Teleportation is the instantaneous movement of an object (change of location coordinates), in which its trajectory cannot be described mathematically by a continuous function of time. There are many known cases when a person in the blink of an eye found himself tens, or even thousands of kilometers from his home. Probably, a certain percentage of people who disappeared without a trace are also associated with this phenomenon. Cases of spontaneous teleportation are observed not only today, but also took place in the distant past. And if you believe the chronicles of the past, one of these unusual stories was recorded during the era of the Inquisition.
At noon on October 24, 1593, in Mexico City, in the Plaza Mayor, an unusual incident took place. The local guards of the Spanish governor found a colleague who had instantly materialized in their ranks. This soldier, judging by his uniform, also belonged to the guard brotherhood. However, his costume was slightly different from the uniform of the Spanish guards in Mexico. As a result: vigilant guards arrested a potential "spy" and delivered him into the hands of their superiors.
Well, after the warrior, who introduced himself as Gil Perez, told him that he really serves as a guard, but … at the court of the Spanish governor of Manila (Philippines, the distance to Mexico City is about 9000 nautical miles), representatives of the Holy Inquisition joined the case. After all, after the beating, undertaken by the brothers in arms, the warrior did not admit that he was lying, and therefore it remained only to assume that he was serving the devil.
Amazingly, even under torture, Gil did not accept such a sin on his soul. And he kept repeating, like an instinct, one thing: "after the shift, tired, feeling lack of sleep, leaned his face against the column of the governor's palace, and then woke up, seeing the astonished guards in strange armor."
Here we will note: we did not invent the confession. It is simply quoted from the protocol of the interrogation at the time, started by the publicans on the late evening of October 24, 1593. According to the protocol preserved in the State Archives of Mexico up to the present day.
Faster than the crowing of a rooster
This is the definition of the speed with which Gil Perez moved from the Philippines to Mexico, given by an inquisitor named Gaspard de San-Augustin, who interrogated the "overseas guest." Let's repeat: a definition that can still be seen today in the interrogation protocol available to researchers.
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And yet we will become skeptics for a while. Let us suppose that Señor Perez was crazy and, as is usual among these brethren, stubbornly held on to the idiot fix. So stubborn that he did not back down, even when he was shod with a torture crank mechanism, better known as the "Spanish boot".
We read more into the interrogation protocols of Peres. Let us ponder: the more mercilessly the executioners tortured the newcomer, the more abundant in details his story became.
In particular, the subject told the holy investigation that a day before he was transported to Mexico, the Spanish ruler of the Philippines, Don Gomez Perez Dasmarinas, was mortally wounded by one of the rebellious Chinese galley rowers with an ax blow to the head.
Don Gomez Perez Dasmarinas
"The violent fantasy of an unfortunate man possessed by the devil" - that was the initial version of the inquisitors - was played out during the torture to the point that the soldier told the circumstances of this villainous act.
According to Hil Peres, the glorious Don Dasmarinas, shortly before the "journey" of the interrogated, decided to undertake a naval siege of Ternate - an island in the archipelago of the Moluccas in eastern Indonesia, which was under the protectorate of Sultan Said Ulla.
This, according to Perez, was not about "making Ternate the new pearl of the Spanish crown." For this, the army of Dasmarinas would not have enough strength, for the Sultanate of Ternate was in those years one of the most powerful states in the region.
As our traveler told the tax collectors, the glorious Don Gomez was only planning to plunder the “precious spice” - cloves in the estate of Sultan Said: it was Ternate that was the world's largest producer of such in the 16th century.
But, according to the thought of Dasmarinas - voiced by the alien to Gaspard de San Augustin, already mentioned by us, - even for this good undertaking, the ruler of the Philippines did not have enough people.
Therefore, he ordered to unleash the Chinese rowers on their galleys, hoping that they would help the merciful benefactor during the siege of Ternate, and armed yesterday's slaves with axes. As a result, before the Dasmarinas' fleet had time to leave its home harbor, a Chinese uprising broke out. The freed slaves, according to Peres, hacked both the most unlucky commander and many of his people.
Having again clarified for the readers that we are retelling not a legend, but the official minutes of the interrogation of Gil Peres, we now imagine that all this happened in our days. What could be easier? Monsieur de Saint-Augustin communicates by phone or email with his colleague in Manila. The personality of Gil Perez "breaks through". Clarifies what is true and what is fiction in the story of the Chinese uprising. After that, an objective decision about private fate is made.
But let's put aside reasoning in the spirit of alternative fiction. Let's follow how the events developed further. Unable to expose the subject in collusion with the devil, not taking the responsibility to judge whether Perez is lying or not, the inquisitors found a brilliant way out of the situation. The guards were accused of desertion.
And you can't object to that. Who cares, in terms of the oath, how the soldier moved from the Philippines to Mexico ?! The main thing is that he left his post.
Salvation has the form of a galleon
Gil Peres was forced to agree with the arguments about desertion. They didn’t execute him at once only for one reason: the case of spatial desertion seemed so unusual even to the prosecutors from the Inquisition that they decided for several months what kind of execution to betray the name of the river.
Only because of this slowness did our "teleportant" manage to avoid the worst. Soon a Spanish galleon from the Philippines arrived in Mexico City. His team confirmed information about the Chinese uprising and the assassination of the brilliant Don Dasmarinas.
Moreover, among the guards accompanying the cargo on the galleon, there was an acquaintance of Gil Peres. A colleague who carried a combat watch practically with him - near the governor's palace on that ill-fated October day.
As a result: inquisitors are an unprecedented business! - let the "deserter" go home. And this time his return trip - from Mexico to the Philippines - was carried out in the most usual way. Again, Hil Peres came in handy with the same galleon.
Interestingly, at home, no disciplinary measures were taken against the “deserter”. Until his advanced years, Peres served in the governor's guard. True, the ill-fated column, at which he once took a nap, always bypassed.
In conclusion, we note: even today, the adventure of a Spanish warrior seems to the scientific community so incredible that other scientists are trying to dispute this fact. For example, historian Mike Dash writes that "we are dealing with a legend, which has been given the appearance of authenticity in the documents-remakes that appeared centuries later."
But in this case, what about the interrogation protocols of the 1593 model, with the invoices for the cargo of the galleon we mentioned and the sheets with the testimonies of a colleague of Gil Perez preserved in the archives of Mexico City? Is Dash hinting to you and me that these are fake?
The researcher does not write about this directly. Therefore, we can only hope that sooner or later the documents we mentioned will pass the examination.
Meanwhile, Mike Dash has many opponents, not only among historians, but also among modern inventors of "teleporting machines" who are convinced that they have managed to uncover the secret of spatial movement. However, this topic deserves a separate discussion. And, perhaps, we will return to it someday.