Huang Yanqiu was born in 1956 in Dongbeigao Village in China's Hebei province. Little is known about his early life aside from the fact that he worked as a farmer in the village and his mother passed away while he was a child.
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Huang Yanqiu
On July 27, 1977, Huang was 21 years old and still working as a farmer. Huang was recently engaged and planned on marrying his fiancee after the harvest season and the couple recently began building themselves a new home. At 10:00 PM Huang had just finished his farm work for the day and went to bed in his unfinished home. That was the last anyone had seen of Huang for a while as the next morning when the village woke up on July 28 Huang was nowhere to be found.
The village was greatly alarmed by Huang's disappearance and initiated a massive search effort to try and find him but there was no trace of Huang anywhere to be found. This worried and confused the villagers especially Huang's family as Huang never travelled far and only had a primary school level education. They searched the surrounding roads, ponds, cliffs and other unknown locations to try and find him and even contacted the nearest hospitals and police to ask if any unidentified bodies had been discovered but to no avail.
Fortunately, Huang would be found alive and unharmed but this only resulted in more questions. 10 days later on August 6 the village committee received a telegram from Shanghai. The telegram said that Huang was being held at a deportation center and that they were hoping for a local to come and pick him up. The telegram was late to arrive because it was accidentally addressed to the wrong village. There was just one problem, the telegram from Shanghai was dated at 9:AM on July 28 less than half a day after his disappearance. Huang was later returned by the police in Shanghai and it was indeed Huang. There was just one problem, Huang being in Shanghai that soon should've been impossible.
Huang was questioned by his fellow villagers and he could not provide an answer. According to him, he went to bed and when at 6:00 or 7:00 AM he was awoken by a loud noise, this noise wasn't that of the farm animals but instead the sounds of vehicles and numerous people. When he fully awoke he found himself on a sidewalk and that around him were cars, neon lights and tall buildings/skyscrapers. He wondered around and saw writing on the various buildings and businesses which said things such as "Nanjing Shopping Center", "Nanjing Restaurant", and "Nanjing Pharma" and that nearby was a large "swimming pool" which he later found out was Lake Xuanwu. It didn't take Huang long to realize that somehow he was in Nanjing the capital city of Jiangsu Province located 485 miles away from his home village.
While Huang who was now in complete and utter shock at his circumstance walked aimlessly around the unfamiliar city until he was stopped and approached by two police officers. Huang due to his state of shock and disbelief could barely answer their questions. When they asked Huang what he was doing or who he was he simply said that he was "really lost" the two officers led Huang to the Nanjing Rail Station and gave him a ticket to Shanghai and told Huang that they would be waiting for him and once he arrived he'd be taken to a "repatriation camp" for migrants and those without a hukou document. Huang not knowing what else to do and being in no position to disobey or resist bordered the train. 4 hours later the train pulled into Shanghai station and Huang headed out for the first police station he could find and to his confusion, the exact same police officers from Nanjing were already waiting for him despite being out of their jurisdiction, not boarding the train before him and most of all the train was the fastest method available at the time to travel between the two cities and the officers did not bored the train. Arriving to Shanghai before Huang should be straight-up impossible.
The two officers refused to let Huang enter the police station in Shanghai and instead dropped Huang off at the repatriation camp in Shanghai. Huang first told his story to a PLA soldier at the camp named Lü Qingtang and added the detail that the police officers in question were likely from Shandong province based on the ticket he was given. Huang stayed in the camp much longer than expected as when Huang woke up in Nanjing he didn't have any of his identity documents and when the telegrams were sent out to the village to come collect Huang they erroneously addressed them to Xinzhai Village instead of Dongbeigao Village. The confusion was only cleared up after Huang was identified via a birthmark and because the PLA soldier Huang talked to had relatives in the village.
As mentioned any questions the villagers had were multiplied as opposed to answered. Huang arriving in Nanjing that soon should be impossible. At the time trains in China were too slow to make such a fast trip. The nearest rail station was in the city of Handan which Huang would've had to find his way to in the dark despite having never even been to Handan before. But even if he did make it to Handan all by himself with next to no money the train would take 1 whole day to reach Nanjing as opposed to the 9-10 hours between when Huang went to sleep and when he woke up. And this is without taking into account the waiting time for the train to arrive at Haidan station and trains were notoriously late back them sometimes even being held back by an entire day and tickets were expensive.
Other methods of transportation also wouldn't work out. Planes and civilian aviation travel in China was still very new and of course expensive. The entirety of Hebei Province only had a tiny handful of airports with the closest one being in the north near Beijing located on the complete opposite side of Hebei from where Huang lived. It was deemed highly unlikely for Huang to make the trip there by himself especially as he wouldn't know the way and even if he did somehow make it to the airport there would still be the issue of paying for a ticket. A car also wouldn't work as nobody in Dongbeigao village owned a vehicle and even having a bicycle was considered immensely expensive and outside the means of the villagers. And even if he could use any of these methods it still wouldn't explain the short time as to even get from Dongbeigao village to the nearest city Handan would take 4 hours to drive from the village to the city by car. There was also the question of why Huang would assuming he wasn't lying would do this. Huang had never mentioned Nanjing or Shanghai at any point prior and the fact that leaving their ancestral village and families was frowned upon. How Huang made it to Nanjing in such a short amount of time is unknown but most villagers were prepared to accept it as a strange oddity and move on while others dismissed Huang as lying or bragging about visiting a city. That was until it happened again.
On September 8, 1977, it was harvest season in the village again and Huang and his fellow villagers were made to do backbreaking work during a meeting held by the village cadres. At 10:00 PM the head of the village gave Huang and a few other villagers permission to leave and go to bed early as long as they send and deliever manure/fertilizer the next morning. They all took the cadres up on this offer and went to sleep. The next morning on September 9 the villagers arrived at the fertiliser storage area only to notice that Huang was missing. Thinking that he had overslept they all went to his house only to find it empty. Something different caught their eye however, Carved into his bedroom wall was a message and that message said "Shandong Gao Dengmin, Gao Yanjin Relax"
Just like the last time Huang was in Shanghai and was quickly sent back to the village on September 11 and this time there were witnesses both in Shanghai and Dongbeigao. A majority of the village witnessed Huang go to his house and sleep before his disappearance the next morning and just like with his first disappearance Huang couldn't explain it.
According to Huang, he woke up at The Shanghai Rail Station due to a cold breeze, the same one the two mysterious police officers sent him to. Huang was again startled by his surroundings as it was the middle of the night and according to the Station's clock tower, it was 2:00 AM and as far as Huang could see there were no other people and the only light came from the stars and moon. Not only had Huang unknowingly travelled a far distance in an impossibly short time but he also did it at an inopportune time because along with the darkness Huang was constantly startled by the sound of thunder, lighting and battered by heavy rain and high winds because Typhon Babe had recently made landfall near Shanghai.
Huang who was now even more terrified than he was before could only think of Lü Qingtang, Lü was the PLA soldier who helped him after his first trip to Shanghai and was the one who ultimately helped him return home due to his relatives in the village. Lü was not only the only person Huang could think to help him but he was also the only person he knew at all in Shanghai. Finding Lü was not going to be easy as Huang wouldn't be able to navigate Shanghai at all let alone during a typhoon in the middle of the night with no people in sight.
As Huang began to walk he heard a voice coming from behind him hearing a man say "Hello there, you must be Huang Yanqiu of Feixiang County. Trying to head to the artillery division?" this shocked him immensely and he quickly turned back to see who this person was. When he turned around he saw two men dressed in military uniforms. They told Huang that they were soldiers belonging Lü's division and were assigned to pick him up from the railway station.
Huang followed the men who took various ferries and buses before arriving at the "artillery division" located in what is today the Pudong District. Despite how heavily guarded the area is the guards let Huang and the two men pass without issue. They then went to where Lü lived with his family and they were completely shocked to see them as well as Huang again. Lü however, wasn't home at the time. His wife Li Yuying was surprised that the three were even at their home because according to Li "When a relative comes to visit, they have to show their legal documents and sign in at the gate, we'll then come down and confirm their identities, then they can finally be let in. No way the guards and soldiers would let them in without any proceedings!" and years later Lü's son when questioned about the case would say that the two solider's uniforms looked off, he commented that . "...their uniforms looked quite the ordinary, yet not very fitting, especially their visors. One's shoes and visor are the most important part of the uniform,... their visors were too big, and their uniforms seem to have been borrowed, too."
Before his family could question the two they simply walked away and couldn't be found again. Huang being at the base was a major security violation and officials interrogated the guards on duty who all claimed to have never seen Huang and the two soldiers at any point. Once Lü returned home another telegram was sent directly to the head of Dongbeigao Village and they wanted to know every last detail about Huang and who exactly he was with the telegram even straight up asking if Huang was a spy. They received a response from the head of the village, telling them that Huang was just a farmer with no ill intent. Without any other information, the army decided to send Huang back to the village but sternly warned him that he'd be arrested if they ever see him again. He returned home on September 11. In their official reports the military was unable to explain how Huang got to Shanghai so quickly and managed to get into the base.
Due to the multitude of witnesses testifying that Huang went to sleep in the village and the military confirming that he was in Shanghai all those who felt that Huang was lying about his travels soon had their doubts erased. Huang became the most talked about resident of the village and not in a good way as he became the main subject of all the local gossip, rumours and of course superstitions. Many thought that he was possessed or haunted with that being the reason for his seemingly supernatural speed and ability to travel such short distances. The constant attention took a mental toll on Huang's fiance who sued his family for 200 yuan due to "reputational damages" and divorced him. This financially and emotionally ruined Huang and it was when he was at his lowest that the third and final incident happened.
Huang continued his work as a farmer and labourer for the village and on September 20, 1977, he had finished his work for the day and began walking home. According to Huang, however, so tired that he ended up passing out in the yard in front of his house and went missing again. He would stay missing until September 28 when he was found under a Jujube tree in the village and when asked where he had been he told them about the most extraordinary story yet.
According to him, after he passed out in front of his home he woke up and instead of on the sidewalk or in a deserted train station during typhoon season he instead found himself in a luxury hotel room. He looked around and behind him, he saw the same two men from the first two incidents. This time, however, they were both dressed in civilian clothing and introduced themselves. They told Huang that they were brothers from Shandong Province and identified themselves as Gao Dengmin, 26, and Gao Yanjin, 25. Huang also estimated that they were around 170 cm tall. They told Huang that they were the cause behind his disappearances and that they dressed as police and soldiers to help him find his way home, they said that they had something special planned for Huang and that during the next 9 days, they would take him to 9 major cities. Huang asked where he was right now and the brothers told him that it was still September 20 and that he was in Lanzhou located in China's Gansu Province the furthest he has ever been from home.
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A composite sketch of the two created by the police
Soon Huang would learn how he had travelled so far so quickly because the next day on September 21 they made Huang climb onto their back and as Huang would later state "They took off" and quite literally flew away with just their bodies. Huang said that they were "flying" at a low altitude and that he didn't feel any wind, he also recounted that the brothers took turns carrying him on their back. In over an hour, the three had arrived in Beijing. They first went to the Chang'an Grand Theater without tickets and just like at the army base nobody stopped them. They watched an opera performance of Forced Onto Mt. Liang. Their next stop was Tiananmen Square and were in front of a Huabiao. The brothers who were now speaking standard Mandarin instead of their dialects introduced Huang to the surrounding areas and checked into a hotel showing the staff a "provincial-level introduction letter" for registration. That same day they then flew to Tianjin where they snuck into a movie theatre without tickets and watched a movie.
On September 22 they arrived in Harbin located in Heilongjiang Province. In Harbin, they visited a department store and then visited Changchun in Jilin Province. On September 23 they went to Shenyang in Liaoning Province. On September 25 they visited Fuzhou in Fujian Province before visiting Nanjing. They spend the next day in Nanjing. On September 27 they visited Xi'an in Shaanxi Province for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Also on September 27, they made their last stop returning to Lanzhou. When Huang went to sleep in their hotel room he woke up under the jujube tree mentioned earlier and was back in Dongbeigao Village
They travelled to every city via the brothers flying and according to Huang no matter how close or how far the city was the time it took to get there was always 1 hour. He also noted that the brothers could speak the local dialects of all the provinces they visited and whenever they went to hotels the brothers always had a "provincial-level introduction letter". One of the brothers always watched Huang while the other would borrow clothing such as police or military uniforms from somewhere Huang didn't know. Clothing and yuan for the accommodations and meals were the only items the brothers carried as they didn't seem to own items such as bags and wallets. Aside from their ability to fly to anywhere they wanted and their strange behaviour such as only carrying clothes and money, Huang said that they were seemingly normal human beings in every other aspect and ate and slept like anyone else. They also had the same body temperature as anyone else would The only rules they seemed to have were that Huang was not allowed to photograph them or anything and he couldn't keep any souvenirs from his trips. When Huang asked why they singled him out they wouldn't respond and when he asked if they could teach him how to fly like them or tell him how they learnt to do it they gave a firm "No" as their answer. Just as they had told him in the 9 days he was missing they had visited 9 different cities.
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A map of his travels
Huang was the talk of the village all over again and the superstitions that gods or ghosts were responsible continued. Eventually, the gossip around Huang had gotten to the point that the local police, propaganda department and the nearest military base had heard of Huang's story and began a very extensive investigation into Huang. Offical's believed that he was purposefully sabotaging the village's production and reputation and proceeded to classify him as a "class enemy" While being interrogated his behaviour was found to be "normal" and he showed no signs of mental illness or cognitive disorders. After they were unable to find any evidence of Huang being a threat they reluctantly let him go and revoked his "class enemy" status.
Huang's story became well known throughout China and is one of the country's most famous alleged paranormal events and even the government officially declares his case as "unexplained" This is not the end of Huang's story though.
On December 14, 2004, the case was reinvestigated by Zhang Jingping, an investigator of the Beijing Branch of the China UFO Association, Ji Jianmin, the chairman of the Feixiang UFO Association, and Dr. Wu, a famous Chinese hypnotist, professor of Peking University Medical Department. There was rather conclusive evidence of Huang's first two incidents as numerous witnesses as well as official telegrams all confirm that Huang had gone to sleep in his home village only to appear in Shanghai but there was far more doubt as to if he had been to any of the cities mentioned during his third disappearance.
Huang was put under hypnosis and asked what happened and he told the doctor the same story he did back in 1977. Huang eventually woke up from the hypnotic state claiming that one of the two brothers made him wake up. In 2004 a documentary was made by CCTV and several interviews and tests were conducted during the documentary. He was subjected to a polygraph test and he ended up failing the test and Huang refused to accept these results. Those administering the tests also admitted that Huang's declining memory, the 27-year gap between the test and the incident and the stress of being subjected to such a test for the first time may affect the results. During the documentary, the police based on Huang's descriptions also created composite sketches of Gao Dengmin and Gao Yanjin. Due to the advancement in China's transportation infrastructure, Huang was brought to Nanjing and he was able to retrace his steps and attempt to recreate his journey from the sidewalk to the former then non-existent military base.
They then brought Huang to the physiatric division of Beijing Anding Hospital where the lead doctor after reading his statements said that the brothers would've been travelling at supersonic speeds and that Huang had been sleepwalking or lying. Although nobody defended him from claims of sleepwalking his fellow villagers all refused to entertain the possibility that Huang was purposefully lying to them. They cited Huang's lack of motivation or ability to travel, how he travelled to Shanghai in such a short amount of time and how he had no reason to lie about it since telling his story caused him to become a laughing stock and lost him his fiance. Huang quite literally gain nothing from telling this story and it severely affected him negatively. Aside from a lack of evidence others supporting the lying theory state that Huang only claimed to have visited major cities prompting some to speculate that he just picked them out from a map and that oddly enough he never visited Shijiazhuang which is the capital of Hebei, the province that Huang actually lives in.
Huang was examined by other psychologists and mental health professionals who deemed Huang to be sane which is the source of the sleepwalking theory.
As this theory suggests, Huang was sleepwalking when he made his way to Nanjing and that the stories of the two brothers were just dreams he had while sleepwalking. Various Chinese netizens don't view this theory as credible since Huang while sleepwalking would need to either walk all the way to the train station in Handan (which would take 4 hours to drive to by car) and buy a tick with money he didn't have all while asleep. And while still sleeping once the train stopped in Zhengzhou he would've sleepwalked onto the next train to Shanghai all with nobody noticing he was sleepwalking and waking him up. Just to be sure though doctors performed an MRI scan of Huang's brain and the results came back normal.
The third theory is that Huang suffered from multiple personality disorder and that Gao Dengmin and Gao Yanjin were in fact Huang himself and that he just perceived them as different people due to his disorder. The Gao personalities are the ones that actually travel to the locations only for Huang's normal personality to take over once he arrives at the destination hence him waking up. This theory also states that Huang flying on their backs is actually just a fantasy of Huang Yanqiu's repressed personality. This theory doesn't stand up to scrutiny as various Mental Health officials have found Huang sane and that he would've shown signs of multiple personality disorder before and after the three incidents. This theory also wouldn't explain the short travel times and Lü Qingtang's wife and son also witnessing the two as separate people.
There is one more theory though it is from those who want to believe that it is all real and that Huang is telling the truth and that UFOs may be involved.
They looked further into Huang's claims to try and find any proof that he was in the cities mentioned during his third disappearance. According to one source when describing the weather they matched up with geological data at the time but this appears to be unconfirmed. A journalist went to the Chang'an Grand Theater in Beijing to look through their records and see if they ever held the same performance Huang claimed to have seen.
He discovered that the theatre closed due to the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake and wouldn't reopen until 1979 meaning that Huang could not have seen any performances in that theatre. However, there was another theatre nearby named the Jixiang Theater and they were open in 1977 and on September 21, 1977, the day Huang claimed to be in Beijing they held a performance of Forced Onto Mt. Liang. This journalist ruled that Huang hailing from a small and rural village could've easily confused two nearby and similar theatres in an unfamiliar environment such as the major city of Beijing.
There are also those who agree that Huang travelled at nearly supersonic speeds but instead have a more terrestrial explanation and that Huang fell victim to military experimentation.
This theory states that the military flew Huang to these cities for various experiments and that the Gao brothers were high-ranking officials in charge of the experiments. They then drugged Huang and made him undergo hypnosis to make him forget what he experienced. Many are skeptical of this theory because if the Chinese government wanted to conduct human experimentation they had a myriad of death row inmates and political prisons to draw upon so why instead abduct an innocuous rural farmer from his small village?
"The Huang Yanqiu Incident" remains one of China's most infamous unsolved mysteries but as of now, there have been no new developments as a now 67-year-old Huang has opted to live a quiet life in his village away from the cameras. The last bit of news from Huang came from 2008 when he underwent another round of mental evaluations
Sources
https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%BB%84%E5%BB%B6%E7%A7%8B%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6/3270760
http://www.cctv.com/program/zoujinkexue/topic/science/C14443/20050729/100743.shtml
http://www.cctv.com/program/zoujinkexue/topic/science/C14443/20050729/100649.shtml
http://www.cctv.com/program/zoujinkexue/topic/science/C14443/20050728/102027.shtml
http://www.cctv.com/program/zoujinkexue/topic/science/C14443/20050727/102186.shtml
https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/27626821