Advenedizo. Francia

Jacques B. Bley, then an Alpine guide and inn keeper, was confronted by a strange man who bowed to him and asked to be furnished every day with 2 bottles of milk and some bread. This man, over 6 ft tall, with blue almond shape eyes and blond hair falling to his shoulders was of athletic physique, with long fingered white hands, and wore extremely tight trousers, black boots, and an ample shirt and jacket with tight sleeves. His unusual appearance attracted attention. This man came to the hotel for milk and bread every day for a few weeks. Asked where he came from, he replied “From above.” Gradually he began to talk with Bley, “developing profound themes of social political character,” which Bley could understand only with difficulty. Bley learned that he was engaged in making a topographic map of the local mountain massif, and was shown it; “a team of topographers would have had to work 2 months to do this work, and the unknown man had done it all by himself in less than 15 days.” One day he secretly followed him to his camp, and found him living in “a strange conical tent, metallic gray, very low, near which was an identical being who appeared to be a woman.” Another Time, Bley’s young son photographed the 2 men, over the stranger’s protest; when the film was developed, both photos appeared to be entirely unexposed. Finally the strange man told Bley that it was Time for him to “return up there” and that, as he had no “money like yours,” he would pay for the bread and milk with some gold nuggets he had gathered from the local stream. Ribera spoke to the jeweler who bought these nuggets from Bley; he remembered the incident. The mayor of Casteil also verified the existence of the strange man.