Karel Novák

In June 1955, a man was detained by Czechoslovakian authorities near the Slovak-Polish border. Carrying just a handful of items and no identification, the man claimed to be deaf, mute, and suffering from partial memory loss. Over the next 26 years, a strange investigation would take place as authorities tried to determine who, exactly, this mysterious man was… and where he came from.

In 1975, a film opened up in Czechoslovakian movie theaters. With a title that translates to "The Case of the Dead Man," this was a spy movie that centered around a suspicious man showing up at the nation's border in the mid-1950s, armed with only a name and some scant belongings. Claiming to be a deaf-mute, the man wasn't able to talk and had very little memory of who he was or where he was from.

Over the next 90 or so minutes, a pretty typical spy thriller would play out, with it getting revealed that - surprise, surprise - the man claiming to be a deaf-mute was anything but. He was actually a spy sent from another nation trying to cause dissent, who spent years trying to embed himself into Czechoslovakian society and develop relationships. However, the most surprising thing about the movie is that it had pulled its central plot from a real story... one that may not have been as exciting, but one that was even more mysterious and interesting than the generic spy thriller.

At the time the movie came out in 1975, the figure at the center of that true story was still alive, and at that point, the Czechoslovakian government had spent two decades trying to determine just who he was, exactly. Ultimately, though, to no avail, as he took whatever secrets he had with him to the grave.

This is the story of "N-44," aka Karel Novák.

The country of Czechoslovakia was formed after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War One. This decision united the Czech independence movement with the preexisting nation of Slovakia into a multi-ethnic state that included not just Czechs and Slovaks, but Germans, Hungarians, and Rusyns, among others.

There, things weren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination; contention grew between various groups, such as the Czechs and Slovaks. But the democratic republic existed somewhat-amicably for about twenty years, leading up to World War Two, when German chancellor Adolf Hitler demanded control of Czechoslovakian territory, which some of the Ally nations were more than willing to hand over in an attempt to appease Hitler. A strategy which, as we now know, totally worked and successfully prevented a war. This began a multi-year process in which Czechoslovakia was broken apart, with the Slovak State declaring itself an independent client state of Nazi Germany and the Nazis setting out to eradicate the Czechs or forcefully assimilate them into German culture. Considered subhuman by the Nazis, the Czechs would face brutal oppression during the Nazi takeover of the region throughout World War Two.

In 1945, the Allies finally entered the territory once known as Czechoslovakia, and after the end of the war itself, the nation was reestablished as a democratic republic... but one that was firmly in the Soviet sphere of influence. What followed was a mass expulsion of ethnic Germans and Hungarians, with violent retributions carried out against those accused of Nazi collaboration. Because of Russian leader Joseph Stalin's influence over the rebuilding nation, socialists and communists took many prominent roles in local government.

In 1948, the communists staged a coup d'etat, forcing other non-communists out of government. In doing so, they fully aligned themselves with the Soviet Union as a communist nation, becoming a fully totalitarian police state, in which surveillance, arrest, even execution awaited political dissidents and resistance fighters. Others, such as Western sympathizers, were purged from government and entire industries were collectivized.

In 1955, Czechoslovakia joined the Warsaw Pact, officially becoming a Soviet buffer against NATO as the Cold War exploded. Despite the death of Stalin just two years prior, his presence - and that of the Soviet Union - loomed large in the surrounding nations.

To that end, life in Czechoslovakia at the time was similar to how it was in the Soviet Union. State Security had informants everywhere, with people self-censoring themselves for fear of being reported. Those with Western connections - even those that were theorized - were heavily surveilled and harassed. Dissent was considered dangerous. Those that stepped out of line were imprisoned, sometimes sent away to forced labor camps. Random arrests were made for those suspected of owning certain books or listening to radio stations from the "imperialist" West. Certain religious institutions were also persecuted against. All media was filtered through a Soviet lens. Then there were the other factors of the time that contributed to the hard-knock life, such as food rationing and bread lines.

It was in this environment that a strange young man appeared in 1955.

On June 24th, 1955, a little over a month after Czechoslovakia joined the Warsaw Pact, a State Security (VB) patrol detained an unknown man near the Slovak-Polish border, not too far away from the town of Oravská Polhora. The man, who communicated almost entirely through hand gestures, had no identification on him. In fact, he carried very little in general. Inside his backpack he had a razor, a handkerchief, a knife, Polish sausage, and bread.

Believing that he was a Polish national who'd entered Czechoslovakia illegally, he was detained and transferred to the Regional Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior in Zilina. There, the man communicated with VB officials through writing, unable to speak or hear.

During this bout of interrogation, the man claimed to have suffered from partial memory loss, which resulted in the loss of many personal details. Among the few facts about himself he could recall, he told officials that his name was Karel Novák; he had been born in 1934 in Radhošť, a small village in the northeastern part of the country; and that he'd been deaf-mute since birth.

Through writing, he told authorities that he and his parents had been transported from Czechoslovakia to Austria during the Nazi occupation, sometime between 1941 and 1942. There, he'd become separated from his parents, never reuniting. He'd then gone on to stay at an institution for the deaf in Graz, where he received his only formal education. He claims to have stayed there through the end of the war, into 1947, when he'd then been sent to Vienna, Austria. Shortly thereafter, in 1948, he claimed he'd been repatriated to Czechoslovakia, where he'd lived a nomadic lifestyle ever since. He says he worked at a restaurant for a time, living at a train station, before gathering mushrooms and living in the forests. He claims to have worked odd jobs here and there for food and shelter, and picked up both the Czech and Slovak languages during that time... which of course, he was able to understand via lip-reading and communicate through writing. This, he said, led to his detainment by Public Security officials near the Polish border in June 1955.

Security Officers would begin to investigate the claims made by this strange man, struggling to verify anything he had told them. They couldn’t find anyone in the towns or villages he'd claimed to have wandered through that remembered him. There was no record of his birth in Radhošť, nor were there records for his stay at the institute for the deaf in Graz, despite him recalling certain doctors there. None were able to recall him. To make matters even stranger, it seemed like he had a tenuous grasp on the locations he claimed to have been in... his details of them seeming to be off in some way.

Yet, during repeated bouts of questioning, this man - calling himself Karel Novák - stuck to his story, maintaining that the details he'd relayed were the truest version of events he could muster.

As State Security officials tried to go through the claims he'd given them, Novák was subjected to multiple medical examinations in an attempt to determine the veracity of his deaf-mute claims.

The first of these exams took place on June 27, 1955, at the Regional Institute of Public Health in Žilina. There, doctors were unable to determine whether or not he could hear. However, doctors observed that his tongue was still attached to his palate, meaning that he was capable of making sound with it, but he simply never did so. They found it hard to believe that he was faking his condition, but were similarly unable to explain how he could have grammatically mastered two new languages if he'd been deaf since childhood. This is something that I'm not sure stands up, scientifically or academically in 2025, but this was the logic they employed at the time.

A three-member medical commission performed a similar exam in October 1955 and were again unable to confirm nor deny a medical condition causing his deaf-muteness. However, they found it highly unlikely, based on what they observed, that he was faking it.

Subsequent analysis from doctors found it unlikely that he was making up this medical condition, but one such report from the Prague Institute for the Deaf, wrote:

"The subject exhibits not only above-average intelligence but also an exceptional level of education, which contradicts his claim that he has been deaf and non-verbal since childhood."

This analysis also found it unlikely that he'd been able to become fully fluent in two languages in adulthood without auditory input, and to that end, they found his sign language skills rather rudimentary, indicating that he had not been signing since childhood. Based on that, we can assume that they believed his deaf-muteness to have been caused later than childhood, perhaps as a result of a mental condition or injury. For that reason, they recommend that Karel Novák be placed in a psychiatric institution for an indefinite period to clarify his identity and past.

While state officials had been unable to find any proof that Novák had been faking his deaf-muteness - or his perceived memory loss - they would continue to investigate that very thing over the next two-and-a-half decades.

In the months that followed Karel Novák's detainment at the border, the Investigation Department of the Prague Regional Directorate of the Ministry took over the case. They began a nationwide search for the man's identity, hoping to either prove what he'd told them or somehow prove that he'd been lying.

Despite sending requests throughout the nation, however, only one response seemed to provide a possible lead. A deaf-mute woman claimed to recognize the young man in custody, alleging that they'd both been at the Institute for the Deaf in Kremnica between 1942 and 1944, describing him as a German national. Despite this lead seeming promising at first, though, investigators were unable to confirm whether or not the young man in their custody was this young man.

Yet there were still other witnesses that would claim to recognize the man calling himself Karel Novák. One claimed to have seen him repeatedly at the Valka refugee camp near Nuremberg between 1951 and 1954, having often hung around the offices of the American CIC (a counterintelligence agency within the US Army). Another identified him in a photograph, claiming to have encountered him at the Wels refugee camp in Austria in April 1952. This individual claimed that the young man calling himself Karel Novák had burns on both forearms, requiring the use of bandages at the time. Surprisingly, Novák did have scars on his forearms, but when questioned he claimed they didn't come from burns, but rather, a nasty fall he'd taken years prior.

Despite the multiple allegations made against him during this period - that he may have had some involvement with Western forces or refugee camps - Karel Novák denied that he'd ever been in those locations and denied any foreign involvement.

On December 23, 1955, the criminal proceedings against him were dropped. While state officials had been unable to confirm Karel Novák's identity, they'd found no evidence so far that he'd been lying to them or faking any part of his medical condition. So with their suspicions unable to lead to any proof of wrongdoing, Novák was released from custody. Authorities even provided him with some clothing and a small allowance in order to get himself on his feet.

Afterward, Karel Novák was able to obtain employment as a laborer but was required to check in daily at the local security office. And while they'd thus far been unable to prove any wrongdoing, the VB (State Security) continued their investigation into Novák's identity and origins.

Throughout 1956, Karel Novák attempted to begin his new life in Czechoslovakia. In February of that year, he began attempting to obtain personal identification documents and in doing so, become an official citizen of the nation he now resided in... the nation he claimed to have been born in decades beforehand, despite there being no proof of that. He would argue to state officials that he wanted to "live as a human being."

Despite being unable to provide any details requested by authorities, Novák was granted a temporary identification card in April 1956 by the Main Directorate of Public Security. Afterward, he'd continue working as a laborer for construction company Průmstav, working as part of a concrete crew. But after a few months, one of his coworkers came forward to authorities with some new information that they found troubling.

Frantisek Veis, who worked on the same concrete crew as Karel Novák, came into the District Department of the Ministry of the Interior in August of 1956. There, he reported his suspicions about Novák, who he'd become friendly with. Veis told investigators that the two had met in May 1956, just a few months beforehand, and in that time, they had become good friends. Despite Novák's perceived physical disability, Veis believed him to be an intelligent and educated man. He also stated, rather definitively, that Novák was faking his deaf-muteness.

This was more than enough to perk up the ears of state authorities, who had been searching for any evidence of Novák faking his disability since he'd first been apprehended more than a year beforehand. But Frantisek Veis, this coworker and friend of Novák, now claimed that Novák told him - physically told him - that he'd been faking his condition all along. Not only that, but Veis claimed that Karel Novák could speak and understand both Czech and Slovak, and was also fluent in Polish, German, English, and partially fluent in French and Italian.

Veis also told state officials some information he believed to have obtained from Novák, including the fact that he was older than records listed him as, something investigators had suspected from the beginning. The man they'd apprehended the year beforehand was believed to have been older than the 21 years old he painted himself as. But Veis also alleged that Karel Novák was the son of Crown Prince Otto von Habsburg, having been raised on an estate in Poland before the war. Afterward, he'd been deported to the Soviet Union, and later fled back to Poland, where he found scant work and survived via black market trade before joining the Polish state services. He'd reportedly climbed the ranks of the Polish army for a few years before his criminal past was exposed, leading to him fleeing toward Czechoslovakia... where he was captured at the border in June 1955.

As investigators began looking into these claims - which were collectively and individually hard to prove - they were surprised to find that Karel Novák was now speaking and hearing without issue. He'd claimed to have gotten into a car accident in Prague, during which he was reportedly shocked (quite literally, he claims to have been shocked with electricity). This, he claims, had led to him regaining his ability to both speak and hear, which... while I'm not a doctor or a scientist of any kind, I'm not sure things physically work like that. Regardless, he was now seemingly "cured" (if you can call it that) and had begun speaking quite openly.

While this may have seemed like a medical miracle for some at the time, State Security was obviously quite skeptical, especially since this revelation was made after they'd spoken to Novák's friend, Frantisek Veis. This led VB officials to theorize that Karel Novák was an illegal operative attempting to integrate himself into Czechoslovak society. However, it's hard to determine what of this was borne out of evidence and what was preexisting suspicion based on his strange discovery in the country... although him magically regaining his ability to speak and hear was undoubtedly a shock to the system, pun intended.

Authorities continued probing the backstory of Karel Novák as he continued his attempts at obtaining Czechoslovakian citizenship. He'd cross two major hurdles the following year, 1957, when he became a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSC) and was accepted into compulsory military service.

During military training, Novák displayed exceptional knowledge of military regulations and procedure, and evidently knew how to handle himself with a firearm, displaying superior marksmanship skills. He was eventually selected for non-commissioned officer school, during which he became an esteemed member of the community. As he excelled, some began to speculate that he'd had prior military experience, which state security suspected already.

On May 6, 1958, the Military Counterintelligence Unit (VKR) opened up a surveillance file on Karel Novák, giving it the codename "N-44." In the months that followed, they'd heavily surveil Novák, hoping to obtain evidence that hinted at his identity. While surveilling Novák, he'd be seen photographing tanks and military training grounds, and seemed to be curious about newly constructed facilities, speculating about their defensive purpose. While none of this was enough to outright indicate espionage, the VKR kept him under surveillance as suspicion followed in his wake.

Following the completion of his mandatory military service in November 1959, Karel Novák returned to Kladno, where he continued his career as a laborer for Průmstav. He'd continue trying to obtain permanent Czechoslovakian citizenship, visiting government offices and agencies throughout the region, making emotional appeals to get the necessary paperwork finalized.

However, the more than Novák pushed for official documentation, state security became more skeptical as to his intentions. As their investigation broadened into Novák's origins, his military intelligence case file was included in a nationwide investigation focusing on illegal operatives. Spawned out of the growing Cold War suspicions that were enveloping the Soviet bloc nations at the time, this investigation was hellbent on uncovering dissidents or those with Western ties, and Novák's mysterious origins made him a prime target.

Security forces began stepping up their investigative methods, utilizing not just covert informants to obtain information about Novák, but additional techniques such as wiretaps and looking through his mail. They suspected that he was hiding anti-communist sentiments and was illegally listening in to Western radio broadcasts. They'd also since located additional witnesses who claimed to recognize Novák as a man they'd seen in Austrian refugee camps between 1952 and 1955, linking him to British intelligence in the process.

This suspicion was apparently enough for security forces to again detain Karel Novák, placing him in pre-trial detention at the Ministry of the Interior's Investigation Department as they again attempting to determine his identity, his past, and his purpose... which they believed, wasn't as innocent in nature as Novák had claimed.

During this round of interrogations, the man in custody would no longer claim that Karel Novák was his real name, and didn't cling to the same specifics he'd given in the past (such as being born in Czechoslovakia in 1934). However, he insisted that he didn't know his true identity, only that he'd been separated from his parents in childhood and that he'd spent time in an institute for the deaf before returning to Czechoslovakia. Investigators would use amphetamines during questioning in an attempt to suppress Novák's self-control and stimulate brain activity, but Novák stuck this newer, vague version of events... leading authorities to question where to go from here.

For a time, attempts were made to identify him as a Polish teenager that had gone missing during the Holocaust, but those were unsuccessful.

In 1961, doctors at the Prague Institute for the Deaf assessed Karel Novák, and the first report, written by the Institute's director (Dr. Frantisek Srom), read:

"The subject speaks multiple languages fluently. His vocabulary, sentence structure, and ability to think quickly make it impossible that he learned these languages only after 1956, when he supposedly regained hearing. His ability to lip-read is highly advanced. His claim that he learned Czech by reading newspapers is highly unlikely given his perfect grammar and pronunciation. Even temporary childhood deafness would have left lasting effects that would prevent him from acquiring multiple languages at this level."

A second report filed in August of that year concluded that Novák's auditory and vocal organs were normal, and there was no medical explanation for his supposed hearing loss (or his subsequent recovery of it). They theorized that his claims of being deaf and mute were both fabrications from the start. This report would also conclude that he was likely between 27 and 33 years old, slightly older than he'd claimed when first detained by authorities back in 1955. And based on his handwriting and speech patterns, he was likely from an area in the Polish-Russian border region, since he often substituted "h" and "ch" sounds.

During medical and psychological evaluations, doctors failed to determine any sign of mental illness or memory loss. And with that, the Ministry of the Interior's Investigation Department formally recommended prosecution for both violation of foreign rights and espionage. Citing supposed national security concerns, a closed-door trial was held on separate days in May and June of 1962, and the man calling himself Karel Novák was found guilty on both counts. He was sentenced to twelve years in prison.

He would spend the next several years in the Valdice Correctional Institute, where he became known as a quiet inmate that generally kept to himself. He didn't get into any trouble and was entirely cooperative with both staff and other inmates. However, he was known for being incredibly bright, and other inmates recalled him having an extensive knowledge of... well, almost everything. He knew about art, philosophy, music, geography, martial arts, psychology, mathematics, economics, military strategy, medicine, etc. You name it, he probably knew about it - and likely had some strong opinions on the matter.

Informants within the prison noted that Novák was a heavy smoker that enjoyed coffee and tea, who spent most of his time either reading or playing chess, who had a strong dislike for Americans, Germans, and priests (supposedly due to war-time experiences), and despite his indifference toward religion, he had strong opinions about things like moral strictness and conscientiousness that struck other inmates as odd. Some believed that he was of Jewish heritage because of his sensitivity toward anti-Semitism. Others believed he may have been involved in the Hitler Youth as a child, due to his knowledge of German grammar and unique German sports, as well as his boxing experience and memories of school drills, some of the rare inputs into his backstory that others ever got.

However, those within the prison found it hard to determine what he told them was real and what wasn't. Over time, prison officials and inmates began to suspect that Novák's increasingly paranoid nature was making him ever-suspicious of those around him. They believed that he began spreading false information about himself to see what eventually trickled out... to see who he could trust, and who he couldn't. A report prepared by prison officials in October 1966 described:

"Recently, Novák has become extremely suspicious and restless. He constantly feels like he is being 'exploited' and watched. Any small sign from an inmate causes him to speculate about its meaning. If someone whistles in the barracks, he assumes it is deliberate - to remind him of a particular time in his life. He scrutinizes conversations and analyses who might be an informant. He suspects everyone... Because of his paranoia, he deliberately spreads false information around himself to test those he interacts with and distort his past. His conversations are difficult to verify, making investigation challenging."

Inmates would claim that Novák's sensitive nature made prison hell for him, especially since (per his own admission) all he'd wanted since coming to Czechoslovakia was a chance to live as a human. And in prison, he was deprived of that entirely, stuck in a box with inmates and prison officials conspiring to gather information about him in an attempt to keep him in prison even longer. He'd describe this as a mentally and emotionally draining experience to those he trusted, and one inmate - a friend of his - even told authorities that Novák was contemplating suicide. Novák reportedly described himself to this friend as:

"A rabbit that lives in the forest and knows nothing and tells no one anything."

In 1968, Karel Novák petitioned the Czechoslovakian courts for a retrial, maintaining his original statements about his past and arguing that the original guilty ruling was flawed. Surprisingly, a special panel of the Prague Regional Court agreed with him, overturning the original conviction in 1969 and acquitting him of both espionage and identity fraud.

In the court findings, the court determined that the only agreed upon fact by the prosecution's numerous witnesses was that Karel Novák had, at one point, been in a refugee camp, something that was itself not worthy of either charge. They also pointed out that there was no proof he'd been working on behalf of some foreign intelligence service at any point in time, something that was little more than an assertion made by some witnesses. The court did point out that his unknown identity and deaf-muteness were worthy of suspicion, but were not illegal in and of themselves, especially since state authorities had been unable to determine he'd lied about his identity. Instead, in their ruling, they'd write:

"His personal details were never known to him, and he could only assume his origins based on a nameplate he had as a child."

In 1969, after years in prison, Karel Novák was released. He returned to his quiet life in Kladno and resumed work as a truck driver. Unfortunately for him, however, Czechoslovakia was entering a period known as Normalization, which saw the takeover of the entire nation by Soviet interests. For that reason, police activity heightened to levels not seen in years, and anyone seen as a potential threat was targeted. Karel Novák, already used to constant surveillance at this point, found himself in the spotlight yet again by a state apparatus hellbent on proving him a fraud.

In 1971, his acquittal from just two years prior was overturned. Novák was then ordered to serve out the remainder of his original sentence, which at this point, was nine months and fifteen days. He'd do so, earning his official release in April of 1972. Even then, the Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior (FMV) continued its investigation into him and his origins, but investigators would recommend closing the case in 1973.

In August 1974, the "N-44' case file - originally created by military intelligence, having since been overseen by the state - was finally closed. But even then, Novák would remain under passive surveillance for the rest of his life.

For the next few years, Karel Novák continued to life a quiet, reclusive life. However, that is not to say that authorities were quite done with him... nor he with them.

In 1979, Novák was linked to a terrorist group that threatened to blow up a bridge unless a political ally was released from prison. Many of this group's homes were raided and its members arrested, but Novák was not taken into custody.

In 1981, State Security began proposing a direct investigation into his origins yet again, believing that he was still an illegal operative acting on behalf of a foreign power. Throughout that year, they began making plans to thoroughly investigate him yet again from top to bottom, as they had done so decades beforehand. But before they could officially do so, fate stepped in.

On November 18, 1981, a body identified as Karel Novák was found at the home of his close friends, Jaroslav and Marie Martinek. His cause of death was not immediately known, so a forensic autopsy and final investigation were ordered.

When authorities went to go search through Novák's apartment, they discovered that it appeared to have already been searched. By who, though, remains a mystery to this day. Inside his apartment, they failed to find anything suspicious: there was no proof of secret messages or anything of the sort. Nor was there any evidence that he'd illegally modified his radio to pick up western frequencies, which authorities had long suspected him of doing.

An investigation into Novák's life uncovered that those around him described him as quiet and hardworking, but paranoid and distrusting - perhaps for good reason. Because of the high-profile nature of his story (which had since been turned into TV specials and feature films) he had become known around the region as "Karel the Spy," and that was what many suspected of him. Despite earning a pretty good living, he lived in general squalor: a one-bedroom apartment, an older car, and very little savings.

One of his friends told authorities that Karel rarely spoke of his past but had made statements that they believe shed light on his childhood. He reportedly shared memories of swimming in a red volcanic rock swimming pool back in school and was reportedly haunted by the face of a Gestapo officer that killed his parents - who he still believed lived in Austria. Based on these vague statements, friends believed that he had barely made it through World War Two, and afterward lived in Vienna, where he played card games for money. That, reportedly, had directly preceded him arriving in Czechoslovakia.

Another friend, Marie Martinek, would recall that Karel Novák's final words to her had been:

"I crawled out of a pile of corpses."

Authorities would eventually determine that the mysterious man had died of heart failure due to myocardial infarction (heart attack). In doing so, he took whatever secrets he still had with him to the grave.

In July 1982, a final report was submitted to the Kladno State Security Office, recommending the closure and archival of the file "MARTIAN," which was the codename assigned to Karel Novák the year prior. In that recommendation, the investigator in charge wrote that:

"No criminal activity was documented."

"Despite extensive investigations, Novák's true identity could not be established."

In the 1990s, following the breakup of the Soviet Union and the dismantling of Czechoslovakia into two separate nations (Czech Republic and Slovakia), reporters and other interested parties began trying to learn more about Karel Novák, this unknown man who they believed had been needlessly hounded by totalitarian investigators for decades, leading to a stress-induced death in 1981. But despite their attempts to learn more about him, it remains unknown who exactly Karel Novák was, or where he came from.

Despite eventually settling into his life and taking the name for himself, there remains doubt as to whether or not Karel Novák was his name, or whether that was simply something he'd been told by someone in his past.

Was he an intelligence operative of some kind, hoping to create an identity for some grand ambition? Or was he just a regular man, a refugee of war and/or trauma hoping to find some semblance of peace in his life? To that, I can only quote the man himself, who said during a psychological evaluation in 1972:

"In the first case, I am a cunning creature, a sellout working for foreign powers - and in this case, I am considered normal. In the second case, I am an innocent man - but then, I cannot be considered normal. In either case, there is no acceptable outcome."

To this day, the story of Karel Novák remains unresolved.

Episode Information

Writing, research, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Published on February 2, 2025

Music Credits

Original music created by Micheal Whelan

Outro/theme music created and composed by Ailsa Traves

Sources and Other Reading

Articles and Websites:

Unidentified Awareness Wiki. (n.d.). Karel Novák. Retrieved from https://unidentified-awareness.fandom.com/wiki/Karel_Nov%C3%A1k
Archiv bezpečnostních složek (ABS). (2009). Osobnosti zpravodajských služeb v Československu [Intelligence Service Personalities in Czechoslovakia]. Retrieved from https://www.abscr.cz/data/pdf/sbornik/sbornik7-2009/kap11.pdf
Archiv bezpečnostních složek (ABS). (2009). StB a neznámý muž [The StB and the Unknown Man]. Retrieved from https://www.abscr.cz/data/pdf/sbornik/sbornik7-2009/kap20.pdf
Refresher.cz. (2017, December 30). Muž, ktorého minulosť ostala záhadou: Karel Novák zamotal hlavu celej StB [The Man Whose Past Remained a Mystery: Karel Novák Confused the Entire StB]. Retrieved from https://refresher.cz/45178-Muz-ktoreho-minulost-ostala-zahadou-Karel-Novak-zamotal-hlavu-celej-StB
Wikipedia. (n.d.). Czechoslovakia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovakia
Wikipedia. (n.d.). Polish Workers' Party. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Workers%27_Party
Wikipedia. (n.d.). Public Security (Czechoslovakia). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Security_(Czechoslovakia)
Archiv bezpečnostních složek (ABS). (n.d.). Sborník ABS [ABS Collection]. Retrieved from https://www.abscr.cz/sbornik-abs/

Media and Discussions:

IMDb. (n.d.). The Case of the Dead Man (1975). Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138721/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_cdt_t_60
Reddit - r/UnresolvedMysteries. (2019, December 30). A seemingly deaf-mute man appears out of nowhere. Retrieved from https://old.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/ekji4i/a_seemingly_deafmute_man_appears_out_of_nowhere/
Reddit - r/TrueCrime. (2022, August 4). A man pretending to be mute and deaf would be discovered years later to be lying about his identity. Retrieved from https://old.reddit.com/r/TrueCrime/comments/wi004l/a_man_pretending_to_be_mute_and_deaf_would_be/