The Why Files: Operation Podcast - 41: Paul Amadeus Dienach spent a year in 3906. He wrote down everything he saw.

Episode Date: June 26, 2022

In 1924, Paul Amadeus Dienach had been teaching the German language in Greece. Dying of tuberculosis, he wanted to return home to Switzerland. Before he left, he gave hundreds of pages of handwritten notes to his favorite language student Georgios Papachatzis.    Dienach thought translating his notes would help Papachatzis in his study of the German language. They said goodbye and never saw each other again.  Papahatzis began translating the pages. There were whole passages about a coming nuclear war, colonizing Mars, and a global government. Sections about flying vehicles, holographic technology, and contact with alien life. Papchatzis thought it was a science fiction novel.    But as more and more of the text was revealed, Papahatzis was shocked at what he discovered. This wasn't a novel at all. This was actually Dienach's personal diary. Dienach wrote about how he went into a coma and woke up 2000 years in the future.  It seems that Paul Amadeus Dienach had experienced some kind of time slip that caused him to fall asleep in the year 1921, and wake up in the year 3906.   He spent a *whole year* in the future. And he wrote down everything he saw.   This is his story. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thewhyfiles/support

You searched for your informant, who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth. While curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. Hey, it's your buddy AJ from the Y-Files. And Hecklefish.

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I got a packed calendar today. I'm sorry about him. Anyway, check out Spotify for Podcasters. It's free, no catch, and a packed calendar today. I'm sorry about him. Anyway, check out Spotify for podcasters. It's free, no catch, and you could start today. Are we done? We're done, but you need to check your attitude. Excuse me, but I don't have all day to sit here and talk about Spotify. This will go a lot faster if you would just let me get through it. In 1924, Paul Amadeus Dinak had been teaching the German language in Greece. Dying of tuberculosis, he wanted to return home to Switzerland.

Before he left, he gave hundreds of pages of handwritten notes to his favorite language student, Georgios Papahatsis. Dinak thought translating his notes would help Papahatsis in his study of the German language. They said goodbye, never saw each other again. Papahatsis began translating the pages. There were whole passages about a coming nuclear war, colonizing Mars, and a global government. Sections about flying vehicles, holographic technology, and contact with alien life.

Papahatzis thought it was a science fiction novel. But as more and more of the text was revealed, Papahatzis was shocked at what he discovered. This wasn't a novel at all. This was actually Dinak's personal diary. Dinak wrote about how he went into a coma and woke up 2,000 years in the future. It seems that Paul Amadeus Dinak had experienced some kind of time slip

that caused him to fall asleep in the year 1921 and wake up in the year 3906. He spent a whole year in the future, and he wrote down everything he saw. This is his story. It's May 1921. Paul Deenock is teaching his college language class when he starts to feel dizzy. He has a history of illness and eventually ends up hospitalized. He develops a terrible fever and for the next few hours he's in and out of consciousness. He perceives different men and women gathering around him but he's too weak to

communicate. When he finally wakes up his hospital room is different. People are dressed in unfamiliar clothing and they're speaking a strange language. Being a language teacher, he recognizes a few words from English and Swedish. Dinak tries to communicate, but nobody can understand him. One of the doctors recognizes his language. The doctor tries his best to communicate in broken German. He tells Dinak his name is actually Andreas Northam, a famous physics professor who had an accident. Now, Dinak says he has no idea who Andreas Northam is, but he's shown a mirror and he sees a stranger's face looking back at him. Now, Dinak becomes visibly upset and starts sobbing.

He thinks he's dead or worse, gone crazy. He cries that he's just a simple language teacher from Switzerland and has no idea what's happening to him. The doctors seem to react to the word Switzerland. Someone asks him what year it is. Dinak says it's 1922. A hush falls over the room. After a few seconds, the older physician steps forward and tells Dinak

that the year is actually 3906. Now Dinak doesn't believe it. The blinds on his windows are opened, and he sees buildings reaching through the clouds. Vehicles that seem to defy gravity buzz quickly past his window. Suddenly overwhelmed, he blacks out. Dinak is watched carefully for three days, but he eventually recovers enough to walk. He describes walls made of crystal that give you a panoramic view of the landscape.

Objects are made of pastel-colored glowing metal that's warm to the touch, and he's led through a corridor to a large room. Here he meets two older men in white robes, and at first, Dinak thinks they're actually priests or kings, but they're actually called electors with an I. These are like elder wise men. Now, up until this time,

Dinak's doctors didn't believe he was from the past. They thought he was suffering from some kind of brain trauma. But after questioning him for a while, the electors do believe him. They have knowledge of a rare psychic phenomenon that they called a consciousness shift, where someone's mind or soul could be transported into somebody else's body. And they think that's what happened to Dinak. When Andreas Northam, whose body was being occupied by Dinak, was injured in an accident, he was clinically dead for 15 minutes. Doctors dropped the temperature of his brain and they were able to restart his heart. It was at that point, the electors believed, that this personality shift occurred.

And the mind of Paul Dinak was transferred into the body of Andreas Northam 2,000 years in the future. How does your consciousness get beamed into the future? Well, Dinak wonders about this too. And he asked the electors about it. And they say that time isn't linear, that everyone's consciousness exists all the time, everywhere. Even though this is a rare event, it is something that's known to happen. It's at this point that a man named Stefan is summoned.

Now, Stefan had been a close friend of Andreas Northam. And the electors decide that only Stefan and his doctors would know his true identity. To everyone else, Paul Dinak would be Andreas Northam, and Dinak would assume his life. Now, the electors believe that if Stefan could help Andreas Northam regain his memories, that the personality shift could be reversed, and Dinak would be sent back to his own time. So, Stefan agrees to visit Dinak every day to teach him about modern society, but Dinak is mostly interested about what happened in the past. You sailed beyond the horizon in search of an island scrubbed from every map. You battled krakens and navigated through storms.

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slash becomeacbv. Your future self will thank you for it. Even though the doctors in 3960 understood the psychic personality shift, there was one thing that puzzled them. Back in the 1920s, Dinak was suffering from something called encephalitis lethargica, sometimes called sleeping sickness. And people with this disease have difficulty speaking, moving, staying awake. In the 1920s, there was actually an epidemic of encephalitis lethargica that affected over a million people around the world. But even though Dinak had been living in the future for a full two weeks, he never slept. He would stay awake throughout the night reading books, learning the new language, but he never felt tired and never actually fell asleep.

He spent a lot of time using a new piece of technology called a Regenschwager. Now, up until now, the most modern learning device Dinak ever encountered was a book, but he describes the Regenschwager as a handheld device with moving three-dimensional images that glow in the dark with sound, music, and narration. Like an iPad? Kind of, yeah. And Deanoch's doctors encouraged him to learn anything he wanted about the past, but they did not let him study the 20th century. They didn't want him to have knowledge about any historical event that he might be able to change. So what did he learn? Well, the years 2000 through 2300 are the most difficult for the human race. Overpopulation and regional conflict are the biggest problems we face. In 2204, we finally

colonized Mars. Over 60 years, the population on Mars grows to 20 million people. But in 2265, there was some kind of planet-wide catastrophe, like a large impact event, that wiped out the entire colony, and we never tried again. In 2309, there was a medium-scale nuclear war that devastated most of Europe. Only the Baltic and Scandinavian countries survived, which is presumably why their language is an English-Scandinavian hybrid. Now, this war would be global and last for 80 years, and most of the human population would be wiped out. In 2396, a new world government called a Rettstadt was established, and this ends the ancient period of history and marks the beginning of modern history. Oh no. What?

One world government? Yep. When the Rettstadt was formed in 2396, it was a one world government designed to end the global war, and it was a government like we'd recognize today. Correct. Pretty much. It was run by the wealthy and powerful. And countries around the world still had strong local nationalism,

so they resisted the new government for about 200 years. Eventually, citizens stopped electing politicians and businessmen. Instead, the higher offices were held by scientists, philosophers, and humanitarians. Huh. What? That actually makes sense. It does. And over the next 300 years, society starts to reform.

In 2823, a world leader named Torhild proposed a new economic system. And this system is not based on global scarcity like our system. Instead, the system is based on global adequacy. It is at this point that people start working for the greater good. Initially, they work for 40 years of their life in their chosen field, and after that, they retire. All of their material needs are met by the global community. Now, as time goes on, technology and automation progresses so much that when Paul Deenock arrives, people work only two years of their life. They're educated through their childhood, and at age 17, they enter the workforce. They work very hard for about two years, and then they retire, able to pursue any type of life they want.

They work for two years? That's it? That's it. Because in 3906, all material needs are met. Food, shelter, clothing, education, even entertainment. And money as we know it isn't used anymore. Instead, value is placed in art and science. You could absolutely pursue a career if you wanted, like Andreas Northam was a physicist,

but you didn't have to work. If you wanted to live a life of leisure, as long as you completed your two years of service, you could do that. Sounds to me like some hippie Star Trek socialite paradise bulls**t. I admit, it does kind of sound like that. You know, socialism and communism never work, right?

I know that, which is an interesting twist to the story. Let me ask you, why doesn't socialism work? Because no matter how good most people are, there's always selfish jerks who want more. That's right. Human nature gets in the way. But by the year 3906, we're not human anymore. Wait, wait, what? At least, we're not human as we think of it. We evolve into something else.

Paul Deenock talks of a phenomenon that starts to happen to people around the year 3000. It's called the Nebelwerk. Nebelwerk? Nebelwerk. What'd I say? In the future, the human brain structure evolves and a new sense organ is developed. This gives people the ability to perceive a new plane of existence and access to vast spiritual knowledge. They call this ability oversensance or supervision.

And it gave people a new cognitive ability, instant enlightenment. Sounds pretty good. Well, you would think. This new sense gave people feelings of incredible happiness and spiritual peace, and it's described as divine joy, acceptance of death, a disregard for all worldly things. And this feeling came all rushing at once. People freaked out, didn't they? They did.

And everyone who experienced the needlework died. They died with looks of ecstasy on their faces, but they were so overwhelmed that they couldn't survive the event until 3382. On September 6th of that year, a 76-year-old man named Alexis Volke was hit with the Nebelwerk. Nebelwerk? Nebelwerk. What'd I say? But he survived. And from then on, everyone survived the Nebelwerk. Eventually, the switching on of this new perception was a common process in everyone's life. Homo sapiens then gave way to a new species of human, Homo occidentalis novus, or new western man. So in the future, human nature itself changes.

Present humans are hardwired for survival, competition, and success, even at the expense of others. So this utopian vision of the future just wouldn't work today. But what if you can change the actual wiring of the human brain itself? In 3906, there were hardly any laws. They weren't needed anymore. People actually worked for the common good because that's how they're evolved. Selfishness is a concept that is studied as an archaic remnant of a less evolved species. People in 3906 can't even imagine themselves acting like we do today. Now, Paul Deenock finds the future people very strange. He says they act like carefree children. But you have to admit that there's a part of you,

maybe even a large part, that would like to go back to some moment in your childhood where all your needs were met, where you had no fear, no envy, no anxiety. As D-Nock's friend Stefan says, all these things that you view as strange, who is to say that they are childish instead of divine? Interesting point. But D-Nock wonders, how would these people survive an outside threat, like contact with aliens? Well, Stefan says they've already been contacted many times,

and it turned out fine. Humans in the future are aware of intelligent beings living in the solar system and around the galaxy, but they aren't interested in communication with us. Instead, they prefer to study us from a distance. But Stefan does admit they have intervened with the human race on a few occasions, like when our species was close to self-imposed extinction. And Dinak learns that these extraterrestrial beings experience their own kind of enlightenment.

Needlework. Needlework. What'd I say? So aliens leave us alone to walk our own path. When Paul Dinak was a young man, he fell in love with a girl from his village named Anna. Though Anna felt the same, her family wanted her to marry

someone else. Now during one of their last moments together, they were sitting on a hill surrounded by blossoming windflowers, which are white buttercups. Now Paul wanted this day to last forever because he knew he was losing her. So finally she said, enough for today, let's go back. And Paul said, promise me that I will see you again. And she said she promised, and the next time we're here, I'll make a wreath of windflowers for you to place upon my head. Now, Paul never did see her again. And this was something that tormented him his entire life. He would constantly pray for signs of Anna's eternal love for him, but those signs never came. Okay, cute story, but where are we going with this? Let's get back to the crazy stuff. Well, having spent a year with the people in 3906,

Dinak developed a relationship with a woman named Sylvia. They decided to go for a day trip. They traveled in what Dinak called a vigiosa, which was a flying vehicle that could take you anywhere on Earth almost instantly. He decided he wanted to visit his old village, though Sylvia didn't know that's where they were going. So they spent the day talking and exploring, eventually ending up on that same hill where Paul and Anna were all those years ago. Now, windflowers were also blossoming that day. And while they sat and talked, Sylvia

made a wreath of windflowers. She then looked at Paul Deenock and said, enough for today. Let's go back. She hands him the wreath and asks him to place it upon her head. Reincarnation? Yes. Dinak feels like he's hit by lightning. He sees this as the sign he's been praying for his entire life. Later, he reflects on the day with Stefan, who reminds him that time isn't linear. Stefan believes Sylvia is the reincarnated soul of Anna, who 2,000 years later fulfills her promise. That night, Paul Dinak feels his eyes getting heavy, and he wonders if he'll finally be able to sleep at night from now on. And his last thought is how much he missed this feeling. Finally, Andreas Northam falls asleep for the first time in a year,

and back in 1922, Paul Dinak awak Dinak is such a good one. But what really happened to him? Was his story real? Was it a hoax? A money grab? Well, there are a couple options. The first is that he was telling the truth. That he really had a paranormal experience that sent him 2,000 years into the future.

And if you read the entire book, it seems plausible. It's over 300 pages and it's full of details. There are hundreds of names, places, dates. Dinak talks about future technology like cryonics, the internet, flying vehicles, teleporters, and even something that sounds like a holodeck. I can't come close to covering everything here, but I'll link to the book if you want to check it out. If you're a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, no sponsor, it's actually free to read. The second option is that while in his coma, Paul Deenock experienced what he thought was reality, but was nothing more than vivid dreams. You could dream in a coma? Well, it depends on the illness and injury of the brain,

but people definitely can and do. And if he was dreaming for a year, that's plenty of time to create a richly detailed vision of a future world. But there's one more theory we have to consider, and it's the theory that I believe. It's that Paul Amadeus Deenock never existed. You searched for your informant, who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth. While curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen.

Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. Even though the story of Paul Deenock is not that well known, it's been covered in a few blogs and podcasts and videos. And in all of them, the same photo of Paul is used. It's the photo I used in the thumbnail. It's this one here. But what's never mentioned, that this is actually the mugshot of Daniel Tohill,

who was arrested for theft in New Zealand in 1908. Also, Paul Deenock lived in Zurich in the 1920s. That's not that long ago. The city has records of every citizen living in the city at that time, as does the city of Athens where Dinak was supposed to be teaching. But there are no records of anyone by this name, not even close. Now, George's papahatsis, the translator and publisher of the story, says he tried to find Dinak years later, but couldn't. He attributed this to the fact that Dinak fought for Germany during World War I and actually changed his name before moving to neutral Switzerland,

so we don't know what his real name is. That's convenient. Well, what's even more convenient is that the original handwritten diary is gone. Papahatsis said that while living in Greece during the war, his house was searched by the Greek military, and because the notes were in German, the soldiers seized them and never gave them back. Yeah, sounds fishy.

It does. And others have noted the similarity of this story to a story written by H.P. Lovecraft called The Shadow Out of Time. Lovecraft's story is written in the first person, like a diary, and the protagonist goes into a coma and wakes up at a different time.

Pleasure, reason. Well, Deenock woke up in the future and Lovecraft's hero wakes up in the past. Still, there are similarities. And The Shadow Out of Time was published in 1936. So if the story was inspired by Lovecraft, then there's no way it was written by Dinak in the 1920s. I don't think so. Georgios Papahatsis was a highly respected law professor and intellectual. He even served as a jurist on Greece's Council of State. That was like their Supreme Court. So this was a serious guy. He was very interested in administrative law, social studies, and

humanities. And these are the themes we see in Paul Dinak's diary. It's likely that the book was written as an intellectual exercise in exploration of human spirituality. And Papahatsis added the sci-fi twist and the love story as literary devices. Now, he probably didn't mean for anyone to take it seriously as something that actually happened, but there's no way to know for sure. I mean, this is the age of the Internet. And if you write a story about a time-traveling coma patient, people are going to believe it. I certainly wanted to. Thanks so much for hanging out with us today. My name is AJ. That's Hecklefish.

This has been the Y-Files. If you had fun or learned anything, do me a favor and comment, subscribe, like, share, all that stuff. It really helps us out. Until next time, be safe, be kind, and know that you are appreciated. Did you hear my stomach growl? Well, we're keeping it. You searched for your informant who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city,

driving closer to the truth. While curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible.