The village of Doddalston 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 Kymrie. Five hundred years ago, these lands were ruled by Tudor
monarch King Henry the Eighth. It was Henry's fifteen thirty six Act of Union between England and Wales that fixed the border as it remains today, placing Doddalston once but undoubtedly not for all, on the English side. The Act formed one of a number of policies devised by Henry's adviser 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 merek, meaning edge and boundary. With the Act of Union, Henry the Eighth had single handedly dissolved the powers of the lords. Just under four hundred and fifty 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 McClane Smith. It was late August nineteen eighty four 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 eight am, 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 Clin Peninsula, eighty miles to the west, measuring five point four on the Richter scale, Its subsequ quent shockwaves were felt as far away as
Dublin in Ireland. Ken's house known as Meadow Cottage, was one of four eighteenth century buildings lined up along Kinnerton Road on the edge of Doddalston Village. Ken, an economics teacher in his mid twenties, lived at the property with his nineteen year old girlfriend, Debby. She too had noticed the strange markings on the wall, but since most of the ground floor had been undergoing renovations for the best part of the summer, the markings were soon forgotten, before
eventually fading away altogether. It was a few months later, with the renovations completed, that Nicola, a friend of Ken's, came to stay for a couple of months. One morning, in the kitchen, as Ken was preparing breakfast, Nicola drew his attention to something she had noticed the day before, an odd set of markings that went diagonally across the back wall all the way to the ceiling. They looked
like footprints, she said. Ken brushed his hand over the newly plastered and painted wall, finding the markings exactly where they had been before. Unnerved by their uncanny resemblance to feet, Nichola painted over them the next day. A few days later, a sudden cry from Debby had Ken racing into the kitchen to find a bizarre sight laid out before him a pyramid of cans stacked up on the floor, with three of the tins placed one on top of the other, forming a precarious tower at the top. Ken gave a
rise smile, suddenly realizing what had been going on. He had first suspected the builders playing a trick on them, but since they had left some time ago, it must have been John or sten It, two friends of his who often came to the house to play music in the small home studio upstairs. Ken had also given them keys to let themselves in if they ever needed to
use the place when he was at work. At first, he reasoned there was no point in confronting them since they would never own up to it, But when he found another strange construction in the kitchen two days later, this time comprising a large bottle of lemonade, kitchen roll, and dried cat food, he had had enough. As he expected, both denied all knowledge of the bizarre activity, but Ken was satisfied he had got the message across. None the less.
That night, Ken, Debby, and Nick made extra shore to check that all the windows and doors were locked before they made their way to bed the following morning, they found nothing unto wart. A few months later, one evening in mid December, Debby and Nikola had just settled down in front of the fire in the living room when the temperature dropped. Suddenly, a strong gust of wind swept through the room, lifting a number of pages from a paper that had been left on the floor high into
the air. Debbi watched with amusement as the log in the hearth, having been burning, gently flashed a sudden bright red, before returning to a soft orange as the pages fluttered down to the floor. As new year approached, Nicola was beginning to feel restless and wary of taking up too much of Ken and Debby's time, began to look for work and somewhere else to live. With plans of becoming a performer on the cabaret circuit, she decided to try
her hand at sketchwriting. Ken, who taught at nearby Howard and School, suggested she work on one of the schools recently acquired BBC micro computers, and so it was when a few days later, Ken booked out the machine and brought it back to the house later that day, having decided to set it up in the kitchen. Ken and Nichola sat down in front of the slick, black and beige device with its bulky monitor stacked up behind it. After switching it on, the words BBC computer glowed green
on the screen with a small flashing line beneath. Waiting for their instruction, Ken typed in asterisk D, then pressed return, followed by asterisk eed w O r D and hit return again. Immediately the word processing program ed word opened up. Having introduced Nick to the program, Ken left her at the computer to get to grips with it. After a number of days writing, Nikola joined Ken and Debbie for dinner at the home of their friends Sean and Dave Lovell.
Returning back to the house later that night, Nick made her way to bed, while Ken and Debbie headed to the kitchen to make some tea. Opening the door, it was clear by the fuzzy green glow bot lighting the kitchen table that Nick had forgotten to turn off the computer. Curious as to what she had been working on, Ken had just pulled up the files when he discovered something unexpected.
Where all of Nick's files were labeled with single letters, there was one file that had not been on the disc when he first gave it to her, Labeled with three kay, D and N. Ken selected it with the mouse and reeled back in surprise. It was two months later, in February nineteen eighty five, when Ken approached fifty year old Peter Trinder in the school's staff room with a
peculiar request. A hugely experienced teacher and former Oxford University graduate, Peter who had once been Ken's own English teacher, had become a good friend since Ken had joined the teaching staff, but more importantly, Peter was someone he could trust with what he was about to tell him. It had all started that Sunday evening in December, as Ken explained, after opening the mystery file, he found a message a rest to Ken, deb and Nick. True, are the nightmares of
a person that fears safe? Are the bodies of the silent world? Turn pretty flower, turned towards the sun, for you shall grow and sow. But the flower reaches too high and withers in the burning light. It was a poem, evidently, but not one that Ken or anyone else in the house had written. Ken explained further that a number of strange things had been occurring in the house prior to this, and naturally he had assumed it was all part of
some elaborate joke. That was until he found something else a few weeks later, another file, this time named Rate. He handed Peter a print out of what he'd found. Peter stared at it for a moment. Well, it's English, but not contemporary, that's for sure. He studied the lines again. I hath no want to affray for only sith mine half witted antic has ripped a twain mine bound hath I been wreathed a knight. It was signed by L. W. Peter recognized the text as perhaps sixteenth century, but much
of the language seemed unfamiliar. Not quite sure what to make of it all, he agreed none the less to give the text a proper look and promised to get back to Ken in due course. A few days later, Peter approached him at the staff room, demanding to know, in no uncertain terms, if he was being messed around with.
Convinced by Ken's assurances that he wasn't, and thinking it unlikely that Ken had the requisite knowledge to fabricate the message himself, Peter Julie explained his findings, having tallied the words against the Oxford English Dictionary, many of which he didn't know himself. He was surprised to find that they were all genuine. Whoever had written the message, he said, was either a very skilled linguist or was writing from
a very long time ago. The following week, Ken's solicitor, John Cummins, having also learned of the peculiar correspondence, suggested that Ken write a reply to try and catch the hoax out. The next day, Ken Julie booted up the computer and started to type. He began by thanking the recipient for the messages before listing a series of questions. The second message mentioned a man named Edmund Gray, prompting
Ken to ask who this was. He asked also if the person writing the message was writing from the sixteen hundreds, and if so, who the king was at the time. The following day, John Cummins received a phone call from Ken. It seemed they had written back. John listened patiently as Debbie, reading from the screen, shouted from the kitchen while Ken clarified what she was saying. The writer listed Edmund Gray as the brother of John Gray, who they claimed lived
in nearby Kinnaton Hall. They also claimed to be writing not from the sixteen hundreds, but from the year fifteen twenty one, during the reign of King Henry the Eighth, who they listed as being six and forty years old. As Ken would later tell John and Peter, having ended the call with John, he was suddenly perturbed by the age given for Henry the Eighth. He knew he had been born in fourteen ninety one, meaning whoever had written
the message had got the age completely wrong. But when deb returned to the computer to double check the details, the message had vanished. They needn't have worried, however, as it would prove to be only the first reply of many. A follow up message, received on February the sixteenth, gave the writer's name as Lucas. It had been received the same day that Ken had returned home from a trip to the garage to find three milk cartons on the
kitchen floor, stagged up on top of each other. Subsequent messages would reveal the full name to be Lucas Wayneman. Each time Ken received a message, he would print it out and hand it to his colleague Peter to analyze, and each time he came to the same conclusion. Though the grammar was a little odd in places, the vocabulary
was completely authentic for the period. Though Ken and Depp had been a little unnerved at the thought of some one entering the house while they slept upstairs, the assumption that it had been Ken's bandmate John had made it somewhat less sinister. What John wasn't, however, was an expert in Tudor era English. He looked again at the print out of the first message and read the final lines again, twas a great crime to have bribed mine house, or, as Peter's translation read, it was a great crime to
have stolen my house. Are you always taking care of your family? Do you often take care of others and not yourself? Now it's time to take care of yourself. To make time for you you deserve it. Tell a doc. Give you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best, to feeling like yourself again. With TELEDOC, you can speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video. Therapy appointments are available seven days a
week from seven am to nine pm local time. If you feel overwhelmed sometimes maybe you feel stressed or anxious, depressed or lonely, or you might be struggling with a personal or family issue. Teledoc can help. Teledoc is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy to change counselors if needed. For free. Teledoc Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app or visit teledoc dot com forward slash unexplained podcast Today to
get started. That's teladoc dot com slash unexplained podcast. At one point, Ken wrote to the mysterious Lucas asking how it was that he was able to send messages on a computer if he was writing from the distant past. Ken's preferred method was to write his message and leave the computer on until he received a reply, usually leaving the house in order to prompt a response. That evening, having only been gone an hour, he returned to find
a new file saved onto the disc. I hath seen thee Maketh leams on thy voice and Art sly read the reply. He had been watching them make lights on the box and copied them, explained Peter. The next day, things progressed steadily between Lucas, Ken and Debbie as they apparently sought more information about each other, until one message
brought a curious revelation. As Ken explained it to Peter, all this time he and Debbie had been trying to catch out whoever had been hoaxing them, until it became apparent in their exchanges with Lucas that he might in fact have been trying to catch them out. Perhaps it was they who he thought were not real, said Ken, What if to Lucas it was they who were the ghosts. A few weeks later, Debby was alone in the house, resting on the sofa when she heard a bizare scuffling
coming from the kitchen. Opening the door, she found a wire chair leaning back on a rail at a forty five degree angle. After staring for a moment, she moved slowly toward it and pulled it down into place, before hurrying back to the living room and bolting the kitchen door shut behind her. After falling asleep again on the sofa, Debb plucked up the courage to return to the kitchen
to make some coffee. Having returned again to the living room, she had just sat down on the couch when she felt something cold brush against the left side of her face. She felt her hand run through her hair, and another grip her on the shoulder. She became aware of a figure standing to her left, but when she turned to look, there was nothing Leaping from the couch, she ran straight into the cold and wet outside, where she remained for
the next hour until Ken returned home. It was some time in the spring of eighty five that Peter, having suggested they widened their investigation, wrote to the UK's Society of Psychical Research for assistance. It wouldn't be until early May, however, that John Bucknell and Dave Welsh of the SPR were finally able to meet with them, and much had happened Peter had first been in touch. The pair sat in Peter's living room listening as he, Debbie, and Ken explained
the events of the past six months. It appeared that after the first flurry of messages, things had started to take increasingly strange turns. One incident involved Ken leaving a picture of the type of car he owned by the computer at the request of Lucas, who wanted to understand more about it. The picture had gone missing, only to
reappear the following day, scorched around all the edges. Additional messages had also started appearing around the house, written in chalk in long cursive script, the first had said simply Lucas As for Lucas himself, Ken explained as he handed a folder to John and Dave contain all the messages to date. He was no longer corresponding with them. Ken
paused for a moment, wondering if he should continue. It seemed, he said, as John perused the many pages of text, that he had been arrested for witchcraft after he was apparently discovered trying to communicate with Ken and Debbie. What's more, Ken had never told him what year they were living in. When he did, Lucas had apparently been confused, believing they had been speaking to him from the year twenty one o nine. When Ken had asked why, Lucas replied because
it was the year in which the others lived. Ken handed a final message to the spr investigators. It was from them, he said, Ken, Peter deb It read, try to understand that you three have a purpose that shall, in your lifetime change the face of history. We twenty one o nine must not affect your thoughts directly, but give you some sort of guidance that will allow room for your own destiny, John and Dave studied the messages carefully and looked to Peter for clarification. He confirmed again
that the messages in Old English seemed authentic. It was clear to Ken, however, from the following questioning, that he, deb and Peter were under suspicion of concocting a hoax. John and Dave eventually agreed to mount a formal investigation, but made it clear their focus was not on the possibility of contact from a distant past or future, but rather on trying to catch out the assus umed hoaxer.
Over the next few months, with communication now apparently coming regularly between Ken and the enigmatic twenty one o nine group, John and Dave traveled to Ken's house in Doddleston, rigging up a series of traps and microphones throughout the house in their efforts to snare the trickster. After the traps were set, the group would retire to the local pub in the hope of returning to find either a message or one of the traps disturbed, but every time they
found nothing. Next, Dave secretly composed ten as yet unanswered mathematical problems that he reasoned might be simple for someone in twenty one o nine to answer. Sitting in the kitchen on his own, he typed them out carefully returned to sit with the others in the living room. With the kitchen locked and deb Ken and Peter all gathered together, no one had entered the kitchen when Dave returned to the computer an hour later. Satisfied that nobody had replied,
he deleted the questions. When a few days had passed, Dave received a phone call from Ken. He had found a new file on the disc. Dave was disappointed but unsurprised to discover that his questions had not been answered, and yet, curiously, whoever had written the message had referred directly to a number of the questions, suggesting they had
at least found some way to read them. Frustrated by the insufficient response from Dave's first request, Ken had apparently written back demanding they at least answered two questions provide them with a prime number bigger than the largest currently known, as well as the solution to the mathematical conundrum known as for Mars last theorem. Ken called Dave again later that day to explain what he had done, but more importantly, to let him know that they had replied again, Dave.
It read yes, both questions can be answered, one directly, the other requires an understanding of a new conversion formula. But if we tell you, do you swear to grant us our wish. After a moment of silence, Dave instructed Ken what to write next if it be in our power to do so, and that we do not lose our minds or souls or bodies to do so. Ken put down the phone and dutifully typed out the words before heading out for a walk in the hope that a reply would be waiting for him. On his return
back in Dave's home. An hour later, the phone rang. It was Ken. They had replied again. Then let the man who was willing to lose those step forward. They said. Now they just want you to answer yes or no, explained Ken. Dave hesitated for a moment before deciding to decline their offer. It was now becoming clear that any effort to uncover the truth was merely an exercise in futility.
Aside from keeping the computer under twenty four hours surveillance or being present for when the apparent messages appeared on the screen, there was little to no way that anybody could evervalidate the authenticity of the communications, and what good asking questions to the people supposedly communicating with them when there was no imperative for them to answer it proved nothing. The SPR at least would eventually conclude they had reached
a dead end. According to Ken, John Bucknell left the Society soon after, and neither he nor Dave Welsh ever filed a report on the case. Having lost the interest of the SPR, Peter advised Ken to go public with his story. After gaining the attention of the local paper, The Chester Observer, Ken met with reporter Neil Bartlam at
the beginning of December nineteen eighty five. The subsequent article, published on Sunday twenty second of December, detailed most of what had happened to day, including one incredible piece of information. Sometime after the SPR ended their investigation, Lucas had apparently got back in touch with Ken, only to reveal that his name wasn't Lucas at all, but was in fact
Thomas Howarden. Some months before, Lucas had claimed to have once been a fellow at Brasenose College of Oxford University, taking it on himself to see if there was any record of a Lucas attending the college in the early sixteenth century. Peter contacted Robin Pendle, an acquaintance at Brasenose, to see if he might do some digging for him. As it turned out, there was no record of a
Lucas Wayneman, but Robin did find something interesting. Thomas Hawarden or Harden, who hailed from an area close to present day Doddleston, had been a tutor at the college in fifteen thirty. The man had apparently been fired after expunging the name of the Pope on official documents. Later, after Lucas had allegedly revealed his name to in fact have
been Thomas Howarden and later Thomas Harden. Ken had in turn informed him that they had been told of his name before and asked if it was true that he had been fired from the college. Ken maintained. He then received a reply from Thomas confirming he had indeed been released by the college. It wasn't for expunging the Pope's name, however, but rather for failing to do so. A few weeks later, Robin Pendle, while searching the archives again at Brasenose, came
across another document pertaining to Thomas her Warden. It appeared that his initial assessment had been wrong after all, with the newly discovered document revealing just as Tom had apparently said, he was punished for not removing the Pope's name. Ken would eventually go on to publish a book titled The Vertical Plane, outlining the extraordinary set of events that apparently plagued him and his girlfriend Debbie in that quiet, sleepy
village of Doddleston. The final communication was said by Ken to have been received on March twenty first, nineteen eighty six. It was written by the Enigmatic twenty one O nine group and contained one final tantalizing piece of information. At one point during all the correspondence with the man said to be named Lucas Wayneman, later revealed as Thomas Harden, he said that he had been writing a book documenting the bazaar events in the hope that someone in the
future would discover it. As the final message detailed, Thomas did eventually write his book, but died shortly after. He placed it in a secure place. But it shouldn't take too many years to find it, the inscription reads, me writes this in the hope that mine fellows will one day find this book, then may our lands be not so distant. If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can now go to Unexplained
podcast dot com forward slash Support. All donations, no matter how large or small, are massively appreciated. All elements of Unexplained are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes. Feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or on Twitter
at Unexplained pod. Now. It's time to take care of yourself. To make time for you, teledoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video anytime between seven am to nine pm local time, seven days a week. Teledoc therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app or visit telldoc dot com,
Forward slash Unexplained Podcast Today to get started. That's teladoc dot com Slash Unexplained podcast