Mystery of the man from Taured

[Angelhoney]

On what appeared to be a normal day in 1954, a Caucasian-looking man dressed in a business suit arrived at the Tokyo International Airport.[1]When the unidentified man handed over his passport to be stamped, he was immediately taken away for interrogation about his nationality. He spoke French as his native tongue, but was also fluent in Japanese.[2]While his passport appeared to be authentic, it was issued by the non-existing country of "Taured".[1] Confused, the airport interrogators asked the man to locate the whereabouts of his country on a world map. He immediately pointed at the Principality of Andorra, a tiny European country nestled between the borders of France and Spain.[1] The man insisted he had never heard of a country by that name and that "Taured" had existed for more than a thousand years.[3][4] He further explained he was in Japan on business, something he had been doing the past few years.[4] Bizarrely, his passport was covered in customs and visa stamps, confirming earlier visits to Japan and other European nations.[1] He also carried legal European currency with him.[1] Things were further complicated when the man presented a drivers license and a checkbook, both issued to him by "Taured".[4]

Uncertain what to do, Tokyo airport officials decided to temporarily keep the man in a nearby hotel until a final decision could be reached.[1] Two immigration officers stood guard outside the door until the next morning.[4]That day, it was discovered that the mysterious man had completely vanished without a trace from his hotel room, a fact which troubled the immigration officers as the only exit (besides the door) was a window with no ledge, located fifteen stories above a busy street.[1][3] The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department launched a thorough search for the man, but he was never seen again.[4][3]

 

[Himalayan Hermit]

This is one of my all time favorite incidents of parallel universe theory. Even though there is no evidence that this eve happened, it's still mind blowing. Also there is no evidence or credible source in my knowledge that discloses *how* this story was brought into light. May be someone with access leaked this to the media? I'm sure even if there was some evidence with Japanese authorities, they would have sealed it tight either due to embarrassment that the man escaped, or perhaps they realized the truth and didn't want it disclosed.

Simply fantastic!

 

[Snake Plissken]

I think maybe he just forgot which dimension he was in. He pulled out the wrong passport for the wrong dimension, such a simple mistake any one of us could make it.

 

[Opmmur]

This is an interesting story, I ran across to the number years ago, at that time
I was scratching my head how this could be. Now that I'm older and wiser and
more baldheaded from scratching, I still find it a interesting tale of parallel universes.

 

[Awakening]

I read this story a couple of years ago.

In my opinion, many cases like this might be happening everywhere, every time. Only people do not know how to identify them, nor they want to believe they are experiencing something out of the box, and thus, the story ends there, as a "weird confusion with someone that once happened".

 

[HDRKID]

What an interesting case. People in Andorra do not know how famous they are.
The strange mystery of the man from Taured | Strange Unexplained Mysteries

English - exit

French - sortie

Catalan - sortida

Spanish - salida

Portuguese - saída


Notice that Catalan is similar to both French and Spanish, and it is relatively easy for a person who knows French to understand what a Catalan speaker is saying.

However, in our time line the main language of Andorra is Catalan and the language on the street is Spanish, but in the alternate time line it appears that people speak French instead and that tells me that France is more important and Spain less so.

Actually, in our time line, the majority of the people in Andorra speak Spanish and cartoons on TV are in Spanish, but only 6% speak French and you do not see that language in street signs.

What does this tell us?

Please remember that French was a lot more important in Andorra years ago. However, Franco in Spain was against people in Andorra speaking French and forced them to speak Spanish and he even tried to annex Andorra, but with no success. France was taken over by Germany during WWII and it lost a lot of its power.

Maybe Taured exists in a time line without a WWI and a WWII and most residents of Taured speak French, but I do wonder about the accent of the lost man.

I would have liked to speak to him - in French of course. Sadly, my French is poor.

Do rec that people go to Andorra as it is a very pretty place up in the mountains and the people are nice.

Street signs in our Andorra will say - mercado.

English - grocery
French - epicerie
Catalan - botiga
Spanish - mercado
Portuguese - mercearia

In English, a boutique means a store that sells fancy clothes.
In Spanish, a boutique means a pharmacy that sells medicine only. They do not sell perfume or lipstick.
In Catalan, a mercado use to mean a hardware store, but is means grocery now.

The word in catalan for supermarket is supermercat, but I did not see that word, but I did see "loja" which is Portuguese for store.
BTW, the word in both Portuguese and Spanish for supermarket is supermercado so there we are. In French it is supermarché.