Speaker 1: Okay, So have you ever had like this really weird
feeling where like you you put something down and you're
like absolutely positive, you know, you put it right there,
and then you go back and it's gone, Or like
you have this like crystal clear memory of something that happened,
and then everyone else remembers it a completely different way,
and it's just this like tiny crack in the facade
of reality. It makes you kind of wonder, like, are
things really as solid as they seem?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that little jolt, you know, that feeling like reality
is doing a little wobble surprisingly common. You know, we
build our understanding of the world right based on this
like consistent sensory input totally and these like shared experiences. Yeah,
so when those foundations seem to shift, even in small ways,
they can be really unsettling.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: It really makes you think about, you know, how much
we rely on the stability of what we perceive to
be real.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's like usually it's just you know, misplaced
keys or a trick memory. But then there are these
like persistent whispers. You hear them throughout history, these stories
about like objects just materializing out of thin air. People
with knowledge of like places that seemingly vanish from maps,
events that just defy any logical explanation. You hear these
stories and it's hard not to think, like, could there
be more to it than just some tall tale?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean, these anomalies, these glitches in the matrix,
as some might call them, often get kind of relegated
to you know, folklore, pseudoscience, right, but they tap into
this fundamental human question, what is the nature of reality?
Are these boundaries that we perceive between what's possible and
what's impossible are they really fixed? Or could they be
more fluent, more permeable than we.
Speaker 1: Even imagine, which brings us to this story. And the
more I think about it, the more my brain just
kind of short circuits. Okay, Okay, So picture this a
bustling international airport. We're not talking about some like dusty
forgotten airfield. We're talking Haneda Airport in Tokyo, July nineteen
fifty four.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Now, this is post war Japan. The economy's exploding, it's
becoming a real hub for international travel and commerce. Right,
think about the energy. There must have been people from
all over the world converging totally. Now, Airport security back
then not exactly the TSA gauntlet we know today.
Speaker 2: No, no, not at all. It's a very different landscape.
International travel was established. But the layers upon layers of
security that we now take for granted, you know, the screenings,
the surveillance, Yeah, that was far less prevalent back then. Yeah,
there was maybe a greater reliance on trust or at
least a different set of security concerns. We're driving their protocol, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, So into this less intensely scrutinized environment, Okay,
walks a middle aged Caucasian businessman, dark hair, beer, just
another face in the crowd. Seemingly he steps up to
the customs line, passport in hand, routine stuff. But then
he presents his documents and the customs agent looks at it,
then back at the man. Yeah, and there's just this
little furrow in his brow. The passport looks legitimate, stamps
it all, Yeah, but the country of origin listed place
called toard toward Wow. You can almost like feel the
confusion ripple through that interaction. The agent would have had
a mental rolodex of recognized nations, of course, and tour
just wouldn't have been on it, right. I Mean, it's
one thing to encounter an unfamiliar name, maybe a newly
formed nation, but this is a country that seemingly nobody
has ever heard of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just doesn't compute.
Speaker 1: And it escalates pretty quickly. Okay, the first agent calls
over a colleague who is equally stumped. Right, then a
supervisor gets involved, and suddenly you have this little knot
of officials huddled together, ye, whispering and pointing at this passport. Okay,
nobody has ever heard of tourd Wow. Now the businessman,
a mister broaduct can answer. He starts to get agitated,
right understandably, of course, Yes, he insists that his country
is absolutely real. In fact, he claims that he's passed
through this very same airport not once, but twice recently,
using the exact same passport.
Speaker 2: Okay, that detail about his previous uneventful transit right through
the same checkpoint with the same documentation, Yeah, that is
really perplexing. Yeah, it adds a layer of consistency to
his claim.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It makes it harder to just dismiss him as you know, ignorant,
or that it was some kind of mistake on his part. Right,
it really deepens the bewilderment for these authorities.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So to try and clear things up, Jenancefer is
taken to a private area.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: They show him a map of Europe and he confidently
points to the Pyrenees, right where Andorra is located on
our maps. But he identifies it as to toward Wow,
a kingdom he states, matter of factly that has been around.
Speaker 2: For a thousand, one thousand years. Okay.
Speaker 1: What's truly bizarre is his complete lack of recognition for
the name and Dora.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 1: He dismisses it as a fabrication, a name that means
nothing to him.
Speaker 2: That geographical specificity is so crucial. He wasn't just conjuring
up some vague, faraway land. He pinpointed a real location,
a place we all know exists, but with a completely
different history, a different name, a different identity attached to
it in his mind. This strongly suggests that there is
a fundamental divergence in his understanding of the world total
compared to our accepted reality.
Speaker 1: And here's where it gets truly strange. They examined the
entry and exit stamps in his passport. The ones he
cited is proof of his recent travels, and guess what
they're verified as authentic, legitimate stamps.
Speaker 2: How is that possible.
Speaker 1: From countries he claimed to have visited.
Speaker 2: That's the real crux of mystery. I know. If the
passport itself bore these hallmarks of genuine official documentation, with
this verifiable travel history, uh huh, then the anomaly of
this non existent issuing nation becomes even more pronounced. It's
a piece of the puzzle that just doesn't fit in
our conventional understanding of how things work. It doesn't end there, okay.
Speaker 1: Jenansfer reaches for his wallet. Now, as a businessman on
international travel, he's carrying various currencies, including Japanese in several
European ones okay, But he also has currency specifically from
tord from court okay, and by all accounts, this Tardian
money looked and felt genuine. Wow, not like some cheap forgery.
Speaker 2: Again, this level of detail is so hard to explain away,
I know as simple deception. Creating a plausible looking and
feeling currency for a country that doesn't exist would require
significant resources and expertise. Raises the question, you know, what
would be the motive behind such an elaborate and seemingly
pointless fabrication?
Speaker 1: Then, come his traveler's checks. He has a stack of
them issued by a bank that nobody has ever heard of,
a financial institution that has no record in our world's
financial system.
Speaker 2: So the failure to verify his traveler's checks further isolates
his financial life within this unknown entity of Toru. Yeah,
it really reinforces the idea that his economic reality, at
least in part, operates outside the boundaries of our own
recognized systems.
Speaker 1: So by this point the customs agents are understandably beyond bewildered.
They're thinking, could this guy be some kind of con artist,
a spy with an incredibly elaborate cover.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: So they ask him about his accommodations. Okay, Jenninsfer confidently
gives them the name of his hotel, says he even
spoke with them that morning to confirm his reservation. They
call the hotel. It's a real hotel, a well known establishment,
but they have absolutely no reservation under the name Broderick Jenninsfer.
Speaker 2: The lack of a confirmed hotel booking starts to unravel
his narrative. From a practical standpoint, it suggests that his
interactions with our world were already showing inconsistencies even in
the most routine aspects of travel.
Speaker 1: But Jenancefer insists they contact his office in Tokyo, Okay.
Surely his employer will vouch for him.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: They make the pall and the response the company has
no record of an employee named Broderick Jenancefer.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: At this point, you can just imagine the utter bafflement
of these officials. Right, every attempt to verify his existence
in our world has hit a dead end.
Speaker 2: It's like he materialized out in nowhere. Yeah, it's a
scenario that seems to defy any logical explanation I know,
within the framework of our shared reality. The new verification
through established channels comes back negative. The physical evidence he presents,
the passport, so stamps, the currency. They all point to
a degree of authenticity, albeit originating from the sunk and
from source.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what do they do. They can't just let
him walk away, but they also don't have any clear
grounds to formally arrest him. They make the decision to
detain him temporarily while they try to figure out what's
going on.
Speaker 2: Makes sense.
Speaker 1: They confiscate his passport, his money, all his documents, uh huh.
But crucially he's not formally under arrest. He's put up
in a hotel room near the airport for the night,
with two armed guards stationed right outside his door.
Speaker 2: Wow. Okay. The presence of armed guards, yeah, underscores the
seriousness with which the authorities were treating this situation, even
without a formal arrest.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It suggests that they recognized just the profoundly unusual nature
of this case. Yeah, and they wanted to make sure
he didn't just disappear.
Speaker 1: The night passes without any reported commotion, Okay, though Jenantzfer
apparently mentioned having a headache at some point. He ordered
room service, ate a meal, and settled in for the night.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: But the next morning, when the customs agents try to
contact his room, there's no answer.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: The guards are instructed to open the door. Yeah, and
what they find is, well, nothing. The room is completely empty.
Jenanzver is gone, okay. The bed is neatly made, the
room is spotless. There's absolutely no sign that he even
slept there. Wow, let alone ate the meal he'd ordered.
Speaker 2: The detail about the untouched state of the room, Yeah,
that's particularly eerie. Yeah. It suggests a departure that was
instantaneous and unplanned, right, like he simply vanished from existence
within those four.
Speaker 1: Walls, and the guards are adamant. They swear they remained
at their posts the entire night. The windows were sealed,
the door was the only entrance or exit, right. Nobody
else went in or out of that room. Wow, except
for the brief room service delivery.
Speaker 2: So it's the classic locked room mystery, right, but with
this truly bizarre missing person at the center of.
Speaker 1: It, right, and the guard's unwavering account of their vigilance
is critical here. It eliminates the most straightforward explanations for
his disappearance, of course, like him sneaking out or being
assisted by an accomplice. It amplifies the sense of the impossible, total,
the feeling that something truly extraordinary occurred. But the strangeness
doesn't end there. What else happens Back at the airport.
The customs officials go to retrieve Jenansfer's confiscated belongings, his passport,
his wallet, everything. These items were locked away in a
security office and they're gone, too, vanished without a trace,
as if Broderi Danansfer had never even set foot in
that airport.
Speaker 2: The disappearance of the documents from a lot presumably secure
location is perhaps the most unsettling aspect it is of
this whole affair. It raises any tangible proof of his presence.
It makes the entire encounter feel almost like a shared delusion,
like a collective hallucination.
Speaker 1: So unsurprisingly, this story went straight to the top levels
of the Japanese government. To avoid what they likely perceived
as a massive international embarrassment, the whole thing was allegedly
suppressed classified. Everyone involved was reportedly instructed to remain completely
silent about what had happened.
Speaker 2: That kind of official silence in the face of such
an extraordinary event it often has the opposite of the
intended effect, of course, fuel speculation totally. It breeds conspiracy theories.
Of course, it lends an almost mythical quality to the tale.
People become more intrigued when they sense that information is
being deliberately withheld.
Speaker 1: Absolutely so. Over the decades, a few theories have emerged
to try and make sense of this incredibly bizarre incident.
One idea is that Jenancefer was some kind of intelligence operative, okay,
working deep undercover during the Cold War. The fake passport,
the fabricated identity, the knowledge of European geography. It could
all be part of an incredibly elaborate cover story, and
a stage disappearance would been a clean way to extract
him without revealing his true affiliations.
Speaker 2: That's certainly plausible within the context of espionage during that era.
The Cold War was rife with clandestine operations and sophisticated deception.
Speaker 1: But like we were talking about before, the vanishing of
his documents from a secured office presents a significant challenge
to this theory.
Speaker 2: Right how could even the most skilled operative retrieve confiscated
items from a locked room without leaving a trace.
Speaker 1: It stretches the bounds of believable it does, which leads
us to the theory that has really captured the imagination
of those who've heard this story, the idea that Roderic
Deenansfer was in fact from an alternative universe. Alternative universe,
a reality where a country called Tourd exists in the Pyrenees,
perhaps with a thousand year history, wow completely different from
Ari Andorra interesting and maybe during his flight or upon arrival,
he somehow unknowingly slipped through a crack between his reality
and ours.
Speaker 2: This delves into some really fascinating and increasingly mainstream ideas
in modern physics, particularly the concept of the multiverse. What
was once confined to the realm of science fiction is
now a subject of serious scientific inquiry. Within cosmology, the
idea that our unifus might not be the only one
out there is gaining traction.
Speaker 1: Theories like the Many World's interpretations of quantum mechanics suggests
that every quantum measurement causes the universe to branch off,
creating countless parallel realities, and in each of these universes,
every possible outcome plays out, leading to an infinite number
of versions of ourselves and the world around us, each
existing simultaneously.
Speaker 2: It's mind boggling to even contemplate. I know it really is.
Speaker 1: And while the many World's theory posits the existence of
these parallel universes, it traditionally didn't offer a mechanism for
interaction between them. That's where more recent theories like the
many Interacting World's hypothesis come into play. This gained prominence
around twenty fourteen. This theory proposes that these parallel universes
aren't completely isolated. They can and do interact with each
other through subtle quantum forces. Interesting and This is where
the idea of Genancefer somehow shifting or slipping between his
reality and all becomes a little less like pure science fiction.
Perhaps there was a brief, localized overlap between his universe
and our own at that particular moment in the Tokyo airport.
Speaker 2: Some proponents of this type of theory even speculate that
the headache Jenansfer reportedly experienced the night of his detention
could have been a physical manifestation of these two realities
temporarily aligning and then separating. When they did, he and
his belongings might have simply returned to his point of origin.
It was own version of reality.
Speaker 1: It's truly a mind bending concept to consider, it is
It prompts a fascinating thought experiment? Doesn't it? Imagine someone
from our universe suddenly finding themselves in a reality where
Indoor is called Tord and has this long and rich history,
and where our understanding of European geography is considered fundamentally incorrect. Yeah,
they would likely face the same bewilderment, the same disbelief,
and potentially the same as mister Demandsfer.
Speaker 2: It forces us to confront the limitations of our own perception,
and the possibility that what we consider to be absolute,
unvarnished truth might just be one particular slice of a
much larger, more complex reality.
Speaker 1: Now there's another, perhaps less sensational, but certainly more grounded
explanation for the story of the Man from Tour, the
very real possibility that it's simply an urban legend, a
captivating tale that has evolved and spread over time, picking
up details and losing others with each retelling.
Speaker 2: That's a crucial perspective to consider. Extraordinary claims, as the
saying goes, require extraordinary evidence, and sometimes these kinds of
intriguing stories gain traction and become embellished through repeated telling,
often without a solid foundation inverifiable fact.
Speaker 1: The earliest known documented mention of the story, at least
in its current form, seems to appear in a nineteen
eighty one book rather intriguingly titled The Directory of Possibilities.
Speaker 2: The Directory of Possibilities Okay.
Speaker 1: The author of that entry claimed to have sourced the
story from a nineteen sixty news article Okay, though the
specifics of that article, the publication, the date, even the
language are never detailed. This lack of a clear primary
source from the time of the alleged event is a
significant red flag for those trying to verify the story's authenticity.
Of course, it's like trying to trace a rumor back
to the first person who whispered it exactly.
Speaker 2: The reliance on a secondary source, especially without any clear attribution, yeah,
makes it incredibly difficult to trace the origins of the
narrative and assess its initial credibility. It leaves a lot
of room for misremembering, for unintentional or even intentional embellishment,
or perhaps even complete fabrication.
Speaker 1: And here's where a real life documented case provides a
fascinating parallel okay that might shed some light on the
Toward mystery. In nineteen fifty nine, just a few years
after the supposed Toward incident, a man named John Allan.
Speaker 2: Zegris John Allen Zegris.
Speaker 1: Actually attempted to travel internationally using a self created passport Wow,
from a fictional country he called Toaret, spelled just slightly
differently than Toward.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 1: He even went so far as to invent a capital
city in a rudimentary language for this non existent nation.
Speaker 2: Wow. The similarities that are certainly striping it hard to
ignore a fabricated country, a seemingly official passport. Right, the
echoes of the Tord story are undeniable. It makes you
wonder if one might have somehow influenced the other, or
if they both spring from this similar human desire to
invent and maybe even believe in something beyond the ordinary.
Speaker 1: What's even more incredible is that Zig claimed to be
working for the Egyptian Prime Minister at the time, Colonel Nasser.
He stated that his passport was issued in.
Speaker 2: Tom and Rossen, tom and Rosset.
Speaker 1: Which interestingly bears a strong resemblance to a real city
in Algeria. Okay, and get this, he actually managed to
travel all over the Middle East using this fabricated story
and passport. Several countries accepted his touration credentials, and because
of his supposed connection to the Egyptian PM, he was
even granted preferential treatment in some instances.
Speaker 2: It really highlights a different era of international travel, perhaps
one with less stringent verification processes. But it also speaks
to the power of confidence and a well constructed narrative.
People are often more willing to believe something that sounds official, yeah,
especially if the person presenting it exudes conviction.
Speaker 1: But Zigmus's luck eventually ran out when he arrived in Tokyo, Tokyo. Again,
the authorities there were clearly more discerning, right. He was
arrested for possessing a forged passport in Fike checks and
when questioned about his origins, he didn't even stick to Tourette.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: He then claimed to be from another completely made up
place called Negusi habisiis Spree.
Speaker 2: Oh wow. The inconsistencies in his story really start to
paint a picture.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It suggests a pattern of deliberate deception rather than a
genuine belief in an alternative reality. It's the behavior you'd
expect from someone trying to maintain a fabrication.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And even during his trial, Zigris doubled down on
his story, insisting he was an intelligence agent working for
Egypt under the direction of the United States. Unsurprisingly, this
didn't sway the court, of course not, and he ended
up being sentenced to a year in prison.
Speaker 2: So the Ziegras case provides a tangible, real world example
of someone creating a fictional nation and attempting to use
it for international travel, with Tokyo being the location where
his deception was ultimately uncovered. The parallels in the fabricated
national identity and the encounter in Tokyo just a few
years apart are compelling when compared to the Toward narrative.
It makes you wonder if the more grounded reality of
Zegruce's actions might have somehow morphed into the more fantastical
tale of the Man from Toward over time. The human
mind has a remarkable capacity for shaping and reshaping stories.
Speaker 1: It truly makes you wonder if the story of John
Allen Zigris, with his invented country and his run in
with the authorities in Tokyo just a short time before,
could be the actual source, or at least a very
strong influence on the enduring legend of the Man from Toward.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The similarities in the core details are just too significant
to ignore.
Speaker 2: It's a very strong possibility. The Zegras case offers this
verifiable instance of a similar scenario rooted in docum admitted
facts which could have been adapted and embellished through the
years to become the more enigmatic and unexplained tale of
the traveler from tort Yeah. The human mind has a
remarkable capacity for, you know, shaping and reshaping stories.
Speaker 1: Over time and in a final, almost unsettling parallel. Okay,
the mystery surrounding John Allen Zegris doesn't completely conclude with
his prison sentence. After his release, it seems that no
one was ever able to definitively track him down. Huh,
He too, in a way, seems to have vanished from
the historical record. Wow, it's another one of those loose
threads that just adds to the intrigue that unresolved.
Speaker 2: Ending to Zegres's story has another layer of mystery right,
almost mirroring the disappearance of the man from toward It
further blurs the lines between documented reality and enduring a legend.
Speaker 1: It's like both stories fade into the unknown. So let's
bring it all together. We have this incredibly strange count.
A man arrives at an airport with a passport from
a country that seemingly doesn't exist in our reality, yet
he confidently identifies a real geographical location as his homeland.
His passport even contains stamps that appear to be genuine,
and he carries currency from this non existent nation. Then
he vanishes from a locked room and all the evidence
of his existence disappears with him and.
Speaker 2: We're left with these two primary avenues for explanation, either
a highly unusual and ultimately flawed or case of elaborate deception,
or the mind bending possibility of a fleeting interaction between
parallel realities, a glimpse into a world's slightly askew from
our own.
Speaker 1: What strikes you most about this story, Well, I think
for me, it's the sheer bizarreness of it all.
Speaker 2: The fact that we have these tangible pieces of evidence,
the passport, the stamps, to the currency. They all point
to something real, something concrete, yet the foundation, the source
of it all, remains completely elusive. It's like trying to
build a house on a cloud. You have the materials,
but no ground to anchor.
Speaker 1: Them to, and which explanation, however improbable, feels more compelling
to you.
Speaker 2: You know, I have to admit the idea of parallel universes. Yeah,
it's incredibly alluring.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 2: But as a scientist, I'm trained to rely on evidence,
of course, and the lack of concrete, verifiable proof makes
it difficult to fully embrace that possibility. However, the idea
of such an elaborate deception, with so many moving parts
and seemingly no clear motive. It also strains credulity it does.
It's a puzzle that just doesn't quite fit together neatly.
Speaker 1: It makes