Family Inexplicably Reappears in Different Place

Thanks to Reddit poster dgmiller70 for permission to share this story: 

This one happened tonight. It’s also my first post here.

My wife and I were walking our three dogs on a beach access, coming back from the beach around 7pm. I know, it’s mid-December, but it was still in the mid-60s here and our Huskies love the beach. We met a family from Ohio near the middle of the narrow beach access, which is about 300 feet from beach to street. The mother and daughter walked past us and continued to the beach, but the father and son stopped to pet the dogs and talked to us for maybe 5 minutes. They used to have a Husky and enjoyed loving on our boys while chatting about various things. The father was wearing a yellow team sweatshirt and the son was wearing a black cloth face mask.

The father received a phone call from his wife urging him to join her on the beach, so we went our separate ways. They continued toward the beach and we continued toward the street. 

The entire south side of this beach access is faced by a tall construction fence that runs from the swash channel (filled with water) to the street. There is no way through. At the end of the swash channel is a coffer dam out into the ocean. They are building a new fishing pier, restaurant, and parking area here and it is completely blocked off. There is a restaurant along the north side of the beach access.

When we reached the street, we turned south in front of the construction fence, which runs along the sidewalk, and walked to the next building, about 50 feet south of the beach access. There, we waited.for two cars to pass (about 30 seconds) and crossed the street to walk down an alley next to a barbecue restaurant. We then stopped at the barbecue restaurant’s patio to ask the hostess if dogs were allowed on the patio. 

While speaking with the hostess (who started feeding our dogs treats from her apron), we saw the family from the beach access come out of the restaurant with their food and sit at a table on the patio. Same yellow sweatshirt, same black face mask, same family of four.

There is no possible way for them to have made it from where we passed them on the beach access to the restaurant in the time they did, and without passing us. That access, and the sidewalk, is just a few feet wide. It just isn’t possible. And also in time for them to get food? No way.

A possible time slip to the 1950s or 60s

Thanks to Pamela for this fascinating submission! 

In May of 2006, I spent time with my sister in Charlotte, North Carolina.  She had just moved to NC.  I had driven there from my home from Georgia.  I left Charlotte to head back to Georgia at 7:30 AM on May 22, 2006.  

I followed my sister to the expressway because she was on her way to work at Uptown Charlotte.  I continued on toward the expressway I-77 toward I-85 South. I remember driving and seeing landmarks that I’d taken notice of while traveling to North Carolina.  

I really don’t remember anything else until I happened upon a fork in the road and saw a sign reading I-26.  I was so confused because I had driven 2 hours and was completely unaware that I had traveled in another direction.  

I had no memory of traveling for 2 hours, and I couldn’t see where the highway led to on the right. I stayed left and pulled over and called my sister. I was in a panic because I didn’t know what happened. We talk for a few minutes and she told me to see if I could get off and head back the way I came from.

This where it gets weird:

About a mile down the expressway, I got off at the first exit on the right. Off to the right was a gas station.  I noticed that the area looked kind of isolated and the road was gravel and in bad shape.  

The buildings were old, red brick buildings, the windows were broken, and some had cardboard up to them. 

There was no traffic on the roads and no sidewalks; however, when I pulled up to the gas station, there were about six cars there. I decided to go in to see if someone could tell me where I was and how I could find I-85.

Now, when I went inside the gas station, I noticed a few people in there. The cashier was a tall, heavy-set, white man with a full beard and wearing a blue jean overall.  

I went up to the cashier to ask him questions, but he ignored me and was talking to other customers.  I then tried to speak to some of the customers, but they ignored me too.  I became scared because I thought that they ignored me because I was black.  

I felt so defeated and lost, and I decided to go back to my car. On my way back to my car, I noticed 2 young white guys possibly in their early twenties. They had white pants and white T-shirts, and they were walking toward a white van.  

The young man on my immediate right was walking with his head down, and the other guy on his right looked to be play-kicking and trying to play around with him.  

I walked up to the guy on my right to ask him for directions. He appeared confused, as though I were a strange being.  

He would briefly look up at me but he mostly kept his head down. 

The other guy didn’t seem to see me at all; he didn’t  acknowledge me or his friend talking to me.

I was walking right beside the the guy asking him questions and he said that he worked in Augusta, Georgia and had no ideal about I-85.  He had a look on his face like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.  

It was then that I realized that his friend and the people in the station didn’t talk to me because they couldn’t see me!  

I got back on I-26 for another mile until I saw a turn-around and headed back toward the way I’d come from.  I then started seeing signs that I was on I-77 and signs for Columbia South Carolina. 

Eventually, I saw a policeman and debated if I should get his attention. I decided not to because of fear that he wouldn’t see me.  So I stayed behind him until I reached the turn for Charlotte. 

During my ride back to Charlotte, nothing was familiar to me. I don’t remember having seen any of the signs, exits, or landmarks. 

I finally made it back to Charlotte. I’d had no idea what happened to me, and almost 5 hours of my life was gone.  I made it back to Georgia at 3:30 PM; it is normally a 4 hour trip!   

I don’t know if this is related, but when I got home my face, arms, legs, and chest were broken out so badly that I had to go to the emergency room to get treatment.  

I still find myself wondering what exactly happened - where had I been and why everything had looked like the 1950/60’s. 

The sun was out and shining bright in Charlotte, but at the gas station exit it had been overcast and gloomy.  It had appeared completely deserted except for the people at the gas station. There had been no buildings around the gas station; the only buildings were down on the right from the gas station and those were unoccupied and old with broken windows.  There were no street lights, no traffic, no grass and minimal trees - everything had looked dead. 

Time Loop in Leeds, UK

Thanks to James Fisher for this submission:

This incident occurred in February 2019 in Leeds, UK.

I was in the city centre in a busy area near to Leeds Central Library and the Art Gallery. It was around midday and I was sitting on a bench with my son eating a sandwich. We were watching people passing by as we ate when a man both caught our attention.

He was in his 50s, dressed smartly in a suit, and was jogging very quickly past us whilst holding a drink. We both commented on him as it was unusual to see a man dressed in such a formal manner jogging at that speed, but also interesting that he managed to keep his drink upright whilst doing so.

We both watched as he went past and disappeared around a corner behind a large building about 100 metres away. We both returned to our lunch when no more than two seconds later the same man, dressed in identical clothes, carrying the same drink and jogging at the same pace, passed again in front of our bench exactly as he had done a few seconds previously. He took the same route and disappeared around the corner just as before.

There is no way that he could have returned to the same spot to repeat his run in the amount of time which had elapsed, even if he had been driven there. It was literally a matter of seconds. There is also no way he could have come from around the corner to return to this spot as we would have seen him.

I believe this was a case of a minor time slip, albeit lasting only a few seconds.

I've enclosed a map to show you the route he took.

Soldiers from the Past: a Time Slip in the New Forest

Thanks to David Dwyer of the UK for this submission:

My own experience happened in late Sept. 2020, near the town of Brockenhurst, in the New Forest. I had moved to Winchester a couple of weeks previously in order to start a short term job to keep me going until I got my visa and left the country. It was a nice day so I looked up a walk in the New Forest using a phone app called New Forest Walks and settled on one to a spot called Buckland Rings, about a 3 – 4 hour walk. I parked in the railway station car park and set off at a leisurely pace. Enjoying the scenery, the old church etc., I spoke to a couple of people as I passed them and stopped several times to take photographs. I wanted to get used to using my DSLR camera before emigrating. After a couple of hours - at about 1 pm approximately - I walked off the track, found a tree stump to sit on and eat my pack lunch. After finishing that, I starting walking back and took a few more shots.

After a while walking I became aware of some movement in the trees to my left and looked over to see a group of soldiers moving at a jogging pace, spread over about 50 – 60 meters moving across my path. They were dressed in old fashioned uniform, khaki, not camouflage, tin hats, some with twigs and small branches, carrying old fashioned rifles, not modern rifles. Prominent at the front, leading them and encouraging them was a soldier carrying a pistol and blowing a whistle. The group moved across my path; I was aware of some being behind me, but I did not turn around. The noise and sounds of them grew until I felt in the midst of it. But just as quickly the group moved about 30 meters to the right, the sound went, and the group disappeared. 

I assumed the group were reenactors or similar due to the old style clothing and rifles, and I made a mental note to find out who they were when I got home. I completed the walk, got in the car and drove home.

In the next couple of days I emailed the New Forest authority and asked if they could let me know who the group was. They replied that they had no idea and suggested I contact Brockenhurst College to see if it was the army cadets etc. from there.  Once again, the response was that they had no idea who it was and it was nothing to do with them. I still have the emails.

 

I left it at that until recently finding out about time slips and have become more intrigued by what I experienced.