The Strange Case of Rudolph Fentz, the Man from 1800 Who “Died” in the Future

 

In New York City’s bustling Times Square in 1950, a man named Rudolph Fentz was struck and killed by a car after he walked into traffic. While not an entirely strange occurrence, Fentz was no ordinary pedestrian and was found dressed in 1800s clothing and oddly dated items. As a result, some suspect he was a time traveler.

Rudolph Fentz: Time Traveler or Fiction?

Police searching for Fentz's body after he was run over found among his belongings business cards with his name and Fifth Avenue address, $70 in old bills, a letter addressed to the same address in Philadelphia, the name of a beauty salon and a receipt for horse maintenance and transportation from a stable on Lexington Avenue.

Interestingly, however, the cavalry stable could not be found in any address book, and the saloon was also nowhere to be found in the area. The address Fentz had on his business cards listed a business, but no one had heard of it either.

After the initial findings, the case was handed over to Captain Hubert V. Rihm of the New York Police Department's Missing Persons Squad, who found the bank account linked to the mysterious man's name. However, he was told that the account holder had died five years ago, but found details of his wife. On the trail, she contacted the woman who told police that her husband's father had the same name and that he had disappeared in 1876 at the age of 29.

Rudolph Fentz was spotted in New York City's Times Square in 1950. The story is believed to be a work of fiction, with several different versions of the story having been published over the years. A news story from 1951, however, which apparently was the inspiration behind the other versions, has since been found. Rudolph Fentz's disappearance has also been verified by the investigation.

If the incident was a stunt, the fact that Fentz appeared confused and was then run over and killed suggests that it did not end as he had imagined. The other possibility was that he was not a willing participant and that perhaps he had been drugged before being released onto the road.

Another possible explanation is that Rudolph was in fact the second, who had died five years earlier, presumably having left his wife and family and secretly started a new life until the day his body was discovered years later.

Is it possible that Rudolph Fentz traveled through time?