Decemystery (2021) 31: Charles Jevington, the Man Who Befriended Aliens

 

This was originally intended to be the capstone entry for last year. However, when it became apparent that my depression was getting increasingly worse, and my desire to write was hitting rock bottom, I scrapped it and replaced it with what would become N.U.G.E.T.. In hindsight, I did like the story since it was really unusual and, in my eyes, is more than worthy of being a capstone entry. At the same time though, it annoys me that I broke my promise to not do any conspiracy theories for that year’s Decemystery.

Granted, I did make up for that with this year’s outing, but at the cost of having a lot of the same topics. I covered a ton of cryptids (which isn’t necessarily abnormal), unexplained events, and a fair few UFO/alien stories. I blame this mostly on me getting a very late start on writing Decemystery; the medication I started taking in October ended up causing me to stop writing for a solid month, so what should have started in August and ended by the end of September or middle of October ended up being dragged out from early November into December. So the statement in the T-Rex write-up about me spending time with the family wasn’t at all true.

Still, in spite of all of that, I still consider this year’s Decemystery to be the best I’ve done. It isn’t perfect, and there are a lot of stories I wish I had the time to do, but I still view it as something I’m truly proud of. It’s more or less what I had wanted last year’s Decemystery to have been. It featured a bunch of stories that I found truly intriguing, and it had me feeling extremely happy with each and every story.

At the same time though, I feel I definitely overused the ObscUrban Legend Wiki for stories. Because of that, if anyone thought that it was lazy of me to simply poach stories from there, I’m truly sorry. I put my heart and soul into each write-up, and I did everything I could to add to those stories, so I wasn’t simply parroting what was written there and calling it a day. I hope I didn’t upset anyone by not trying to find stories from other sources (be it a book, forum, or elsewhere).

So with all of that out of the way, let’s get into today’s story. It’s without a shadow of a doubt one of my favorite unsolved mysteries ever. I precisely remember where I first heard it, but I think it might have been when I was reading an article on Mysterious Universe. If it wasn’t there, it might’ve been something on a website like Listverse.

I digress though. The story in question is that of a man named Charles Jevington. His story is one of the most fantastical to ever be told. It’s a story of a mysterious disappearance, an equally mysterious return, friendship, extraterrestrials, astronomical revelations, and ridicule. So, to end off this year, let’s dive into the story of a man who befriended aliens.

The Story

Today, we’ll be primarily citing the article on Mysterious Universe that I mentioned at the start, though i’ll also be pulling information from Historic Mysteries and a blog called francocacciapuoti (which is the blog of a French science-fiction author named Franco Cacciapuoti).

Born in either 1880 or 1881, Charles Jevington’s early years aren’t known—as far as I’m aware at least. What is known is that, by the age of 74 (which sets this story in 1955), he was a homeless man with a very lively personality. For how long he had been homeless, I cannot find, but that is fortunately not important. He resided in the village of Thursby, which according to the 1951 census report, had a population of only 917. This little village is located in North West England, and is situated near Carlisle.

While living there, Charles was very well-liked by the locals, and would reportedly entertain them. Although it isn’t specified how he did this, I imagine he would probably sing a folk song, dance, or put on some silly show for the local children. As a result of this, I imagine he would get paid in food, drinks, or maybe a meager sum of money that he could spend on whatever necessities he needed.

Speculation aside, this positive reputation earned Charles the nickname “Old Charlie”. So for some time, he remained in Thursby until one day in May of 1955, when Meg Compton—the daughter of a local farmer who would give Charles bread and milk each morning—saw him running across a field and towards the nearby woods. Besides his clothing, Charles was also carrying a haversack on his back. For whatever reason, Meg didn’t immediately report this to the authorities. Or at least, no source appears to say she did. If she did, a search wasn’t launched until a few days later, when nobody had seen or heard from the resident homeless man. This is probably the only time in recorded history where the locals cared about the hobo who hung out around town.

Fearing that something might have—or potentially could—happen to Charles, local law enforcement conducted a search in a 25 square mile (64.7 square kilometer) grid near Thursby. However, no trace of the man known as Old Charlie could be found. Because of this, police speculated that perhaps he’d simply hitchhiked to West Yorkshire, where some believed that he had family.

Hoping that this may lead to a quick and happy ending, the local constable phoned the West Yorkshire police department. Together, the two forces worked together in hopes of finding Jevington’s family, and with that: Charles himself. However, try as they may and try as they might, neither his relatives, nor Old Charlie himself, could be found. This not only left Thursby police dismayed, but also baffled. Where could he have gone? Did he decide to flee the village and make a new start in another area? Or did he go into the woods, get hurt, and die?

These questions would go unanswered for five years; out of nowhere, in August of 1960, Charles Jevington reappeared in Thursby. The locals were as happy to see him as they were baffled; Charles, for his part, acted like nothing had ever happened.

Given that one of their beloved residents (albeit a homeless resident) had returned after seemingly vanishing into thin air, the locals were a little more eager to ask him where he’d gone and why he’d run off into the woods. To their delight, Charles was more than willing to answer this question—and boy was the answer something nobody expected to hear.

Within the confines of a local tavern, Old Charlie began his story. He said that, on the day he disappeared, he’d been out for a walk in the woods. During this little stroll, he encountered “one of those flying saucers”, which had landed (in what I’m going to guess was a clearing; Charles never specified how large it was). That, on its own, is quite fantastical, though the story went from “simple UFO sighting” to “galactic adventure” in the span of a few words. According to Charles, not only did he see the spacecraft, but he also met its owners. Outside of the UFO were a group of aliens, who were in the process of collecting plant samples. If Franco Cacciapuoti is correct, these aliens placed said plant samples into “strange glass containers”.

Franco also has some additional details on what the aliens looked like. According to him, they wore “sparkling suits” and were human-like. However, “human-like” could be considered a loose term since their appearance wasn’t fully consistent with us. They had long ears, equally large eyes, and green-ish skin. If I’m to be honest, they sound like some depictions of forest elves.

Though the bizarreness of these ETs doesn’t stop there. The creatures—incredibly—were capable of speaking English. Whether these extraterrestrials were capable of speaking English or had some sort of universal translator isn’t known, though it isn’t really important in the long run, so let’s not digress here. Although the aliens were able to speak English, Charles never saw them move their lips, so I’m inclined to believe they may have been telepathic (or he simply didn’t notice their lips moving due to them not moving them much).

Charles continued by saying that he had a conversation with them (for how long isn’t stated unfortunately). As the conversation winded down, his newfound alien friends asked if he would like to come with them on “a long ride”. Eager to go on an adventure (or simply wanting to see where the aliens would take him), Charles agreed, but first wanted to get some of his belongings. The aliens, incredibly, agreed to wait for him.

This is when Meg Compton saw Charles running with his haversack across the field like he was Forrest Gump. After returning to the site, Charles found his alien buddies waiting. From there, he boarded the ship and off to the stars he went on a five-year-long adventure.

During his escapade, Charles claims that he visited a great many planets all across the Milky Way. In response to this, an amateur astronomer piped up and asked the only homeless man to ever traverse the galaxy if he’d been to Saturn, to which Charles responded in the affirmative. In fact, according to him: one planet in particular he’d visited for an extended period of time was the planet Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, and one which Charles said had four rings around it. In fact, Charles claimed that all of the outer planets (which at the time consisted of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto) all had rings.

The astronomer shot this claim down, stating that only Saturn was the only planet with rings around it. However, in response to this, Charles did something that I only see Franco mention. As such, take this with a grain of salt since he’s the only source.

According to Franco, Charles went ahead and drew what he’d seen (which showcased that all of the outer planets, barring Pluto, sported rings, and that Saturn had numerous rings and not the few that were known at the time). After doing this, Charles continued on with his story. He stated that, beyond Pluto, there were more planets; claiming that there were “at least” three other planets, all of them bigger than Earth. This fits in with the theory of the infamous Planet Nine to an extent, but we’ll get to that in the theories section.

After this, Charles went on to claim that, within the Milky Way, there are an insurmountable number of planets that contain life. This ranges from primordial creatures to intelligent life. He also stated that there was a nearby star which had “white monkeys”. Strangely, there have been sightings of aliens which resemble monkeys. This also ties in with the theory that Bigfoot-type creatures are extraterrestrials, along with Pale Crawlers and other cryptids. However, I’ll save that for a future write-up.

I can honestly visualize Charles’ adamancy of what he saw, experienced, and did. Likewise, I can easily envision the response. As Old Charlie stood proud and hoping that his audience would be in awe, his soul was shattered in a split second. For a moment, there was silence. Then, all at once, the tavern howled in uproarious laughter. They cackled until the fat lady sang. The once beloved homeless man of Thursby was now seen as a madman; nothing more than an imbecile who forgot his clown makeup that day.

Over the laughter, Charles proclaimed that he would once again be leaving. This was met with nothing more than additional laughter. Saddened, furious, and heartbroken that the people he once saw as friends, Old Charlie left the tavern. Not far behind him was Meg Compton, the one and only person who not only didn’t care about what Charles had to say, but actually believed him. She offered him a free meal. However, the living embodiment of No Man’s Sky rejected it and insisted that he would once again be leaving. If we’re to go by what Franco says: he would be leaving again because his alien friends were in need of more plant samples, so he would presumably meet up with them again and ask if he could go along with them.

However, this departure wasn’t going to be immediate. That meant Old Charlie had to endure the denizens of Thursby mocking him for his spectacular adventure across the stars. Day in and day out, night in and night out, peasants, educated folk, and all of those in-between would come up to Charles and ridicule him for what he said. For his part, Charles didn’t budge or break. Instead, he would insist that he had not only been to Jupiter and most of the other outer planets, but that he had in fact been across the whole of the Milky Way.

This went on for a few weeks. Then, in September of 1960, Charles Jevington once again disappeared. He was never seen or heard from again, and over six decades later, no trace of him has ever been found. It was like he left the planet!

And perhaps he did. As most are likely aware: Saturn isn’t the only planet with rings. In the years that followed Charles’ incredible claims, the Voyager probes flew by the outer planets and snapped photos of them, and with it: they proved that Charles was indeed right: Jupiter does have four rings. They are: the Thebe gossamer ring, the Amalthea gossamer ring (these two are typically just referred to as the “Gossamer Rings”), the main ring, and the halo ring. Meanwhile, the rings of Uranus are known as: 1986U2R/ζ, 6, 5, 4, α, β, η, γ, δ, λ, ε, ν and μ. For those who aren’t able to read the Greek alphabet, I’ll give the English names to the letters listed there now:

α - Alpha 

Β - Beta

 η - Eta

γ - Gamma

δ - Delta

λ - Lambda

ε - Epsilon

ν - Nu

No idea why they’re out of order, but whatever. As for the rings of Neptune, they’re named: Galle, Le Verrier, Lassell, Arago, and Adams, with a sixth unnamed ring situated near one of the planet’s moons: Galatea.

With that though, the story comes to an end. It’s one of the most astounding stories I’ve ever read in my life, though is it truly real? Well, there are a few theories, so let’s get into them. Perhaps we can find the truth there.

Theories

1. Charles really did go on an adventure with his alien friends

There’s something really important to note right off the bat: according to every article I read (or at least, most of them), Charles never got a proper education and knew nothing about space. That’s, honestly, the main thing that fuels this theory. An uneducated man is exceedingly unlikely to know anything about space, let alone the planets. Heck, it’s possible that Charles didn’t even know that Saturn had any rings, let alone know that it was even a planet. Granted, that may be pushing it, but it’s not too far-fetched.

However, beyond that, what is there that backs up this theory? Well, not much. Beyond the fact that Charles vanished, there’s nothing to go off of. As far as I can tell, Charles simply vanished, reappeared, told his crazy story, then ran off again. So all we can do is trust his word. Granted, he did stay true to it and disappeared again, but that’s not really saying much because it’s very possible that he wandered off and either went to another city or died in the forest, and nobody bothered looking for him because they saw him as a crazy person who probably died from his own stupidity.

Though I’m getting ahead of myself. The only other thing I think is worth mentioning here—and it’s admittedly going against the idea of propping this theory up—is that it doesn’t appear there were any noteworthy UFO sightings near or around Thursby around the time this story took place. That’s a bit strange since you’d think aliens outright landing for one reason or another would result in more UFO sightings (they tend to come in clusters after all). Though hey, maybe this was a strange recon mission. Ehh, enough speculation, let’s move on.

2. Charles ran off somewhere, returned, made up the story, then ran off again

According to Franco, Charles was a vagabond (or drifter/wanderer) and an alcoholic. The latter of those two is nothing really special as a lot of homeless people sadly turn to the bottle to cope with their situation, but it is what it sadly is. In the long run, you can only do so much for someone before it falls onto them to better themselves.

That said, booze is only part of what this theory posits. I sincerely doubt that Old Charlie got drunk for five years and only returned after those five years. No, the idea is that he decided to run off for… really, no one is sure. There are a fair number of reasons why: he wanted to try to restart somewhere else, he just wanted to go exploring, or he potentially did something bad in Thursby and wanted the heat to die down.

Whatever the reason may have been, the theory then goes that Charles returned and concocted the whole “galaxy-wide adventure” story in an attempt to explain away why he’d left. Why he did this is anyone’s guess, but hey: sometimes, people make up ridiculous stories. Anyways, Charles, in his infinite wisdom, thought that this would be believable, and the locals would buy into it. Alas, it didn’t; it instead blew up in his face and he made a complete fool of himself. As a result of this newly gained title as the village buffoon, Charles ran off again and presumably died somewhere else, where nobody knew him.

This theory is, for the most part, really strong and can explain the story very easily. It only gets stronger should Franco be right, and Charles did say that there are three planets—all larger than Earth—beyond Pluto. No probe, telescope, or anything of that sort has ever detected a planet (let alone planets) that large. Yes, there are dwarf planets beyond Pluto (such as Eris, Haumea, Quaoar, and the truly wonderful Sedna), but no big hunk of rock/gas has ever been found out there. Though I can hear the hounds all howling the name “Nibiru” should they read this story. May God help us all if they somehow find this write-up somehow goes viral and people use it as “evidence” to push that theory even further than it’s already been pushed (which should be six feet into the ground).

Putting my personal opinion aside: the one issue it has is the main reason this story’s even remotely interesting: how on Earth was an uneducated homeless man able to accurately guess that most of the outer planets had rings? While it’s very much possible that he got lucky or had potentially gained the knowledge that Saturn has rings from the local amateur astronomer who shot down his entire story, it’s still a really lucky guess that most extraterrestrial enthusiasts would likely find hard to believe. Either way, the theory does have a fair bit going for it.

3. The whole story is a hoax, and Charles never existed

This theory is one that I found on a website which I can no longer find. I swear I saw it something like a year or two ago, but if I’m to be honest: that’s the least important thing to make note of. This theory is a mess, and it blows a few holes into the first two.

The theory that most skeptics would likely subscribe to, the idea presented here posits that the entire story is made up and none of it ever happened. That, on the surface, would seem very simple. After all, the idea of someone going on a 5-year-long journey through the stars with aliens that person randomly met while going for a walk sounds like something out of a Steven Spielberg film. However, things take an immediate turn into crazyville the moment we immediately attempt to find evidence to debunk this story.

Let’s start off with the things that work in this theory’s favor. For starters, there aren’t any records of a man named Charles Jevington having ever existed. There’s nothing related to a grave, there aren’t any articles mentioning his initial disappearance, and above all else: there are very few write-ups about this story in general. Besides the three I linked at the start, the most I can find is a Romanian article from a website called lovendal and two videos on YouTube (which are in Italian). The first is entitled: Charles Jevington L' uomo che fece dell' importanti rivelazioni dello sapzio, which means “Charles Jevington The Man Who Made Important Revelations of Sapzio”. The last word, which should be “spazio”, is Italian for “space”. The video is a mere four minutes in duration and uploaded by a channel called Alex Mystery Channel, which has a lot of videos featuring UFOs.

Meanwhile, the second video is entitled: Charles Jevington - L'uomo che fece un viaggio intergalattico [ITA], which translates to “Charles Jevington - The Man Who Made an Intergalactic Journey [ITA]”. The video clocks in at 8 minutes and 16 seconds and was uploaded by a channel named CreepyChannel_IT. Said channel is exclusively dedicated to creepypastas; the video on Old Charlie is the one and only video not related to them.

Everything else I find when I look up Charles Jevington has nothing to do with the man. There’s either a man named Charles or something from a location called Jevington. Nothing in regard to Charles Jevington himself. That’s pretty baffling and confusing as heck, but it’s not the end of the rail for this aspect just yet, but we’ll get back to it in just a moment.

The second thing is that Charles was an uneducated man. This is something I went over in the first theory, but I feel the need to restate it here because it’s an expendable fact. Not only can it be used to point to him having gone on a galactic trip, but it can also be used to debunk the story. The mere notion of such an adventure is absurd, and definitely a claim demanding of some hardcore proof. Of course, there’s nothing that can be used to prove it, so the burden of proof fails us once again.

So really, case closed, right? Well, no. Not even close. You see, while there’s no proof that Charles existed, there’s also no proof that he didn’t exist. Yeah, while I may not be able to prove he didn’t exist, nobody has ever taken the time to perform a proper debunking of this story. There aren’t any articles readily available that I can find which even say, “this story is rather peculiar, and I don’t think it happened.”

If he truly did exist, then a skeptic would likely posit that Charles either ran off for five years in another village, town, or city, before deciding to return to Thursby because he was homesick or garnered a negative reputation wherever he went. Not wanting to make a fool of himself, he tried to conjure up a story, managed to get the idea that the outer planets (barring Pluto) had rings correct, and then still made a fool of himself. His reputation once again ruined, Charles ran off (again) and went elsewhere until he died under either an assumed name, went unidentified, or died in the middle of nowhere and nobody remembered him in Thursby.

However, if he didn’t exist, then a question arises which I’ve seen absolutely no one mention (though the earlier mentioned article I can’t remember might’ve mentioned it; I can’t recall): where did this story originate from?

Well, the truth is: I have no idea. I can’t find a single source for this story on 4chan or Reddit, two websites which would typically have something available on such a thing. Though hey, who cares about such a fact like that when it seems that the rest of the Internet has no such information either! Yeah, there doesn’t appear to be anything on where a potential origin to this story comes from. Nothing. Websites dedicated to UFOs and/or aliens? Psh, they’ve got nothing. Just like when Old Charlie disappeared without a trace, it appears that he also appeared into alien lore just as mysteriously.

All of this makes it really hard to build this theory up in any capacity. While yes, the story is most certainly a very strange one, it has nothing going for, or against. Really, all that can be made of it is that it’s the obligatory skeptic’s theory. So if you’re a skeptic, maybe you can be the first one out there to do a proper debunking of this theory and can help me find some reference to Charles Jevington’s origin. Until then, every theory has one thing going for it: the story is strange and hard to believe on its own merits.

4. He went on Mr. Bones’ Wild Ride

My Take

This is by far and away one of the hardest stories I’ve ever had to try and come to a conclusion on. There’s next to nothing to work off of besides the actual story. If I’m to take it at face value: it’s really outlandish and hard to believe, but I feel that if Charles had died elsewhere, we’d somehow know about it. At the absolute least, there would be an unidentified body that would be on record. However, as it stands, that doesn’t appear to be the case. The closest I can get is a headless man—nicknamed Fred the Head—who was discovered in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England back in 1971. That’s all fine and dandy, but that man was between the ages of 24 and 39. Suffice to say, that isn’t anywhere near Charles’ age (unless he’s actually Benjamin Button).

I guess the best course of action would be to give my thoughts on all four theories, then come to a conclusion. Well, starting with the idea that Charles did in fact go on an adventure with some alien friends, I won’t lie, I do think that we as a species most certainly have had contact with extraterrestrials in some capacity, and potentially do have the capabilities of traveling to other planets with ease. However, such a thing really doesn’t matter whatsoever here, but I do bring it up for one reason: the claim that someone went to another planet (let alone numerous planets) is likely to make a lot of people laugh. For me, it’s anything but novel. I’ve heard stories in the past of people who say they’ve been to, say, Mars. I’ve also read claims of people who say they’ve gone to Jupiter (just read the Mysterious Universe article I linked at the start; it has other stories of people who say they’ve gone there).

With that in mind though, I do have to concede that Charles’ story is really out there. I’ve heard stories of friendly aliens, but this one sounds like something out of, well, a Spielberg film. I know, I already said that, but this is almost too perfect. Charles just so happened to be walking in the woods, met the nicest aliens in the world who decided—for seemingly no reason at all—to allow him to come with them on a crazy adventure.

However, not only that: but at no point did Charles get sick with some alien disease, die from any accident or the atmospheres of the other planets, or even so much as get questioned by other ETs for why the heck he was on some alien world. That’s just too crazy for me to buy into. I really have to wonder how the heck one man could not only get so lucky, but somehow be so safe (especially given he was decently old). I guess the closest thing to an explanation is that the aliens not only protected him, but they had the answer for every possible situation ever.

If this was a case of an old man running off and then returning to his quasi-home, only to then run off after he was deemed a kook, then I have multiple questions. For starters—and this goes for both this theory and the one above—why is there no record of Charles having existed? None of the articles I found even mention that a newspaper reported on it. That could be explained away because of Thursby’s tiny population, but given that the West Yorkshire police got involved, surely, they would’ve made a statement (or, at the least, Jevington’s family would have issued a statement of some sort).

But hey: maybe that just got lost to time (or I didn’t look hard enough). If we’re to disregard that—or accept the fact I suck at research—then how on Earth did Old Charlie get so lucky with his statement that the outer planets (once again, barring Pluto) have rings? I honestly have to wonder if maybe Charles was drunk when he came up with the story, and maybe he just got lucky. Still, I have a hard time believing that an uneducated man could accurately guess that Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune had rings.

Then again, he did say that there were three larger-than-Earth planets beyond Pluto, and that’s not only ever been proven, but is dang near universally rejected by all but the most ardent Nibiru supporters. Though even then, those who believe in that fabled planet are likely to tell you that Nibiru doesn’t orbit that far out (let alone have two neighbors of sorts). So either we know nothing about our solar system, or the third theory is the true one.

Yeah, I have to admit, I honestly feel that the theory that Charles never existed is the most likely. However, even then, I still can’t cement that belief. It bothers me that there’s nothing which points to any origin for this story. Unless the story is based in reality, then who the heck made this story up? Was it on a forum, was it on some image board, was it just an urban legend, or what? Who the heck conjured up this spectacular little gem of a story? Someone, please, help me find the origin!

As for the fourth theory: we all know it to be the truth, but none of us can handle the truth.

I guess in the end, I lean towards the entire thing being made up. Though it bothers me that there’s seemingly no known origin for where this story came from. No forum, no UFO enthusiast who first reported on it, nothing. That bothers me so much and really makes it hard to cement my decision to think it’s made up. Should it truly be real, and Charles Jevington was a real person, then I really have no idea what the heck happened. I think it’s possible he got lucky, but I have to wonder why an old man thought that it would be smart to say that his five-year disappearance was because he’d gone on a trip across the Milky Way with alien bros. That seems like overkill in the explanation department.

Oh well, whatever. Chalk this one up to an overall sentiment of “I have no bloody idea” and let’s call it a day.

Conclusion

With that, Decemystery 2021 comes to an end. As I said at the start, I’m personally very proud of it and I can only hope that you enjoyed it too. I personally love doing this series, even if it exhausts me to no end, since I see it as a way to round out a year in a fun and fulfilling manner.

Though for now, I need a break. While I barely wrote this year, I want some time to recuperate and relax so I don’t experience severe writer’s burnout. I do hope for 2022 to be a much more productive, exciting, and joyful year. My hope is that I can put out a plethora of write-ups on stories that I had wanted to do this year—both before and during Decemystery. Thank you for reading and I hope your new year is a truly wonderful one, and as always: remember to stay happy and stay healthy.