Can Time “Slip”? – One-Shot Story

I think H.G. Wells did centuries of disservice to future scientists when he wrote “The Time Machine.” It’s a great story, but its title and text subtly imply that a machine is required. Even today, when physicists debate the possibility of time travel, they always remind us that a real time machine could go no further into the past than the day it first turned on.

Not too useful if you ask me!

Modern Reports

But what if a machine isn’t necessary? What if human awareness can move through time more easily– and more extensively– than any machine?

Such has been reported quite often in so-called “time slips.” One of the best-known is the Moberly-Jourdain incident. In 1901, two Oxford educators on vacation claimed that they literally walked back into the gardens of 1792 Versailles. As you can read in the above link, their proof-of-story changed slightly over the years, and their experience has been questioned.

But many similar incidents are reported today. Googling “Time slips in England,” for instance, brings up a list of places where many people seem to step briefly into different eras. The most active of these may be Liverpool’s Bold Street– Where folks (including at least one shoplifter and the security guard chasing him) have experienced sudden, temporary changes in traffic, bus stops, stores, vehicles and clothing styles. This article summarizes three well-known stories.

I’ve long thought that these involuntary trips between levels of experience would be more possible than mechanized time travel. And if they are possible, then one’s destinations wouldn’t be as constrained as physicists claim for machines.

Getting to the Point

That’s where things stood for me until just a few weeks ago, when my wife and I may have driven her Toyota Corolla back in time from 2025 Peterborough, New Hampshire into circa 1946-1990 Townsend, Massachusetts. And as Moberly-Jourdain and many Bold-Street slippers have claimed, our experience began with noticeable changes in “atmosphere,” visual perceptions and physical surroundings.

What first grabbed my attention was– as we approached Townsend– Kate suddenly exclaimed:

“WHERE ARE WE ?… NOTHING LOOKS RIGHT !”

She’s not an alarmist, but things had changed dramatically. You see, she’s a human GPS, who can remember routes for years… even after driving them only once. But we had followed the same route home many times before– 202 south out of Peterborough, with a left turn onto 119 west in Townsend. It’s the same route taken during this trip, described here on 35mmc.

The scenes outside our car had turned WAY more “countrified” as we approached the turn onto Route 119. And the lighting had also changed. We had left our Peterborough motel precisely at its 11 a.m. deadline. But as we made the turn into Townsend (only about 30 minutes later), we were bathed in a warm early-evening glow. Townsend itself was also different:

• We had never before noticed a large brick mansion that was now on the left side of the road… with a life-sized metal statue of a horse in its front lawn. As it turned out, shrubbery had (in our time) kept us from seeing the horse and most of the house (both of which are also more “aged” now).
• An antiques shop on the right– The Spaulding Cooperage– had always been surrounded by tools and shelves of sale items. But as we passed this time, there were only piles of wood staves, hoops and finished barrels (just as in vintage photos of the original cooperage). And the place was closed for the weekend (which the antiques shop never did). NOTE: The business had actually transitioned from barrel manufacturing to antiques in 1990.
• Also, a popular local landmark– McNabb Pharmacy– had moved to its modern location in 1946, and was there as our car’s two confused occupants zipped past. (Hence the estimate that we may have “slipped” into a time between McNabb’s 1946 move and the Cooperage’s 1990 change to antiques.) McNabb Pharmacy also proved to be of “special interest” a short time later.

As we passed through the now unfamiliar town, we never saw another person or car. Until shortly down the road, when the evening light switched back to late morning. And cars were again everywhere.

The rest of the way home, we debated what had just happened. So the next weekend, we re-traced the entire route, and everything was “normal” again.

“Lost Time” Too

On returning home from our weird journey, I ducked into the kitchen to slip some food in the fridge. And I noticed something odd. All our appliances’ digital clocks and my iPhone correctly displayed exactly “12:00.” But my old-reliable Timex quartz watch read “11:00”– the precise time we had left the Peterborough motel. It was as if something had stopped my watch for exactly an hour while time elsewhere around our car rolled on. I suppose that might “make sense” if only the environment inside the car had “slipped.”

To be clear, we weren’t going through one of New England’s 1-hour “Daylight Savings Time” adjustments. And a dying battery hadn’t slowed or stopped my watch. It was still running, and when I reset its hands to the correct time, it hasn’t lost even a minute in the weeks since.

What Happened to My Drugs?

I thought the story ended there. But after we returned from the drive, an email from our local Walgreens reminded me that a prescription needed refilling. I had no more refills, and Walgreens offered to request a new one. I said yes, and then waited… and waited… and waited. Nothing happened.

So I called the doctor’s office, they checked my file, and told me that I had recently phoned in a message to transfer all my prescriptions to none other than the same McNabb Pharmacy that we had passed in Townsend! I immediately corrected THAT, but still wonder about the coincidence of it all. Did I– or an evil time-slipping doppelgänger– phone in the prescription change during our hour of lost time? I certainly don’t remember doing it.

But do Doppelgängers even Exist?

It has been said that each of us has an exact “double” somewhere on Earth. One is free to believe that or not. But I didn’t until around 1978.

I had moved from Columbus, Ohio to Boston in 1976. And for a while, I rented an apartment beside the JFK Birthplace in the outlying “village” of Coolidge Corner. A friend of mine had just had an operation in the local hospital, and I donned a tweed jacket and dress pants, bought some flowers, and went to visit her recovery room. But when I entered, the first words out of her mouth were an angry:

“WHAT NOW ???”

As it turned out, I looked, dressed, talked and acted just like her surgeon… or he like me… or both.

Some time later, another friend gave me a good dressing-down for ignoring her when she said “Hi” to “me” in the street. But most truly painfully, was the time I opened a bake-shop door for a third woman, she saw me, did a double-take, raised her voice, snarled “Gary!!!” and slapped me full-force across the face. I wish you could have seen her expression when I smiled back and replied:

“I’M NOT GARY !”

So I have excellent reasons to believe there is (or was) a near duplicate of me, loose in the wild. A doctor named Gary, who sometimes rubbed women the wrong way!

But have you heard of– or possibly even encountered– your duplicate?

–Dave Powell is a Westford, Mass., writer and avid amateur photographer.

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