The universe is full of mysteries, for which we do not currently have enough knowledge to answer. EpochTimes collects stories of a variety of bizarre phenomena to spark our imaginations and tell about what was previously thought impossible.
I remember reading about Benjamin Bafurst, David Lange and Oliver Larche as a child. All three disappeared under unexplained circumstances. There is no evidence that UFOs abducted them, that portals to other dimensions were opened for them, or that they were the victims of a conspiracy to kill. It's just that one second they were here, and the next they disappeared. Recently, I looked at these stories again, but with a grain of salt, to understand what we are dealing with.
Night of November 26, 1809. There was a war with Napoleon in the world. All over Europe, unions of people were formed, furiously wanting to destroy Bonaparte. Vienna fell, and the British diplomat who was there at the time traveled to Hamburg to return to Britain from there.
Benjamin Bafurst.
Not far from Berlin, in the city of Perleberg, Bafurst in the evening stopped at an inn under an assumed name with his servant to change horses and have dinner. At about 9 pm the horses were ready. Bafurst, who wanted to get to Berlin as soon as possible, left his servant and went outside to wait in the carriage. This was the last time anyone ever saw Benjamin Bafurst.
A few seconds later, his servant left the hotel, but only found that the carriage was empty. Not a trace of Bafurst was found. Thus was born one of the strangest disappearance stories in history.
News of this event reached London a few weeks later, when a servant arrived. Bafurst's wife personally went to Germany and brought the police up to date. The bottom of the Stepnitz River was explored, but to no avail. Several times they carried out a thorough search throughout the village, but only found in one of the buildings a coat that belonged to Bafurst, and not far in the forest - a pair of pantaloons, which, it was assumed, also belonged to him. Even after thoroughly combing the area with the dogs, no other tracks were found.
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Deciding that French agents were involved in this case, Mrs. Bafurst found it necessary to turn to Napoleon himself. Somehow, she managed to get an appointment with the emperor, where she asked him what had happened to her husband. Napoleon was surprised and said that he had no idea, and also offered his help in the search. Bafurst's remains have never been found. Since there is no evidence, it is highly likely that Bafurst was simply killed - no movement in space or aliens had anything to do with it, since there was never any hint of their participation in this story.
The hero of another famous story is David Lang from Tennessee, a farmer who disappeared into thin air right in front of his family.
In the first second, walking across the field, he was visible, the next - no longer. It doesn't make sense to go into the details of this very famous story, but it resembles one of the greatest unexplained disappearances in the history of the paranormal. The problem is that such a story could have been entirely made up. It was first published in Fate magazine. No evidence has been presented that Lang or his family ever existed, nor does the records from that time say anything.
Moreover, a similar story by one man named Oliver Larch is a reworking of the legend of David Lange.
This is the problem with stories of someone disappearing into thin air - they are easily overgrown with fiction, and explanations that are more like the truth are often ignored. The cases that sound the most unrealistic about them most likely never happened, and historical cases are easy to find rational explanations for. This does not mean that people do not disappear without a trace. This means that the stories that are used as vivid examples of such disappearances turn out to be pure tales to be tested.
We've included a reader's response to this article posted on Paranormala.com here:
Cindy L. wrote, “I was immediately interested in this article because of an incident that happened to me in the early 1980s in Seattle, Washington.”
She provided a link to GoogleStreetView - a picture of that very place. She notes that there were no trees along this wire mesh fence in the 1980s.
“I drove east, on the lane closer to the wire mesh fence. I saw a tall man with long, unkempt hair, he was wearing knee-length jeans, a dark coat. He just disappeared right before my eyes. Poof! I looked at him. He was there, then he disappeared. I turned to the side of the road, because I was quite shocked … My car was not more than 6 meters away from him, if he looked at me, I could see the whites of his eyes. I don't expect to be believed and, frankly, I don't care … It's really true, I know for sure, because it happened to me."
Alisa Kharitonova