A 1947 Time Slip to the 1800s

Thanks to John P. Harris for this fascinating story:

East End Bombsite: Napoleonic Timeslip

While on an ‘Anomalies’ themed chatroom back in 1998, I found one user called Elizabeth,
and kept as a regular contact. While discussing themes such as UFO sightings, crop circles, she then mentioned a case that her aunt had experienced after the Second World War. I was curious, so Elizabeth sent fragmented details via instant messenger of her aunt’s incident. Elizabeth’s aunt ‘Beryl’ [actual name omitted on request] who felt she might have slipped back to the early 1800's while exploring bomb sites with her elder sister Daisy.

On enquiry, I was told at the time that Beryl constantly reflects on what she experienced, emphasising it was not a hallucination or a fragment of false memory.

It was 1947, and though the war had ended, it was still a tough time. Beryl as a seven-year-old had returned to her parent’s home after being evacuated from Mile End Road , situated in London's east end. She was sent to live with relatives in Lincolnshire. Even as a child she found her original home rather strange, but spent time like all of the other east end kids by playing hopscotch or skipping in the semi derelict streets.
Beryl and her friends would use one of the battered Victorian lampposts by lashing some old rope on the struts to make a swing. Beryl always wanted to tag along with her older sister Daisy and explore the bombsites, as for most kids they were an adventure playground.

‘Sometimes you can find hidden treasure’ said one of Daisy's friends and added ‘Someone I know found a load of silver 'thrupneys' in an old vase'. Beryl, used to keep ‘mithering’ her elder sister to tag along, Daisy always said no and kept repeating ‘it’s too dangerous.’
However, on this occasion Daisy said ‘Come on then but don’t wander off because you will fall down a massive hole.’

Beryl described this particular day. ‘It was cold we walked what seemed for ages down the grimy damp streets as most of the buildings were in various stages of falling down.’
Beryl told her niece about how dangerous it was. ‘The houses that were partially standing up were propped up with massive wooden frames.’ In addition, you would get ‘half a house’ with the top room window frames with shards of glass sticking out like icicles, tethered to ripped curtains. 

They ended up on a street called Wellclose Square. 'It was an odd place' said Beryl.
She remembered how strange it was that some of the buildings were not touched, but still remained empty as most of the buildings were boarded up, except for one tallish looking house that had a gap in the wall like a giant mouse hole.

The house with the gap in the wall had a back garden, which was choked with weeds, but for some odd reason, Beryl found this particular house enchanting. One of triggers of the experience was the weeds; ‘The smell of the weeds created a strange atmosphere.’
Daisy was close by, but decided to explore an old outhouse and told Beryl to stay put.
Beryl clambered across the garden and decided to sneak into the hole that was under the window.

 As Daisy and her friends were throwing rocks onto the roof of shed, Beryl peeked into the gap, as she was small enough to squeeze through. While crawling through the gap trying to avoid the loose bricks and cobwebs, as she squeezed through, halfway into a room.

Beryl noticed a woman in old-fashioned clothes wearing a white linen cap, peering over big metal pot that was placed above a large open fireplace.

Taking a second glance, two other people appeared out of nowhere, one woman who was dressed in grey clothes wearing a crumpled bonnet, moments later, a man wearing a green coat with ribbings on the front, and a shako hat walked into the room.
Beryl described the scene ‘It was just like out of the Gainsborough films we used to watch at the pictures.’ [Gainsborough Studios, a London based film Production Company who on occasions would produce historical dramas].

Beryl added, ‘Inside the furniture looked really old-fashioned spindly chairs, striped wall coverings even though a large fire was roaring away in the large fireplace, I did not feel any heat.’ As she sneaked in for a closer look, suddenly a small boy who was dressed in a blue calico gown gave Beryl an inquisitive look and waved at her, then began shouting.
Somehow, as the toddler made such a noise, the other two people did not hear him or did not take notice. The boy continued to point and shout though Beryl could not hear any sound, but crept back slowly and ran off.

‘Hey Daisy‘ as she scrambled across the foot strangling weeds, ‘there are people in that empty house.’ Beryl tugged Daisy’s jumper and pulled her towards the garden.
‘What people?’ ‘It’s an empty house?’ said Daisy, ‘she was a bit miffed.’
Daisy still reluctant to follow Beryl across the weed strewn garden ‘you first Daisy,’ said Beryl. Daisy said ‘Alright then I am not scared’ and headed towards the ‘mouse hole’ in the wall. Moments later, Daisy replied ‘there’s nothing here just a dusty room full of bricks and rubble. ‘Beryl then followed inside, all she saw was a pile of wood, rubble and bits of coal strewn against the wall and it smelt damp, which ruled out there ever been a fire. They went back to the same place two days later.

The gap in the wall was not there, Beryl added ‘it looked intact as if there never had been any hole or any form of damage,’ ‘ I even took a closer look at the exact spot,’nothing it seemed untouched.’ I asked Elizabeth, what she thought. Her viewpoint was that the location had a curious history and highlighted the connection of the ‘people’ Beryl had seen.

Elizabeth studied the description of the man by researching historical records, as the man, whom Beryl describes, may have been a soldier who might have been off to war.
or had returned home, he was dressed in the British army uniform that could have dated to the Napoleonic war (1803-15).

^{© John p Harris} 

A Time-Slipping Kitchen/An Elevator from the Past

Thanks to Darren P for these submissions:

I have had two time slips, the first when I was 11 years old. I was looking through my house window at home hoping to see mum. Instead, there was a man wearing brown trousers and a white shirt stood at the kitchen sink. Then I noticed that the kitchen was different very old fashioned with what I now know as a Belfast sink. I entered the house only to see that the man had disappeared and the kitchen was back to it's 1979 norm. As a young boy, I was convinced this was a ghost.
Fast forward 39 years and I was walking up a street after parking my car to go buy some lunch and noticed a very old elevator with metal folding doors in a small factory. I had not even noticed the factory before, so I walk over to investigate. There was a man operating the elevator dressed in a brown work coat (similar to you find in old hardware stores) and a few people already in. The operator said to me "are you getting in or what?". I did jump in and the elevator went up a floor and everyone alighted. The operator then asked me if I was getting off. "No thanks, I need to go back" I replied and then I alighted back on the ground floor and made my way to my car. After crossing the road and opening my car door I turned to look at the factory. It was no longer there. Instead, there was a row of shops and cafes. This was in broad daylight during my lunch hour and certainly not a dream. Only then did I realise that this was similar to the man and the sink when I was a child. I just cannot stop thinking about it now.

Two fascinating stories from Australia

Here are my time slip experiences, both from when before I became an adult:

The first time, I was looking for a ruler (I was homeschooled).  My Mum told me there was one on the desk in the far corner of the lounge.  As I walked over there, I passed my Dad on the computer.  He had his email inbox up, but was talking on the phone to a contact of ours.  I happened to notice in passing an unread email from the contact titled "Hannah" at the top of the inbox (immediately below it was an email we'd read earlier about Answers in Genesis' Ark Exhibit).  I got the ruler, and headed back towards the kitchen.  Just after I passed the computer, Dad said "No, it hasn't come in yet."  I quickly looked and saw the the email "Hannah" WAS NOT THERE!  At the top of the list was the read Ark email.  a second later, I SAW THE EMAIL TITLED "HANNAH" FROM THE PERSON DAD WAS TALKING TO ARRIVE!  Saw it with my own eyes.  So, I saw an email before it was sent!

I found out afterwards that Hannah was the name of the contact's dog, and the email apparently contained a photo of the dog.  I had earlier heard Dad (in the phone conversation) say something about a dog, but I hadn't paid much attention, and certainly hadn't heard the name!

The second time occurred while my Dad was out - although whether he was out visiting or shopping, or if he was on a trip, I don't remember.  Anyway, my Dad rung, and Mum started talking with him on the phone (this is in the lounge - right next to the computer; about halfway along the lounge).  While Mum was talking with him, the microwave in the back of the kitchen beeped, indicating it had preheated.  She quietly asked me to sort it out.  I walked (at a brisk pace) straight to the microwave, opened the door, hesitated for a second - and then saw Mum right behind me!  Now, Mum is notoriously slow.  It's become a running joke in the family.  To have done that, she would have had to have immediately (and I mean literally IMMEDIATELY) hung up and walked quite quick behind me - which she had no reason to do.  I confirmed with my sister (who was in the lounge at the time) that Mum CONTINUED talking with Dad for a short time after I left, which makes her appearing a metre or two behind me IMPOSSIBLE!  Curiously enough, my sister said that while she hadn't paid attention to it at the time, there WAS a gap of time between when I entered the kitchen and when I opened the microwave (and I can personally attest that I DIDN'T DELAY!).  Did I skip a few minutes of time?

Submitted by JM1999

A Series of Time Slips from Texas to Egypt!

I received these stories from an anonymous poster:

The first incident I recall was in 1975. I was at an old house in San Antonio. A couple of college friends lived there, but the house was about to be condemned so they were throwing a huge, boozy party one last time. Rumor had it that the house had been a bordello, but college kids and creepy rumors inevitably go together. Anyway, it was old, creaky, and huge. I went upstairs, and crept down a hallway with multiple doors on each side. I opened the door, and there was daylight.

And I saw two men arguing. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but I sensed it was about a woman. Apparently, they could not see me. Both men were in their late 20s, early 30s. One man was Latino. The other man had blond hair, and his shirt collar was open and sort of hanging weird. (I learned later this was probably a detachable collar, although I'd never heard of such a thing.) The Latino man pulled out a knife, and suddenly the blond man had a gun in his hand and shot the other man in the chest. Then, it was night again, and I could hear the party going on downstairs.

In 1981, I was visiting a friend in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. We went to a bar, located in the basement of an old, historic hotel. (I was not drinking alcohol.) Suddenly, the bar was gone. I was in a quiet room. In the room were two tables that looked like hospital exam tables. There were white sheets on the tables, and the room felt very clinical and sterile. I don't recall seeing anyone in there; just the room with two beds. And then...the bar returned. I asked my friend (I was pretty excited) what he knew about the history of the place. "Was it ever a hospital?" I said. But he knew nothing about it. This was in June. I couldn't stop thinking about what I saw, so in late October of that year I wrote out something much like what I've just shared, and put it in an envelope addressed to "Local Historian, c/o Eureka Springs, AK". I also enclosed a stamped, self-addressed envelope. All small towns had a "local historian" I figured. I mean what did I have to lose?

A couple of years passed. I moved to another apartment. Then, one day, my former land lady called me to tell me a letter had arrived at my old address. (Which in itself was odd, because she had never contacted me before.) I drove over to pick it up, and I was momentarily confused when I saw it, because it looked like my own handwriting! Of course, it was,  and I had entirely forgotten that I'd ever sent it. Inside was a letter from, indeed, the local historian. Somehow, it had made its way to her. She explained that she had wanted to reply months ago, but the letter had fallen behind a dresser. She had just found it, and wrote back immediately. In the letter she said that the basement had served as a makeshift morgue during the Civil War, and that the room I had been in had served as the embalming room. She was really excited, and asked me to come back sometime and tour the town. But I had learned what I wanted to, and just let it drop.

After that, all sorts of small but odd things happened periodically. I would see the former occupants of a house, and sometimes even get a sense of who they were. For example: I would see a young woman who had lived there, and I would know that she very fond of a young boy. He was not a relative, but she felt very sisterly towards him. I could see them clearly (I still remember her cloche hat she wore, and how cute she looked.)

Some times I would smell things. One winter, when I lived in Scotland, my husband and I were driving in a particularly barren area. We saw an old castle, and a sign that said it was part of the Scottish trust. When we arrived, it was closed for the winter (this was 1993 or 94), but the caretaker drove up and kindly let us in to look around. I had been in many, many castles, but this one viscerally creeped me out. I had to leave one room, and I made my way to the lowest level. I relaxed once I was down there, because I could smell delicious bread baking. I did find that odd, but we all love that smell! A while later, the caretaker and my husband came down there, and I asked why they were baking bread today. My husband said he didn't smell anything. The caretaker just looked bemused, and told us that the area had once been a kitchen. Nothing had been baked in there for hundreds of years...

The last experience I will share is my most memorable. It happened in the Valley of the Kings, in Luxor, Egypt. It was 1996, and we were at the Ramaseum, a wonderful site of toppled statues, ancient ruins, and a still-functioning nileometer. I walked out onto the excavated foundation of something, just a scraped-out square of sand surrounded by what looked like the remains of a low wall. I stood in the center, feeling the heat of the blazing sun, throat dry and raw from the dust.

Suddenly, I felt cool water trickling over my feet. I actually jumped from the unexpected feeling. The water level didn't quite reach my ankles. Above me were banners of colored cloth, stretched across a pergola. There were also fluttering flags along the sides of the structure. The floor was at an incline, and a wide stream of water flowed from the elevated side down (using an Archimedes screw, although why would I know that then?) and people were seated in low chairs and benches, talking and enjoying the feel of the cool water. It was absolutely the most refreshing thing I have ever felt. Then, it just went away. I was back in the unshaded sun, and I was actually a little emotional because the moment was gone.

I did contact a couple of American Egyptologists, hoping to find one who was familiar with the Ramaseum. No one ever answered me back, so I just shut down and gave up.

Road Trip to a Time Slip

Sometime around 1974, I was driving from Madison, Wisconsin, to Bayfield, Wisconsin, a distance of something more than 300 miles and a six- or seven-hour drive. As is my habit even today whenever I can do so, I kept off the primary highways in favor of county roads. I had made the same trip several times before, and I had a consistent route: this far north on this road, then west a few miles on that road, the north again on another road, then…. You get the point.

Because I had made the trip before, I knew three things: which roads I was going to take, how long it would take to get from one to the other, and the total time for my trip. On this day, however, my best-laid plan went all catty-wampus. At some time during my trip I suddenly found I was on a northbound road I had not intended to take, a road I had never taken and would not have taken under any circumstances. I also found that I had “lost” something more than an hour. That is, given the amount of time that had passed, I should have been an hour farther north than I was.

Sounds almost like an alien abduction, doesn’t it? But I don’t have any mysterious implants in my body, and I don’t remember (poor me!) having had a sexual encounter with a comely alien female.

It does sound a lot like an episode of “highway hypnosis,” but for several reasons I don’t think it was highway hypnosis. With highway hypnosis you do lose a sense of time passing, but in this case the amount of time exceeds typical highway-hypnosis loss of time; I was not on a road with which I was familiar; I did not remember driving during that loss of time; during the time lost, I did not have peripheral knowledge of anything that was going on around me–I was not aware of anything. Furthermore, when you’re driving the back roads of Wisconsin, you must stay alert because you never know when you’ll top a rise and be faced with a slow-moving tractor pulling a manure spreader. If you’re not paying attention in that situation, you’ll soon literally be in the shit.

Charles Wesley Orton

Ancestral Memory?

We were en route to Israel and were in a small cathedral in Austria. Jon McCallum was directing the singing. It was beautiful. I looked up and saw small balconies surrounding the second floor. I had a flashback of myself standing on the middle balcony dressed in clothing of what I would call the Renaissance Period. ([I was]more than likely a servant) LOL! Seriously, it was heart stopping. I never believed in reincarnation but it opened my mind to the possibility of maybe it being one of my female ancestors I was having a connection to at the time. Just something to ponder.

Submitted by Peggy Brown

The closest thing to a time slip I've experienced

I'm one of those people who thinks I want to experience the paranormal, but would probably go into panic mode if anything significant actually occurred. I jump out of my skin if a real person speaks when I think I'm alone in a room, so it's somewhat laughable to think I'd appreciate a ghost sighting. (Except I swear I would...)

I had a small taste of how I'd probably react to a time slip. It was my senior year of college and I lay down for a nap one afternoon. As I entered sleep, I began to feel a spinning sensation. (I had not been drinking :-D). Then I was dreaming. The dream began with me floating through the air and into my early childhood bedroom on Hurricane Creek Road in West Virginia. A Rod Serling-type voice was narrating, "Sometimes, when we dream, we go back in time." (Pretty hokey, but I've had credits scroll up at the end of a dream, so...)  I floated down until I was sitting on my carpet. The carpet and decor were yellow, as they had been in my earlier childhood before we had redecorated. I only took vague notice of this, because I was instantly panicked. All I could think was that I was stuck in the past. I scrambled to my feet and raced to open my door. I ran through the hallway to my parents' room. Even in my panic, I noticed with some surprise that the hallway had the earth tones that were also from my early childhood before we had redecorated. (I'm not sure I could have even told you what color they were until that dream reminded me.) 

I rushed into my parents' room. My dad was sleeping, his face to the wall as he most often did. My mom was sitting up and I believe she was sewing/mending something. I ran to her, still panicked, and threw my arms around her. "Mom, you've got to pray for me - I'm stuck in a --" I started to say "dream" - which indicates I was realizing that this was a dream - but I stopped, worried that I would scare her. She was watching me with alarm, and I struggled with how to approach the issue. I looked out the window of the balcony to the backyard, still thinking. Finally, I asked, "Are we on Hurricane Creek?" Logic clearly failed me here, as it does in dreams, because asking my mom if we were on the street where we clearly were could be no less alarming than asking what year it was. "Yes," Mom answered, still watching me in concern. 

Then I remembered that I always pray to get out of terrifying dreams, but it hadn't occurred to me. I said, "Jesus, help me to wake up." Immediately, my eyes flew open and I was back in my own time (or, awake).

I had an immense sense of relief, and now that I knew it had just been a dream, I decided to go back to sleep and finish my nap. I closed my eyes, and within a few minutes that spinning sensation started back up. It freaked me out so much that I decided not to nap after all, and I got up.

If anyone had told me that I would react in such a way to being sent back to my early childhood, I wouldn't have believed them. I would have thought that I'd enjoy exploring my old house again, seeing my parents, venturing into the wooded foothills and creeks with my friends. But in that moment that I settled onto my yellow carpet, I felt only panic. I knew I was in the past and I was afraid I was stuck.

So when I consider people who have been wide awake and found themselves displaced in time - and realized that is what was happening - I can't imagine they would enjoy the experience.

Naomi West