A Trick Box or A Box of Tricks?

What could two college students, a priest and his twin brother, and a young mother all have in common? A perplexing mystery has been unraveling throughout the city of Manchester over the past few weeks, one that despite its intriguing elements and several witness statement, is no closer to being solved.

The tale begins a little over a month ago when three students at Manchester University had a small package delivered to their dorm room. Inside was a five inch by five inch wooden cube. With it was a hastily scrawled note which read, “ open the box before midnight or suffer the consequences.” Though the three friends did not take the threat too seriously, they did attempt to open the cube by several means, all of which were unsuccessful. Thirty minutes before midnight a strange man arrived at their room demanding to see the box open. The incorrigible man refused to leave even when they tried to give the box back, but insisted he must stay until the stroke of midnight. As the clock struck the witching hour, the three boys claim that the stranger began to transform from a human being into a giant snake and threatened to eat them all if they did not hand over the box.

“It’s like he was a man one minute and a giant slimy snake the next,” Martin Clooney, one of the students said.

 “I know it sounds crazy, but we all saw it happen,” said his friend Colin Frome “and we hadn’t even had a single beer that night.”

  Soon after the man’s transformation, the boys managed to escape the dorm room and hid in the gym until the next morning. When they returned to their room, they could find no trace of the man-snake or the box. Upon hearing their story, their fellow students laughed it off as a hoax, until another strange story was posted on Facebook less than a week later.

The story tells of, Diane Gurney, a young, single mother from, Salford who reported to the police that a “strange troll-like man” had entered her home on the morning of October 22nd around 8am. Gurney says she has no idea how the man got into the house but when she threatened to call the police he began to laugh at her, then demanded that  she open an unusual box. Afraid for her life, she attempted to placate the man, and tried to open the box, which she recognized as a puzzle box. Just as she felt she was getting close, the bacon began to burn and set off the smoke alarm. The small man immediately became very agitated. The last thing Ms. Gurney remembers before she fainted was that the man turned into a large pig and began “to run around the kitchen squeaking and squealing.” The young woman was found several hours later by a concerned neighbor.

More recently but no less incredibly, last Friday, Reverend C.V. Wellington of Plant Lane Methodist Church was making some repairs to vandalized pews with the help of his twin brother Henry. Before they were done a small, disabled man entered the church and placed a strange box on the altar. When questioned, the man did not respond. After some time they approached the stranger. He promptly took on the form of their deceased mother and told them that if they did not quickly open the odd bx, they would have to spend the night locked in a cupboard. Try as they might, under the watchful eye of their browbeating mother, neither man could solve the puzzle of the box. They were found by the cleaning lady the next morning, locked in the vestry.

The identity and whereabouts of the mysterious transforming man remains unknown, as does the location and contents of the mysterious box. Will he strike again until someone solves the puzzle? And if he does what secrets will the mysterious box reveal?

Puzzle boxes, also known as trick or secret boxes, have been popular for more than a hundred years. Some are basic and require only the slightest pressure on the correct spot, while more complex boxes require a combination of moves to release several different parts of a mechanism before opening.

If you have a story connected to this mysterious puzzle box or the incredible shape-shifting man, please contact Pearl Blackthorn. You can find out the solution to the Puzzle Box mystery here.