The Men From Nowhere

On a warm day in July 1954, immigration officials at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport in Japan were busy processing international arrivals, when an officer checking passports noticed something odd. When a bearded, light skinned businessman handed over his passport to be stamped, the officer was perplexed to observe that his passport had been issued from a country called Taured. After checking with a colleague, who confirmed that no such country existed, it was determined that the man should be held for further investigation. Apparently the passport looked like an authentic document and bore the stamps of many airports around the world, including evidence of previous trips to Tokyo.

His principal language appeared to be French, although he also spoke Japanese sufficiently well for the authorities to be able to interrogate him without an interpreter. When questioned, the man was brazenly insistent that Taured really did exist, pointing out that it had been a recognised country for the last thousand years. He explained that it was located between France and Spain and when shown a map, immediately pointed to the Principality of Andorra, questioning why the map was misrepresenting his country of origin. There followed something of a Mexican standoff, with Japanese officials insisting that Taured did not exist, and the strange traveller insisting that it did.

With things at something of an impasse, it was decided to detain the man overnight at a local hotel, in order to give the immigration department more time to look into the mysterious matter. With the aim of preventing him from leaving without permission, he was assigned a room several floors up with no balcony, and two guards were placed outside the door. Among the man’s possessions they found a considerable amount of cash in various European currencies and documentation relating to his employment. When officials contacted his employer however, they claimed never to have heard of the individual in question. Additionally, the company he claimed he was visiting in Tokyo to do business with, also denied any knowledge of him, and it was the same story with the hotel where he insisted he had made a reservation.

The Japanese were by now growing increasingly suspicious of their puzzling guest and determined to get to the bottom of the mystery. However, when officials arrived the following morning to bring him back for further questioning, they found his room vacant. The enigmatic man had simply vanished along with all his personal effects.

A strange and perplexing tale without parallel, you may be forgiven for thinking. I certainly was. It turns out however, that there are other such stories of travellers claiming to originate from non-existent countries. In the spring of 1851, a man arrived at a small village near Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, Germany. He was fair skinned and spoke only a little German. He claimed that his name was Jophar Vorin, and that he hailed from a country called Laxaria , in the continent of Sakria. Other than a smattering of German, he did not appear to understand any other European language. He stated that he had set out on his journey in order to search for a long-lost brother, but that he had been shipwrecked along the way, although when shown a map he was unable to identify where he had come from or the route he had taken.

He explained that he was fluent in both Laxarian and Abramian, the former being the language of his common countryfolk and the latter being a more formal written language used by priestly orders. His religion was called Ispatian, the doctrine of which appeared to be Christian in form. He maintained that the earth contained five great continents called Sakria, Aflar, Astar, Auslar, and Euplar, and that his home country of Laxaria was many hundreds of miles away, across a vast ocean. The burgomaster of Frankfurt-on-the-Oder was so perplexed by the man’s story, that he had him sent to Berlin, the nation’s capital, in order that his fantastical claims could be properly investigated by government officials. Unfortunately there does not appear to be any written record of what happened to him after that. Perhaps, like the man from Taured, he simply disappeared!

Another case occurred in 1905, this time in Paris, France, where a man was apprehended for stealing bread. When interviewed he could speak only a completely unrecognizable language, and claimed to be from a place called Lizbia. Assuming he meant Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, he was shown a map, but displayed no recognition when Portugal was pointed out to him.

So, what are we to make of these implausible stories? The most straightforward answer is that they are simply urban legends and are not actually true. The fact that we do not have a name for the man from Taured, and the lack of a conclusion to the story of the man from Laxaria, certainly adds weight to the urban myth hypothesis. But should we just dismiss them as the products of over fertile imaginations? As with my earlier story The Strange Double Life of Emilie Sagee, there exists another intriguing possible explanation for these perplexing outliers, and surprisingly it comes to us from the world of quantum physics. Quantum physics, or quantum mechanics as it is sometimes referred to, is the study of nature at atomic and subatomic levels, and suggests the possibility of multiple dimensions. Might our weary travellers have inadvertently transgressed the dimensional veil and unintentionally arrived in another existence, just for a while?



Sources:
https://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained/phenomena/mysterious-tale-man-tarred-evidence-parallel-universes-or-embellishment-005788
https://coolinterestingstuff.com/the-strange-mystery-of-the-man-from-taured
https://coolinterestingstuff.com/the-strange-mystery-of-jophar-vorin