Solving The Most Mysterious Children in History

[Music] in 12th century england two children were found lost in a forest they spoke only gibberish wore strange clothing and had bright green skin when the children finally learned to speak english they described where they were from and that's why after almost a thousand years people still talk about the green children of wolpin in 1828 a teenage boy was shuffling through a public square in nuremberg he seemed confused and disoriented he had trouble walking and speaking when police finally approached him he was holding an envelope containing two letters and those letters sparked the mystery of

casper hauser in april 1922 in brittany france two-year-old pauline picard went missing a massive search turned up nothing the family was losing hope a month later pauline was found wandering around a village over 200 miles away though her parents were overjoyed to have her back they soon realized something wasn't quite right about their daughter these are three unsolved cases of the most mysterious children in history [Music] in the 12th century woolpit was a densely populated area in england's suffolk county one day a local farmer discovered two frightened children a boy and a girl who seemed

lost in the forest as the farmer approached he noticed a few unusual details about the children they wore clothing of a style and color that had never been seen before but what was most unsettling the children had bright green skin martians i'm not even one minute into this thing yet hey i can smell martian babies a mile away can i just can i just give you the information before you jump to a conclusion go ahead what am i telling you i told you so when the farmer tried to speak to the children they couldn't understand

him they spoke only gibberish the children were brought to the home of sir richard de kong a local wealthy landowner who agreed to take them in though the green children were clearly starving they refused to eat oh they didn't have any martian food in the pantry after eating nothing for several days sir richard's cook brought in a bundle of beanstalks the children got excited at the site of these and ate green beans and nothing but green beans raw for months and gradually sir richard introduced a greater variety of food into their diet and their health

improved even the green tint of their skin went away the boy became depressed ill and soon passed away but the girl stayed healthy and strong sir richard and his family continued looking after the mysterious girl and started to teach her english finally able to communicate sir richard set out to unravel the mystery of the green children of woolpit when sir richard asked the girl who she was and where she was from it didn't sound like any place on earth you so the young girl who took the name agnes learned to speak english and told sir

richard her story the young boy traveling with her was her brother they were looking after their father's flock when they found a cave that's when they heard the sound of bells which agnes described as the most beautiful and unusual sound she'd ever heard they followed the sound of the bells through the cavern when they exited the other side agnes said they felt transported to another world that was nothing like their own agnes said she came from an underground village called saint martin's land st martians saint martins she said all the inhabitants of saint martin's land

lived underground and had green skin above ground the land existed in perpetual twilight though lacking strong daylight the landscape in her world was lush and green and there have been a few theories as to where the children came from the villagers thought they were from a fairyland entrances to fairyland were often in densely wooded areas so many of the villagers truly believe this theory another more modern theory is that the children somehow slipped into an alternate universe where the world on their side has a much different climate than ours this explains the strange clothes the

strange language and the difficulty eating our food and the most current theory is aliens yup obviously aliens yes that is one of the more popular theories agnes was able to adapt to life on earth but her brother couldn't even though the story of the children of woolpit is considered folklore we do have details about them from credible sources ralph of kog's shawl interviewed sir richard himself and he wrote long passages about the green children how they were tending their flock heard the bells and wandered into a cavern when they emerged they were struck by the

brightness of the sun and the warmth of the air when they heard the villagers coming toward them they tried to flee but they couldn't find the entrance to the cave another source is historian william of newburgh and though he lived on the opposite side of the country his telling is remarkably similar to ralph's now ralph's writing style is colorful and exaggerated he includes stories of pirates and zombies so he highlights the supernatural elements of the legend but william of newburgh's writing is more grounded william wrote like a journalist just the facts no flair oh so

you have to go back a thousand years to find journalists who actually report facts huh it would seem so the stories differ on what happened to agnes later in life in one account she stays in the service of sir richard for many years in another version of the story she marries an english diplomat now unsurprisingly every time the story is told details are changed and added but the original works by ralph of kogechow and william of newburgh are considered the most reliable so no debunking maybe i'm gonna give you as many facts as i can

but remember these three cases are technically still unsolved on may 26 1828 in what is now nuremberg germany a teenage boy was shuffling around town he walked like a toddler and was mumbling nonsense when police finally approached him the picture didn't add up the boy was dressed like he'd been living on the street his shoes were so worn that he had trouble walking but he also had an expensive silk handkerchief with the initials kh embroidered on it and he wore an expensive silk necktie necktie that looks more like an ascot what's an ascot two cheeks

in a hole at first the boy didn't say much to the police but he carried an envelope containing two letters the first was addressed to a cavalry captain the letter said the author was not related to the boy though he had raised him as a son the letter also said that since the day he was born he had never left the house so that nobody would know where he was from the letter went on to say that the boy could read and write and wanted to be a horseman like his father so the captain could

take him on or hang him whichever he wished the letter ended rather ominously with the author saying he had to send the boy to nuremberg alone that if he went with him it would have cost him his life at the police station the boy wrote down his name casper hauser observers noticed that despite being 16 years old he behaved like a young child he walked like a toddler taking his first steps and when someone spoke to him he would usually just speak the same words back and despite his weird behavior people soon realized that casper

hauser had normal intelligence and once he calmed down he was able to talk about where he was from and how he arrived in the city hazard said he had spent his entire life alone in a cell he was fed nothing but bread and water he was provided with a blanket and a couple of wooden toys he had never seen his captor even while walking to nuremberg he was told to look down he only knew the sound of the man's voice with nowhere to go the local schoolmaster george daumer agreed to take hauser in and continue

teaching him hauser certainly acted like he was confined his whole life the first time he saw a mirror he looked behind it trying to find the other boy when someone brought him a candle he burned himself trying to touch the flame and even though he could eat anything he wanted the only food that didn't repulse him was bread and water as his communication skills improved hauser gave more details about his life he spoke of a recurring dream he had where he was in an enormous castle he saw a tall man with a sword dressed all

in black and a woman wearing an elegant dress he wondered if this was actually a memory over time kasper hauser became a local celebrity a favorite pastime for people in the city of nuremberg was to try and figure out the true origin of the mysterious boy some people thought he was just a con man addicted to the attention that he was receiving but there was a rumor going around that he was a lost prince possibly the son of grand duke carvan baden and his wife stephanie de bornet but whether hauser's story was a lie or

the truth eventually his past would catch up with him one day in 1829 hauser was found in the basement bleeding from a head wound hauser claimed his attacker was his captor the man that had brought him to nuremberg the man wore a hood but he recognized the voice that it said you still have to die there you leave the city of nuremberg another incident happened a few months later when hauser was living with a different family hauser was shot by an attacker who he didn't see but he later said he was climbing on a chair

to reach a book on a high shelf he accidentally knocked a gun off the wall when it just went off and hauser started bouncing from home to home and everyone who took him in said the same thing he seems like a gentle boy but he's a liar in 1833 casper hauser was staying with yet another family on december 14th he burst through the doors of his home with a massive wound in his chest blood was everywhere he claimed he met a stranger in a park who had given him a purse stabbed him and ran off

he said the purse was still there and by now everyone was suspicious of how hauser became injured reluctantly police went to the scene and sure enough there was a small purse and in the purse there was a note written in reverse handwriting hauser will be able to tell you quite precisely how i look and from where i am to save hauser the effort i want to tell you myself from where i come dash dash i come from dash dash dash the bavarian border dash dash on the river dash dash dash dash dash i will even

tell you the name mlo not very helpful it's not and there were a few suspicious details about this attack it was snowing that day but there were only one set of footprints found housers and the letter was folded corner to corner which is an unusual way to fold a letter but hauser was known for doing this the letter also contained grammatical errors that hauser was known to make it was thought that hauser attacked himself again but thrust the knife in too far he died of his wound three days later even after his death people tried

to unravel the mystery of casper hauser some thought that casper hauser was actually the prince of baden who was born in 1812. it was alleged that he had been switched with a dying infant to prevent him from inheriting the title his parents were rumored to be carl grand duke of baden and stephanie de bornet the adopted daughter of napoleon and since hauser died with no male heir whether he was a real prince or not it no longer mattered in 1876 historian otto middelstadt researched the case and found no evidence that hauser was the prince another

historian fritz trouts confirmed middleshot's findings and said any claim that hauser was a prince is a silly fairy tale in 1951 letters of the grand duke's mother were published and the letters gave detailed accounts of the child's birth illness and death so the hauser as a prince theory was finally put to rest hauser was buried in a local cemetery where his headstone reads here lies casper hauser riddle of his time his birth was unknown his death mysterious 1833. there's even a statue of him in the old city center at the very place where hauser first

appeared his life was a mystery for a hundred years and now the statue of casper hauser can fuel the imagination of others for hundreds of years to come the picards lived on a farm in brittany france two-year-old pauline was one of nine children one day in april 1922 pauline was playing outside with her brothers and sisters something the kids did every day when they were summoned for dinner pauline wasn't among them within a few hours 150 people combed every inch of the farm and the surrounding area there was no sign of her as time went

on rumors began to circulate maybe a wild boar had attacked an eaten her there was a suspicious chimney cleaner in town who a few weeks earlier tried to give pauline candy neighbors said they saw two strangers hanging around the farm about the same time pauline disappeared but even in the best possible scenario that none of the rumors were true there was no way a two-year-old could survive in the elements for this long while soon the pain and loss set in the picards would never see their daughter again then about a month later the family would

get a miracle a young girl was found wandering around the town of cherbourg about 200 miles from brittany the girl was scared alone and on foot the police showed a photo to the picards they couldn't believe it it was pauline colleen's parents went to retrieve her but when they finally saw her pauline didn't seem to react the picard sat with her they talked to her but she seemed distant the picards were worried pauline was in shock but doctors said that aside from being malnourished she was perfectly healthy then they started to wonder if this actually

was their daughter she looked like her same hair same blue eyes same features but there was this kernel of doubt in her parents minds still they took her home hoping that familiar surroundings would spark her memory pauline's sisters immediately recognized her which was a huge relief for her parents pauline's family figured it would just take time before life would get back to normal would life get back to normal not even close [Music] a few weeks later a farmer crossing a field about a mile from the picard's farm found the body of a young girl near

the body neatly folded were pauline's clothes the same clothes she was wearing the day she went missing and also nearby was a skull of a grown man now it seems there were two murders to solve the field where pauline was found had been searched when she went missing so police believe the body was placed there more recently the neatly folded clothes implied a murder but the autopsy was inconclusive doctors thought dying of cold was just as likely as murder there were two suspects that police seriously considered the first was one of the picard's farmhands named

caramon the day pauline disappeared he had been invited for breakfast he was said to have cuddled her a little too much and someone heard him telling pauline on more than one occasion that he would find her a good home in a different town and at one pm that day he was alone with pauline and someone overheard him telling her that she was going with him police followed the path he would have taken but ultimately decided the timing just didn't match up then a local farmer named yves martin stopped by the picards he said he'd heard

pauline had been found they told him she had he then blurted out god forgive me i am guilty and ran from the farm screaming and laughing the next day he was taken to a lunatic asylum although he confessed to the murder no other evidence has ever been found no other clues or suspects emerged and pauline's death remains a mystery [Music] so what can we unravel from these three stories first the green children of woolpit uh you mean the green martian children at planet mars uh unlikely given what was going on in that area of england

during the 12th century i think we could put together what really happened in 1173 king henry faced the great revolt an uprising by his eldest sons supported by france scotland and flanders flanders is the northern part of belgium where flemish is spoken and there were a lot of flemish immigrants in england during the great revolt the battle of fornum was fought just a few miles from woolpit eventually an uneasy peace was reached but king henry angry at the flemish mercenaries was persecuting flemish settlers all this was going on at the exact time the green children

were found it's most likely that the children were refugees from a battle or simply fleeing english soldiers who are harassing the settlement the flemish language which is a dialect of dutch would have sounded like gibberish to english farmers and the flemish were known for wearing clothes that were very different than english as for the green skin there's a condition called chlorosis or hypochromic anemia which is a type of iron deficiency it even had a nickname back then the green sickness if the children were refugees fleeing a battle they were most likely living off of whatever

they can scrounge from the land lack of meat would explain the lack of iron and also why they would eat nothing but raw green beans for months but as the children ate a more diverse diet their green skin returned to normal why the boy died is not entirely clear some speculate it could have been arsenic poisoning though arsenic typically acts faster nobody really knows the caves the children spoke of do exist in the area flint and chalk mines are everywhere and the cave would be a good place to hide from a battle or from soldiers

in fact there are large caves between woolpit and the small village of fornum the site of several battles during the great revolt and the church of fornham was called saint martin's church when the girl said she was from saint martin's land this is likely what she meant all of these details mixed with the fuzzy memories of a terrified child it's easy to see how this legend was born still these are just best guesses nobody really knows who the children were or where they were from now casper hauser the real mystery is who was he remember

several historians debunked the idea that he was a prince they used public records and private letters to prove this the problem with public records and private letters people lie right people lie but dna doesn't after a couple of hit-and-miss tests in the 90s a dna test in 2002 yielded an astonishing result hair and skin samples from hauser's clothes were tested they proved with 95 percent accuracy but he was related to princess josephine of badden whose mother was stephanie dibo dibuharnae von baden he actually was a prince well there's a 95 chance he was the only

way to know with 100 certainty is to test the dna of his alleged mother and the dna of the child buried as her son but the house of baden has declined to participate of course our final mystery is the case of paulie picard unfortunately there is not much else to report it was assumed that the killer was yves martin the farmer committed to an asylum but no physical evidence was ever found that could link him to the murder so who was the girl living with them this whole time nobody knows she barely spoke after learning

the true fate of pauline the picards didn't know what to do with the girl they sent her to an orphanage where she died a few months later of measles her name has been lost to history but the stories of the green children of woolpit casper hauser and pauline picard have not been lost to history they're now part of it and who knows with enough time we may finally get the answers to these mysteries but until then they remain unsolved [Music] thank you so much for hanging out with me today my name is aj that's hecklefish

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