There are many stories about how people disappear without a trace right in front of amazed witnesses. One such story tells of the farmer David Lange, who disappeared in full view of his wife, children, and two passing men.
Mysterious disappearance
On September 23, 1880, David Lang worked as usual in the fields near his farm located near Gallatin, Tennessee.
Towards evening, he finished his business and went to the house. His wife watched him from the porch, and children played peacefully in the backyard. Judge August Peck and his brother-in-law drove past the farm in his buggy. The men greeted David with a wave of their hand.
There was a sudden shrill cry from Mrs. Lang. David, who had already raised his foot for the next step, was gone!
The woman with the children, the judge and his brother-in-law rushed to the place where David had just stood. Their first thought was that he fell into a hole, but the field was completely flat!
Volunteers searched every inch of the field, but never found any holes or tracks. David Lang has sunk into the ground!
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Soon a circle about 4.5 meters in diameter formed around the place of his disappearance. The grass in it turned yellow and withered, and the animals avoided it.
Seven months later, Lang's children playing in the fields heard their father's voice begging for help. Gradually, the sound became quieter until it finally disappeared.
Mrs. Lang never recovered from the loss of her husband, whom she could not even bury. She left the farm, instructing Judge Peck to rent it out. However, no one dared to use the field where the farmer mysteriously disappeared.
Cheating?
David Lang's story became immensely popular in the 1950s, after it appeared in the June 1953 issue of Destiny magazine. The article, titled "Where Did My Father Gone," was allegedly written in the first person - the daughter of a missing man named Sarah.
History says that in April 1929, Sarah had an automatic writing attack. When she woke up, the woman found a note written in her father's handwriting in front of her. The caption read: "Together now and forever … in many years … God bless you." Sarah took this message as a sign that after many years, her parents were finally reunited in heaven.
A librarian from Nashville named Herschel G. Payne tried for many years to verify this story, but he found no evidence that the Lang family or August Peck ever lived in the area.
In the end, he came to the conclusion that the story was a journalistic fiction by Joseph M. Mulholland. Mulholland, writing under the pseudonym Orange Blossom, was known for writing incredible stories for magazines and newspapers. It is believed that the basis of his story was the story of Ambrose Bierce entitled "Difficulty crossing the field."
The article, which appeared in Destiny magazine, included handwriting samples from David Lang and his daughter Sarah. Graphologist Anne B. Houten concluded that the handwriting belonged to the same person, presumably Stuart Palmer. Most likely, neither Sarah nor David Lang existed in nature. Although no one can say for sure.