Freaky Friday Files: Time Slips
Hi friends! For this edition of Freaky Friday Files, I thought we could take a look at something called "time slips". Time slips are considered a sci-fi plot device, but some people are convinced they have experienced them in real life. In movies, a time slip tends to be when a character/s time travel without using a device such as a time machine; it's like "accidental time travel". In regard to people who think they experience time slips, it's similar, but it's when a person finds themselves, maybe in a different time period for a few minutes or even hours at a time. I'm wondering if there's a psychological explanation for them, like maybe some sort of random hallucination or memory glitch? A few years ago, I actually wrote a blog about time travel specifically. You can check that one out "here".
Let's explore some real-life examples of people experiencing time slips. I've paraphrased these stories, but all references are at the end of the blog if you want to read the originals.
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Time Slips (Real-Life Examples)
The Versailles Time Slip
On the 10th of August, 1901, two women (Charlotte Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain) went to the Palace of Versailles + surrounding gardens. For context, Charlotte was the president of Oxford’s St Hugh’s College, with Eleanor as her assistant. Allegedly, the two women weren't impressed by the buildings, so they headed off outside to see the Trianon Palaces. One building was closed, so they went to another one. Anyway, they happened to pass a small cottage/farmhouse area, and this is the moment when things started to feel not quite right. The two women wrote about their experiences, and at this time they claimed to have seen many men out in the gardens in period costumes. They also believe they saw Marie Antoinette (who was alive from 1755 - 1793).
Were these women hallucinating at the time, or did they really experience a time slip? I always find it interesting when "paranormal" sort of stuff happens to academics.
Mystery Triangle UFO Time Warp
Two military personnel believed they experienced a 25-minute time slip (i.e., lost time) after seeing triangle-shaped glowing UFOs. This incident occurred earlier in 2026 over the western United States. When one observer checked the time on his watch, he saw that his analog watch was running 25 minutes ahead of all the other digital clocks around. He also claims the watch had been accurate up until that point in time.
One proposed theory about this story is that some sort of electromagnetic effect interfered with the watch.
The Liverpool Police Officer
It seems that Liverpool seems to be a hot spot for people experiencing time slips. On the 7th of July, 1996, an off-duty police officer called Frank was planning to go to a bookshop to meet his wife. While on the way to the bookshop, Frank was nearly hit by a small 1950s-looking van that said "Caplan's" on the side. The driver beeped his horn, and Frank suddenly realised that he was in the road. Frank saw that the bookshop was called something else and people were dressed in 1940s/1950s style clothing. Frank followed a girl into the bookshop as he saw she had a brand name on her bag that was modern. When Frank entered the bookshop, it went back to 1996. The girl that Frank followed seemed confused, and when speaking to Frank, he realised they had both seen the same thing. Caplan's wasn't a brand that was around anymore. Spooky.
The Vanishing Hotel
In October 1979, two English married couples were driving through France to get to their holiday destination in Spain. The two families say they stayed overnight at an old-fashioned-looking hotel. They decided to take a break on the way back in the same hotel, but they were unable to find said hotel. What's more is that both families took photos there AND couldn't find them; they were missing, even from the negatives that were developed.
I experienced a phenomenon I can't explain. It may be what I think you call a time slip
Reddit user Amithrius posted to the Glitch in the Matrix subreddit about a time slip that they experienced 8 years ago. To preface, the story happened to OP 18 years prior to posting, so I feel like we should take this story with a grain of salt. At the time of the experience, OP was with a cousin and another guy at the cousin's new house in a relatively busy area. Around 9 PM, they decided that they wanted to get some food, so OP took a walk to the shops with one friend, but the cousin stayed at home (I hope that makes sense, as I am paraphrasing this story). Anyway, it was about a 30-minute walk to the shops, with a lot of foot traffic and cars, so it wasn't like a d*ad zone or anything. OP starts to get this really unsettling feeling as they are walking back, as if the street was out of place and then suddenly, there were absolutely no cars around, no people around any more, just silence. A ghost town. They both picked up their pace and started to walk faster.
OP goes on to say that what freaked them out was the fact that both their watches stopped working at 9:41 PM (both a digital and an analog). The analog watch was able to get fixed, but the digital watch belonging to OP could not be repaired at all. When they arrived back at the house, the cousin was freaking out because the two had taken way longer than expected (over an hour longer), and it was closer to 11 PM when they finally got back.
Possible Explanations for Time Slips
Memory distortion/suggestibilty - maybe people are experiencing some sort of distress or fatigue that they weren't aware of at the time. I also think it's similar to how suggestibility works when ghost hunting, i.e., someone sees something, or something happens, then you're more likely to be open to said experience (even if it's not actually happening). We also know that memory isn't perfect; we remember things wrong all the time, and when recounting a story, things can change to fit the narrative.
Neurological events - maybe things like temporal lobe epilepsy, which can trigger hallucinations and things like déjà Vu.
Alternative states of consciousness - e.g., when waking up, a person can still be in a bit of a dream-like daze and may experience stuff that isn't really there. Also a thing called being "in the zone", so focused on something that you forget to track time.
Driving fatigue - I feel like a lot of time-slip or glitch in the matrix stories happen when people are driving, and when you drive for a long time, weird sh*t can happen (source: my dad was a long-haul truck driver & I've driven long periods and felt fatigued - it wouldn't surprise me if I saw something that wasn't there).
Electromagnetic fields - I don't really know if this one is "pseudoscience" or legit, but it's thought by internet sleuths that underground electromagnetic fields like geological fault lines or high-voltage rail lines can scramble neural signalling in the temporal lobe, which in turn could potentially alter human perception of time and space. I think more studies would need to be done, but I don't know how ethical this would be.
Parallel universes could be real (and I don't mean that in a pseudoscience way; I mean that it's possible). Quantum Physics is crazy.
What do you think about time slips? Are they "real" phenomena? Is it our brains playing tricks on us? Or are parallel universes a real possibility? Have you ever experienced a time slip? Let me know in the comments.
Thank you for reading.
Ash
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