In 1964, in Japan, an apparently normal man was traveling at Tokyo airport.
As the crowd passed through customs, a middle-aged white man dressed in a suit and tie approached the authorities and informed them that he was on a business trip, the third one he had made to the country that year.
His primary language was French, but he spoke Japanese and several other languages. In his wallet, he had a variety of coins from various European countries, which confirmed his “traveler style.” When asked about his country of origin, things got strange.
He casually stated that he was from Taured, on the border between France and Spain. The officials told him that Taured did not exist, but he presented them with his passport — issued by the nonexistent country of Taured — which also had visa stamps corroborating his previous business trips to Japan and other countries.
However, the company he claimed to work for did not exist. The hotel where he had booked a room had no reservation for this person, and the bank listed on his checkbook seemed not to exist.
Could the man then be from Andorra?
The customs officials showed him a world map and pointed to the tiny country of Andorra. Perhaps that was his true country of origin, and somehow he had made a mistake.
Andorra is a small independent principality located between France and Spain in the Pyrenees Mountains. It is the sixth smallest country in Europe and has a population of approximately 77,000 inhabitants. It is an independent, democratic, and socially based state governed by the rule of law.
The man became furious, stating that Andorra didn’t exist but was right where Taured should be. His proud country had existed for a thousand years. Still in shock over his lost homeland, the mysterious man was detained by customs and given a room in a nearby hotel to spend the night while authorities tried to figure out what was happening.
The next morning, the mystery increased
The only known resident of Taured had completely vanished from his hotel room, which had been guarded by immigration officers throughout the night. To make matters worse, all his personal documents—including the passport and driver’s license issued by the mysterious country—had disappeared from the airport’s secure room.
The police and airport officials searched in vain for the mysterious man. It was as if the entire encounter had never actually happened.
No documentation confirming this story has surfaced yet, but it has been mentioned in various books, including The Directory of Possabilities (1981, p. 86) and Strange But True: Mysterious and Bizarre People (1999, p. 64).
And given its intriguing ending, no official ever wrote a report concluding that the man and all his documented evidence simply vanished. Therefore, many claim it to be nothing more than a prank. Nevertheless, this story is very interesting and enjoyable to tell.
Could this man and other out-of-place travelers be from another dimension?
Surprisingly, lost travelers, like the business man from Taured, have appeared on many occasions.
In 1851, a man was found wandering in Frankfurt an der Oder, in northeastern Germany, claiming to be from a country called Laxaria on the continent of Sakria.
Another young man who spoke a completely unrecognizable language was caught stealing bread in Paris in 1905. He claimed to be from Lizbia, which authorities presumed to be Lisbon, but his language was not Portuguese, and he did not recognize a map of Portugal as his homeland.
