David Lang’s two children, George, 8, and Sarah, 11, were playing in the yard when Lang and his wife came out of the vine-covered brick house. He spoke to the children and then started walking out across the pasture.
At this time, Judge August Peck, and Lang’s brother-in-law came driving up the lane in a buggy. The judge saw Lang in the field and was about to call out to him when it happened.
Lang vanished from the face of the earth.
One minute he was standing in an open field with no trees, stones, or fences. The next, he was simply gone. Lang’s wife and the two men immediately ran to the spot to check that he might have fallen through a hole in the ground. There was no such hole.
Mrs. Lang went hysterical and was taken into the house. Neighbors were called out to help, scores of people searched the field, but to no avail. A surveyor and geologist examined the field and found limestone bedrock a few feet underground without a single fracture in it.
For a month the search carried on. All the Lang servants quit in fear. A year later, the grass where Lang was standing had grown high and thick in a circle 20' in diameter. No farm animal would graze there, and it seemed free of insects.
One day in August, 1881, Sarah and George approached the green circle and called out “Father, are you anywhere around?” They repeated the question 4 times. Hearing no answer, they began to walk away…when they heard a faint cry for help from out of nowhere. Quickly, the children ran to get their mother and pulled her outside. They called to their father again. And he answered.
For several days, the family returned, and each day when they called, the answering voice became fainter, until finally there was no response at all.
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