A Long Island man searching for his father who disappeared decades ago has discovered a skeleton in his family home, Newsday reports.

Mike Carroll, 57, reportedly came upon the skeleton in his Lake Grove, New York, basement last month. He has lived in the house for much of his life and believes the remains are those of his father George Carroll, a Korean War veteran who vanished in 1961.

Carroll said he was told his dad “went out and never came back” and that his mother, who died in 1998, never offered a straight answer about what happened.

According to the report, Carroll and his family sought help from paranormal experts and a psychic in the long search for his father. There had long been a rumor that the father was buried in the basement, Carroll told the newspaper.

The home had been under construction at the time the father went missing, when he was 26 or 27 years old, said Det. Lt. Kevin Beyrer of the Suffolk Police Department’s homicide unit.

One theory is that the father was buried by a construction worker or someone who had easy access to the residence, according to Newsday.

Carroll said his mother’s second husband, Richard Darress, might have had more information about what happened to his father. Darress died earlier this year in Mexico.

But there are some clues that may shed light on what happened. One line of inquiry, for example, is that the skeleton’s skull appears to have been fractured from blunt force trauma, Beyrer told Newsday.

Still, he said, the age of the case has made solving it difficult.

“Time is our enemy,” he told the newspaper. “We want people with firsthand knowledge, but because so much time has passed, we have not been able to find anyone with firsthand knowledge.”

A coroner is now attempting to identify whose remains were found.