Unidentified teenage boy emerges from forest

A mysterious young fellow named Ray, around 17-years-old, walked out of a German forest last week and told authorities he and his dad, who had just died, had been living in the wild for about five years. But that's all Ray remembers about his life.

He told youth workers that his father, whom he called Ryan, had died two weeks ago and he had buried him in a shallow grave covered with stones. The boy then walked north, following instructions his father had given him should anything happen to him.

The pair's odyssey started after his mother, who he said was named Doreen, died. He says that he and his father never set up home but kept moving, staying in tents and huts in the woods.

It is not clear what they ate or how they survived the often harsh German winters. "He doesn't show any signs of abuse and he is in good shape physically and psychologically," (Berlin police spokesperson Michael) Maaß said.

"German police baffled by case of English-speaking boy with no identity"

• [Wisconsin Platt]

  Hanna?

  • [Guest]

    Nope, this is a boy! lol

• [King Pigeon]

  As seems always to be the case in stories like these, the obvious thing to do fails to be mentioned in the article at all–in this case, a journey by police to the purported shallow grave containing the remains of the boy’s father.

• [Chuck Holt]

  Aw, damn.  This was part of the plot of my YA paranormal romance novel.

• [millie fink]

  “he is in good shape physically and psychologically”

  Oh suuuuuure he is . . .

• [Lobster]

  If that’s all he remembers about his life, that doesn’t sound like he’s in good shape psychologically.

  • [CGulow]

    I know several people that do not remember any of their lives before the age of eight. And their memories from eight to ten are shaky at best. None of these people are psychotic or deranged or people you would keep away from your kids.

    • [blueelm]

      “I know several people that do not remember any of their lives before the age of eight. And their memories from eight to ten are shaky at best. None of these people are psychotic or deranged or people you would keep away from your kids.”I fit into this. But there is a large area between “healthy” and “psychotic or deranged people you would keep away from your kids” after all. In fact, most mentally ill people are no threat to your kids.

• [Jose Alberto Abreu]

  Sounds like a Kaspar Houser story… sadly, these stories are often hoaxes.

• [Scott Reed]

  “often harsh German winters”

  Erm, what?  I’m not a native German, and I’ve only lived there for a year on a study abroad, but I believe that much of Germany has a temperate climate based on ocean influence.  I lived north of Frankfurt, and the winter temperature was never more than a couple of degrees below freezing — which to a midwesterner is light-to-medium jacket weather.  Even Wikipedia says that Berliner winters are “mild with average high temperatures of 4 °C (39 °F) and lows of -2 to 0 °C (28 to 32 °F) — not exactly what one would call “harsh”

  • [Ambiguity]

    Yes, but sometimes midwesterners go inside and buy food.

  • [planettom]

    I’ve got an idea:   Spend 5 years living in a tent or hut in the woods, then report back how harsh the German winters are.

    • [ChicagoD]

      Humans did this until a few hundred years ago. I’m pretty sure it’s doable.

      • [Lt. Col. w00t]

        They seldom did it in groups this small. And a lot of them starved to death or died of exposure, too.

      • [Guest]

        Give it a try, then (says someone who lived in a tent for 3 years)! :D

  • [retepslluerb]

    Granted, but some of the last winters were quite cold –  -12°C and less were quite common the last two winters.

    Also, Berlin is a city – a couple of million people using cars, central heating and so  on – it’s always warmer than forest areas.

  • [Guest]

    Winters in an urban heat island are a little different from winters in a wildnerness.

    Or do they plow German forest too, for efficiency.

• [nemryn]

  Five years? That’s a lot of tree-punching.

• [mccrum]

  What?  Off the grid with no papers?  Must be a sleeper cell terroris… oh, wait, this wasn’t in the US?  They’ll probably be a lot cooler with the whole thing then.

  • [Guest]

    Hah!

• [nautodidact]

  Let me be the first to welcome our lingually gifted, geographically uninformed doppelganger overlords.

• [cymk]

  How long until someone writes a movie script for this? A gripping survival drama about a boy and his father living off the land in the harsh wilderness with only their wits to help them survive. Then tragedy strikes, and the son must leave his father (following his pre-mortem instructions)….oh wait, they did already. Its Cormic McCarthy’s the Road without the apocalypse and cannibalism.

• [red_dragon132]

  Boy whacks his old man then hides out in the woods and later tells this story. Oh yeah.

• [Avrakdavra]

  The inevitable result of homeschooling…

• [Aaron Tekala]

  I saw this Movie the other day. It’s called Alabama Moon.

• [surreality]

  FTA: “The police concluded he was suffering from amnesia and while they never discovered his identity, they believed he was genuine.”

  He was genuine…ly suffering from amnesia? He was a real human being? He was a space alien?!

• [Oliver Schmieding]

  i call and raise you:

  he’s the secret lovechild of ray charles and the pope of the greek orthodox church.
  he was abducted by the belgian government because they needed a hostage for leverage against
  greco-american plans to flood belgium with hundreds of “gyros hut” fast food franchise stores,
  thereby undermining the local waffle industry and causing some kind of butterfly effect to topple the german government. the abduction went wrong, though: when they entered the berlin airspace 
  the boy managed to jump out of the low flying helicopter and, uninjured by the fall because of heavy snowfall in the harsh german winter, managed to hide in the vast tundras in the outskirts of berlin.

• [rastronomicals]

  Dude told me he wants to be a soldier as his father was