The disappearance of Benjamin Bathurst from Perleberg, Prussia in 1809 may or may not have had supernatural aspects to it. Either way it is an extremely strange story, well worth examining.

When Benjamim Bathurst pulled into Perleberg with his small entourage at about noon on November 25, he was visibly nervous. Although he was posing as a businessman named Koch, he was in fact King George III's Special Envoy. Bathurst's anxiety was well-founded in that the Prussians had recently invited the French in to sweep the country of "undesirables." Bathurst knew that if the French determined his true identity they would surely find him undesirable. He was returning to England from Vienna where he had recently been successful in convincing the Austrian government to declare war on France. It was hoped by the British that such an action would would take some of the pressure off of their forces fighting Napolean in Spain. Unfortunately for Bathurst, by the time he reached Perleberg Napolean had soundly defeated the Austrians. There was little doubt in Bathurst's mind that if he were identified he was as good as dead.

Bathurst's original intention was to stop in Perleberg only long enough to obtain fresh horses, but once there he decided that it would probably be safer to continue his journey by night. After a quick meal and making lodging arrangements at the White Swan Inn, he headed to the nearest Prussian army post where he informed the commandant, a Captain Klitzing, that he had reason to believe that his life was in grave danger and that he would greatly appreciate the provision of an armed escort for the duration of his stay in Perleberg. Although Klitzing believed "Koch's" fears to be baseless, the young man's anxiety seemed palpable, and so the good Captain acquiesced to his wishes.

Once back at his room at the White Swan Inn with two armed guards outside his door, Bathurst nervously waited for night to fall.

At about 7:00 Bathurst suddenly dismissed the guards and told the innkeeper to have his fresh horses and carriage waiting for him at the door at 9:00. At the appointed hour, with a servant girl tending to the horses at the front of the carriage, his valet on one side of it, and his embassy messenger and the innkeeper in the doorway of the inn, Bathurst stepped around to the other side of the carriage and...was never seen again!

It took several minutes for Bathurst's aides to realize that the impossible had happened. After quickly checking inside the White Swan to no avail, they made haste for the army post, wondering rather unrealistically if Bathurst had returned there. When Captain Klitzing heard the story and remembered "Herr Koch's" genuine fear, he immediately launched an all-out search which lasted for several days and involved sealing the White Swan Inn and dragging the nearby Stepnitz River. None the less, no trace of Bathurst was uncovered.

Not until three weeks later, anyway, when his pants were found. Far from shedding any light on the mystery however, this development provided only more questions.

On December 16, two peasant women were gathering firewood in a thicket about two miles outside of Perleberg when they happened upon a pair of men's pants spread out on the wet grass. The pants were turned inside out and were soaking wet. They ominously bore two bullet holes, although the fabric was devoid of bloodstains. (In fact, the alignment of the holes seemed to suggest that the pants were not being worn at the time they were shot.) Upon turning the garment right side out, the women discovered a piece of paper in one of the pockets which proved to be a handwritten (though unfinished) letter from Bathurst to his wife, Phillida.

The discovery of the trousers raised a number of questions. In the first place, while they were certainly the property of Bathurst, they were not the pants he was wearing at the time of his disappearance. Secondly, the thicket where they were found had been thoroughly searched days before. That the pants had been there only a few hours was evidenced by the fact that the pencil-written note in the pocket was in relatively good shape after recent heavy rains. And of course the purpose of shooting an unoccupied pair of pants is anyone's guess.

In 1620, shortly after joining the Agreda convent in Castile, Spain, 18-year-old Mary Coronel, who her whole life had been given to religious ecstasies, had a vision in which she saw all the people of earth. She sadly noted how relatively few of them were Catholic and was especially concerened about the Jumano Indians in recently colonized New Mexico. She began to pray passionately for their conversion.

During her prayers, Mary began to have visions in which she was among the heathen Jumano. She was understandably overjoyed to discover that not only could the Jumano understand her language and she theirs, the Jumano were also openly receptive to conversion. Over the years Mary "visited" the Jumano at least 500 times and taught them the benefits of Catholicism, but whenever her visions ended, she of course found herself back at the Agreda convent, none the worse for wear. There is certainly nothing to her story that would suggest genuine teleportation or bilocation...so far.

However, in the late 1620s a group of Jumano tribesmen showed up at the Franciscan monastery that was situated about 100 miles from their settlement and asked the monks there to return with them in order to baptize their people. When asked how they had become familiar with not only the concept of Christianity but with its rites and customs as well, the Jumano replied that for the past several years they had been regularly visited by the "Lady in Blue" who had effected their desire to convert. After pressing the Jumano for details on this "Lady in Blue," the friars quickly realized that the Jumano were describing a woman dressed in the habit of a Franciscan nun. The abbot of the monastery, Father Alonso Benavides, determined to locate the mysterious woman. He scoured the countryside, but there was no one in the remote New Mexico wilderness who answered her description. Father Benavides began to suspect that, as impossible as it seemed, the "Lady in Blue" must have traveled (repeatedly) from the old world to the New Mexico outback. A miracle had apparently taken place.

In 1630 Benavides had occasion to meet with the head of the Franciscan Order in Madrid and told him the baffling story of the Jumano's enlightenment. The chief cleric knew of Mary Coronel and her visions and suggested to Benavides that perhaps through some miraculous machination she was somehow responsible. A meeting between Benavides and Coronel was subsequently arranged and during it Coronel gave names and accurate physical descriptions of numerous Jumano tribesmen and described their customs and way of life, as well as the flora and fauna of New Mexico, a place she had (supposedly) never been.

News of the miracle spread quickly through Spain, bringing to Mary of Jesus of Agreda a great deal of publicity. Her new found celebrity, however, was anathema to her vows of humility and so she prayed that the source of it, her visions or bilocations, would stop. Her prayers were answered in 1631.