He Lived Hidden in the Forest for 27 Years

For nearly thirty years, families around one Maine lake kept finding their kitchens raided in the night. In 1986, a 20-year-old man named Christopher Knight left his car on a roadside and walked into the woods. He did not return to ordinary life for 27 years. He lived in a small tent near North Pond, hidden among the summer cabins, surviving on food, batteries, fuel and books taken from properties when nobody was home. He said he passed a hiker once and said one word: "Hi." Apart from that, he said, he had no conversation with another person for 27 years. A cabin owner photographed him with a surveillance camera in 2002, but the image did not identify him. Then, in 2013, a game warden set a motion detector at a camp that had been burgled — and the pattern of his returns finally gave him away. On 28 October 2013, Knight pleaded guilty to 13 counts of burglary and theft and received a seven-month sentence. Tales You Can't Forget — True stories. Unbelievable lives.