In 1950, at the times square in new York city there was a man with narrow sideburns and dressed in the style of the Victorian era. According to witnesses, he was scared to death and totally confused. In just a few minutes after a strange man noticed for the first time, he, unfortunately, was hit by a car and died.
In the morgue of the pockets of the clothes of the deceased recovered the following items:
– beer token 5 cents each with the name of the bar, which was unfamiliar even to the oldest inhabitants of the district;
account for the maintenance of the horses and wash the carriage, issued pay-stables, located on Lexington Avenue, however, while not listed in any directory;
– about 70 dollars in old banknotes dollar;
business card with the name of Rudolf Venza, according to which the place of his residence was listed the apartment on Fifth Avenue in new York;
– the letter sent to the same address, in June 1876 from Philadelphia;
None of these items was not noticeable signs of aging or oxidation.
Captain Hubert Rome of Department on search of missing people tried using these data to identify the strange man. As indicated on the business card address was a commercial venture, but the name Rudolph Fence the owner was not familiar.
The investigation failed to install the following:
As indicated on the business card to the address on 5th Avenue was a commercial enterprise and the name of Rudolph Penza the then owner was not familiar. Fence and was not in the address book of the city, and his fingerprints were not found in any database. No one was reported missing this man.
Rome continued the investigation and, in the end, turned up Fence Rudolph Junior in the telephone directory for 1939. Rome interviewed residents at the address and found out that once there lived Rudolf Fenz, 60 years old, worked nearby. After his retirement in 1940 he moved to another place.
The investigator found that he mysteriously disappeared in 1876 aged 29 years.
Rome sought out the address of the proposed Fence, but he died five years before the incident, but his wife was still alive and lived in Florida. The investigator contacted her and found out that the father of her husband has mysteriously disappeared in 1876 aged 29 years. He just came out of the house for an evening stroll and more it nobody saw.
This story was published in many Newspapers and magazines in the 1970s, 1980s and up until 2000 was applied as a real case event. However, there was a researcher of folklore Chris obek, who decided to verify the accuracy described, and came to the conclusion that the people and events mentioned in this story are entirely fictional, but was not able to determine the source.
Real Rudolph, Fenc
In 2002, pastor George Murphy claimed that the original source is either one of the works of an anthology of science fiction under the editorship of Robert Heinlein Tomorrow, The Stars”, or the story, published in Molerovskogo weekly” for September 15, 1951. The true author of this story is a science fiction writer Jack Finney, and a fictional episode with Robert Fensom is part of the story “Afraid”, who first appeared in “Kolarovska weekly”. And like everything fell into place – Robert Fenz was a literary character in a fantasy work.
However, in 2007, a scientist working in the Berlin news archive, found a news article, dated April of 1951, in which he mentioned this same story. This article was printed over 5 months before there was a Jack Finney story. In addition, the article mentioned that several researchers failed to find evidence of the existence of Rudolf Fence, as well as to confirm the fact that he disappeared in 1876 aged 29 years.
