Who Was the Man from Taured? A Traveller from an Alternate Universe?

Was the Man from Taured a traveller from alternate universe? When officials saw a passport from a nonexistent country, they were baffled.

One of the most puzzling events of the 20th Century did not involve flying saucers, conspiracy theories, a criminal act, or even strange creature sightings. It took place on a seemingly normal day in a Japanese airport.

At Haneda Airport, a routine plane arrived from Europe. As the passengers made their way through customs, a neatly dressed middle-aged Caucasian man stepped up to passport control and told officials this was just a normal business trip. It was one of three this year to Japan. His primary language was French, yet he spoke Japanese and several other languages. In his wallet was a variety of European currencies, as if to verify his frequent flyer status.

It wasn't until they asked him for his nationality that things started to become strange. He stated that he was from Taured, on the border between France and Spain. The officials told him that they hadn't heard of Taured and that it didn't exist. In response, the man presented them with his passport - issued by the nonexistent country of Taured - which also showed visa stamps corroborating his previous business travels to Japan and other countries. Yet when they called the company he said he was having a meeting with, they had never heard of him or his company. The hotel he had reserved a room at had no reservation for such a person, and the bank listed on his chequebook appeared not to exist.

The man refused to believe that Taured didn't exist, so customs officials showed him a world map. He was quick to point out where Taured was and pointed to the tiny country of Andorra. Perhaps that was his real country of origin and somehow he was either mistaken or having his little joke?

The man became irate, insisting that Andorra didn't exist and it was right where Taured should be. Still in shock over his misplaced homeland, the man was detained by customs and given a room at a nearby hotel for the night while officials tried to figure out what was going on.

The mystery deepened the following morning. The man had completely vanished from his hotel room, which had been guarded at all times by immigration officials. To make matters worse, all of his personal documents, including the Taured passport and driver's license, had vanished from the airport's security room.

Police and airport officials searched in vain for the mysterious man. It was as if the whole encounter had never actually happened.

Other Cases of Alternate Universe Travellers

This isn't the first or last case of people from countries which do not exist.

In 1851 a man was found wandering Frankfurt an der Oder in northeast Germany claiming he was from a country called Laxaria on the continent of Sakria.

In 1905, another young man who spoke a completely unrecognizable language was caught stealing a loaf of bread in Paris. He claims he was from Lizbia, which authorities assumed was Lisbon or Lisboa in Portuguese, yet his language was not Portuguese nor did he recognize a map of Portugal as his homeland.

Are these cases of alternate dimensions, time travel or some other unknown phenomena?

Has the mystery of the Man from Taured Been Solved?

Reports from the time, including newspapers and official court documents show that the mystery man was identified as John Allen Kuchar Zegrus. He was arrested in 1960 in Japan for alleged document fabrication.

He had reportedly travelled around the world with a very convincing, yet fake passport written in an unknown language.

Zegrus' case was used to argue that 'passports are not very good security checks', as this man had managed to travel around the world with this document without any problems.