Benjaman Kyle

ORLANDO, Fla. — The man who can’t remember his past came to Orlando in search of a future.

For more than a decade, he called himself “Benjaman Kyle,” because he didn’t know his real name.

“It was like I was a ghost,” he said Monday. “Legally I didn’t exist.”

Kyle, whose extraordinary ordeal has been featured on television shows, was diagnosed with retrograde amnesia 11 years ago when he was found unconscious behind a Burger King in Georgia.

The cleaning woman who found him near the restaurant’s dumpster told a dispatcher in Richmond Hill, Ga., a suburb of Savannah, that she thought he was dead. He was naked and covered with fire-ant bites.

Police found nothing to identify him at the scene and called paramedics to take him away, figuring he was homeless.

When he awoke, he couldn’t help authorities solve the mystery.

One of the only biographical facts he recalled was his birthday: He was exactly 10 years older than pop singer Michael Jackson.

“You see it in the movies: Someone gets conked on the head and they forget everything. Oh, yeah, right,” said Jacqueline Dowd, an attorney with IDignity, an Orlando organization that helps homeless and other low-income people get government-issued identification.

“But in this case, it’s true. We’ve seen the medical records that prove he does have that condition.”

IDignity invested more than two years helping Kyle collect documents needed to prove he wasn’t a ghost.

His fingerprints turned up no criminal record.

While in the hospital, he had assumed the name Benjaman Kyle partly because the hospital staff had dubbed him “B.K.” Doe — for Burger King — and partly because he thought Benjaman sounded vaguely familiar, though it’s usually spelled “Benjamin.”

A genetic genealogist finally helped him learn his true identity.

The method was similar to a process developed for adopted people who want to identify their birth families. The scientist’s team compared Kyle’s DNA to records in databases across the country to find clues.

The organization tracked down his birth certificate, original Social Security records and other documents, some of which had to be amended because the names on the paperwork did not match precisely — and they have to, attorney Dowd said.

Kyle said he won’t reveal his true identity until he meets with relatives in Indiana, his birth state.

He obtained his Florida ID card Monday. He described the ID card as “a big turning point” in his struggle and exclaimed, “I now exist — and can prove it.”