Deep in the Arizona desert, on a cold January morning near the Superstition Mountains, David Berk and his daughter were preparing for the next leg of their journey. A broker and avid trader of cryptocurrencies, David and his daughter had traveled from Long Island on a cross-country road-trip to visit relatives in Los Angeles. Only two years old, little Anna Berk was being raised by her father after a tragic accident had claimed her mother’s life just months before.
This much needed vacation had been good for the pair. David was adapting into his role as a single parent and Anna was bonding with her father. David had traded out of Ripple (XRP) and into Ethereum (ETH) the night before, salvaging what was left from his late entry into the aspiring currency. What happened next would change their lives forever.
“I got up when I heard a noise,” said David, who had stayed in a small hotel outside of Phoenix with his daughter that night. “My phone started vibrating on the table next to me and I picked it up, expecting a text message to appear on the screen,” he continued.
But what David saw on his screen that fateful morning surprised him. The Ethereum (ETH) in his wallet (left on the exchange he had used to make his trades the night before) had been transferred to an unknown address without his permission. A confirmation email arrived shortly after.
“I was really upset,” said David, “I thought someone had hacked my account. But when I opened my email confirming the transaction, there was a note included in the details.” That note gave David a map and a specific set of detailed instructions to follow if he ever wanted to see his baby again.
“I had just seen her,” David cried. “She was sleeping in the hotel bed right next to me. When I read the note, I turned to look and she was gone.”
David quickly gathered his belongings and ran to his pickup, speeding off without properly checking-out with the hotel staff.
“We heard his tires screech as he took off,” exclaimed Lyle, a wily and over-excited hotel owner who had seen this sort of thing before. “I thought to myself, there goes another one,” he continued.
Lyle was referring to a spate of similar occurrences happening in this otherwise peaceful stretch of desert real estate. But it wasn’t teenagers or the typical college kids out of Phoenix that had been causing the commotion lately. And Lyle seemed well aware of what had happened.
“UFO’s,” started Lyle, “they come for the children of cryptocurrency traders. The only one’s that make it back hold Ripple (XRP).”
I nearly fell out of my chair hearing these words for the first time. But after interviewing David for the rest of the story, it seems Lyle’s wild claims would prove 100% accurate.
David sped off with his map and instructions to find his baby girl. He thought hard about the trades he had made the night before, trying to figure where he’d gone wrong. The long shot he took on Tron (TRX) after the announcement of the Tron-Dogs release was stagnating while other coins rose in value around him. David sold his Tron (TRX) for a chance on Icon (ICX) and EOS (EOS). Both trades were up that morning, and David was confident he had made the right decision.
Turning north down an unpaved road delineated on his map, David noticed he was low on gas. The truck spurted and came to a halt a few minutes later. David thought he had failed. Crying on the side of that old dirt road, unsure what to do next, he mustered up the courage to walk the final miles to his destination. And that’s where his own abduction story began.
“A bright light beamed down on me,” David says, “it was like nothing I’d seen before.” And in a flash, he was transported aboard what could only be described as a UFO. “They held me down, I couldn’t move,” David explained. “They had huge black eyes and pale gray skin. They looked just like the aliens in old sci-fi movies. I was completely powerless.”
The aliens waited for David’s nerves to calm before explaining what they needed from him. “They wanted me to buy my Ripple (XRP) back,” he says, “They promised to transfer my Ethereum (ETH) back to my wallet and return my baby if I agreed.”
It wasn’t an easy decision. Ripple (XRP) had fallen so far since David had bought in originally. The craze surrounding Ripple’s potential listing on Coinbase had brought David to the table at the height of Ripple’s rise just weeks before. Still, David reluctantly agreed and Anna was released with only minor bruises into her fathers care.
The police records, filed shortly after the incident, remain open in this unsolved case. No evidence of the encounter was caught in pictures or film. The only thing left to verify the story is David’s wallet, still reflecting the coins he was forced to purchase back. “I’m holding on for dear life now,” David says. “I’m just glad I got to buy back at a lower price.”
Good deal David. And happy trading everyone. Keep searching. The truth is out there!
Micah C. Miracle – Follow me on YouTube for more
View Comments (1)
Great article!