The Traveller

Possibly just a story. Possibly true. I sort of want it to be true because it is weird in such a low-key, everyday way...

This from the Ghost Theory site:

It certainly was a busy and muggy day at a feverish Tokyo airport one day in 1954. Those passengers who had just deplaned stood in a somber queue, waiting for the Customs agents to review and properly stamp their passports.

As the hordes of passengers spill out from the terminals, one passenger, a tall mysterious man, stood apart from the rest.

The man presented an authentic looking European passport and carried European currency from several countries and carried himself in a professional manner but that wasn't what alerted the authorities. No matter how much they had searched, the Customs agents could not find the European country that had issued him the passport anywhere in their maps. The unheard country of Taured. When they asked the Caucasian man to point on their map where Taured was located, he answered them in fluent Japanese. The man told them that it was a small country in Europe, nestled between France and Spain. When the agents produced a map, he pointed to where the Principality of Andorra, Spain, rests.

The mysterious man took a step back when he realized his country did not exist on any of the maps. He claimed that the country of Taured has been there for almost 1,000 years and that he has never heard of Andorra. He produced a driver’s license issued by the government of Taured and accompanying documents such as bank statements and business papers but they were found to be invalid, alongside his bank account. There was an eerie silence in the interrogation room as all of the Customs agents stared at the new arrival. The tall mysterious man from Taured looked as confused as they were.

It had been nine years since the end of World War II and Tokyo was busier than ever. The city began to sprawl as more and more countries landed . Most of the travelers to the Island country found themselves in long queues waiting to get their passport stamped and allowed entry into the country. Life in Japan was returning to normal except of course for the high strangeness that was going on inside the Customs interrogation room.

Eight hours after landing, the mysterious man from Taured sat tired and frustrated in the cramped interrogation room. He kept insisting that he was from the country of Taured and was in Japan on a business trip. The man told the officials that he had been traveling to Japan from Taured for the last five years without problems. He pointed to the past stamps that were issued on his passport to prove that he’d been traveling back and forth from Taured to Japan without any problems in the past.

Airport officials then placed a phone call to the company the man claimed to work for and found that it did not exist. Tired and getting nowhere, they decided to send the man to a guarded hotel room so that he could rest while the proper authorities were contacted and a follow-up investigation was planned. The mystery man left the Tokyo airport escorted by police and Customs officials.

He was placed inside a hotel room high above the hustling city streets. With only a small window and no ledge. After a light dinner at the hotel’s kitchen, he was escorted back to his room where he stayed the entire night. The guards reported not seeing or hearing him after the door was closed. When morning approached, they knocked and received no answer. Upon entering the room they officials were shocked to discover that he had vanished. With no possible escape routes other than the well guarded front door, Japanese officials scratched their heads in total bewilderment.

An extensive search was subsequently launched by the Tokyo police department only to come up empty handed. There was no sign of him anywhere. As mysteriously as he had appeared on that Tokyo airport that fateful day in 1954, the man from Taured vanished.

The story appeared in the book “The Directory of Possibilities”, Colin Wilson & John Grant [Corgi Paperback, 1982. ISBN: 0-552-119946]. No one knows for certain if this was a factual account. No documents or newspaper clippings exist other than what was written by Colin Wilson and John Grant.

In the story of ‘The Man from Taured’ we learn that an European visitor to Tokyo seems to be caught between two worlds. One of which the man’s reality seems similar to ours, except of course for the country that doesn't exist. At least in our wormhole-shanghai-tunnel-flickr-stuck-in-customsworld. Taured exists in no map, yet the man carried official documentation to prove otherwise. So what really happened in that muggy Tokyo airport in 1954?

Could the man from Taured have been a traveler caught between a wormhole? One that sent him unknowingly into our dimension. An alternate universe in which things played out entirely different. A world that lived under the control of the Axis side.

Another explanation is that the man from Taured was telling the truth. As far as he was concerned, he came from the country of Taured. He’s always known of his country to exist, and had never heard of The Principality of Andorra before seeing it printed on the Japanese world map. As far as he was concerned, everyone had to be playing a prank on him. However we all know that Andorra clearly has existed for quite some time and that the Allies won the war. So could this man be a spy for some dark government agency sent on a mission to Japan? A brainwashed spook that was given a false identity alongside all documentation to make him believe.

The Principality of Andorra has certainly had a long history with war and politics, so that explanation wouldn’t be such a stretch.

What happened inside that Tokyo airport we may never know. One thing is for certain, strange things happen every single day.