Time! – Anomalies, Mysteries, And Dark Intrigue

Time, and the concept of it, is one of those mind-bending subjects that allows our perception to run wild and yet stops us from fully comprehending it. And, in turn, perhaps our understanding and comprehension of life, both the scientific and the mystical sides. When, for example, did time begin? And if we can find a “starting point”, what was before that? When will time end? And again, what follows? It has to be something, right? Or do we enter into a period of “nothingness”? An eternal blackness?

What about the keeping of time? We take for granted how we measure time now, but the research and thought process, not to mention the advanced calculations in measuring what a “second of time” is, and why we measure sixty seconds to a minute, sixty minutes to an hour, and even having 24 hours in a day are all mind-blowing in themselves. A great book to read on this subject is Civilization One by Christopher Knight and Alan Butler, which not only deals with the subject of modern time (Greenwich Mean Time – GMT) but also details how ancient civilizations and even ones of pre-history measured time. ^[1] And how, in many ways, these long-gone civilizations were more in tune with the natural flow of the Earth than perhaps our measurements are today.

An Understanding That Will Unlock Many Fields Of Interest

In UFO terms people experience missing time, which is usually filled in, to a degree, through hypnotic regression. Others, however, experience a kind of distortion in time. A case of being in two places at once, ^[2] one of which is an experience of several hours whereas for the original location hardly any time passes at all.

Many people who have experienced near-death or out of body experiences have spoken of the past, present, and the future existing “at the same time”. Some people have even put forward the notion that this is exactly how time works. That everything is happening at once, all the time, at the same time. The past, the present, and the future. Our consciousness simply experiences certain moments in time. This, to some, explains De Ja Vu, and past memory. They are exactly that. Experiences of consciousness through the illusion of time.

This might also explain sightings of ghosts and cases of hauntings. This then would surely suggest that time is not so much a linear journey, but more of an oval or a sphere. One which our consciousness navigates back and forth seemingly for eternity.

Indeed, as we will look at, the more one thinks about time, the crazier the whole concept becomes. As we examine accounts of bizarre anomalies of time, that craziness takes on a further intriguing and sometimes, dark twist.

Experiences From The Future?

Perhaps one of the most bizarre phenomena is of seeing something happen before it happens. In an individual, this might be explained as a premonition or a prediction. The individual concerned would be called psychic or clairvoyant. However, when a whole group of people witness something like this, then the explanation becomes a little more difficult.

Maybe the best example on record is that of Mr. Hawkins, an Alabama landowner, who had many of the young men and women in the area on his land each day to prepare peas and beans for sale. One such young woman was Eula White. The incident in question is thought to have taken place in the late-1930s.

One morning, Eula along with several other young women were busy preparing vegetables for market. Mr. Hawkins would leave his house as normal, saddling up his horse for his journey into the town. It was mid-afternoon by the time he returned. He would direct his horse up to the main gate of the ranch. He remained in front of the gate, waiting patiently for one of the young children to open it. Shortly after, a young boy ran towards the gate to do just that. Before he could get there, however, Mr. Hawkins and his horse simply vanished right before the boy’s, and the young ladies’ eyes.

Despite the shock, the young women would continue with their jobs, while Mrs. Hawkins would comfort the upset children, herself as shaken as everyone else. Then, around half-an-hour later, Mr. Hawkins again approached the gate. Only this time, he didn’t disappear and eventually called to someone to “open the gate” for him.

Had the group of over ten people collectively witnessed a small part of the future?

The Account Of “Douglas”

An account from Ohio in 1981 is also particularly chilling. The witness, “Douglas”, along with his father would travel to the town of Austintown to look at a property that was available for rent. They arrived early at a little after 6 am. As soon as they stepped into the front yard the atmosphere seemed to change.

The garden itself was under siege from weeds that were wild and heavy around the entire perimeter. In the middle of the overgrown grass stood a swing. Although it was caked in rust, the swings were swinging. Douglas found this odd as there was no breeze. He found the faint sound of children laughing even odder. Gathering his thoughts, he told himself that the children were likely playing in another property across the street.

He and his father approached the house.

After peering in through the grimy windows they could see a shell of a property with dirt-covered floors. One in need of a thorough clean out. Although the front door to the house was still secure, the side door wasn’t. Not expecting to find it unlocked, the pair paused a moment. They then, tentatively, like two nervous teenagers looking for adventure, stepped inside.

There wasn’t much natural light in the building. They each stood in the large, main room of the small house. Hallways led to other rooms that were shrouded in darkness. They tried some of the doors. All were open, but each of the rooms was too dark to see anything inside. Not that either particularly wished to venture into them. They tried to open the door to the basement. This door, however, was locked.

The pair would spend several more minutes looking around and then went to leave.

The Basement

For reasons he couldn’t explain, Douglas tried the door to the basement one last time. This time, however, it opened. Furthermore, unlike anywhere else in the house, the lights worked.

The two men started down the steps. It was cramped and full of old and worn utility-type appliances. As he was looking around, a moving light cord suddenly caught Douglas’ attention. It was then the lights shut off, and the door to the basement slammed shut above them.

Douglas grasped on to his father’s shirt so the pair were not separated. All around them was pitch-black. Despite this, the pair managed to make their way up the stairs. Once at the top, however, Douglas’ father would stop in his tracks and let out a scream the likes of which Douglas had not heard before. Panicked a little, Douglas pushed on his father’s back, forcing him to push open the basement door. As they tumbled out into the dirt-covered hallway, each noticed it was dark outside. Furthermore, the streetlights were on and it was after sunset. They had somehow lost at least twelve hours. They rushed to their vehicle, locking the doors behind them.

Perhaps most bizarre, though, was the lamb each witnessed in the now open garage doors. Its throat was slashed open and blood was gushing from the wound.

“21 Hours” In Only 5 Minutes!

Despite the streetlights and indeed the (now) night sky telling them otherwise, their own watches told them they had only been in the house for five minutes. They would soon realize, however, that in “real” time, 21 hours had passed. Concerned family members had reported them missing, and a small search team had begun looking for them.

A few weeks later, the pair would drive past the house again. Neither knew what to make of the sign now placed there. An FBI sign at that, warning trespassers to “Stay Away”. While you might expect to see a sign from the owner or the company that owns the property, an FBI sign was more than strange. And furthermore, it simply added to the overall “twisted” feel to both the property, and the entire incident.

Douglas would ask his father, on several occasions, what he had witnessed at the top of the basement stairs. He would never answer him, only that it was “something”.

If the incident was down to a drastic miscalculation of time, or even of becoming unconscious, then whatever caused it, happened to both men, at the exact same time, and affected them in the exact same way. An unlikely scenario. Perhaps the FBI warning indicated some kind of top-secret technology hidden in the basement of the otherwise ruined property. Perhaps the pair had stumbled on this in error. Even more chilling, perhaps they were led there purposely as unknowing participants in an experiment involving the perception of time.

It is a most bizarre case and one that will likely stay that way.

The Woolwich Foot Tunnel Incidents

The Woolwich foot tunnel in London takes you under the ancient River Thames and is over one-hundred years old. Just one year short of its centenary in 2011, however, it was closed to the public in order to carry out improvements and general renovations. The work was scheduled to last a few months. The tunnel would certainly be open to mark its 100^th birthday before 2012. However, the works would continue for well over the eighteen months. No genuine explanation ever surfaced for the reason the works took so long to complete. Strange stories, however, did.

As local residents would speak to workers from the tunnel, it became clear something strange happened to those who ventured down to the now closed off underground walkway. Several workers, for example, would speak of carrying out hours of work in the tunnel, only to come up and find only minutes had gone by on the surface. Or another recurring account was of workers managing to get from one end of the tunnel to the other in hardly any time at all. This despite the journey, to them, being of normal length.

As these “time anomalies” happened more and more often, workers began bringing egg-timers to the tunnels as a way of telling “time”. The workers would eventually become used to it, and it would become an “in-team” joke. One particular point of interest is the theory of all “versions of time” existing at once. One worker would state they struggled with the concept that two “time-places” were happening at the same time. For example, a person could see someone emerge from the tunnel where for them they had spent hours, but to the person outside only minutes were passing by.

A Case Of Two Time-Streams Co-existing?

One particularly bizarre account from the workers of the Woolwich tunnel in 2011, is one that shares a similar detail with the account of Mr. Hawkins from Alabama in the United States who we looked at earlier.

One of the workers would tie a rope around his waist which the rest of the group would hold on to and make sure it remained on one side of the tunnel. He would carry with him a bright red flag and once at the other side, he would wave it back to them. They would also each check their watches and check their surroundings.

Once he was halfway there, with one person stood at the entrance ensuring he was safe until he was out of sight, he looked back to wave before rounding the bend in the tunnel. Before he could do so, however, a cheer came up from above the men. They heard the group calling “He’s there! He’s waving the flag!”

The pair would later tell how they felt time stand still. The man with the red flag was about to turn back, but for reasons he couldn’t explain, he carried on to the other side of the tunnel as planned. Once there, he waved the flag at the rest of the crew on the other side.

Had the two men been caught in some “time-slip”? In a similar way to the Mr. Hawkins story, had the group of men witnessed the future before it happened. Or did the man with the red flag simply have to “catch-up” to events that were already happening? Or happened?

Strange Happenings Along Liverpool’s Bold Street

One particular street in Liverpool on the north west coast of England is awash with strange tales of lost time and “time slips”. Indeed, these urban legends are arguably some of the fiercest and most alarming on record.

One of the strangest accounts comes from a self-confessed shoplifter who in 2006 would some find himself almost 40 years in the past in 1967. He would speak of the incident to a local journalist, claiming he was running from a security guard when he felt a sudden tightness in his chest as he was heading down Brooks Alley.

Fearing an oncoming heart attack, Sean was then even more perplexed to find his surroundings around him completely changed. As he made his way down Hanover Street, it was obvious that the people around him, albeit still going about their own business of their daily lives were now dressed in strange, old-fashioned clothing. Not “historically” old-fashioned, but certainly not the attire of his era.

He noticed a newspaper kiosk near Central Station on Ranelagh and quickly shuffled over to it. There, in front of him, were stacked copies of the Daily Post. Even clearer was the date, which he claimed to be Thursday, May 18^th 1967. Now, as he looked around the concrete pathways and roads with the busy but “strange looking” traffic, he understood why everywhere looked so “different”.

Looking Into 1967 While Stood In 2006

It was then when the circumstances became too much to contemplate. Sean would turn and run back the way he had just come from. As he stepped back into Brooks Alley, his surroundings morphed back to his contemporary era.

However, in a twist to an already mind-bending encounter, he would turn to look one last time back to Ranelagh Street. According to Sean, as he stood in 2006, he could clearly see into what was 1967. Not wishing to go back, he turned and made his way straight back home, confused and more than unsettled.

An account of the story appeared in the Liverpool Echo around a year later in 2007. The journalist – who at the moment is unknown (although we are chasing this up) – would state they had:

…interviewed Sean four times and he has not changed one detail of his story! ^[3]

What’s more, they claim to have spoken to the security guard who informed them that Sean “vanished into thin air” as they ran down Brooks Alley. Like the journalist, the security guard is unknown.

Ultimately, the writer of the article would claim it is their belief that a “crack in time” existed somewhere along the famous Liverpudlian street. And they, like other researchers in this truly absurd phenomenon would claim that many such incidents are alleged to have taken place there. Furthermore, they would offer their own take at a later date.

Incidentally, we would be most interested to hear from the writer of the Echo article we have sourced here.

Before we examine several other incidents, check out the short video below.

A “High-Voltage” Underground Circular Railtrack Creates Portal?

One of the strangest theories concerning the bizarre time encounters is that the underground rail system – part of which runs directly under Bold Street – and forms a perfect circular, high-voltage structure which, albeit for reasons unknown, forms some kind of portal that opens gateways from one time to another.

What is interesting, of all the accounts of strange experiences on Bold Street, is that people always seem to go back in time no further back than when this underground rail system was complete and opened (at the end of the nineteenth century). Does this suggest that there is something strange with bizarre consequences concerning the electrically charged underground rail system.

In the basement of one of the houses on Bold Street, Chris Gibson, a local community worker would discover the message “God have mercy on all who enter here” with a date of February 5^th 1966. Underneath, another message, this time with a date of 1969 states “It’s no joke!” You can see those writings below.

Whether the messages and the dates are genuine or not is perhaps open to debate. Gibson, however, would claim there was a most definite dark and ominous feeling in the room. As well as a “low buzzing” and “clattering” being permanently audible.

A Saturday Afternoon Shopping Trip (Back Forty Years!)

Perhaps one of the most well-known encounters of strange incidents involving time from the Bold Street area of Liverpool comes from 1996 and account of “Frank” and his wife, Carol. The pair had ventured out one Saturday afternoon to shop. As Frank wished to look at CDs and Carol wished to purchase a book, they would go their separate ways with a plan for Frank to meet his wife a little later at the bookshop she planned to be at.

It was as he passed the Lyceum building in Bold Street that something changed and became disturbingly quiet. He swung his focus around his surroundings before a sudden blast of a car horn brought him to his senses. From behind him, a van just missed him as it skirted around him. As Frank watched with a sense of relief and disbelief, he was struck how the van appeared as though it had driven straight out of the 1950s.

One detail he further remembered was the name “Caplan’s” or “Caplin’s” along the side of the van – once more, in a typical 1950s style lettering. By this time, he was beginning to feel unwell and confused. He continued on to the bookshop (Dillon’s) where he had agreed to meet his wife.

However, instead of finding “Dillon’s” he came upon a place named “Cripps”. As he glanced into the windows an array of ladies’ clothes and handbags greeted him as opposed to books of the modern age of the late twentieth century.

Frank turned around and quickly scanned the scene ahead of him.

Evaporating Scenery From One Time To Another

Instead of a typical scene of a Saturday afternoon of the 1990s, the people he witnessed appeared to be in fancy dress, perhaps from the era of the Second World War. As he tried to take in as many details as possible of the increasingly unnerving environment a woman walked past him and went into the book shop that was instead “Cripps”.

He took a breath and prepared to follow and see what lay on the other side of the door.

However, as he stepped into the shop, the women’s attire and accessories disappeared right in front of his eyes and in their place was the modern layout of the bookshop he was originally expecting to find. Even more bizarre, the woman whom he had followed was also still there. And what’s more she looked as confused as he surely did.

She would state to him after he asked if she had also witnessed the change of scenery, that she believed the premises was a “new clothes shop” which is why she was entering the shop in the first place.

Franks would not mention the encounter to his wife to begin with. When he arrived home, however, his research would lead him to discover that the bookshop was once indeed a women’s clothing shop named “Cripps”. Furthermore, there was also a “Caplan’s” in the area at the same time, seemingly during the 1950s.

An Abundance Of Off-The-Wall Encounters

The incidents that have unfolded on this intriguing if disturbing Merseyside street are in abundance. And while they appear to many – even those with an open mind – truly outlandish and “off-the-wall”, there would appear to be something very real and intriguing to investigate and study further here.

Are these incidents some kind of mental trickery? Perhaps triggered by the alleged high-voltage electronic energies deep below the city? And specifically, under Bold Street? Or are there portals or gateways opening up seemingly at random in a certain circular radius of Liverpool?

Arguably one of the leading experts in this type of phenomenon in the area is researcher and author, Tom Slemens, who has studied the accounts for years. Perhaps one of the most recent of the incidents he has studied is that of “Imogen”, a 17-year-old girl who would experience such a shift in time while shopping in what appeared to be a new branch of Mothercare in the city center.

She would enter the shop and begin walking around, picking up several items for her elder sister’s new baby. She would even note to herself how cheap things were. It was only when she attempted to use her card to pay with that she realized something truly bizarre was afoot.

The store claimed that they “didn’t take those” when she attempted to pay for her goods with it. With only a small amount of cash on her, she left the store and made her way back home. Only when she mentioned the new store to her mother later in the day did she realize that the “Mothercare” was in modern times a bank. And hadn’t been a Mothercare for some time. A trip to the area the following day confirmed this.

Check out the short video below.

Holes In Space-Time, Or “A Glitch In The Matrix”?

Most mainstream scientists and medical professionals will likely dismiss these accounts as “temporal anomalies”. And some very likely may be. It is harder to apply that reason to encounters and experiences involving multiple people. Unless of course, we entertain the notion of some kind of top-secret mass experiment. Perhaps even extraterrestrial experiment?

Do these incidents represent proof of alternate dimensions? Possibly ones that run parallel to ours? Perhaps it is worth briefly mentioning the experience of British Air Marshall Sir Victor Goddard. An experienced pilot, while flying in 1935, Goddard would claim to have witnessed a completely different layout and color-scheme to the airfield he would eventually land at when he glanced down at it from his plane. When he glanced back, the airfield was “back to normal”. Only years later, when renovation work went ahead at the airfield did Goddard begin to suspect his experience was a glimpse of the future. The new layout matched the layout he witnessed temporarily years earlier.

Some conspiracy theorists even believe these types of incidents show there is a “glitch in the matrix”. And no one really knows what “the matrix” is, other than something just doesn’t feel right. Like something that should be right in front of us is beyond our understanding.

What these experiences ultimately show, is that our perception and understanding of time is not as clear as we might believe it is. And it would appear, that certain places, whether through natural phenomena or through technology that we don’t understand, distort our perception of, and even how we experience, time.