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Independent.co.uk. 16 September 2011

Not quite Kaspar Hauser, but jolly close.

Posted: 16-09-2011 19:52 Post subject:

More from the Guardian.

Posted: 18-09-2011 12:12 Post subject:

A few more details, and a photo:

The boy called Ray who says he's been living in a German wood - for five years
By Andy Whelan
Last updated at 1:01 AM on 18th September 2011

The mystery of the English-speaking teenager who says he has been living in woodland in Germany for five years deepened last night when it was revealed that he was found carrying a bag of personal belongings.
German police said the 17-year-old, who says his name is Ray but has no idea who he is, arrived in Berlin with a rucksack. But they have refused to reveal what the bag contained.

When he arrived at Berlin’s city hall earlier this month, the youngster told officers that he and his father, Ryan, moved to the forest about five years ago after his mother, Doreen, had died in a car crash.
The teenager said the pair used tents and makeshift dens to sleep in until his father died two weeks ago.
He says he buried him in a shallow grave before setting off to find help. He told officers he ended up in Berlin after following a compass due north – as his father had advised him to do in an emergency.

The teenager arrived in the capital on September 5 carrying only a tent, sleeping bag and rucksack. He claimed he could not remember anything of his life before he entered the forest but was able to tell officers his date of birth. Despite being dishevelled, he was described as ‘healthy’ and showed no signs of malnourishment or abuse.

Police have issued a European-wide appeal in the hope somebody will identify him.
They have released a photo of the teenager, but his blue eyes have been obscured under German laws which prevent the identification of children without consent of a parent or guardian.

A Berlin police spokeswoman said: ‘We have not seen anything like it before.
‘It is a possibility that he could come from Britain because he speaks English fluently but only knows a few words of German.’
She said she did not know whether the boy had an English, Scottish or Welsh accent, and was not able to say what clothes he was wearing when he was found.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘We are aware of the reports and are looking into them.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2038657/The-boy-called-Ray-says-hes-living-German-wood--years.html#ixzz1YIjw3PH1

Posted: 18-09-2011 13:06 Post subject:

I'm not sure I buy "Ray"'s story I'm afraid.

Posted: 18-09-2011 13:20 Post subject:

Posted: 18-09-2011 14:37 Post subject:

It just sounds a bit - well - made up to me. We'll see.

Posted: 18-09-2011 19:03 Post subject:

Posted: 18-09-2011 20:14 Post subject:

The part I'm not 'buying' is how a boy who apparently didn't take to the woods until circa age 12 has so few specific memories of his 'past life'.

I'm also confused by the fact that he claims to have been living in 'dens' or 'dugouts', but some reports mentioned he had a tent with him when he 'came in from the cold'.

One factoid I'd love to know is whether all the equipment he was carrying can be confirmed to be more than 5 years old.

Posted: 19-09-2011 14:22 Post subject:

Police say they believe Forest boy as they retrace his steps to find father's shallow grave
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 12:31 PM on 19th September 2011

German police are trying to retrace the steps of the English speaking ‘forest boy’ in an attempt to find his father’s body.
They are also investigating reports that the teenager may have criss-crossed Europe during the five years he says he spent living rough in forests with his father.
The boy, who is estimated to be 17, says his name is Ray but has little other idea who he is. He arrived in Berlin on September 5, carrying only a rucksack, tent and sleeping bag.
He claimed his father Ryan had taken him into the woods south of the German capital five years ago after his mother Doreen died in a car crash, and they had lived there ever since.
The boy said his father had died after a fall and he had buried him in a shallow grave before heading north to Berlin, as his father had instructed him to do in the case of an emergency.

Police are baffled by the case. Although officers have been unable to locate the grave or establish how the father died, they say the boy’s story so far checks out. A German police spokesman said: ‘What we can say for sure is that we have found nothing at all to disprove the story almost two weeks on.
‘As well as alerting Interpol we have contacted Czech police to see if there is any indication the woodland south of the city that he refers to could have been in Czech territory.
‘It would have been no problem crossing the border and although he says he had been walking north for two weeks, we believe that was a generalisation.
‘It could have been shorter, which would have put him in the area of the Erzgebirge Naturpark, or if it was longer it could be the Bavarian National Park, which extends into the Czech Republic.’
German police are believed to have contacted Czech and Austrian officials to find out whether the boy or his father had been arrested for vagrancy or similar offences after suggestions that the pair might have criss-crossed Europe over the years.

They have also requested information about any unidentified bodies found buried in woodland over the past year.
Police have been working with the boy to try to recreate his route in the two weeks that he was without his father.
They have not ruled out that he may have been through some kind of mental trauma, and are giving him psychiatric tests, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The boy, who is 5ft 11ins, with blond hair and blue eyes, is also being checked against missing child lists.

Officials believe the teenager could be British because he speaks English but only basic German. The British Consul is working with police to try to solve the mystery.
Linguistic experts are working with him to analyse his accent and determine where he came from.

Police said the boy had told them that he and his father had lived in a tent and then later in burrows that they dug themselves. Officials confirmed that the boy was in good physical shape and had no signs of abuse apart from a small scar that was at least three years old.
Police have issued DNA and fingerprint evidence as well as a photograph of the blue-eyed and athletic-looking boy to Interpol. Social workers have applied for child protection status for him.

The boy is unable to tell them exactly where he buried his father, but claimed he 'followed his compass northwards'.
Police believe he could have been living in Bayerischer national park, parts of which cross the border into the Czech Republic, or the Erzgebirge region.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2038895/Forest-boys-steps-retraced-hunt-fathers-body.html#ixzz1YP6R0YXj

Posted: 19-09-2011 14:31 Post subject:

'Forest Boy' might be a good alternative name for this thread - once the story's slipped out of the news, I doubt I'll remember Kaspar Wossname or his connection with it!

Posted: 19-09-2011 22:07 Post subject:

Who, what, why: How do you identify a mystery person?

German police are trying to identify a teenager who appeared in Berlin saying he had been living in the woods for five years. So how do you go about identifying a mystery person?

The story of an English-speaking boy who emerged after five years living in a German forest has captured the headlines.
Referred to as "forest boy", he is thought to be about 17, and speaks some German, as well as his English. He has told police that he and his father went to live in the woods after his mother died, but cannot remember where he came from before then.
He told police his father had died in the woods and he had buried him in a shallow grave, before walking for two weeks to reach Berlin to seek help. He says his name is Ray and thinks he knows his date of birth, but that is all police have to go on. So how will they go about trying to find out who he is?

Police will use a combination of forensic analysis, interview techniques, official documents and publicity to try and identify who the teenager is, says criminologist and child protection expert Mark Williams-Thomas.

The starting point is forensic analysis of his DNA, fingerprint and dental records to see if they can establish who he is. In this case forensics may not throw up any clues because the boy is so young.

Next officers will need to interview him extensively to gain as much information from him as he is able or prepared to give, says Williams-Thomas.
"If the information is credible this could lead them to some obvious points to start, like birth records, missing persons reports."

They will want to trace the teenager's steps back to the place where he has spent the past five years. This could throw up vital clues, such as items of clothing or tools he has used to survive, even people who may have fed him at some point.

This could also help ascertain whether the boy's father has been buried in the woods, and if they do find a body, they will be able to do DNA testing on it. There is far more chance the father will be on police databases because he is a lot older, says Williams-Thomas.

He says it is crucial that a British police officer interview the boy as soon as possible.
"They will have the knowledge to identify his accent. They may also be able to pinpoint where he is originally from in the UK. Details that might be meaningless to German police could be picked up by British officers. The boy might, for example, remember living in a place with a cathedral."

But a spokesperson for the German police told the BBC that it was too early to tell whether the boy was British. She said he could be from any English-speaking country, or could have learnt English in Europe, such as in Spain or even Germany.

Dr Anja Lowit, a linguistics expert at the speech and language therapy division at Strathclyde University, says specialists will need to get a language sample from the boy.
"There are various papers available about different regional varieties of British and other types of English," says Lowit.
"Vowel differences are a good indicator of accent, and whether people produce glottal stops. In the longer sentences they can listen to his intonation patterns, which are quite distinctive for certain accents, and they would also notice any peculiar choices of words or grammatical forms."

But, she says that there is a level of difficulty because people speak with varying degrees of accents, so his might not be very strong. For example, she says children can also be influenced by their parent's accents or psychosocial issues - for example wanting to fit in with other children who speak in a particular way - so it's not straightforward to determine where someone comes from.

"If he's not English, his foreign accent can again give a hint, but there is a lot of overlap between different accents, and depending on how early and under what circumstances he learnt English, he might not present with the normal picture that one would expect."

James Law, professor of speech and language science at Newcastle University, says English is likely to be the boy's first language.
"It is unlikely he would have lost one language and not the other - that he would have lost the German and retained the English."
In 2003, Law worked with researchers on the case of Edik, a young boy in the Ukraine who was unable to speak because he spent more time with stray dogs than his often absent parents.

Although the boy in Germany says he cannot remember anything from his life before he went into the woods, Law says tests can be carried out to see how he responds to certain cultural references.
"They could put a lot of material in front of him, places, pictures, cultural references - such as children's TV characters from the period before he went into the woods. These things can be so potent to a child - they might get some spark of recognition."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14971211

Posted: 20-09-2011 08:42 Post subject:

German forest boy's first words: 'I'm all alone in the world, please help me'
An English-speaking boy who claims he lived rough for five years in a German forest walked in off the street and told staff at Berlin's City Hall: "I'm all alone in the world, I don't know who I am. Please help me."
By Fiona Govan, Berlin
9:00PM BST 19 Sep 2011

Two weeks after his arrival in the capital, German police are still baffled as to the true identity of the teenager, who is now being cared for by social services, and are preparing to launch a public appeal.

But it emerged Monday that after telling his incredible story to City Hall staff he was shown the door and instructed how to reach a youth support centre using public transport.
A civil servant who was the first to speak at length with the boy on his arrival at the administrative centre has told the Daily Telegraph that he was a "normal looking teenager" but said it quickly emerged that he had an extraordinary story to tell.
"He didn't look like at all like a vagrant – he didn't smell, he was clean, his clothes were clean but he simply didn't know anything about who he was," said the female office worker who was called to front desk at the Rathaus by security guards because she speaks English.

Carrying a rucksack and sleeping bag, the teenager called Ray walked through the doors at the impressive red brick building near Alexanderplatz in the centre of Berlin around 4pm on Monday 5 September.
"He said he needed help, that he didn't know where to go and had no one in the world to look after him. I tried as much as I could to find out details about where he was from but he just didn't know."

The teenager, who is described as blond and blue eyed and around 5'11", said he only knew that his first name was Ray and that he was 17 years old.
"He had only a few words of German but was completely fluent in English, and said that his father had told him it was an important language," said the civil servant who asked not to be named. "Although he seemed to be a native English speaker, I detected some sort of accent."

The boy told the civil servant that he had been travelling around with his father, who it is thought was named Ryan, for "as long as he could remember" but his father had died and so he had followed his compass north.
"He seemed calm, not scared at all, but quiet. He said he had been told to go to Berlin if he ever needed help and had taken several weeks to walk here," she said.

Police said he later described how he had been living in a forest for "at least five years" following the death of his mother in a car crash but that his father had recently died in a fall so he buried him in a shallow grave before walking to Berlin.
"He mentioned that his mother had died in a car crash when he was a child and I got the impression he had been in the car too because he then said he had been left with scars on his legs but he didn't show them to me," the civil servant said.

The civil servant described how she attempted to find out where he might be from and had to explain to him the concept of a passport.
"He looked completely puzzled when I asked him if he had a passport or identity card and I had to describe what they were. But he said he could read because his father had taught him," she said.

The civil servant contacted child welfare services and was told to direct him to a crisis centre in another part of the city.
"I printed off a map for him, wrote some instructions and told him how to buy a ticket for the U-bahn (the metro). He pulled some coins from his pocket and asked if it was enough and then I sent him on his way."
"He said he was looking forward to sleeping in a bed after all that time in a tent and off he went," she said. "It was the strangest encounter I've ever had and I do hope they can find out more about him."

At the Jugendnotdienst youth shelter – in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin where the teenager was sent, staff said they were unable to comment on the case. But one German teenager residing there remembered his stay.
"He was here for a few days, possibly a week before being transferred elsewhere last week," said the youth. "He only spoke a few words of German so we couldn't really communicate but we watched television together and shared some cigarettes."

Berlin police have made an appeal to Interpol to widen the search for his identity to forces across the world but said on Monday that they had yet to get any response.
Authorities would assign a legal guardian to the boy, a police spokesman said, before the next step in the investigation could proceed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/8774964/German-forest-boys-first-words-Im-all-alone-in-the-world-please-help-me.html

More mystery. How did he get money? How come he remembers almost nothing of his life up to age 12? Could there be trauma from the car crash?

Posted: 20-09-2011 08:58 Post subject:

Forest Boy: a part of all of us lives in the woods
The power and poetry of the forest have long held us in thrall. Dare we believe the boy in Germany who claims to have made it his home for five years?
By Clive Aslet

Lots of arty-farty musing about Forests in the imagination and in the arts, but also a look at the harsh realities:

But most wild food would be off the menu in winter. Humans, unlike some animal species, don’t hibernate. Christoph Promberger, a German zoologist who moved to Transylvania to study wolves, believes that Forest Boy would have needed people to bring supplies. “There is nothing for a human being to eat in a central European forest between November and June.”

And that is to reckon without the cold. “It is not easy to survive temperatures of minus 20 for days and nights without proper clothing and equipment.” No one could live for more than a few days in the open with ordinary gear.

Did Forest Boy build a shelter, perhaps lining it with mosses and bracken? There would have been no shortage of wood to burn, but – having just met a charcoal burner outside Zalánpatak, where the Prince of Wales has a homestead – I am conscious that smouldering fires make smoke.

When Alexander Supertramp, an American hitchhiker whose real name was Christopher McCandless, sought solitude in the Alaskan wilderness, he survived less than four months. On September 6, 1992, his body was found two weeks after his death, inside his sleeping bag and weighing less than 67 pounds. It was not even winter.

Jon Krakauer wrote a book about McCandless, Into the Wild, which was then made into a film by Sean Penn. If Forest Boy is what he says, film makers will fight each other for his tale.

...

Clive Aslet is Editor at Large of 'Country Life'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/8774600/Forest-Boy-a-part-of-all-of-us-lives-in-the-woods.html

Posted: 20-09-2011 09:42 Post subject:

It's pretty weird that this English speaking mystery boy appears in Berlin can fluently speak in English even if he claim that he live in the woodlands for the last 5 years. And one thing that is really confusing is that he can't remember where he comes from before he got there(woodlands). Unbelievable! Amnesia? It seems that he's in good condition. Confusing kid!!

Posted: 20-09-2011 11:15 Post subject: