Our early research connected him to the leaf-covered figure found hiding in the eaves of English country churches, pagan witness to fertility and deeper traditions of belief. He seems also to have been the green knight of Arthurian legend, connected to the search for the Holy Grail. His fearsome challenges, awesome weapons and ability to survive immense injury without retaliation ultimately revealing lessons in forgiveness to the medieval English.

He seems also to have appeared to Arab nomads as Khisr (or Khidr or Al Kadir) a being living between the sacred and profane worlds who ‘built his house on the very edge of the world, where the heavenly and the earthly oceans meet.’ The Bedouin accord him unquestioning trust, advising that, ‘whoever meets Khisr should not question him, but do whatever he advises, however far-fetched it may seem.’ He is their patron saint of (time?) travellers, but, like Hans Anderson’s ‘travelling companion’ he disappears once his task is over, obeying an ancient and secret conception of immanence: Protecting his people but absent from their daily lives.

But the evidence for his nature is ambiguous. Far from being divine he may be less than human. Our biologists remark on his behavioural resemblance to the Golden Man – a mutated creature from a possible Earth future with no upper brain or consciousness, who survives simply by being able to see a few minutes into the future. Although having only a primitive brain stem, incapable of intelligence and probably with no memories in any form we would recognise, the Golden Man has the ability to predict and avoid any trap we set for him. His small mobility in time renders our ‘superior’ intelligence and technology impotent; some consider that on evolutionary timescales he could potentially replace us.

The Green Man seems to be extensively mobile in time and our theologians refer to him as the Chronocrater, Christ as the Lord of Time, and note his association with the colours blue, green and red; a sign to us of how he connects the upper, middle and lower kingdoms. They regard him as a being on all planes of existence, synchronous with the harmonies of creation. Our military arm is bound by its duties to ask whether a being that lives in sacred time is our saviour or a threat.

His most common sign is the cup. The biologists suggest that the cups’ appearance before and during sightings suggests that they may be ‘seeds’ or some other part of his life cycle. Our physicists (and theologians) point out that we may be seeing some representation of his form in other dimensions. An interesting possibility is that he is pursuing an adaption of medieval Grail symbology that he trusts is readable to us. Is he remembering, but changing, his successes in Arthurian time and signalling to us - with a foam cup in place of a jewelled chalice – a modern sign of forgiveness and redemption?

Our alchemists seem to concur, noting that his appearances, and signs, often coincide with golden light and the emergence of the sun. To them this is an indication of his knowledge of the single state of perfection that lies at the centre of things, which they imperfectly strive to attain by the transmutation of base materials.

My section of the project was first aware of him in Tokyo in the 1980s (The Green Man Saves Tokyo mission). Did he arrive because that city was in its golden age, full of energy and the future? Had he also been in Carthage before the Third Punic War, New York in the 20s, Beirut in the 40s? Or did he sense the danger, the economic collapse, and even war, waiting just the other side of the membrane. Did we, in that place and time, signal for him in some way we only dimly understand?

Our recent encounters with the Green Man have recorded him in many forms. He is not always green, and sometimes he wears dark glasses, sometimes not. In ancient, primal landscapes he is clearly different, but, chameleon-like, the closer he comes to our cities and our time the more human he appears. We each of us think that he become more like us the closer he comes and, indeed, in recent years when he entered the building where I work on this project, I noticed that there were times when he was indistinguishable from me.

I can only say, on a personal note, that without him I would not have achieved the small successes I have. I have grown used to his frightening appearance and actions, tolerant of his ridiculous and comic aspects. I have been aware of his presence, and absence, on many occasions and, while his role as a saviour of humanity is still being argued about, he has certainly saved me.