Edward Lighthart, Missing Man
Days are not easily made when you’re writing a dissertation, but The Seattle Times made my day and made it early this morning with a fascinating story about a man who woke up in a park with no idea of who he was or how he got to Seattle:
The blond-haired man with the walrus mustache wandered out of Seattle’s Discovery Park three weeks ago, with pressed khakis, an expensive dress shirt, a blue blazer and $600 hidden in his sock. He was uninjured — but said he was confused, lost and frightened.
This much is clear: He is fluent in English, French and German. He possesses a professorial knowledge of European cultural history. He seems to have traveled the world. And he says he is a widower.
But he said he doesn’t know who he is or when he was born. Or how he got here and why. Or whether he even wants to know.
His doctors at Swedish Medical Center’s Cherry Hill campus said they don’t think he’s faking it, but they don’t really know how to help. The cops so far are stumped, too.
Among the man’s possibly useful memories were these:
He is confident he has spent most of the past two decades abroad. He refers to himself as an “expat.” He knows street directions to the national library in Paris. He knows Vienna, and Googled a university hospital there as soon as he gained access to the Internet. He’s not sure why.He said he knows he attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and did graduate work at the University of Chicago and Columbia University in New York.
His comfort zone is clearly Central European history and politics. He speaks easily and freely on the intricacies of the Habsburg monarchy and of Viennese art and architecture, his speech bouncing from English to German to French.
He said some of his few vivid memories are of specific professors he studied with. Specifically, he named William Berg, a professor of French and Italian literature at Wisconsin, and Istvan Deak, now a professor emeritus of European history at Columbia University in New York.
[Unfortunately, "neither Berg nor Deak recognized Jon Doe when The Seattle Times e-mailed a photo to them this week. Deak sent the photo on to several former students from the era, but so far none of them has recognized him either."]
The Seattle Times offered a list of further clues doctors had elicited about the man’s identity, which is as fascinating for the prominence of certain items (the willowy high-school girlfriend who wanted to be a ballerina) as it is for the syncopated portrait of a life in progress that it presents:
+ In high school, dated Vicki Coleman, a willowy girl who wanted to be a ballerina.
+ Attended the Culinary Institute of America in upstate New York in 1976.
+ Attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison, about 1980 to 1984, likely studied French and art.
+ About 1983, met a woman named Tina, possible last name Gordon or Jordan. She studied international relations, spoke Spanish fluently.
+ Moved to University of Chicago in 1984. Tina died after a miscarriage in Chicago in February 1985. [In the full article, we're told that the man is sure Tina was his wife and that she died at age 24: "he seems certain he found her dead in their bed after she miscarried in early 1985 in Chicago."]
…
+ Lived in Sydney, Australia, recently. Remembers the address 99 Walker Street, which turns out to be a skyscraper in the business district.
+ Lived in Shanghai during the Olympics in Beijing last year. Believes he may have worked as a business consultant, editing English documents.
Within a few hours of the article’s publication on the Seattle Times website, a reader posted a link to this site, which (I’m pretty sure I can say safely) positively identifies the man as Edward Lighthart. The CV on that site corroborates and gives background for the few details Lighthart had remembered:
He studied cultural anthropology, international relations, and art history during an educational career that took him from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to the University of Chicago to Columbia University. He entered a Ph.D. program in anthropology and analytical psychology at the Union Institute in Cincinnati, where he led seminars in Jungian psychology, narrative theory, and various versions of Iphigenia. In 1997 he [apparently] completed a dissertation on archetype and symbol in the Louis XIVth style, which is cited in Wikipedia here). [Update 8/21: The Seattle Times says that Lighthart did not finish his Union Institute Ph.D.].
During the 1980s and ’90s, Lighthart worked in a range of journeyman academic and quasi-academic jobs. He was a research associate at the Art Institute of Chicago; he raised money for the Senior Citizen Artisan’s guild; he was a press liaison for the International Press Center; and he edited humanities reviews for Booklist. More recently, he started and ran a his own P.R./writing/translating firm specializing in “international cultural concerns.” (His corporate website mentions that he also “worked as a consultant in financial logistical and systems designs, when he worked with such Wall Street concerns as JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, and Kidder, Peabody & Co.”) He is listed as a literary agent here, but the single Amazon review that appears in his name does not suggest a keen ear for prose:
Mr. Menzies works have come under criticism by those armchair critics who alacritously respond with the acumen of an ill-informed dilettante to what is erroneously perceived as specious hypotheses and flawed research.
Before the newspaper’s readers solved the mystery, Lighthart told the Seattle Times, “One thing I’m afraid of if my memory comes back is, will I want it? I’m still not sure how well I’ll be able to handle it.” It’s a profound and terrifying question, and something in me wants to call it quintessentially modern, if not quintessentially human. Last week Ads without Products wrote about several modern versions of hell, and this strikes me as another for the list: to be caught in the crux of those two sentences, strung up between a history you may not want and a present you cannot inhabit, knowing all the while that at any moment the balance could tip irrevocably one way or the other. I can’t decide whether it would be better or worse to know that the choice was not yours to make, but for Edward Lighthart’s sake, I hope it’s better.
Straight outta Walker Percy.
Right? It’s just amazing.
Here’s an update from The Seattle Times, which also says Lighthart never graduated from the Union Institute:
A very similar situation happened in 1880’s France when these strange episodes of amnesia and travel began to be noticed. Back then all the victims were indoor workers clerks, artisans, and shop keepers.
VisionAndPsychosis.Net posits that the mental disturbances are being caused by Subliminal Distraction exposure.
Lighthart’s work would put him in that group.
Oh god. If subliminal distraction causes amnesia, I’m toast.
The symptoms of SD exposure can be shown to be fear (to the point of trembling), panic attacks, paranoia, depression, and thoughts of suicide.
How does one clearly distinguish those symptoms from the symptoms that can be shown to follow directly from capitalism? Oh, BB, ain’t we all toast (though some of us more than others!).
How does one clearly distinguish those symptoms from ones the guy made up because he just didn’t want to deal with his life any more? I call bullshit.
Are you saying, MR, that a life of (international) mystery might be more appealing (because seemingly more powerful and cosmopolitan) than the depressing facts most people negotiate? Surely not!
Well, possibly, but if you’re going to go to the trouble of faking it, why would you cough up so much super-specific information? Even if you assumed you were going to be found out eventually, wouldn’t you want to be vague enough to ensure that you (and the media) would enjoy the suspense for more than a few hours?
Taking his CV at face value, he’s certainly intelligent enough to fake amnesia, but to what end? Is he hoping someone will have pity and hire him? He’s the definitive “over-qualified” job seeker.
Does he want a book or movie deal? Maybe.
Personally, I think he is a Ted Kaczynski sans the sociopathy.
We’ve all heard stories of the brilliant professor that doesn’t remember to tie his shoes, or if he wanders away from his campus alone he is soon a stranger in a strange land.
Superior intelligence is usually contributing factor for mental illness, not a prophylaxis against it.
The usual method of finding faking is repeated interviews. In one case a killer faked multiple personalities. The court expert interviewer dropped the information that true multiple personality cases never had just one other personality. Sure enough the faker added others.
Lighthart could have read text books about Dissociative Fugue to know what to claim but he would have been aware others know him. Look how fast he was identified once his picture was published.
He left a computer at his sister’s house. Go back and find out where it was placed. That would show he had the opportunity for SD exposure.
LKT said:
“He left a computer at his sister’s house. Go back and find out where it was placed. That would show he had the opportunity for SD exposure.”
Excellent idea. While you’re there, find out what he’s been Googling and reading online …
I have a ton of friends who tell me they think this guy stole his story right out of the first chapter of a book by Heath Sommer called the Manufatcured Identity tht was just published. In the book a guy Named Curtis Rowly wakes up in nice clothers on a park bench, 20K stuffed in his sock, and no memory of what happened. It IS interesting that this sotry came out right before lighthart’s alleged incidence. I’m not saying he’s a faker, but I’ve read the chapter myself, and it is very very close to the book that came out BEFORE the seattle thing….interesting. Wonder what Lighart would say to that?
Is this fellow an amnesiac or
an unemployed (by choice)
actor/artist who figured out
how to get free healthcare and
lodging plus 15 seconds of fame.
He seems to be enjoying the
adventure although he denies it.
A bunch of us here in Vienna remember him quite well from the early to mid 2000’s. The guy is very intelligent but was always on the outer fringe emotionally. They should just lock him up in an art gallery or something.
Also from Vienna, Austria, here. Guys, it is no mystery.
He is nice but manipulative, and he is putting (yet again) one over on you.
Check out Viennese expats talking about him and photos of him too:
http://www.virtualvienna.net/main/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=12538&highlight=