The patient was found wandering in the town of Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey in early April. He was soaking wet, and has not spoken since he was discovered. He was taken to a local hospital where workers made a piano available to him after he drew a detailed drawing of the instrument, and he played for hours in what seemed to be a very accomplished manner.

He continues to be cared for at the hospital; a worldwide search for his identity has brought in hundreds of leads. A number of hopeful possibilities have turned out to be dead ends.

Several of the former students, who lived at the Kringsjå Student Housing Complex, think that he was an exchange student from Ireland or Northern Ireland, and that his name is Dominic.

One of those students, now a doctor in Stavanger, told the newspaper Dagbladet, "I was startled when I saw his photo, and began to search through my own photo albums. When I found photos from my student years, I became completely still. His eyes, his ears, the little curl of his upper lip, everything matched."

The student these sources have in mind was fluent in Norwegian, and later moved to Sweden with his Swedish girlfriend.

Earlier this week it was reported that the Piano Man pointed to the city of Oslo on a map, and also to a picture of the Swedish flag in an atlas. A Norwegian speaker was called in, and although the patient did not answer, he seemed more responsive.

One theory is that the Piano Man fell from a boat in the Sheerness harbor; there were, as it turns out, boats from Russia, Norway, and Sweden in port at the time.