Time Anomalies/ Time Slips

18 Jun

The idea of a time slip is when someone suddenly and unexpectedly finds themselves in a different time period than the one in which they belong. It is a commonly used plot device in fiction but could it be based in reality?

Einstein’s theory of relativity suggests that time travel is in fact possible if you are able to travel faster than the speed of light. Unfortunately we are physically incapable of travelling that fast but who is to say that the less tangible aspects of ourselves, our thoughts, our minds, our souls are incapable of this. Many people have reported strange events in their lives that seem to suggest the possibility of time travel or a time slip.

Some Time Slip Stories

In the 1970’s a teenage girl named Angela in Penrith, Cumbria, UK, used to sometimes go for walks up to Beacon Hill. On one such walk with a friend the atmosphere suddenly became heavy and electric. They turned a corned and suddenly there was an old roughly put together cottage they had never seen there before. There was smoke coming from the chimney indicating someone was home. While they stood there the door to the cottage flung open and the girls fled. Angela has been on many walks up to Beacon Hill in the years since but has never again seen the cottage.
Alice Pollock wrote in her autobiography of being in Leeds Castle, Kent when she was suddenly transported back in time as she touched some objects in the castle. The room she was in went from being carpeted and lush to cold and bare. She saw a tall woman walking back and forth in a frustrated manner. In an instant she was transported back to reality. She later discovered that the room she was in used to be the prison room of Joan of Navarre.
Two English women wrote a book title “An Adventure” detailing their strange experience in the garden of the Palace of Versailles. While they were there they saw people wearing anachronistic clothing, saw buildings and structures that had not existed since the late 1700s, heard mysterious voices and even saw Marie Antoinette drawing in a sketchbook.

time slip stories: The cripps department store that appeared during the time slip. — Cripps: The department store that reappeared during the time slip in Liverpool.

In 1996 a man named John went shopping with his wife in Liverpool. While his wife was shopping he got talking to a friend on the street for about 20 minutes before going to see where his wife had got to. While strolling along the street he noticed it was unusually quiet. He noticed the street was cobbled where it had previously been concrete and the people around him were suddenly all wearing clothes from the 1950’s. A box van with the name Caplins on the side blared its horn at him. He noticed a store across the street that was usually called Dillons suddenly had signs calling it Cripps. He noticed a young woman wearing normal 1990’s clothes enter the shop then immediately exit looking startled. Suddenly the scene reverted to its normal self. John ran over and asked the girl if she had seen it all too. She was frightened and said that she had. John later discovered that a store named Cripps had indeed stood on the site back in the 1950s.

Are these time slips physical events, psychic phenomena or simply shared delusions? Perhaps they are similar to a residual haunting or the stone tape phenomena where energy from a time past is imprinted on to the environment and able to be viewed by other people. It is impossible to know for sure but fascinating nonetheless.