In 2001, 6yo Hayley went missing in the woods. An 'imaginary friend' led her to safety.

In 2001, Haley Zega went missing.

The six-year-old had gone on a hike with her grandparents, Jay and Joyce Hale, in the forest above the Buffalo National River, Arkansas. 

But not long in, Haley had become tired, hot and hungry. She sat down on a rock and refused to move. 

The "last straw" for the tired little girl was when she was told she wouldn't be allowed to climb down a tree to see a waterfall connected to the river. "I was like, 'I'm planting myself right here and I'm not moving'," Haley, now 27, told the Mojave Beach Productions podcast recently.

In response, her grandparents left her for a few minutes. Their plan was to eventually double back and return. When they did, she was nowhere to be found.

The search for Haley became the largest search and rescue mission ever carried out in Arkansas history. 

Watch this clip of Haley Zega sharing some of what happened to her. Story continues after video.

Haley recalled the dense foliage of trees blocking her view of her grandparents as they wandered off. She decided to follow after them. However, she took a deer trail that only took her deeper into the forest.

"Any worn path seems like the right one," she said. "And because you can't see very far with the sightlines [and] with the heavy foliage, it seemed like the right path because it looked like it was going to hook up with the main path."

It quickly became clear to Haley she wasn't going to reconnect with her grandparents, so her new plan changed to "keep walking" along the Buffalo River until she could find a gas station to call her parents. 

"That was my plan," she recalled on her YouTube channel. "I didn't drink anything and I didn't eat anything because I didn't think it was safe."

Above her head, helicopters searching for Haley flew past. To help them find her, she swam to a rock in the middle of the river so they could see her. 

"I kept falling in... I wasn't a terribly strong swimmer," she recalled. "It's a wonder I didn't drown."

The second night, Haley spent in a cave. All the while, she shouted her parents' names and her own so they might be able to find her. She threw sand in the air, "in the hopes that the helicopters would see and they never did."

But from the moment Haley knew she was lost, she had an "imaginary friend" named Alicia to help her. She was with her the entire time. 

"It's important for me not to define what she was," Haley explained. "Some people say she was a ghost. Some people say she was a guardian angel. I had someone message me on Facebook asking me if I thought she was an alien."

Haley went on to say that Alicia "helped" her find the only "safe way" to the river from the trail she was wandering on. 

"She was a really calming presence," she recalled. "I somehow miraculously found the only way to get to the river safely and it was because of this presence - this imaginary friend that I had so I'm grateful to that."

Image: Arkansas Online

"She was with me. She kept me calm. She played games with me and she was there for me the entire time... I'll always be grateful to whatever entity that was for keeping me company during that time."

Over 1,000 volunteers searched for Haley but it was two men not affiliated with the rescue team that found her over five miles from where she started. By the time she was located, Haley had climbed down and out of the mountains, walked along the river and spent her nights on a rock and in a cave. 

William Jeff Villines and Lytle James searched for the missing six-year-old with mules, suspecting the team might be looking in the wrong place. They found Haley 52 hours after she went missing, sitting by the river.

Image: Haley Zega.

"I was just so relieved to see people," Haley told Arkansas Online in 2021. "I had been alone for so long, and it was just a relief to know that I wasn't alone anymore. They were so kind to me, and I trusted them because I didn't have another choice, and they turned out to be heroes. I truly owe my life to [them]."

Haley's grandmother, Joyce admits she went through "sleepless agony" after realising their six-year-old granddaughter had gone missing under her care.

"First was the agony of being entrusted by Haley's parents to keep her safe and failing," she told Arkansas Online. "I felt responsible for disrupting so many people's lives to help search. I saw the financial expense to organisations, public agencies, and individuals as a result of my carelessness.

"With all our friends around and the adrenalin running high, I did pretty well with people. It was the nights that were sleepless agony... Staying stoic around others was manageable, but body-wrenching sobs were harder to control in the night."

Haley says what she's learned from her experience is "the power of community."

"People left their jobs [and] people left their families to come out to the woods and look for a little girl they didn't know," she said. "There were so many people who I never met and probably never will meet."

One confusing aspect of her experience is when people make assumptions about her "trauma" online. But Haley wants to make it clear she's not scared. 

"I love hiking, I love hiking, I love being on the river," she said. "I guess part of me [says], 'Well, besides dying, the worst thing that could happen to me in the woods has happened to me.' So why should I be scared?"

The story of Haley Zega featured in an episode of Podcast Excursions titled 'Little Lost Girl: The True Story of Haley Zega’s Miraculous Rescue.'

Feature Image: Arkansas Online.

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