The mysterious story of the most famous alien from the past

The incredible story of the most famous alien from the past

In mid-June 1951, a strange incident occurred in Times Square. A little before noon local time, a very unusual-looking man appeared on the square. No one saw where he came from, he appeared as if out of thin air. The unknown man gave the impression of a man with mental problems. He looked pretentious and obviously out of fashion: lush sideburns, which were worn a hundred years ago, strange clothes, as if from a museum of the Wild West. The young man mumbled something inarticulate, rushed from side to side in a panic, and then rushed to run through a busy street, at the same moment falling under the wheels of a car.

The man died on the spot. The body of the unfortunate man was sent to the nearest morgue, where he was thoroughly searched. There was a suspicion that an inadequate young man could rob a junk shop or an antique dealer, so unusual were the contents of his pockets: a copper token from one of the saloons, several dollar bills printed in the middle of the last century, a bill for the services of one of the stables, a letter dated 1876, as well as an old-fashioned business card addressed to Rudolf Fentz with his New York address. All the items were in perfect condition, like new.

The business card found in his pocket gave the policeman a lead. He went to the specified address, but on the spot it turned out that the house had long been uninhabited, and no one in the district had ever heard the name of Fentz. The puzzled detective ordered the fingerprints of the deceased to be taken, but they did not match any of the copies of the police database. The search through all directories and databases was finally successful. The detective found a certain Rudolf Fentz Jr. in one of the reference books of ten years ago. However, Fentz Jr. was already under 70 years old, while the deceased man looked 25-30 years old at most. In addition, Fentz Jr. died back in 1945.

Puzzled, the detective went around all the places indicated by the objects found at Fentz. As expected, none of them have been working for a long time. There was no saloon, which closed half a century ago, and there was no stable, which closed a little later.

The last clue was Fentz Jr., who seemed to be related to the deceased. The detective hoped that he would be able to find out something from his relatives that would shed light on this mystery. He found the last place of residence of Fentz, but it turned out that shortly before his death he moved. The neighbors remembered him, but none of them knew where he had moved to. But the policeman was helped at the bank, where they remembered an old client. It turned out that Franz Jr. decided to spend his old age in warm Florida, where he moved with his wife.

After a long search, the detective managed to establish the last address of the man's residence and enter into correspondence with his widow. The elderly woman did not remember any oddities for her late husband, he did not go anywhere for a long time, had no problems with the law. However, she remembered one extraordinary incident that happened to his father, after whom he was named. Fentz Jr. was still a baby when his father suddenly and completely disappeared. One summer day in 1876, he left the house and never returned. The family made desperate efforts to find him, but resigned themselves when they could not find the slightest clue.

The shocked detective went to the city archives of New York, where among the dusty folders he found materials on the case of the search for Rudolf Fentz. The search for the missing man was stopped more than 70 years ago due to their complete futility. Among the case materials, there was also a photograph of the missing man, looking at which the policeman almost lost his mind: the man in the photo was a double of an unknown person who died under the wheels of a car in Times Square. Fearing the ridicule of the public, the detective quietly closed the case of the death of an unknown person who threw himself under the wheels of a car.

He remained silent for the next two decades until the story finally leaked to the press. In the early 70s, it was first published in the journal “Frontier Research". After that, it was reprinted by several European newspapers and magazines, mainly thematic, the audience of which were various kinds of UFO hunters, ghosts, researchers of paranormal phenomena and other phenomena. Nevertheless, everywhere this story was presented as absolutely real with reference to American publications. Therefore, it soon migrated to the yellow newspapers, and then to the serious press.

By the end of the 70s - early 80s, the story was already very famous. It was often referred to as the first confirmed case of time travel, used in disputes as an argument in favor of the reality of such travel. With the advent of the Internet, this urban legend has experienced a second wave of popularity. At the beginning of the XXI century, it was invariably included in any collections about the most mysterious and unexplained cases. The story was so thoroughly and so scrupulously described that some skeptics were intrigued. And only in the mid-noughties, when professional researchers of urban legends took up the case, they managed to get to the truth.

The destroyers of legends managed to trace, though not immediately, the chain of publications that led to the original source. It turned out to be a story by a fairly well-known science fiction writer from the USA Jack Finney called “I'm scared.” He was a very popular author, several of his fantasy novels were filmed (the most famous is “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”) and brought him wide fame.

I am scared

The story “I'm Scared“ appeared in 1951, when Finney was just starting his writing career, and was published in the once iconic Collier magazine in America. However, in the post-war years, the publication lost almost all of its audience and lived out its last days, so the work remained almost unnoticed.

But it was read by Ralph Holland, an American science fiction writer practically unknown in wide circles and, concurrently, a passionate advocate of everything paranormal and supernatural. Holland at that time published a tiny edition of the magazine “Voice from the Gallery”, in which he published materials about various paranormal events. Holland couldn't think of anything better than to steal this story. He independently corrected some details and episodes in it, after which he published it under the guise of a report on a real incident.

Since the audience of the publication was small, the story went almost unnoticed. In the early 70s, the article caught someone's eye and was reprinted in the journal “Frontier Research”, published by the California “Organization for the Study of Frontier Sciences”. It often published materials of dubious quality devoted to the supernatural and UFOs.

From this magazine, the story got to Europe, where American sources were poorly known at that time. Therefore, the story about Fentz was taken quite seriously. It was reprinted by many European publications — not only those with a tiny circulation of newspapers about UFO mysteries, but also quite serious media.

In Europe, the legend quickly gained popularity and in this status returned to America again (already with reference to European sources). Despite an investigation that reliably established her original sources, she still remains the most popular urban legend dedicated to time travel.


About author:

Ufologist, PhD, blogger, I go on my own expeditions for UFOs. I use scientific methods to investigate the UAP phenomenon

Serg Toporkov

Ufologist, Ph.D., blogger, I go on my own expeditions for UFOs. I use scientific methods to investigate the UAP phenomenon. Write to me


Related tags:

alien  time travel  analysis  USA  story


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