Global Courant 2023-05-24 22:00:32
(Source)
It was a hot summer day in July 1954. A businessman, who people say looked just like any other traveler, arrived at Haneda Airport in Tokyo.
However, this man would cause chaos minutes later – of the existential kind. Upon checking his passport, the authorities discovered that he was from Taured, a country that does not exist.
In an apparent head-scratcher, the man’s documents appeared legitimate. His passport contained stamps from countries he had previously visited, including Japan. He explained that Taured was in Europe, in an area between France and Spain. He even pointed it out on a map.
But to the Japanese authorities – and to us, at least in this universe – this country is the Principality of Andorra. The man became angry and confused, insisting that Taured has been around for over 1,000 years.
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The Japanese authorities did not know what to do. After the ‘interrogation’, they decided to take the man to a local hotel until they cleared up the situation. The man’s room, several floors up, was locked, heavily guarded, and had no balcony.
Despite this level of security, he would have disappeared without a trace by morning, the story goes.
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Often referred to as the “Man from Taured,” this story has become one of the most well-known urban legends in modern history about alternate or parallel universes. The story has been adapted into books (1, 2) and is a favorite topic on TikTok And YouTubeinvolving both conspiracy theorists and social media users who are just plain curious.
However, what many retellings about the man fail to reveal is the truth behind the legend. This could be intentional, because after all, it’s fun to keep the mystery alive.
On the other hand, some narrators may also be completely clueless about the true origins of the myth, as accounts of the incident itself are not always consistent.
Story continues
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The truth
The story of the “Man from Taured” has been heavily sensationalized, but according to the news sources at the time, it comes from a real incident.
However, this incident was not about alternate universes, but a simple case of fraud.
First of all, the year was not 1954, but 1959. The man, identified like John Allen Kuchar Zegrus, had been traveling with his fake passport for some time and somehow managed to trick other countries. Unfortunately for him, his plan ended in Japan, where he was convicted of illegal entry and fraud in April 1960 at the age of 36.
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Zegrus reportedly traveled to Japan from Taipei with his Korean wife. He was only arrested after cashing forged checks to cover the cost of their stay in the country, according to factchecker. Snopes. comwho also exposed the truth behind the legend.
A Tokyo judge reportedly sentenced Zegrus to one year in prison. From there, the situation took a much darker turn: After his punishment was interpreted, Zegrus stood up and slashed his arms with a piece of broken glass he had hidden in his mouth, declaring, “I’m going to kill myself!”
Zegrus was reportedly rushed to a nearby hospital, and this is where his reported timeline ends. It is clear that he eventually served his sentence, but who he really was and where he actually came from remains a mystery. His wife, who was 30 at the time, was reportedly repatriated to South Korea. It is unclear what happened to her.
Some believe Zegrus came from Algeria. This is due to his citation of places called Tamanrasset (which he claimed was the capital of Taured “south of the Sahara”) and Tuared (a variation of Taured’s spelling, believed to be a misspelled version of Tuareg is). Tamanrasset is the name of a province in Algeria, while Tuareg are an ethno-Islamic group living mainly in the Sahara Desert, including southern Algeria.
Although Zegrus and countless others have fabricated hoaxes about parallel universes, the reality of these remains unknown. However, physicists around the world are now taking the concept of a multiverse more seriously. Hollywood has also embraced the idea more in recent years, with films such as “Everything Everywhere Everything at onceto be a shining example.
