A young Dutch man who convinced German authorities he had been living in a forest for five years may have made up the lie after running away from family troubles or an unwanted pregnancy.
Robin van Helsum, dubbed the 'forest boy', hoaxed authorities for nine months with a fantasy about living in the woods and not remembering his identity.
Mr van Helsum's childhood friend, Ray van Ravensburg, told reporters the young man had run away from a home in Hengelo, in the Netherlands near the German border, before appearing in Berlin three days later in the guise of tousle-haired lost youth last September .
His friend said he did not get along with his strict father or step-mother.
Mr van Helsum reportedly moved out of home into a government care program where people from problem homes live with peers who have similar backgrounds.
"He started to stop with school and stop with work and the only thing he did was sitting on his computer and yeah, just screwing around," Mr van Ravensburg told MSNBC.
"His life was really complicated."
The young man then began dating a young woman who later became pregnant.
"First, she said she was a few weeks pregnant but she was already pregnant for a longer period of time and he didn't want to have the child and she wanted to keep it," Mr van Ravensburg said.
Not long afterwards, Mr van Helsum fled to Germany, telling authorities he was an orphan who did not remember his past, only that he had lived in the forest for five years.
Authorities recently learned it was a hoax after the 20-year-old man's step-mother saw his photo in the media and came forward to identify him.
Sources: AFP, MSNBC
Author: Ali Best. Supervising editor: Fiona Willan.