Orion Williamson was a common resident of Selma, Alabama. In 1854 he was married and had a child.
In the month of July, early in the morning, he told his wife that he was going to lead the horse out to graze in the shade of a barn in a nearby field.
When he went out on the field, Orion waved to his wife, who was standing with a child in her arms on the porch of the house, and … suddenly disappeared. Disappeared.
His disappearance, in addition to his wife, was also seen by his neighbors - Mr. Wren and his son, who at that moment were riding horses past the field. They decided that something had happened to the man and galloped to the place where he stood, but it was empty.
Then Williamson's wife and Wren with his son searched for Orion for two more hours all over the field and in the immediate vicinity, but also to no avail. From what happened, Mrs Williamson began to have a severe hysteria and was taken to the hospital.
In a couple of hours, the news of the strangely disappeared local resident spread all over Selma, and about three hundred people came to the Williamson field to take part in his search. The men formed three rows, holding hands, and thus went around the whole area, looking for every hole or ditch. They searched like this around the clock, even at night, using torches and lanterns.
It was all in vain, no trace of the missing Williamson was found. He really seemed to have sunk through the ground, or as if "devils took him".
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Soon a new team of volunteers arrived at the field, with whom the geologists were. They had a hypothesis that Williamson fell into a sudden crack that closed over him. So they started digging where they last saw him. But after digging to a depth of several feet. they stumbled upon large stones and it became clear that there was no crack here. In other places, neither unusual crevices nor holes were found.
Almost a year has passed.
In the spring, when the snow melted and the grass began to grow, a strange circle of last year's dried grass appeared in the place where Williamson had disappeared. No new grass has grown on it. Mrs. Williamson, meanwhile, was still traumatized by the loss of her husband and did not want to talk to anyone about this topic.
However, she also saw a circle of grass, and once, when she and her child were walking in the field, not far from the circle, she suddenly clearly heard the voice of her husband. A voice called for help, but when the woman ran in that direction, the voice disappeared. Then she heard him again, now from the other side and again did not see anyone.
Orion's voice was heard by his wife and his child on the field for several more weeks, and each time he was getting weaker and weaker. One night they heard a very weak call for help and after that Orion was silent forever.
Later, a trial was held in the case of the disappearance of a farmer, with Mr. Wren as a witness. He spoke in detail about that. that he personally saw the farmer disappear on the spot, and then his wife fled screaming that her husband was missing. Wren's son, James, confirmed his testimony, after which the judge concluded that Williamson was still dead, although his body was never found.
Theories
Researchers of anomalous phenomena and those simply interested in mysterious incidents have put forward many theories over the decades about the disappearance of Orion Williamson. From falling into the "gap" between the worlds to getting stuck in the "elf trap" invisible and intangible to other people.
There are also adherents that Orion nevertheless fell into some kind of narrow gap, where no one could find him even despite a careful search, and for some time he was unconscious, therefore he was silent. And when he came to himself and began to scream, his wife also did not find this crack.
Doubt
Many skeptics believe that this whole story is completely fictional from start to finish. However, they are actually confusing the Orion story with the David Lange story of Gallantina, Tennessee. He likewise disappeared on the field in front of his wife and then they also searched for him and did not find him, but his voice was heard and he weakened every time.
But the fact is, the story of David Lange was indeed the fiction of McHutten, a bored hotel salesman. He heard the story about Orion Williamson and created his own based on it, changing the names, the date of the incident and the city, and this story later got into many collections about the paranormal.
The original story of Orion Williamson is still far less known than the fake story of Lange.