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Speaker 1: It's one thing when someone appears to vanish off the

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Speaker 1: face of the earth. It's quite another when they appear suddenly,

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Speaker 1: as if from nowhere, their clothes, behavior and mannerisms completely

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Speaker 1: at odds with their surrounding environment. At best, this might

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Speaker 1: make for a sensational, unthreatening news story, a slice of

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Speaker 1: the Bazaarre to liven up the day, like the story

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Speaker 1: of Andreas Grassel, who seemed to appear in England one day,

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Speaker 1: completely out of the blue. Back in April two thousand

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Speaker 1: and five, Grassel was found on a beach in a

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Speaker 1: distressed state and appeared to have no recollection of who

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Speaker 1: he was or how even to speak. While being looked

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Speaker 1: after in care, Grassol began playing the piano in an

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Speaker 1: effort to communicate with those around him, leading to him

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Speaker 1: becoming known as the Piano Man. It was four months

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Speaker 1: after he was first seen on the beach that he

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Speaker 1: finally revealed his name and true identity. A twenty year

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Speaker 1: old man from southern Germany, he claimed to simply have

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Speaker 1: forgotten who he was until then. At worst, like the

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Speaker 1: titular character in Nicholas Rogue's nineteen seventy six sci fi

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Speaker 1: classic The Man, who fell to earth, or any immigrant

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Speaker 1: for that matter, taking their first steps through an unfamiliar land.

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Speaker 1: Some unfortunate individuals might find themselves becoming bogeymen for local

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Speaker 1: anxieties about the general state of a nation and about

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Speaker 1: just what constitutes the correct way to be in the world.

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Speaker 1: Arguably the most famous example of the mysterious arrival narrative

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Speaker 1: is the apocryphal tale of the Man from Torret. It

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Speaker 1: was back in nineteen sixty when an enigmatic traveler reportedly

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Speaker 1: arrived at Hanada Airport in Tokyo, claiming to be from

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Speaker 1: a country which no borderers, officials, or anyone else for

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Speaker 1: that matter, had ever heard of. The man was said

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Speaker 1: to have spoken multiple languages, and when his flight number

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Speaker 1: was not found to be on any register, he was

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Speaker 1: ordered to hand over his travel documents. He presented police

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Speaker 1: with a strange looking passport from a non existent city

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Speaker 1: state named Torret. After leaving the interrogation room to consult

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Speaker 1: with senior officials, the officer whose responsibility it was to

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Speaker 1: question the man apparently returned to the small office, only

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Speaker 1: to discover that the man had completely disappeared. All that

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Speaker 1: was left behind was the strange passport lying face down

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Speaker 1: on the table, and the man's returned plane ticket, which

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Speaker 1: supposedly gave his name as John Zegris. As it turned out,

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Speaker 1: the man from Torret as he became known, was simply

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Speaker 1: the misreporting of a very real case about a genuine

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Speaker 1: individual named John Zegris who was arrested in Japan for

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Speaker 1: committing international identity fraud. The man had already been sentenced

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Speaker 1: to one year in prison and deported to Hong Kong

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Speaker 1: when the story was eventually picked up by Canadian newspaper

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Speaker 1: The Province. From there, the story was embellished with speculative

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Speaker 1: details that had nothing to do with the actual events

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Speaker 1: of the case. Our ability to make narratives out of

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Speaker 1: the chaos of existence is perhaps both our greatest strength

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Speaker 1: and greatest weakness as a species. On the one hand,

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Speaker 1: it is through narrative that we are able to construct

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Speaker 1: the world around us. It empowers our sense of self

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Speaker 1: and enables us to project meaning onto the world and

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Speaker 1: the universe more broadly through the stories we create about them.

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Speaker 1: But on the other hand, since so much of how

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Speaker 1: we see the world is dependent on what story stories

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Speaker 1: we choose to believe, it is all too easy to

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Speaker 1: get swept up in a lie, and whenever we are

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Speaker 1: presented with a story that seems incomplete, it is almost

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Speaker 1: impossible for us not to speculate on what those missing

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Speaker 1: parts may be. So when a body is found with

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Speaker 1: no identity, like the so called Isdel Woman has covered

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Speaker 1: in Season six, episode seventeen, a story of ice and fire,

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Speaker 1: we are almost pathologically driven to want to know who

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Speaker 1: they were and what exactly happened to them. The case

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Speaker 1: of the Isdel Woman has been dissected so much that

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Speaker 1: it's become a kind of shorthand for a certain variety

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Speaker 1: of true crime story, one in which we are both

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Speaker 1: baffled and titillated by the mystery at its center. It

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Speaker 1: also took place over fifty years ago. In more recent times,

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Speaker 1: it is almost inconceivable, with the advancement of technology and

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Speaker 1: the normalization of survey, that someone could suddenly appear in

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Speaker 1: a well populated town with no trace of who they

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Speaker 1: are or where they came from. And yet that is

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Speaker 1: exactly what happened in two thousand and nine, during one

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Speaker 1: strange summer in a picturesque seaside town in the west

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Speaker 1: of Ireland. You're listening to unexplained and I'm Richard McLean Smith.

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Speaker 1: To anyone else, his appearance would have been unremarkable. To

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Speaker 1: the driver of the bus route between Derry City and

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Speaker 1: Sligo Town, The stooped figure who boarded his coach on

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Speaker 1: that June twelfth afternoon in two thousand and nine cut

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Speaker 1: a tragic figure against the cold rain beating down on

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Speaker 1: the bus stop. Perhaps it was the ill fitting pair

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Speaker 1: of trousers which hung too loosely from his waist as

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Speaker 1: he mounted the steps, or perhaps it was the purple

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Speaker 1: shopping back filled with torn pieces of random paper. Whatever

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Speaker 1: it was, the man could barely meet the driver's gaze

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Speaker 1: as he spoke in what was later described as a

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Speaker 1: crisp North European accent. Where you headed, the driver asked,

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Speaker 1: single to Sligo, the man replied. The driver asked if

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Speaker 1: he wanted Sligo Town or somewhere else in the wider countryside.

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Speaker 1: The man seemed put out by the question, as if

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Speaker 1: he wasn't exactly sure himself where he wanted to go.

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Speaker 1: The man rubbed awkwardly at the thick white stubble on

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Speaker 1: the back of his head, leveled his eyes momentarily with

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Speaker 1: the drivers, and repeated his first instruction single ticket to Sligo.

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Speaker 1: As he shambled up the aisle, the driver turned in

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Speaker 1: his seat to watch him go. He noticed that, as

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Speaker 1: well as the purple shopping back, the man was carrying

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Speaker 1: a simple black shoulder back and a medium sized hold,

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Speaker 1: all which he'd placed neatly on the empty seat beside him.

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Speaker 1: He leaned his head against the window and made sure

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Speaker 1: to avoid eye contact with the other passengers who walked

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Speaker 1: onto the bus, as though he didn't want to be recognized.

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Speaker 1: He removed a bread roll wrapped in cellophane and chewed

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Speaker 1: slowly as the vehicle pulled out at the station and

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Speaker 1: began the arduous four hour journey down the coast. No

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Speaker 1: matter how many times he drove this route, the driver

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Speaker 1: was always struck by the breath taking landscape that unfurled

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Speaker 1: before his windshield. He considered himself lucky as he passed

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Speaker 1: through Donegal Town and breathed in the brackish sea air.

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Speaker 1: As he made his way along the coast past Bundoran,

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Speaker 1: passengers got on and off, some of whom he'd known

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Speaker 1: for years. He took comfort in observing the local people

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Speaker 1: going about their lives with the regularity of atomic clocks.

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Speaker 1: The strange man seemed not to have moved during the

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Speaker 1: entire bus journey. The driver couldn't help but wonder if

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Speaker 1: he was simply a tourist, or was he here visiting

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Speaker 1: family or for work, or was it something more sinister.

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Speaker 1: As the driver reached the terminus in the center of

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Speaker 1: Sligo Town, he caught himself reciting the Lord's Prayer under

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Speaker 1: his breath. It was a habit he'd formed in childhood

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Speaker 1: during moments of stress and confusion. As the unknown passenger

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Speaker 1: descended the steps onto the nearly deserted platform, the driver

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Speaker 1: finished his prayer in earnest Lead us not into temptation,

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Speaker 1: he whispered, but deliver us from evil. Amen. It was

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Speaker 1: just after six thirty pm when the stranger walked into

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Speaker 1: the lobby of the sligh Go City Hotel. Though it

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Speaker 1: was only a short distance from the bus station, the

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Speaker 1: man was yet to find his bearings and seemed to

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Speaker 1: have a persistent pain in his lower back, which made

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Speaker 1: it difficult to walk. The bags he carried weighed heavy

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Speaker 1: on his shoulders, so he stopped and waved down a taxi.

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Speaker 1: When asked by the driver where he wanted to go,

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Speaker 1: The man said nothing. He rustled around in his purple

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Speaker 1: carrier back before pulling out a slip of paper with

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Speaker 1: a hastily scribbled set of directions on it. The paper

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Speaker 1: looked like it had been torn from an envelope. The

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Speaker 1: driver squinted at it in an effort to read it

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Speaker 1: the City Hotel. The man nodded in reply, and the

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Speaker 1: driver gestured for him to jump into the back seat.

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Speaker 1: When he got out to help the man with his bags,

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Speaker 1: the stranger clutched the hole door to his chest like

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Speaker 1: he was protecting it with his life, leaving him to it.

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Speaker 1: The driver jumped back in and promptly made his way

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Speaker 1: to the City Hotel. Minutes later they arrived, though the

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Speaker 1: fare was little over five euros. The man handed the

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Speaker 1: driver a crisp new twenty euro note, waving him away

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Speaker 1: when he tried to give him change. The driver watched

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Speaker 1: as the man ambled slowly away and in through the

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Speaker 1: hotel's front door, before pulling off and heading back into town.

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Speaker 1: Inside the hotel, the stranger approached the front desk carefully

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Speaker 1: with great deliberation, as if he was weighing each word

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Speaker 1: for the energy it would take to speak. He requested

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Speaker 1: a room for four nights and offered to pay up

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Speaker 1: front in cash. When asked for his ID, the man

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Speaker 1: replied that he didn't have any. The receptionist explained that

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Speaker 1: it wasn't a problem as long as he told them

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Speaker 1: his name and address, and so, taking a pen and paper,

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Speaker 1: the man put his name down as Peter Bergman and

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Speaker 1: his address as Einstetters four four seven two, Vienna, Austria.

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Speaker 1: Then he handed over the cash to pay for his

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Speaker 1: stay and headed up to his room. The next time

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Speaker 1: the man known as Peter Bergman was seen, he appeared

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Speaker 1: neatly groomed. Locals remembered the piercing blue eyes, the tanned complexion,

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Speaker 1: the clean shaven face, and closely cropped white hair. Each

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Speaker 1: day he wore the same simple outfit black leather jacket,

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Speaker 1: blue jeans, black shoes, black leather belt. He appeared to

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Speaker 1: be a heavy smoker, being noticed several times making the

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Speaker 1: long trek down from his room to stand outside in

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Speaker 1: the mild air for a cigarette or two. The staff

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Speaker 1: at the Sligos City Hotel liked to play a game

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Speaker 1: where they tried to guess his background. The consensus was

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Speaker 1: that he was some kind of professional worker. In his

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Speaker 1: fifties or sixties, or a man away on business of

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Speaker 1: some kind, perhaps a property speculator or a financier. Maybe

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Speaker 1: he's a spy, joked one of the porters on his

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Speaker 1: coffee break, a momentary silence to send it, as his

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Speaker 1: colleagues tried to decide whether he was serious or not.

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Speaker 1: Whatever his occupation, the man known as Peter Bergmann seemed

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Speaker 1: to have a spring in his step after checking into

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Speaker 1: his room, as if a weight had been lifted, perhaps

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Speaker 1: because for the time being, at least, he wasn't required

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Speaker 1: to answer any more questions. In between sitting down for

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Speaker 1: an occasional beer at the hotel bar and dining in

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Speaker 1: some of the cafes and restaurants in the area, Peter

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Speaker 1: Bergmann was most often observed taking long walks around Sligo.

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Speaker 1: Over time, he became more adventurous in his outings, despite

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Speaker 1: the obvious back pain that continued to plague him, and

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Speaker 1: with every foray into more extroverted activity, he became more

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Speaker 1: and more the topic of fevered discussion and speculation. One

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Speaker 1: thing that didn't go unnoticed was how every morning, after breakfast,

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Speaker 1: which he took at eight thirty a m. Sharp, he

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Speaker 1: left carrying his purple shopping bag full of papers, only

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Speaker 1: to return later having apparently disposed of its contents. It

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Speaker 1: was as though he was ferrying bits of his life

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Speaker 1: bag by measured bag out of his room, until there

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Speaker 1: was nothing left at all but the clothes that he

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Speaker 1: was wearing. On the afternoon of Saturday, June thirteenth, he

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Speaker 1: made a visit to the local post office, where he

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Speaker 1: purchased eight international stamps and some air mail stickers, though

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Speaker 1: there was never any record of the letters he might

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Speaker 1: have sent. During one of the periods when hotel staff

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Speaker 1: thought he was out, the housekeeper entered his room. When

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Speaker 1: they opened the door, the found Peter fully dressed, standing

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Speaker 1: in the entryway with a look on his face that

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Speaker 1: seemed to suggest both that he was expecting somewhat and

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Speaker 1: doing something that he wasn't supposed to be doing. Early

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Speaker 1: on the morning of Sunday, June fourteenth, Peter asked the

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Speaker 1: hotel receptionist to order him a taxi. As usual, he

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Speaker 1: was holding the purple carrier bag, which by now seemed

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Speaker 1: so much a part of his uniform that it was

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Speaker 1: barely remarked upon when he walked out onto the footpath

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Speaker 1: with its plastic handles straining from the weight of its contents.

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Speaker 1: When the driver pulled up to the curb, he asked

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Speaker 1: Peter through the open window where he wanted to go.

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Speaker 1: Once again, in that calm, slightly eerie manner he developed

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Speaker 1: when communicating with locals, Peter chose each of his words carefully,

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Speaker 1: measuring them for impact. Perhaps, or maybe it was just

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Speaker 1: the limited inc he spoke. I want to go for

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Speaker 1: a swim, he said, Is there anywhere quiet? You know?

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Speaker 1: The driver thought for a moment, and, after clocking that

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Speaker 1: Peter was not a local, eventually suggested taking a short

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Speaker 1: drive out to the nearby beauty spot of Ross's Point.

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Speaker 1: The place was popular with families and sweethearts for the

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Speaker 1: dramatic views it offered over the open Atlantic. Seemingly pleased

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Speaker 1: by the suggestion, Peter ducked into the back of the car.

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Speaker 1: Ten minutes later they arrived at the spot. Peter ordered

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Speaker 1: the driver to stay put for a few minutes while

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Speaker 1: he stepped out and went for a wonder. After walking

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Speaker 1: only a few paces, he stopped and took in the

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Speaker 1: view of the tranquill Bay and its grassy borders to

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Speaker 1: the ben Bolburan Mountains. Beyond. Then he turned and headed

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Speaker 1: back to the car. A brief smile flashed across his

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Speaker 1: face as he approached the driver. Are you not going

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Speaker 1: in today, the driver asked, Confused, Peter said something vague

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Speaker 1: about there being too many people on the beach and

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Speaker 1: that he wanted to come back some other time. Though

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Speaker 1: Peter was as quiet as ever on the journey back

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Speaker 1: to his hotel, the driver couldn't help but notice that

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Speaker 1: he seemed, somehow more relaxed than he was before. It

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Speaker 1: reminded him of the serenity that people talked about when

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Speaker 1: they were close to death, what his father had once

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Speaker 1: called a Saints calm. As he glanced in the mirror

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Speaker 1: at the strange man sitting in his back seat, the

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Speaker 1: afternoon sun caught the glint of his spectacles, turning his

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Speaker 1: eyes into wide pools of light. On his final morning

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Speaker 1: at the Sligo City Hotel, Peter Bergmann came down to

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Speaker 1: the reception and asked if it would be possible to

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Speaker 1: have a later check out, since he had some errands

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Speaker 1: to run and his bus was not until the afternoon.

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Speaker 1: He explained that because of the pain in his lower back,

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Speaker 1: he wanted to restrict his movements as much as possible.

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Speaker 1: Since the hotel was quiet and there were only a

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Speaker 1: handful of bookings, the receptionist was happy to accommodate his request.

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Speaker 1: After breakfast, the man returned to his room for a

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Speaker 1: few hours before finally checking out at one p m.

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Speaker 1: Though he'd arrived in Sligo with a small black rucksack

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Speaker 1: and a hold all, by the time Peter made it

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Speaker 1: to the bus station, the only items he was carrying

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Speaker 1: were the distinctive purple carrier back and a disposable cup

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Speaker 1: of coffee, which he'd purchased at a kiosk. After sitting

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Speaker 1: down at one of the tables in the waiting area,

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Speaker 1: he was observed scribbling profusely on some scraps of paper,

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Speaker 1: which he then put in his bag. When the bus arrived,

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Speaker 1: the man got on board alongside a handful of other passengers.

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Speaker 1: The destination on the front read Ross's Point. The countryside

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Speaker 1: that the so called peter Bergman traveled through that day

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Speaker 1: is widely associated with the great Irish poet W. B. Yates,

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Speaker 1: who spent much of his formative years holidaying in the region.

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Speaker 1: It was the country of his heart, as he called it,

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Speaker 1: and its presence and landscape can be felt in much

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Speaker 1: of his poetry. I will arise and go now and

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Speaker 1: go to innis free, and a small cabin build there

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Speaker 1: of clay and wattles, made nine bean rows. While I

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Speaker 1: have there a hive of the honey bee, and live

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Speaker 1: alone in the bee loud glade, and I shall have

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Speaker 1: some peace there. For peace comes dropping, slow, dropping from

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Speaker 1: the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings. There.

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Speaker 1: Midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, and

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Speaker 1: evening full of the linnet's wings. I will arise and

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Speaker 1: go now. For always night and day I hear lake

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Speaker 1: water lapping with low sounds by the shore. While I

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Speaker 1: stand on the roadway or on the pavement's gray, I

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Speaker 1: hear it in the deep hearts core. Just after dawn

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Speaker 1: on Tuesday, June sixteenth, two thousand and nine, Ross's Point

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Speaker 1: native Arthur Kinsella was out on the beach with his

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Speaker 1: son Brian. Normally, they like to swim at a spot

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Speaker 1: close to their house, but due to high winds coming

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Speaker 1: from the west, the waves had been particularly treacherous that morning.

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Speaker 1: Arthur suggested walking a little further up the promenade, where

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Speaker 1: the rocks offered protection from the blowing gale. It was

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Speaker 1: Brian who noticed it first, what looked like a discarded

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Speaker 1: department store mannequin dressed in speedos and a T shirt,

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Speaker 1: lying face down in the sand with its arms by

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Speaker 1: its side. As the two men drew closer, they realized

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Speaker 1: it was a body. Arthur sank to his knees and

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Speaker 1: gestured for Brian to phone the police. As they waited,

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00:20:18,480 --> 00:20:21,520
Speaker 1: Arthur said to Brian that it might be appropriate to

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Speaker 1: speak the Lord's prayer for the repose of this unknown

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Speaker 1: man's soul, our father, which art in heaven. Arthur spoke

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Speaker 1: solemnly as the nearby waves crashed onto the beach. As

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Speaker 1: it is in heaven. They couldn't have known at that

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Speaker 1: moment that theirs would be the only prayer spoken for

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Speaker 1: the man known as Peter Bergman, who died alone on

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Speaker 1: that beautiful beach at the most westerly point of the

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Speaker 1: European continent. The man had clearly been washed up on

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Speaker 1: the beach, having gone into the water. In spite of this,

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Speaker 1: a post mortem examination found no signs of what they

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Speaker 1: termed a classical salt water drowning. What the pathologist did find, however,

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Speaker 1: was that the man was in the advanced stages of

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Speaker 1: prostate cancer and had multiple bone tumors. He would have

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Speaker 1: been in considerable pain in the last few weeks of

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Speaker 1: his life. The rest of the man's clothes were found

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00:21:19,760 --> 00:21:23,320
Speaker 1: in a neat pile further up the shore. The labels

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00:21:23,359 --> 00:21:26,080
Speaker 1: on the various items, along with the clothes he was

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Speaker 1: found in had all deliberately been removed. No money, wallet,

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Speaker 1: or form of identification was found. After a police investigation,

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Speaker 1: it was also discovered that the address he supplied to

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Speaker 1: the Sligo City Hotel turned out to be nothing but

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Speaker 1: a vacant lot in an uninhabited commercial building in Vienna, Austria.

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Speaker 1: As for the name Peter Bergman, no passports issued anywhere

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Speaker 1: in Europe were found for anyone matching the man's physical

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Speaker 1: description or aim profile. The stranger in Sligo clearly had

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Speaker 1: some awareness about CCTV and their blind spots, because although

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Speaker 1: police were convinced that he disposed of all his worldly

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Speaker 1: possessions in public bins dotted around the town, there was

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Speaker 1: no visual footprint of him actually doing it anywhere. Despite

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Speaker 1: numerous attempts to find any next of kin, the Irish

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00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:35,480
Speaker 1: guardy failed to locate anyone that knew the man. Four

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Speaker 1: months after his body was discovered, the man known as

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Speaker 1: Peter Bergmann was laid to rest in an unmarked grave

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Speaker 1: in Sligo Town Cemetery. Unsurprisingly, like the Isdaar woman and

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Speaker 1: the Somerton man before him, covered in Unexplained season six

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Speaker 1: episode twenty two to mourn Names, that so called Peter

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Speaker 1: Bergmann seemed to have gone to such an effort to

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Speaker 1: deliberately obscure his identity has only intensified people's curiosity about him.

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Speaker 1: One of the more outlandish theories is that Peter Bergmann

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Speaker 1: was a nom de plume for none other than the

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Speaker 1: elusive founder of Bitcoin, Sir Tooshe Nakamoto. Some have suggested

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Speaker 1: he may have been a spy on the run from

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Speaker 1: something sinister, with nowhere left to turn. Whatever his motivation.

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Speaker 1: In a world obsessed with making ourselves the center of

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Speaker 1: every one else's story or getting our fifteen minutes of fame,

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Speaker 1: there is something undeniably poetic about how that unknown man

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Speaker 1: in Sligo left us knowing next to nothing about him,

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Speaker 1: and until some one comes forward with more concrete information,

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Speaker 1: his identity will continue to remain Unexplained. This episode was

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Speaker 1: written by James Connor Patterson and Richard mc lean smith.

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Speaker 1: Thank you as ever for listening Unexplained as an AV

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Speaker 1: Club Productions podcast created by Richard McLain smith. All other

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Speaker 1: elements of the podcast, including the music, are also produced

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Speaker 1: by me Richard McClain smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook

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00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:24,440
Speaker 1: is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon,

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Speaker 1: Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, and other bookstores. Please subscribe to

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Speaker 1: and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts, and

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00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:34,720
Speaker 1: feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or

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00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:38,360
Speaker 1: ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps

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00:24:38,359 --> 00:24:40,680
Speaker 1: you have an explanation or a story of your own

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00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:43,119
Speaker 1: you'd like to share. You can find out more at

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Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast dot com and reaches online through X and

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