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Vasile Gorgos was 63 years old when he left his home in eastern Romania to go on a short business trip.

As a cattle farmer and trader, Vasile often made such excursions and, this time, had bought his train ticket in advance.

The difference here was that on this fateful day in 1991, he didn’t return home.

Knowing that he was due to come back the same day, his family immediately called the police who launched a search effort.

But after days turned into weeks, then months, then years, with neither sight or sign of Vasile, his loved ones were forced to assume the worst.

With no leads or traces to follow, they suspected foul play, but endless questions were left unanswered.

But then, on 29 August, 2021, three decades after Vasile’s disappearance, his family was faced with the ultimate plot twist.

A car stopped in front of their home – the same one they’d had for the past 30 years – and out stepped an old man, looking confused.

That man was none other than 93-year-old Vasile, wearing the same clothes he left in all those years ago. His pocket even contained the same train ticket he was due to travel with.

The car allegedly raced off before anyone had a chance to question the driver, but when asked where he’d been, a baffled Vasile replied that he’d been “at home”, Medium reports.

He subsequently underwent a thorough medical examination but doctors concluded that he was in remarkably good health.

  • paddirn@lemmy.worldEnglish
    54·
    5 months ago

    Probably leading a double-life, he left 30 years ago to supposedly spend out the rest of his life with another partner and didn’t care to tell anybody, just disappeared. Something happened in the other life, maybe his other partner died before him, so then he figured he’d go back to the original life to close things out. Decides just to show back up and pull a Costanza, like nothing ever happened.

      • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝OPMAEnglish
        19·
        5 months ago

        If he was in prison, he’d have been easy enough to find and there would have been a court case, a pretty major one if the sentence was 30 years.

        • incompetentboob@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          5 months ago

          Or he went in for something minor and just fight clubbed his way into 30 years.

          I’m going with time travel as the likely explanation though

    • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝OPMAEnglish
      16·
      5 months ago

      It would be odd to keep the clothes you walked out in (and the train ticket), just in case you wanted to walk back into your own life again. It would get less attention if he’d turned up in some other clothes.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
    18·
    5 months ago

    Would have been weirder if he hadn’t aged. As it is, he took off, changed his mind after 30 years and went back.

    Weirder that anyone would remember the clothes he left in after 30 years.

    • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝OPMAEnglish
      3·
      4 months ago

      And I’m super delighted to hear it!

      I’ve been reading the Fortean Times for decades, so I’ll tend to take that approach - posting things about UFOs, cryptids, fish falls, etc as the damned data should be aired, even if I don’t necessarily believe everything on here.

      The weird news, odd human behaviour material, that is also FT’s bread and butter, tend to go in !andfinally@feddit.uk.

      If you spot anything good for either then don’t be shy about sharing it.

  • jimmydoreisalefty@lemmy.world
    1313·
    5 months ago

    The first theory, as set out by Gone, But Never Forgotten, was that Vasile had simply decided to “ditch his life and his family”, possibly having taken a lover with whom he had run away.

    In this case, it is possible that he “wanted to make amends with his former family before he passed away.”

    And yet, how can you make amends when you offer no explanation as to where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing?

    Another theory is that he may have been dumped by the person he ran away with who, accepting that he was getting older and not wanting to take care of him, simply returned him to his family.

    A third theory, which would explain how he retained his clothing, is that he had spent the past 30 years in jail but hadn’t wanted to admit this to his family.