japanese mysteries

[missyfan45]

Taured, The utsurou bune, Yonaguni, these are some unique mysteries for pc's to investigate, first. Taured.

[Catsmate]

From my notes.
The story of "The Man from Taured" is one of my favourites. Mainly because I collect weird trivia and oddities but also because it shows how a legend grows.

The story goes that a man arrives in an airport (usually it's Haneda Airport in Tokyo, but there have been others) in July 1954 (this also varies). He's your classic business traveller, a well dressed and affable bearded Causasian man. He attempts to pass through immigration (or customs, the story varies) but his passport is slightly odd (but is well stamped with seemingly genuine immigration marks from various countries) and one of the officers doesn't recognise the state of 'Taured'.

They stop and question him and he's equally puzzled that they haven't heard of his homeland, especially given that this isn't his first visit to Japan. He speaks some Japanese but his native language is French.
A superior is called in and he has also never heard of Taured. Much puzzlement and annoyance on both sides. The passport appears quite genuine, just for a non-existent country. An atlas is produced and the man (never named for some reason) indicates the 'United Kingdom of Taured' (actual name varies by account) in on the borders of France and Spain, approximating to Andorra (but not exactly).

Arguments continue. The man is asked to empty his pockets and does so, producing various currencies (no specifics) that were plausible for a business traveller. He's questioned about his hotel booking and the nature of his business and this all checks out to a degree; the hotel exists, bit has no record of such a booking; the company he's visiting exists but has no record of him or any business with Taured. He has letters on apparently genuine letterhead that support his account.

Now in 2020 he'd have been locked up but apparently Japan in '54 was more civilised (and there was no evidence of criminality, only suspicions; plus officialdom may have feared this was some weird practical joke and didn't want the embarrassment) so he was assigned a room at a nearby hotel, under guard. Investigations were to continue the following day.
The man was a little freaked out but cooperative, asking for medication for a headache, which was supplied. Ah, those heady days before getting a paracetamol required a witnessed waiver...
Of course he and his belongings disappeared that night.

This story leads some to immediately assume the man was from an adjacent universe and accidentally dropped in before being either returned home or erased by a Sinister Acronymic Agency. Very Calvan Knox....

The bad news.
The problem is the story doesn't stand up to scrutiny. According to my notes the incident is first recounted in Colin Wilson's The Directory of Possibilities, published in 1981, and based on an account by Paul Begg, a noted collector of 'mysterious disappearance' stories but, frankly, rather gullible (several of his accounts are utter fiction, most have been debunked. Begg's version of the story is this:

And in 1954 a passport check in Japan is alleged to have produced a man with papers issued by the nation of Taured.

That's it. Quite a lot of subsequent embroidery added. Begg cited no source.

The next account of "The Man from Taured" is in Tom Sleman's Strange but True: Mysterious and Bizarre People in 1999. Not that's not exactly a reputable source either. Sleman says:

There have been many reports of visitors from other planets dropping in on Earth. In 1954, the Japanese authorities detained a man trying to enter the country with a passport that revealed he was from an unheard of country named 'Taured.' A thorough check was made by the customs officials to see if there was such a place anywhere on Earth, but they drew a blank. The stranger refused to throw light on the whereabouts of the mysterious nation of Taured and quickly left Japan.

Note the lack of mysterious disappearance.

Fast forward fifteen years and the World Wide Web expands the story; specifically one Terrence Aym on the Before It's News website. Aym cites Begg and also claims that "parts of the story were related in several books about the weird and strange published during the 1950s" which is untrue. There is no contemporary source.
The story is, to be blunt, utter bollocks. Despite this it's inspired at least one book and a short film.

So why not incorporate it into the Whoniverse? How did the unnamed traveller end up on a flight in this universe? Were there others? What happened to them? Were they swapped for 'normal' counterparts? Did some of them return home to find things......different?
Does this happen often? If so then the Doppelganger and Temporal Castaway traits may be useful.

[missyfan45]

hmmmm Utsuro-bune?

[Catsmate]

Aug 15, 2020 23:39:09 GMT missyfan45 said:

hmmmm Utsuro-bune?

Hmmm, my first thought is "Doesn't that look just like an Apollo CM flloating on the ocean" (pic). Or perhaps a Soyuz capsule. though they tend to prefer solid ground (albeit with a risk of bears).
It also reminds me of an encounter with a sealed life-raft from some years ago.
So let's speculate wildly.

It's obviously an escape capsule of some sort. It had one occupant along with food and water¹. The "red coated rosewood" would be some high visibility red/orange material, with windows for the occupant(s) to see out, and the lower part is armoured against collisions. The 'tree resin' is a rubbery plastic sealant (perhaps there was a leak?).
The "texts written in an unknown language" were probably instructions and warnings².

The lone occupant was "a beautiful young woman" of small stature. The hair is interesting, red hair would have been a sign of an exotic foreigner (there are red haired Russians and by 1800 Japan had had contact with Europeans too) but the
"artificial white extensions" are odd. She was a Caucasian of some sort (using the term generically) with "very pale pink" (or "white as snow") skin with long hair. Her clothing was equally exotic, made of some smooth fabrics.
Then there's the box she clutched; a survival kit or beacon?
BTW the capsule would have been large for a single person; the dimensions given are about 50% wider than an Apollo CM, which held three people. So the 'Utsuro-bune' may have been intended for a larger group.

Now the 1803 legend says this wasn't the first such encounter they'd had ("In the past, a very similar object with a woman was washed ashore on a close-by beach") and gives multiple accounts for what happened to the occupant. She either was dumped back in the capsule and set adrift or stayed and grew old in the village.

Then there's the legend of the origin of the Kōno clan. They are said to be descended from the marriage of a young woman ('Princess Wake' found in such a craft and imperial prince, in the seventh century CE.
She's also said to have brought silk to Japan.

There do seem to be a lot of such stories....


So, where did the Utsuro-bune come from? What was it? How did it get to the Japanese coast? What happened next?

Basically the capsule can come from above, below or sideways, i.e. an escape capsule from a space craft, something from an submarine (which of course, could also be a space ship) or something displaced in time.
It's a bit early for Nemo, the spacecraft option is pretty similar to the time capsule so let's go with that one.

The craft seems experimental or emergency to me, so it came from the early days of dabbling in such things. Probably an experiment, sent back in time to see if the process worked. It's obviously (again, to me) not a 'proper' self contained time machine. So perhaps it was one of the "time shot" experiments from the twenty-second century? In the halcyon days of optimism, and corporate irresponsibility, that preceded the Dalek invasion someone arranged for a number of capsules to be fired back in time. They may have been launched in the air (insert some technobabble about gravity and surface contact) and fell to Earth (or water, the planet is mostly covered in the stuff so planning for that is sensible, especially if you don't have great directional control)

At least three arrived on the Japanese coast (is there something that attracted them?). At least one of the occupants didn't speak the language (too much reliance on computerised translation perhaps?). They carried a temporal beacon that would allow their control centre to lock on to them³ and pull them back (or into tiny pieces).
One of the occupants abandoned the plan (why?) and intermarried. One went, or was put by the locals, back into the capsule and floated off. She was, presumably, either retrieved, obliterated or sank⁴.
And the third either left or stayed.

Alternatively the craft could have come from much further ahead in time. Maybe they were part of Greel's experiments? Early and cruder versions of time Time Cabinet he used to flee. In this case the occupants could have been volunteers, prisoners or perhaps also fleeing the future.


Lots of possibilities.








1. An maybe other gear. There's a discussion of the Soyuz emergency survival kit here that may be of interest.

2. Which a space capsule is liberally equipped with. Starting with "Stay back".

3.That'd be the box she clutched.

4. Which means the capsule might be found sometime.

[missyfan45]

hmmm up next the yonaguni monument?

[Catsmate]

Aug 16, 2020 23:30:55 GMT missyfan45 said:

hmmm up next the yonaguni monument?

Well the most logical take is that rock formation is entirely natural. The claims of it being an artificial structure are extremely dubious
But then again maybe Mu/Yamatai was real and the formations are the remnants of an Asian Atlantis (another one!) that existed ~12ky ago during the last ice age on the land bridge to Taiwan.