In November 1888, as reported in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat on Dec. 20, 1888, two residents of Birmingham, Alabama were murdered and their bodies found in the woods. But, notes the paper, “‘then there was such a new mystery that these murder-mysteries were being overlooked.’” A body of a stranger was found in the woods, a man ‘evidently in good circumstances, if not wealthy,’ and no one was certain what he was doing in the area where he was found. ‘Several persons who have seen the body are of the opinion that the man was a foreigner,’ the article said.
–Charles Fort, Wild Talents, p849 (The Complete Books of Charles Fort, Dover, c1974).