This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

It's one thing when someone appears to vanish off the face of the earth.

It's quite another, when they appear suddenly as if from nowhere, their clothes, behaviour

and mannerisms completely at odds with their surrounding environment.

At best, this might make for a sensational, unthreatening news story, a slice of the bazaar to

liven up the day.

Like the story of Andreas Grassell, who seemed to appear in England one day,

completely out of the blue back in April 2005, Grassell was found on a beach in a distressed state

and appeared to have no recollection of who he was, or how even, to speak. While being looked after in care, Grassell began playing the piano in an effort

to communicate with those around him, leading to him becoming known as the piano man. It was four

months after he was first seen on the beach that he finally revealed his name and true identity,

a 20-year-old man from southern Germany.

He claimed to simply have forgotten who he wants until then.

At worst, like the titular character in Nicholas Rogue's

1976 sci-fi classic, the man who fell to earth, or any immigrant for that matter, taking their

first steps through an unfamiliar land. Some unfortunate individuals might find themselves

becoming bogeymen for local anxieties about the general state of a nation and about just

what constitutes the correct way to be in the world.

Arguably the most famous example of the mysterious arrival narrative

is the apocryphal tale of the man from Torett.

It was back in 1960 when an enigmatic traveller

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