Disoriented, Man With ID Is Still a Puzzle

nytimes.com

48 points·snissn··8 comments

For those interested in this sort of "puzzle", the story of Benjamin Kyle is fascinating: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjaman_Kyle

He gave a high-profile Q&A with Reddit this year:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/13rs46/i_am_benjaman_k...

One thing not mentioned in wikipedia is that he made a White House petition to replace his Social Security Number, which failed with somewhere over 7,500 signatures (but not enough). Kafkaesque.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/grant-benjaman-kyl...

More generally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugue_state

So we are assuming he was Mexican, moved to the US either staying at that address years ago or using it as a home address for records but not staying there. Worked as a travelling worker, somehow lost memory and either got lost or was abandoned by a group of others?

It's interesting to see how stories like these emerge during times of surveillance and tracking scare. I'm not trying to suggest dishonesty or paranoia anywhere, just pointing out how intriguing the dynamics of media stories are.

The human mind is quite a puzzle itself.

"Man With ID," huh? More like "Illegal Immigrant With Fake ID." No wonder nobody knows him.

The article mentioned that they found his old house in Mexico using his Mexican ID, and that the family had since moved away (likely to the US).

If it was a fake ID, that wouldn't make sense. (And why would an immigrant carry fake foreign ID anyway?)

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