The Vanishing Point

There is an interesting thread going on at ATS right now, which naturally reminded me of a popular »time slip« story, known in several variants.

The most famous one speaks of a David Lang of Gallatin, Tennessee.

According to the story, on September 23, 1880, Lang was walking across the grounds of his farm to meet Judge August Peck who was approaching his farm in a horse and buggy. Lang's wife, Chanel, was supposedly watching him walk towards the judge. And then, the story goes, Lang vanished mid-step - in full view of the judge, his wife, the two children, and the judge's brother-in-law. The ground was searched in case he had fallen into a concealed hole, but no hole - or any trace of Lang - was found.

Some variants of the story add that Lang's children later called out to him, and heard a "disembodied voice calling as if from a great distance".
Personally, I find much more interesting and compelling the version that says that the spot where he had vanished was later found to be overgrown with exceptionally lush green grass: a sign that insects would not touch it.

However, research shows that the "David Lang" story probably originated as an article: "How Lost Was My Father?" published by journalist Stuart Palmer in Fate magazine (nro. 40, July 1953, pp. 75-85). Palmer claimed that he had been told the story by Lang's daughter. But no trace of David Lang or his family, including his apparent daughter, was ever found in any records.

The entire article was later determined to be a hoax likely inspired by the short story "The Difficulties of Crossing a Field" by Ambrose Bierce, collected in his book Can Such Things Be? (1909).

The story - as a similar one, involving a Oliver Larch (or Lurch, or Lerch) from Indiana - has since become a popular urban legend.

However, there is something about »urban legends« that self-proclaimed skeptics (and let's not even mention the so-called »debunkers« - a name that is as obnoxious and vulgar as the mentality of some of the individuals who fall into this category) seem to ignore: many legends, including »urban« ones, bespeak a wider reality, a wider experience of a phenomenon. In other words, even if the specific data – people's names, places, time of the occurrence – aren't factual, certain stories grow into »legends« because people have the actual or instinctive, intuitive experience that such things are indeed possible and have occurred.

Furthermore, there are disappearances that seem perfectly genuine – and they haven't been solved.

One such story speaks of a Mr. James Telford (also reported as "Tedford" and "Tetford"), an ex-soldier who lived in the Soldier's Home in Bennington, Vermont, in the USA.
He is supposed to have been fiercely against »airy fairy« stories and allegedly did not believe in anything »supernatural«. (Just how people knew this – and who were they - I don't know, although I assume this piece of information came from his relatives. I have yet to found any direct testimony.)

According to his family, on December 1, 1949, Mr. Telford, age 65, was on a bus, returning home from Saint Albans, Vermont. There were 14 other passengers on the bus. They are said to have all testified to seeing him on the bus, asleep in his seat. But when the bus reached Bennington, Telford was nowhere to be found. His luggage and bus timetable were found on the bus, testifying to his presence (or somebody's who had his belongings, at any rate). But Mr. Telford himself was not found – ever. It was as if he had vanished into thin air.

I've always thought that his disappearance might have been explained somehow, because the sad fact is that older people tend to become less »visible« to the world. In other words, people pay much less attention to older people and – perhaps – even tend to expect (or discount) certain patterns of behaviour based on a stereotypical perception of the elderly.

Still, it does sound odd that none, not one, of the 14 alleged witnesses would have noticed his getting off the bus earlier – or missing it altogether (after putting his luggage on the bus) - if that were the case. Besides, that still wouldn't explain why Mr. Telford was not found later.

I have searched the Familysearch website for the mysterious Mr. Telford (also the variants "Tedford" and "Tetford"), but found nothing relevant (although there was in Vermont a Mr. James Telfer who, judging by his age, could have been our Mr. Telford's father.)

However, this doesn't mean much. First of all, the name could've been distorted or misspelled – either in the story (very likely) or in the filed documents themselves (oh yes – it happens much more often than you might think). I even searched for »Thetford« – again, found nothing – but then gave it a rest, because, being a genealogist myself, I knew how futile such a search could be.

What makes this story even more compelling is the eerie fact that it belongs to a seeming cluster of disappearances centered in the area of Bennington, Vermont. They happened in the late 1940s and early 1950s - and, so it seems, only in autumn/winter time.

But more on that next time.

Brief encounter

Happy Easter!

(Gotta love it... ;))

Compared to the Easter "spacetime shift" of Jesus Christ, today's story is even more of a trifle than it would be in any other circumstances... (But that goes for practically any story, I suppose.)

There is a thread over at ATS about "spontaneous disappearances", which triggered the memory of one of the most un-memorable such events in my life. Still, I thought some might find it interesting. (I do - on those rare occasions when I remember it.)

It happened a few years ago, definitely in the new millenium.
It was the cool season (not really cold, I think, but definitely late autumn, early winter or early spring).
It was just before dusk, and I was walking home.
There was a very large apartment building near my home, with a passage that I always (literally thousands of times) used as a shortcut to the street where I lived. The passage was very short and served - rather obviously - as the entrance to the actual building, but it (the entrance) was enclosed in a sort of glass/concrete "box" that was always locked with a key (so that the dwellers only had access to the building).

As I said, the passage was very short, so that I could always see part of the exit, i.e. the other side, when I entered it, even though it was partly obstructed by the entrance "box". (I know this may be a bit difficult to picture accurately without being familiar with the passage - or a drawing of it, at the very least - but do try. ;))

As I entered the passage and was halfway through it, I caught a glimpse of a man entering the passage from the other side, apparently with the intention to enter the building (I could tell because he went straight ahead, towards the location of the glass door; if he were going to just walk through the passage, he would have made a slight turn to avoid the entrance "box").
He was of average height (perhaps slightly shorter than average), wearing a black or dark coat, I didn't see him long enough to be able to estimate his age, but there wasn't anything particular (like a "heavy" gait) to suggest old age. I think he may have had a smallish hat on, but I am really not sure.

As I said, I caught a glimpse of him before he disappeared from my sight, behind the corner of the brick wall of the entrance "box". As such "glimpses" were a daily occurrence, naturally I thought nothing of it. Besides, I was composing a little tune in my mind (as I often do while walking).

Maybe it was precisely that (the "awareness" of music, of sound) or maybe it was something else, but as I stepped out of the passage - it had taken me, as usually, some 10-15 steps in total to cross it - I suddenly realised that no sound - specifically, the sound of a person either unlocking the door or waiting by the "buzzer" for someone else, inside the building, to open the door - was coming from the entrance door. The entrance was at that point just behind me (maybe 4 metres), on my left side.

I thought that was odd and turned around to see why the man was so silent.

As it turned out, he was "silent" because he was not there anymore.
Furthermore - and I waited for almost a minute - no lights were on inside the building. (They turn on automatically, and they would have been clearly visible in any case, but even more so in that late afternoon of a grey and bleak day.)

Where did he go?
(Needless to say, I never found out.)

As I said, it may be very difficult to understand how unusual this was without being familiar with the passage and building in question. So I'll break it down and add a few points, to better illustrate the situation:

* the passage is entirely paved with ceramic tiles (the walls, too), which is why every single step resonates tenfold.

* if the man had changed his mind (or had my assumption that he was entering the building been incorrect) and simply crossed the passage to the other side, he would have passed by me (the width of the passage is about 3 metres). That, obviously, didn't happen.
(The fact that I like to compose tunes in my mind does not imply that I am blind and deaf to my surroundings - it's actually the opposite. My "auto pilot" is a marvel. Yours, too - but that's a different story...:)
And if he had changed his mind and turned back, to retrace his steps, I would have caught up with him or, at the very least, seen him. But there was nobody around.

* if he wanted to enter the building, he would have had to:

- unlock the door (based on my daily experience in that specific passage/entrance, that usually takes people around 5 seconds - assuming they had the key ready in their hand). And unlocking the door is a relatively loud affair in that particular passage, as you can imagine, if you've read its description.

or

- call and wait for the "buzzer" to open the door.
(And in that passage, the "buzzer" sounds like the trumpets of Jericho...)


But, being the self-skeptic-watchdog that I am, I assumed, just for the sake of the argument (with myself), that he somehow slipped in faster than I could have imagined.
(Perhaps the door was - uncharacteristically - unlocked? I actually went back, into the passage, and tried to open the entrance door: nope, it was locked.)
There are no apartments at the same level of the entrance, so he would have had to use the stairs or the elevator; in both cases, his steps would have been clearly audible. But even if he, for some reason, tiptoed or just stood there, somewhere behind the door, the light would have betrayed his presence: it's automatic.

If you now go back and review the actual daily scenario of people entering the passage or the building itself, you will, I hope, understand how unlikely - to put it very mildly - his silent and invisible swiftness was...

So... what happened?
Where did he go?


Would I be writing this if I knew?