The concept of national and ethnic belonging is an extremely religious phenomenon that has recently been put to the test through the creation of so-called Micronations consisting of a small number of people. Sometimes, even a territory is not needed on which the unfolding of the ethno-national idea into the ultimate symptom known as a state will take place. And there have been nations that materialized through the existence of only one person, or even only in someone's head...
One such case and also a good mystery is ``The Man from Taured``.
June, 1954, an unknown character landed at the airport in Tokyo. At customs control, the officer became suspicious of the name of the country on the passport - Taured. The passenger, a white man in his mid-forties, did not give away anything that something was wrong, and agreed to be examined without any problems. The passport seemed legitimate to the extent that it even had stamps from various customs and border services. Which proved that he traveled without any problems with that passport. There were even stamps from the Japanese authorities stating that he was not entering Japan for the first time with that passport. He had a decent amount of money in various European currencies in him. What shocked the Japanese officials was that the traveler spoke fluent Japanese with ease.
He was asked for additional documents, and the mysterious guy produced a driver's license and other documents officialized by the country of Taured. And even business correspondence with Japanese companies that cooperated with his company from Taured...
Not knowing what to do, they brought him a map of the world to show where that country was, and the traveler pointed to the Pyrenees, somewhere on the border between France and Spain, near Andorra. The traveler was shocked that Taured was not on the map and seemed totally confused. Having no diplomatic relations with the non-existent country and not knowing what to do, the authorities sent the traveler to a hotel with an "escort" of a policeman and a customs officer. The guy settled in, the guards parked in front of his door on the fifth floor of the hotel and that was it. In the morning, they knocked on his door. Not getting any answer, they entered the room where there was no trace of anyone, the room seemed as if no one had entered it and there was no trace or sound of the guest. From then until today, nothing has been heard of the man from Taured or his fate. He simply disappeared.
Various theories began to emerge, from the fact that he was a traveler from another dimension to the fact that he was a simple fraudster, but none of them held water. Perhaps the man took advantage of the ignorance of the officials from various border services who stamped his passport, but why would he do that at all? Why would he make a fake passport from a non-existent country when he could already make such a passport from an existing one and thus avoid the risk? Because no matter how ignorant they were, it would have occurred to some official that there was no such country, at least in Europe. His knowledge of Japanese was as bizarre as his disappearance. If he were from another dimension where there was a state of Taured in the Pyrenees and where he was a frequent collaborator with Japanese businesses, it wouldn't be bizarre that he knew Japanese and traveled the world. Then again this is so far fetched that it hurts, it is true that theoretically there is a possibility of the existence of other dimensions, but a jump from quantum worlds to the macrocosm with states and passports is...on the border of the probable, if not something more.
Or maybe he just wanted to create his own state, to realize the centuries-old aspirations of the Taured people for freedom, independence and statehood...
(Roger Mortis, 054)
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