The village of Doddleston lies just five miles to the southwest of Chester in the northwest

of England. Surrounded by rich dark soil, fields of green and soft rolling hills, like

all of the British Isles, its position has been an ever-shifting and often disputed thing.

Today, it sits on a border between worlds. One designated England and the other, Kimry.

500 years ago, these lands were ruled by Tudormonic, King Henry VIII. It was Henry's 1536 active

union between England and Wales that fixed the border as it remains today. Placing Doddleston

once, but undoubtedly not for all, on the English side. The act formed one of a number of policies

devised by Henry's advisor, Thomas Cromwell, who sought to remove the influence of the Catholic

Church on the British State. Prior to the act, aristocrats, known as Lord Wardens of the

marches, governed the borderlands on behalf of the monarchy. It was their duty to maintain

the security of the border between nations. The word march is derived from the ancient

proto-Indo-European word, Marek, meaning edge and boundary. With the act of union, Henry VIII

had single-handedly dissolved the powers of the Lords. Just under 450 years later, one resident

of Doddleston might have been forgiven for thinking that perhaps it wasn't merely geographical

boundaries that they had been guarding. You're listening to unexplained, and I'm Richard

McLean, Smith. It was late August 1984, when Ken first spotted the strange markings on

his kitchen wall, shaped inexplicably like small footprints stretching in a diagonal line

to the ceiling. The discovery had been in keeping with what was proving to be an especially

peculiar summer. Just the previous month, Ken had been woken shortly before 8am, alarmed

to find his entire house being rocked on its foundations. The result of the largest earthquake

ever recorded in the United Kingdom. With the epicenter located in Flynn Peninsula, 80 miles

to the west, measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale, its subsequent shockwaves were felt as far

...