident. She said Veach had fought depression for years, refused medication and refused to see a doctor, and had told her that if he ever took his own life, “no one will ever find me.” She pointed out that he left his video camera at home — in her view, he had no intention of filming anything — and believed he left the phone by the shaft so it couldn’t be used to track him. (Her identity rests on her own claim; news outlets attribute the comment accordingly.)
If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 in the US to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
An accident. Nevada is studded with unmarked abandoned mine shafts, and the desert kills fast — heat, dehydration, a bad fall. Search-and-rescue professionals who’ve discussed the case tend to land here: the phone beside a “very vertical” shaft fits, even if nothing proves it.
Military or otherworldly foul play. The idea that Veach found something secret and was silenced has no supporting evidence at all, and the geography works against it. No credible outlet endorses it.
Walking away. A few online writers have suggested he chose to vanish amid money and personal troubles. There’s no evidence for that either — and nearly twelve silent years argue against it for a man who loved an audience.
Unverified rumors — a supposed sighting years later, a rumored bone near the mine — drift around blogs and forums. None has been corroborated by law enforcement or any reputable outlet, and we don’t repeat them as leads.
Two uncertainties deserve plain stating: Veach definitely carried his 9mm on the October trip, but nobody knows whether he took it on the final hike, and the gun has never been found. And sources disagree on whether his vehicle was a car or a truck, so we call it only what it certainly was — his vehicle.
Where the case stands
Kenneth Lee Veach is still missing. NamUs case MP27018. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department still holds the investigation.
The case has acquired a strange second life. The “M Cave Hike” video has drawn millions of views. In November 2021, HLN’s Real Life Nightmare gave the disappearance a full episode, and the 2021 found-footage horror film Horror in the High Desert was loosely inspired by it. Online, the M Cave is now a minor legend — which is exactly the problem. Legend isn’t evidence. A real man is still gone.
Nearly twelve years on, the ledger is short: a 47-year-old experienced hiker walked into the Sheep Range on November 10, 2014, and left behind a phone, a vehicle, and questions nobody has answered. Someone, somewhere, may know something that matters. Until then, we say his name.
Have information?
Contact the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. True-crime coverage of the case has circulated the following LVMPD contact: Detective Dan Holley, 702-828-5705. You can also submit a tip to the FBI at 1-800-225-5324 or tips.fbi.gov. In an emergency, dial 911. Reference NamUs case MP27018.
Timeline
- 1967 — Kenneth Lee Veach is born in Las Vegas, Nevada.
- ~2013 — Quits his job as a coffee-company service technician to pursue inventing.
- June 2014 — Posts the “vibrating M Cave” comment on YouTube.
- October 18, 2014 — Uploads the “M Cave Hike” video after a failed second trip.
- November 10, 2014 — Sets out on his third hike; never seen again.
- November 2014 (days later) — Reported missing by his girlfriend, Sheryon Pilgrim.
- November 22, 2014 — His cell phone is found near an abandoned mine shaft; his vehicle is found at the trailhead.
- November 28, 2021 — HLN’s Real Life Nightmare airs an episode on the case.
- Today — Still missing. NamUs MP27018.
FAQ
Has Kenny Veach ever been found?
No. As of October 2026, no trace of Kenneth “Kenny” Veach has ever been found. His phone and vehicle were recovered in November 2014, but neither he nor any of his gear has been located. He remains listed as missing in NamUs under case number MP27018.
What is the M Cave?
The “M Cave” is a cave Veach claimed to have found near Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, whose entrance he described as “shaped like a perfect capital M.” He said his whole body began to vibrate as he approached it, frightening him away. He tried twice to re-find it on camera and failed both times. Its exact location — if it exists — was never confirmed.
What was Kenny Veach’s YouTube channel?
He posted as “snakebitmgee” — a nickname he earned after his habit of picking up rattlesnakes ended with a bite. His channel documented his solo desert treks across Nevada and California, including the October 2014 “M Cave Hike” video.
What did Kenny Veach’s girlfriend say happened to him?
In a comment attributed to his girlfriend Sheryon Pilgrim, she wrote that she believed he took his own life after years of depression, noting he left his camera at home and may have left his phone behind so it couldn’t track him. News outlets attribute the comment to “a woman claiming to be” his girlfriend, as her identity rests on her own claim.
Was foul play involved in Kenny Veach’s disappearance?
There is no evidence of foul play. Theories involving the military or Area 51 are pure speculation with no supporting evidence, and researchers note his hiking areas were at least 20 miles from the Groom Lake site.
Where was Kenny Veach last seen?
In the Sheep Range of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge, roughly 40 miles north of Las Vegas, Nevada. His vehicle was found at a trailhead there, and his phone near an abandoned mine shaft about a four-hour hike away.
How can I help find Kenny Veach?
Share this case file, and if you have any information at all, contact the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department or the FBI tip line at 1-800-225-5324. Reference NamUs case MP27018. Please do not contact the family directly.
Sources
- Official / law enforcement: NamUs case MP27018 (via Uncovered, https://uncovered.com/cases/kenneth-veach); Red Rock Search & Rescue Commander Dave Cummings, quoted in KSNV/News 3 Las Vegas, Nov 22, 2014.
- News & magazines: Nevada Magazine, “M Cave and the Unexplained Disappearance of Kenny Veach” (Eric Cachinero, Aug 2019, https://nevadamagazine.com/issue/september-october-2019/11423/); LADbible (Dec 2025, https://www.ladbible.com/news/us-news/kenny-veach-cave-girlfriend-theory-529024-20251211); UNILAD (Jun 2023, https://www.unilad.com/news/kenny-veach-area-51-cave-disappearance-strong-vibrations-800629-20230626); Front Page Detectives (https://www.frontpagedetectives.com/latest-news/las-vegas-hiker-in-search-of-mysterious-cave-for-his-you-tube-followers-vanishes-en-route); Collider on Horror in the High Desert (https://collider.com/horror-in-the-high-desert-true-story/).
- Reference: Wikipedia, “Disappearance of Kenny Veach” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Kenny_Veach); All That’s Interesting (https://www.allthatsinteresting.com/kenny-veach); StrangeOutdoors (https://www.strangeoutdoors.com/mysterious-stories-blog/tag/kenny+veach+m-cave+mystery).
Found an error? Tell us via the About page and we will fix it promptly and note the change here. Last verified October 2026.