10 most mysterious cases of people lose their memory

Amnesia in real life and its consequences

The plot of many Hollywood blockbusters is based on the memory problems experienced by the characters. Writers and directors general are very fond of using in their works of the quirks of the human brain: when watching some movies it seems that once a person hit his head as he secured memory lapses, of course, at the same time at the end of the hero must necessarily remember everything - this is the inexorable generally happy endo, which should be the majority of films.

In real life, interesting cases of amnesia are much less common than in the movies, but they are often much more interesting and more refined design screenwriters and directors. Here are a few life stories, that could very well be the next scenario thriller or comedy, and some of them have already started.

1. Ansel Bourne

I'm sure many of you watched films about Jason Bourne, a government special agent, lost his memory. However, not everyone knows that the main character is named after Ansel Bourne, one of the first registered patients with amnesia.

Ansel Bourne was a preacher in Greene, Rhode Island. January 17, 1887, the year he went to the state capital, Providence, where his sister lived, and then disappeared and reappeared only on March 15 in Norristown. Bourne did not know how to get there and why surrounding his name is Albert Brown. Ansel was sure that the court is still on 17 January and claimed he did not remember how he came to the city and opened a small shop.

When Bourne returned home, his phenomenon has become the object of attention of scientists. During the hypnosis session, he again began to call himself Albert Brown and denied that he knows someone by the name of Ansel Bourne, but after getting a hypnotic experiments again. Thus, the story of the Ansel Bourne became the first registered case of the so-called dissociative amnesia, in which a person forgets about self, but almost always the memory after a while suddenly returns, which is what happened with the preacher. Nothing like Ansel Bourne will no longer happen, and he lived his life without thinking about Albert Brown.

2. Clive Wearing

Many people have seen the film Christopher Nolan's "Remember", the protagonist who suffers from a form of anterograde amnesia, meaning he knew about his past, but new memories had not been formed.

Of course, a little pleasant that a person is not able to remember anything, but in life there were cases worse. British musician Clive Wearing in 1985, contracted herpes encephalitis, which damaged his nervous system, resulting in Wearing developed two forms of amnesia - Retrograde and anterograde Clive does not remember most of the events of his past, and immediately forgets everything that happens to him in real life.

The virus has damaged the hippocampus - a brain area that is responsible for the transfer of information from short-term memory into long-term, so Wearing can hold information in memory only a few seconds and does not remember even the names of their children. With all of this musician procedural memory was not broken, so it is still, for example, knows how to play the piano, but is unable to remember the sequence of notes of any work. Currently, Clive Wearing is also suffering from amnesia, because doctors have not found a way to help him over the past 28 years.

3. Seewald Skeyd

November 28, 1999, the year the emergency room of a hospital of the Canadian city of Toronto asked the young man about 20 years, which in the street by unknown broke his nose. The guy said he did not know who he is and how he came to this city, but many have noticed that he has a foreign accent. Doctors diagnosed the victim's post-traumatic amnesia, global, information about the mysterious young man quickly leaked to the newspapers, and journalists dubbed him "Mr. Nobody". After discharge from the hospital, Mr. Nobody lived for several weeks in a homeless shelter and then adopted him married couple from Ontario. The guy a few years changed the names and eventually settled on the name of Seewald Skeyd.

The police issued a country photos and prints Skeyda fingers to identify him, but the result is not given. Seewald refused treatment and moved to Vancouver, where he met with a lawyer to process Canadian citizenship, but in the end he married the daughter of a lawyer, after which they moved to Portugal, where he also tried to obtain citizenship.

In 2007, the year Seewald has admitted that the story was an invention with amnesia. Coming from a poor family of Romanian named Cyprian Skeyd accept this "idea" to do away with the past and to obtain citizenship in another country.

4. Jody Roberts

26-year-old Jody Roberts, a resident of the city of Tacoma, Washington, in 1985, worked as a correspondent for "Tacoma News Tribune" newspaper. In May of that year, friends and family members Jody began to notice that a woman was something strange - she stopped to look after themselves and began to abuse alcohol. May 20 the journalist was gone, and the next 12 years, relatives and friends have not heard anything about it. They did not know that Roberts found five days later in the city of Aurora, Colorado, over 1,600 km from home. She could not give his name, and from the property when it was the only key to the brand "Toyota" car that could not find a policeman.

The woman was taken to a Denver hospital, doctors found she had all the symptoms of amnesia and dissociative fugue so-called - a condition in which a person moves to a new place and forget almost all the information about themselves up to the name. After exiting the clinic Jodie called herself Jane Dee and got a job at a fast food restaurant. The woman was admitted to the university, and some time later moved to the city of Sitka, Alaska, married a fisherman, and bore him two twin girls. Jane was engaged in web design, and her career in this field has been very successful, but in 1997, one of its employees in a news release seen photos Jody Roberts and recognized his missing colleague. In the end, Roberts returned to his previous Such a family, but Jody memory still has not recovered.

5. Raymond Robins

Robins was a well-known economist, working for the government of the United States - with his direct participation there were discussions of diplomatic relations with Russia. September 3, 1932, the year Raymond was to meet with US President Herbert Hoover, but the appointed hour, an economist at the meeting was not. The last time Robbins saw when he left the City Club in Manhattan, and then he disappeared.

The mysterious disappearance of a government expert has provoked a wave of rumors about the kidnapping, and some said that they had seen him bluzhdayushim the streets of Chicago. November 18 Robins found in the small mountain town of Whittier, North Carolina, where he lived under the name Reynolds Rogers. Stories of the townspeople became clear that the Robins came here a week after the disappearance and told everyone that he was a miner from Kentucky.

By the time an economist beard, but one 12-year-old boy, after reading in the newspaper about the disappearance of Raymond Robins, recognized him from a photograph and reported to the authorities. In Whittier came Robins nephew and identified him, but he behaved as if they are not familiar with - Economist totally did not remember anything about his past life. After meeting with his wife and treatment by a psychiatrist Raymond's memory slowly began to recover. Doctors suggest that dissociative fugue state would occur in an economist from the stress and emotional stress, causing his personality has replaced another.

6. Barr Cox

In 31-year-old priest from San Antonio Wesley Barrett Cox had a wife and 6 month old daughter. July 11, 1984, the year after the trip to Lubbock Cox called his wife and said that he decided to go to Abilene to see friends. The next day, his car was found abandoned and looted on a rural road Jones County, while the contents of the wallet Barr was scattered around the car. Early in the morning the priest saw in one of the nearby stores where he bought two cans of fuel. He claimed that his car ran out of petrol, and one of the police officers took him to an abandoned car, after which Cox was gone.

Prior to 2000, the year of it was not heard, until one of the parishioners gay church in Dallas did not recognize in the priest disappeared 16 years ago, Barra Cox. According to the preacher, he was beaten unconscious and thrown to the junkyard in Memphis. A man was found and taken to hospital after two weeks in a coma Barr awake, but could not remember his own name and last. He started a new life under the name of James Simmons and became a preacher in the gay church.

No evidence of the veracity of this story Cox did not provide to the same police officer, driving a car to the priest, he said he saw in the trunk of the motorcycle, which was not there when the car was found. Later, people like Barr, was seen while riding this motorcycle, so it is suspected that a man deliberately severed all ties with his family and moved, so he learned that he was gay.

7. Michelle Philpotts

In the comedy "50 First Dates," Drew Barrymore plays a woman who received a serious head injury in a car accident, because of which its memory is "reset" when she goes to bed. Every morning, a woman starts a new life, because no recollection of yesterday she had no choice.

A similar story happened in real life with an Englishwoman Michelle Philpotts: in 1985, she had an accident, turning to her head injury, and five years later again become a party to an accident as a result of which it is again strongly hit her head. After the second accident Michelle showed signs of epilepsy and anterograde amnesia.

Deviations intensified, and by 1994 the ninth year she completely lost the ability to memorize anything. Currently Philpotts believes that lives in the 1994 year, and her husband, whom she married in 1997, every day shows her wedding photos to remind them of the fact that they are married. Philpotts underwent surgery, during which some of the damaged brain cells have been removed, but has significant improvement was observed.

8. Doug Bruce

in the New York morning, July 3, 2003, the year an unknown man went to the police station and said he did not know who he is. According to a stranger who spoke with a British accent, he woke up in the subway, not remembering their names and where they came from. The police sent a man to a nearby hospital, and a few days later in his backpack found a phone number that belongs to a woman who claimed that the name of the amnesiac - Doug Bruce.

Bruce was a British citizen, but lived in Paris, working as a banker. Made a fortune, Doug moved to New York to learn the art of photography, but even after it is all said and took her to an apartment in Manhattan, where he lived, the poor man could not remember anything. Bruce, medics believe suffers from a very rare form of retrograde amnesia. His story was the basis for the feature film "Unknown", released in 2011, the year. The painting caused a lot of controversy since it argues that the case of Doug - a hoax. Experts still can not determine what sparked the development of amnesia, so some of them have expressed doubts about the veracity of the words of Bruce. Shortly before the incident in New York, one of the friends of the men experienced a short-term amnesia, perhaps that is what inspired Bruce to deceive. Anyway, still no sign of recovery of memory Doug Bruce is not observed.

9. Anthelme Mangini

4 February 1918, the year in one of the stations of the French city of Lyon has been found soldiers suffering from memory lapses. He could not tell where they came from and where it was heading, when it did not find any documents, but during questioning the young man said that his name was allegedly Anthelme Mangini. Since nothing more specific military did not say he was sent for examination to a psychiatric clinic, then to another and so on. For many years he was transported from one medical institution to another, and nowhere he could not help.

Photo Anthelme was published in the newspapers, and about 300 families responded to the announcement, claiming that it is their relative, but none of the potential members of the family Mangini did not recognize, so check they are wrong or not, it was impossible. In 1930, the family of the commune of Saint-Maur said it found 12 years ago by none other than the soldier, as a waiter Monzhuan Octave, who went to the front during the First World War and did not come back. As we found out, in August 1914 Monzhuan was wounded and taken prisoner. 3, 5 years he spent in prison camps, and in January 1918 was sent to France. His papers have been lost, so none of the family did not know that he was back home. Presumably memory loss provoked turmoil that Octave had suffered during the war.

10. Agatha Christie

This name is familiar to almost everyone - British novelist famous for his detective stories to the world, so it is quite natural that the mystery was a place not only in her books, but also in life.

In the evening, December 3, 1926, the year Agatha, which at that time was 36 years old, disappeared from his home in Sunningdale. The next morning, her car was found near the Newlands Corner, but no trace of itself Christie did not find in that area.

It was rumored that killed her own husband Archibald (Archibald), since he supposedly just before going to file for divorce. Fortunately, December 14, Agatha found alive and well in one of the hotels in Harrogate, where she was registered as Teresa Neal (Teresa Neele). The writer said she has no idea what was there.

11 days until Agatha Christie was absent, her readers put forward different versions of what happened: someone said that it is all rigged to avenge the wrong husband, especially since Theresa Neil - the name of his mistress; others believed that the "mysterious disappearance" instigated in order to attract attention. However, there is indirect evidence of the truth of her words: in the morning on December 4 writer seen marching along the road, and, despite the cold weather, Agatha was one dress. According to the witness, Christy looked upset, confused, and was clearly not himself. As doctors later claimed, could provoke an attack of amnesia a quarrel with her husband and the recent death of his beloved mother. Agatha Christie herself never told me that it happened in those 11 days, so contrary to all the canons of the detective genre clue to this mysterious stories nobody knows.