More Than A Dozen People, Including Newborn Reported Missing After Following Religious Woman Into Mountains, Located Safe And Sound

More than a dozen people, including a newborn baby and several young children, who were reported missing while on a spiritual retreat in Venezuela's Andes mountains had been located safe and sound in a farm, authorities said.

The group is said to have vanished in the mountains after following a woman who told them she received a revelation from the Virgin Mary that the world was about to end.

"It was shocking because we had never heard of something like this here," Maria Villamizar, a government employee in the farming town of La Grita, in Venezuela's Táchira state, told AFP on Friday.

16 people, including a 20-month-old baby and five children, were reported missing since Aug. 22, when they set off for a religious retreat, leaving their cell phones behind to avoid being disturbed.

"She sent people to confession, to go to mass, and to pray," a resident told local news station. "She said that many bad things were coming, that Christ cried tears of blood for what we all do. That the world was going to end."

More than 160 police officers aided by dogs and drones were deployed to find the group of "religious fanatics", according to media reports.

Neighbours who spoke to the local paper La Nación said that a number of local families had packed food and camping mats and gone to the mountains on what they described as a four-day spiritual retreat.

Calling the disappearance "very suspicious," the mayor of the area said that "there are several theories [of what may have happened] but we won't know what really happened until the investigations have been concluded.”

On Thursday, Sept. 8, authorities confirmed that the group had been located in a farm called El Rodeo.

The group members knew about the commotion only when agents showed them videos on their phones of their loved ones expressing concern for them, Yesnardo Canal, a local police officer said.

"The children, innocently, said they had become famous, but the adults were ashamed," and many apologized, Canal said. "They were surprised. The last thing they thought was that all this commotion was happening."

"They were surprised. The last thing they thought was that all this commotion was happening," the officer added.

All of them were transferred back to La Grita early Friday and have undergone medical and psychological examinations, police said.

"Thank God they are fine," Villamizar said.