The One
9th February 2016, 08:19
History is rife with strange tales of people who have mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth without a trace, but one area that seems to get decidedly less coverage is the various accounts of those who did just the opposite, appearing out of nowhere cloaked in mystery and emanating questions and puzzles around them that have never been satisfactorily answered. Here we have strangers who have stepped out of thin air from another place, perhaps even another time or plane of existence, and have gone on to leave impenetrable mysteries in their wake to this day. Stepping out of blue and into our imagination, these baffling appearances represent a phenomena every bit as perplexing as strange disappearances. Let us journey into the bizarre world of mysterious individuals who seemingly appeared from nowhere.
One of the earliest, most well-known, and indeed bizarre cases of people appearing out of nowhere occurred in the mid-12th century, when two children mysteriously appeared in the sleepy village of Woolpit, in the English county of Suffolk, and went on to become an enduring mystery known as the Green Children of Woolpit. Allegedly one day, two young children, a boy and a girl, suddenly and inexplicably emerged from a deep pit used for trapping the wolves that terrorized the region in those days. If this wasn’t already odd enough, it immediately became apparent that these were no ordinary children, as they both reportedly had skin that was tinted green, and were dressed in strange, unfamiliar clothing made from an unusual fabric that no one recognized. The children seemed to be more or less healthy but somewhat dazed and confused, and when villagers tried to speak to them they spoke a strange, unintelligible language that no one had ever heard before. Not knowing what to do with these enigmatic children, the locals presented them to a wealthy landowner by the name of Sir Richard de Calne, who took them into his care. Things would only get stranger from there.
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/green-children-930x950-570x582.jpg
The children immediately started crying uncontrollably when they arrived at their new caretaker’s house, chattering with each other in their alien tongue but no one could understand a word of what they were saying. When presented with food, the green-skinned children would not eat anything, even though they made it clear that they were quite hungry. Bread, meat, fruit and vegetables were all offered, but everything was refused by the children until they were presented with beans still in their pods, which they ravenously devoured. For several months this was the only food the children would eat, until they gradually began to consume other things such as bread. Tragically, the boy purportedly became increasingly morose and sullen in this new environment, eventually becoming very ill and wasting away until he died. The girl, on the other hand, seemed to adapt reasonably well to the new world she had found herself in, her green pallor gradually dissipated, and she even started picking up the English language. That’s where things got even weirder still.
When she was able to somewhat express herself in English, the girl began to try and explain where they had come from. She claimed that the boy had been her brother and that they had come from a faraway land located deep underground, where the sun never shone, where it was always dark, and where all of the people had green skin; a fantastical place she called St. Martin. When asked how they had arrived at Woolpit, the girl told the mesmerized villagers that she had been out herding cattle with her brother and had followed the animals into a large cavern. As they plunged deeper into the cavern the girl claimed that they had heard a strange sound like bells, which they followed into the uncharted blackness, becoming more and more disoriented until there was a sudden bright shaft of light that had pierced through the gloom and hurt their eyes. When the children had followed the light they exited the cavern, only instead of their homeland before their eyes it had been the bottom of the wolf trap pit they had been found in. It was a bizarre tale to be sure, and nobody was quite sure what to make of it, although there was all manner of speculation. The girl would subsequently go on to live a relatively normal life in the village, adjusting comfortably to her new home, integrating into society well, and even being baptized and eventually getting married.
The story of the Green Children of Woolpit went on to become a popular tale of curiosity and is still much discussed to this day. It is difficult to know what to make of this story, and hard to ascertain just how many elements actually took place and which are mere myths, exaggeration, folktale, fancy, and fairy tale. There have been a wide range of theories proposed for the Green Children’s origins, ranging from the somewhat plausible to the more far-fetched. The enigmatic children have been alternately theorized as being from a parallel dimension, aliens, inhabitants of some hidden subterranean civilization, feral children raised by animals, orphans with arsenic poisoning or malnutrition which made their skin green, or Flemish immigrant refugees fleeing persecution and a battle that had killed their parents. In the end, no one really knows who they were, where they came from, or indeed how much of the story is even based in reality, and so the story of the Green Children of Woolpit has become an enduring mystery that will perhaps never be solved.
Source (http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2016/02/mysterious-people-who-appeared-from-nowhere/)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_children_of_Woolpit
One of the earliest, most well-known, and indeed bizarre cases of people appearing out of nowhere occurred in the mid-12th century, when two children mysteriously appeared in the sleepy village of Woolpit, in the English county of Suffolk, and went on to become an enduring mystery known as the Green Children of Woolpit. Allegedly one day, two young children, a boy and a girl, suddenly and inexplicably emerged from a deep pit used for trapping the wolves that terrorized the region in those days. If this wasn’t already odd enough, it immediately became apparent that these were no ordinary children, as they both reportedly had skin that was tinted green, and were dressed in strange, unfamiliar clothing made from an unusual fabric that no one recognized. The children seemed to be more or less healthy but somewhat dazed and confused, and when villagers tried to speak to them they spoke a strange, unintelligible language that no one had ever heard before. Not knowing what to do with these enigmatic children, the locals presented them to a wealthy landowner by the name of Sir Richard de Calne, who took them into his care. Things would only get stranger from there.
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/green-children-930x950-570x582.jpg
The children immediately started crying uncontrollably when they arrived at their new caretaker’s house, chattering with each other in their alien tongue but no one could understand a word of what they were saying. When presented with food, the green-skinned children would not eat anything, even though they made it clear that they were quite hungry. Bread, meat, fruit and vegetables were all offered, but everything was refused by the children until they were presented with beans still in their pods, which they ravenously devoured. For several months this was the only food the children would eat, until they gradually began to consume other things such as bread. Tragically, the boy purportedly became increasingly morose and sullen in this new environment, eventually becoming very ill and wasting away until he died. The girl, on the other hand, seemed to adapt reasonably well to the new world she had found herself in, her green pallor gradually dissipated, and she even started picking up the English language. That’s where things got even weirder still.
When she was able to somewhat express herself in English, the girl began to try and explain where they had come from. She claimed that the boy had been her brother and that they had come from a faraway land located deep underground, where the sun never shone, where it was always dark, and where all of the people had green skin; a fantastical place she called St. Martin. When asked how they had arrived at Woolpit, the girl told the mesmerized villagers that she had been out herding cattle with her brother and had followed the animals into a large cavern. As they plunged deeper into the cavern the girl claimed that they had heard a strange sound like bells, which they followed into the uncharted blackness, becoming more and more disoriented until there was a sudden bright shaft of light that had pierced through the gloom and hurt their eyes. When the children had followed the light they exited the cavern, only instead of their homeland before their eyes it had been the bottom of the wolf trap pit they had been found in. It was a bizarre tale to be sure, and nobody was quite sure what to make of it, although there was all manner of speculation. The girl would subsequently go on to live a relatively normal life in the village, adjusting comfortably to her new home, integrating into society well, and even being baptized and eventually getting married.
The story of the Green Children of Woolpit went on to become a popular tale of curiosity and is still much discussed to this day. It is difficult to know what to make of this story, and hard to ascertain just how many elements actually took place and which are mere myths, exaggeration, folktale, fancy, and fairy tale. There have been a wide range of theories proposed for the Green Children’s origins, ranging from the somewhat plausible to the more far-fetched. The enigmatic children have been alternately theorized as being from a parallel dimension, aliens, inhabitants of some hidden subterranean civilization, feral children raised by animals, orphans with arsenic poisoning or malnutrition which made their skin green, or Flemish immigrant refugees fleeing persecution and a battle that had killed their parents. In the end, no one really knows who they were, where they came from, or indeed how much of the story is even based in reality, and so the story of the Green Children of Woolpit has become an enduring mystery that will perhaps never be solved.
Source (http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2016/02/mysterious-people-who-appeared-from-nowhere/)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_children_of_Woolpit