Time and reality are concepts that are so mind-bending that our perception of them can run wild, while at the same time, we are left grappling for answers as to the construct and nature of both. The fact is, for all our collective understanding of time and reality, both individually and how they relate to each other, is limited at best. When did time begin, for example, and if there is a starting point that marks the beginning of time, what came before that? Similarly, when will time end, and again, what comes after that? Ultimately, what is time? The same questions could be asked of our reality. Is the world how we perceive it to be, actually how it is? What about the many things that are simply not visible to us because of our limitations regarding the visible spectrum (with the same being said for our hearing ability)? Might there be many different realities all around us, invisible for the most part, aside from those rare occasions when they seemingly crash into one another and intersect.  

In an article on the subject of time and reality, I wrote several years ago:

“Many researchers into the notion of alternative dimensions and realities suggest that there is a fantastic array of alternative histories and futures. And according to the Many Interacting Worlds theory, these alternative realities regularly interact with our own. At least “on the quantum level”.

What is perhaps interesting here is that many researchers in the paranormal fields also look to quantum physics to reach entities from “the other side”. Perhaps that other side is actually many other sides – or realities. The fact is, there are many accounts of strange encounters involving anomalies with time and apparent instant journeys into other dimensions. What makes these journeys possible is not known. Perhaps there are vortexes or portals (sometimes referred to as X-points) that allow this transference to another time or location, or perhaps certain convergences of energies are responsible. There are as many possibilities as there are strange cases on record.

Without a doubt, one of the most fascinating accounts involving time and reality is one, generally speaking, that is known as The Man From Taured case, not least as it is not entirely certain if the encounter is a genuine incident or nothing but an urban legend. Most researchers agree that the account first entered the public arena in the book The Directory of Possibilities by Colin Wilson and John Grant. There were, however, no sources referenced for the account, and there have been no known discoveries of newspaper articles detailing the incident. That said, the legend persists, especially with the arrival of the Internet.

According to most versions of the account, one morning in the summer of 1954, a man entered Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Japan, and made his way to the customs desk along with the rest of the arriving passengers. The man stated he was in Japan on business and had traveled from Europe, something he had done many times before. Although he could speak good Japanese, it appeared his native language was French. When he produced his passport, however, things turned strange. He claimed he was from a country called Taured, a small nation that sat between France and Spain. Moreover, he produced further paperwork that attested to this, including a driving license, bank statements, and official business papers. He continued that Taured had a history that stretched back over a thousand years and was genuinely confused as to what the problem was.

Equally confused were the customs officials, who, despite their best efforts, couldn’t locate Taured anywhere on any of their maps. Fortunately, the man was more than cooperative and agreed to stay in a hotel close to the airport in their custody while they got to the bottom of this strange affair. The customs officials kept hold of the man’s passport and papers so they could investigate further, and with a guard constantly outside of his hotel room door, the man was checked into a hotel.  The following morning, however, things took an even stranger turn.

When customs officials arrived at the hotel to take the man for further questioning, they were shocked to discover the room was empty. The room had only a single window with no balcony or ledge, and was several floors up from the ground, meaning he couldn’t have left via this route without risking almost certain death. Moreover, the guard outside the room was more than certain that the man hadn’t left through the door. He had, essentially, disappeared into thin air. Customs officials had planned to inform the man that the phone numbers on his passport and business papers didn’t appear to be real, with no connection being made when officials had dialed those numbers. Now, though, those papers and passport were also missing, despite being kept in a secure evidence room.

At this point, customs officials contacted the Tokyo police department and reported the situation to them. They conducted an extensive search of the area around the hotel and the airport – there was no sign at all of the mysterious man. Here is where the story differs a little, depending on the source. Some insist that these searches went on for days, perhaps even longer, while others suggest that they were called off relatively quickly. Whatever the truth, no one saw the Man from Taured ever again. The account, though, leaves us with a plethora of questions.

Was this a case of a man attempting to enter Japan with false papers who then disappeared in the most inexplicable and unexplained way? It has to be said that it appears unlikely. Even if we take away the bizarre disappearance of the man, we would have to ask why he would choose to use a country that was unknown to the Japanese customs, and not simply France, Spain, Italy, or any other European country, which surely would have improved the chances of the ruse working? Or perhaps the man in question was from another dimension, one that crossed into ours, if only temporarily. This, though, brings up its own questions, not least, when did this dimension switch occur, and why, as far as we know, did it only affect this particular gentleman? If this speculative dimension shift occurred while the plane bringing the mystery man to Tokyo was in the air, then we expect all passengers on that plane to have been affected. Perhaps they were, and the man in question was the only person in this other dimension who was from a country that didn’t exist in his own. Or perhaps this dimension shift occurred at some point after the mystery man left the plane and entered the airport. There is also the possibility, however remote, that the man in question was a time traveler. Perhaps he had somehow switched timelines, or even altered the timeline, resulting in a world where Taured no longer existed.

We should also consider that the explanation resides somewhere between these different suggestions, perhaps due to the changes in the story as it was retold and circulated over many years, and perhaps, in part, due to the desire of the authorities to quash the account, not least as they had seemingly allowed a man with no official country to escape, his whereabouts unknown, somewhere in Japan, whether he was a conman with a tall story or a gentleman from another realm of existence. At the very least, it showed the authorities had been outwitted; at worst, it displayed their incompetence. This might also explain why there are no official newspaper reports or customs or police records of the incident. Of course, we should be clear, this is pure speculation, with no evidence to back it up. The story of the man from Taured, though, continues to fascinate researchers today. Perhaps one day, proof might surface as to its authenticity. For now, it remains circling in the many urban legends of our modern world.  

A similar case involving different times or dimensions occurred in the early 1970s, and is also one that many researchers insist is more urban legend than actual account. However, this account did have some limited local newspaper coverage at the time, and the witnesses are named. The account in question unfolded in the Gadianton Canyon in southeastern Utah, a place that has many legends of strange disappearances and other strange goings-on taking place, with some local Mormon legends even stating that the location is home to “bad, evil spirits!”

On the night in question, late one evening in May 1972, four Southern Utah University students – Janna North, who was driving, Carol Abbott, Bethany Gordon, and Lisa Rochefort – were making their way back to the university dormitories after spending the evening at a rodeo, and were eager to get back on campus before the housemaster locked the doors for the night. This desire to get back as quickly as possible led the girls to make a decision that would change their lives forever – they decided to take a shortcut through the Gadianton Canyon.

Although it was a dark, moonless night, the road along the canyon seemed normal enough, and certainly not scary or intimidating. Then, however, things changed. Suddenly, the road they were driving on came to an end, a huge rock wall in front of them. With no other option, Janna turned the car around and began back the way they had come. When they came to the end of the canyon, though, only several minutes later, their surroundings were different. Gone was the sagebrush and sand that had lined the road previously – now large fields of wheat lined one side of the road while ponderosa pine trees lined the other. Even stranger, even though there had been no (visible) moon that evening, now, the Moon was full and bright. With an increasing sense of confusion and more than a little fear, the girls continued along the road, hopeful that they had simply made a wrong turn. Eventually, streetlamps along the road brought a sense of relief, suggesting that they were heading back into the main town. That relief, however, was only temporary.

Several moments later, the girls spotted a neon sign ahead of them, a sign that appeared to be attached to what looked like a diner. As they arrived outside the building, the girls noticed that the neon sign contained letters or symbols that none of them had even seen before, and while they couldn’t quite place their finger on it, there was something a little disturbing about this place. Regardless, Janna pulled the car into the diner’s parking lot and swung it around, preparing to bring the vehicle to a stop. As she was doing so, a group of men walked out of the doorway of the building, and Lisa began winding down the window so she could shout over to the men and ask for directions. However, only a second later, Lisa let out a terrified scream and urged Janna to “get them out of there” immediately. Janna immediately pressed her foot on the gas and sped towards the parking lot exit. As the car turned, Carol also got a close-up of the men, and immediately called out that they “were not human!”

Janna set off back down the road they had traveled down only moments earlier, increasing her speed as she did so. She glanced into her rearview mirror, seeing the men were climbing onto strange egg-shaped vehicles, each with three wheels, two at the front and one at the back. Then, even from this distance away, she could hear a “loud, whirring sound” that reminded her of an angry nest of wasps or hornets as the strange egg-shaped vehicles set off in their direction, an extremely bright light shining from the front of each of them. It was clear to Janna that not only were the men in pursuit of them, but they were quickly getting closer. Moments later, with the strange vehicles still in pursuit, Janna could see the opening to the canyon ahead of them. She increased her speed to in excess of 80 miles per hour and headed straight for it. Several seconds later, they entered the canyon, the car’s tires sending a cloud of dust up around them, which blocked their view of their pursuers. Janna kept the gas pedal pressed down. Then, their surroundings changed. Gone were the fields of wheat and ponderosa pine trees, and in their place were the sagebrush and sandy terrain. This sudden change shocked Janna so much that she temporarily lost control of the car. As it veered off the road, however, she managed to regain control, bringing it to a stop in the sagebrush a short distance from the road.

The four young women simply sat in the motionless vehicle, each attempting to gather their thoughts and process the bizarre experience they had just shared. Although they had no idea who the men were, they were definitely not human. Perhaps uncertain as to whether these strange men might appear again, the four girls decided to remain in the car with the doors locked until sunrise. The next morning, with daylight seeming to allay the girls’ fears somewhat, Janna finally got out of the car and went to inspect any potential damage to it. Not only were three of the tires flat, but one of the hubcaps was missing entirely. Moreover, there were several significant dents in the bodywork of the vehicle, likely sustained when they left the road. They locked the car and headed for the main road a short distance away.

Not long after reaching the road, a police patrol car passed them, and the girls managed to flag it down. The officer driving the vehicle was Trooper Vic Lundquist, who was immediately confronted by the four girls and their bizarre account. Lundquist performed some initial examinations of the scene at the time. One of the strangest of his discoveries was that the tire marks began around 200 yards from where the girls’ car had come to a stop, with no tire marks at all leading from the main road, as if the car had suddenly appeared in the middle of the desert-like terrain. Moreover, neither Lundquist or the girls could locate the missing hubcap, perhaps suggesting it had come off long before they had reached the point where the car had come to a stop. Ultimately, while he found the account strange, to say the least, he was positive that something out of the ordinary had happened to the four college students, even if he didn’t know what.

Just what might have happened that night along the Gadianton Canyon remains a complete mystery. Some researchers suggest there are electromagnetic anomalies along the route that somehow open mysterious gateways (sometimes referred to as X-points) that take those who happen to pass through them while they are open to other dimensions and/or timelines (and we should note that mainstream science has studied these X-points for a considerable time). Could this have been what happened that May evening in 1972? And if so, where were they taken – to another time, perhaps somewhere in the future, or maybe to another dimension, one that is inhabited by non-human intelligences? We might even consider, however unlikely it might be, that the four young women were somehow transported to another planet in another part of the universe. Wherever they went, we might consider that their missing hubcap remains in this other dimension or time, perhaps recovered and displayed as evidence of visitors from elsewhere. Of course, if the four college students did somehow travel to another world or dimension and then travel back again, then we might conclude that there is nothing to stop the inhabitants of these other realms of existence from traveling into our world.

A similar encounter, at least according to the post by the witness on a paranormal forum on Reddit, occurred in much more recent times in the early 2000s. The location is unknown, but it is likely somewhere in the United States. According to the online post, the witness was driving in their car, with their dog with them, on their way to a local McDonald’s restaurant. As he was making his way along one particular road, he noticed that the streetlights seemed to flicker off momentarily, before coming back on again. This happened several times before he came to the point where he was about to turn off the road. When he did so, everything became suddenly blurry, and he heard a noise like a feedback sound in his head. At the same time, he had a feeling like he was going through an intense static electricity field. Then, after several seconds, everything came back into focus, and the strange noise and electrical sensation stopped.  

By the time he had refocused, he realized his car had stalled. He reached down for the keys, restarted it, and put the vehicle in motion. He continued along the road, realizing almost immediately that something wasn’t right. He noticed that there were suddenly fewer streetlights along the road. Furthermore, there were several rows of trees at the roadside that he was certain were not there before. He eventually arrived at the complex that housed the McDonald’s restaurant. However, as he searched for the drive-thru, he realized it was now in a different part of the building. He used the restaurant often, and couldn’t recall any such relocation of it. Regardless, he guided his vehicle towards the drive-thru entrance. As he did so, though, he noticed further anomalies.

Many of the other cars, for example, had designs that he had never seen before. Moreover, many of the names and logos were also ones that he was not at all familiar with. When he reached the menu board, the strangeness continued. Every item on the menu was much more expensive than it had been previously, much more than a natural price increase. Even so, as hungry as he was, he placed his order and, upon arriving at the payment window, handed over his card to pay. Moments later, however, the cashier handed back the card and informed him it had been declined. The cashier then produced a strange red device, telling the witness to place his finger on it to pay. Unwilling to do this, the witness handed over cash, despite it being a large amount. The cashier accepted this, but instead of giving him change, he handed over a small piece of paper, claiming it was a “cash voucher!”

At this point, the cashier’s movements suddenly became “sticky” and static-like, as if he was stopping and starting, like a stickman in a book where the pages were being flicked through slightly too slowly. As this was happening, the witness felt the strange buildup of electric pressure, as well as hearing the strange feedback noise in his head. This culminated in a sudden bright flash of light before the witness came to, sitting in his car, with the McDonald's restaurant now back in its usual place.  

It is also worth our time exploring the case of 41-year-old Lerina Garcia, who didn’t travel to another reality, but claims she woke up in the wrong one – ours! According to her online report in 2008, she claims that what she can remember from her past does not match the world history of this reality. She elaborated that she awoke one morning in this reality in her home in Spain, likely having crossed over into this realm during her sleep, and she remains stuck here (we should note there was no explanation for the mechanics of this crossing over of realms).

She stated that she began to notice little differences at first. The date was the same as it was in “her reality”, for example, but it was things such as different bedsheets that she had never seen before that began to cause her to question that something wasn’t right. That morning, she had gone to work as usual. However, when she arrived at her office, she was shocked and confused to find a different name on the office door. She tried to rationalize that she had come to the wrong floor. She returned to the main entrance, now feeling stranger than ever, and looked at the names on the employee list at the front of the building. She found her name; however, she was listed as working in a department she hadn’t worked in previously. Now, more confused than ever, she marked herself as having arrived at work, but then claimed she had felt suddenly unwell and had to return home, which she duly did.

She returned to work the next day, contemplating that she had imagined the changes and she would find her office where it had been previously. It wasn’t. She went to the department she now seemingly worked at, and was even more perplexed by the number of other employees whom she had never seen before but who very much seemed to know her. It was clear to all of them that there was something “not right” with Lerina. She brushed off these concerns as best she could, insisting that she was just a little “out of sorts” and that she was otherwise fine. It was at this point that she decided to keep the bizarre experiences to herself, at least until she learned more about what was happening. There were, though, more complex differences that came to light over the coming days.

One of these revealed itself to Lerina when she went to visit her boyfriend, Augustine. However, not only did someone else live in his apartment, but it appeared, in this reality, he didn’t exist at all. She attempted to find town records of him, and even searched online for posts she knew he had made. There was, though, no trace of him at all. What made all of this even worse was that she discovered not long after that, in this reality, she was still in a relationship with her previous boyfriend, whom she had, in her reality, broken up with six months previously.

Further differences also presented themselves to Lerina. During a visit with her family, for example, she asked how her sister was recovering after her operation (a major operation, incidentally) several months earlier. Both her parents and her sister were completely bemused, unable to recall any such operation. Although she was certain that it had taken place, Lerina dropped the subject, not wanting her family to think she was suffering from some kind of mental breakdown. Ultimately, the more she discovered about her life in this new reality, the more confused she became. It is not known where Lerina is now and if she is still “trapped” in this reality. We might contemplate whether the Lerina from this reality is also trapped in the one that the Lerina who posted in 2008 claimed to have come from.

As well as reports of journeys into other dimensions or realities, there are many accounts of traveling briefly to other times – events usually referred to as timeslips. Without a doubt, one of the strangest locations where there are several of these time-slip events is Bold Street in Liverpool in England.

One of the most thought-provoking of these occurred in 2006 when a self-confessed shoplifter suddenly found himself thrust four decades into the past. According to an article on the Liverpool Echo platform, the man in question – “Sean” – was running from a security guard along the infamous street when he felt a sudden tightness in his chest. He feared he might be having a heart attack and turned down a side street named Brooks Alley. It was then that he realized his surroundings had completely changed. People were going about their business as they had been moments earlier, only now, the clothes they wore were decades older than the contemporary era. As he wandered around these new surroundings, he spotted a newspaper kiosk near Central Station. He walked over to it as quickly as he could, seeing copies of the Daily Post stacked neatly inside. He took a look at the date – Thursday, May 18th, 1967. Now, as bizarre as it seemed to him, it made sense why the clothes and even the cars looked decades old – because they were.

At this point, feeling more than unsettled, Sean turned and headed back to Brooks Alley. As he did so, his surroundings changed back to 2006 once more. He turned and looked back towards the newspaper kiosk, and although he was standing in his own time (2006), he could see 1967 through what appeared to be some kind of invisible gateway or portal. Unsettled and confused, Sean made his way straight home.

Incidentally, the journalist from the Liverpool Echo who spoke with Sean claimed he met with him on four separate occasions. Not once during those meetings did he alter his version of events, despite the journalist discreetly attempting to trip him up. Moreover, the same journalist also managed to track down the security guard who had been chasing Sean on the day in question. He stated that Sean simply “vanished into the air” the moment he turned down Brooks Alley. Just what happened that day on Bold Street remains a complete mystery. This timeslip encounter, though, is just one of many.

Another article from the Liverpool Echo by Tom Slemen, titled Timeslip Redemption, is also worth exploring here. The account unfolded on Renshaw Street, around a five-minute walk from Bold Street. Although Slemen changed the names of those involved, according to the article, in March 2002, not long after being released after serving six years of an eight-year prison sentence for armed robbery, 39-year-old John Kent, despite his girlfriend Alison’s pleas not to, was looking for vengeance against the man who had “grassed him up” – Harry King. Matter-of-factly, as if he was saying he was going to pick up a pint of milk, he told Alison that, “I’ll just give him a good hiding, then I’ll come straight back and we can go out for a drink and some scran!”

Less than half an hour later, John was on Renshaw Street, his knuckleduster at the ready, waiting for Harry King. Moments later, John clocked a policeman heading in his direction, and he discreetly tucked the weapon in his pocket. The policeman glanced toward John, and although he was largely uninterested in him, he smirked a little. This didn’t sit well with John, who suddenly called out to the policeman, challenging him.  He then began walking towards him, causing the policeman to pull out a whistle and blow hard on it. The next thing John realized, several other policemen came running over, and within moments, he was pinned against a wall under restraint. He noticed a group of shoppers had gathered round, eager to see what the fuss was about. Of more concern to John, however, he could hear the sound of trams in the distance – old trams. He managed to steal a glance at the crowd. Instead of them wearing clothing typical of the early 2000s, they were wearing a combination of reserved dresses with long coats, suits, ties, and trilby hats. He suddenly recalled the policeman blowing on his whistle, and came to the startling conclusion that he had somehow walked back in time to the 1920s or 1930s. He also realized that was why the policeman smiled to himself, not out of any malice, but because his twenty-first-century clothing must have appeared like fancy dress to him. The story, though, has one last twist.

Suddenly, John’s surroundings changed once more, and he came to his senses, leaning against a shop window. It was now dark, and when he checked his watch, four hours had passed. He immediately returned home to find Allison waiting for him. She told him that Harry King had been waiting for him with a gun and that the police had arrested him. Had the bizarre event not happened, John would likely have been killed. With all of this in mind, John finally decided he was going straight and convinced Allison that he had finally turned a corner. They married a short time later.

Another account unfolded on Bold Street around half a decade earlier in 1996. On the day in question, “Frank” and his wife “Carol” were enjoying a Saturday afternoon shopping. Frank was looking to purchase some new CDs, and Carol intended to buy some new books. They agreed to meet at the bookshop that Carol planned on visiting a short time later. The couple went their separate ways, with Frank’s route taking him past the Lyceum Building. As he passed it, however, he noticed a sudden eerie silence. He stopped momentarily and looked around. Then, the sound of a car horn brought him back to his senses. He stepped aside and realized he had been standing in the middle of the road, a van only just missing him. Even stranger, the van appeared as though it was a vintage model, straight out of the 1950s. He managed to make the name “Caplan’s” or “Caplin’s” in old-style, vintage lettering. At this point, Frank felt beyond confused and decided to make his way straight to the bookshop, “Dillon’s”, where he had arranged to meet his wife.

When he arrived there, however, he was further perplexed to find the name “Cripps” above the doorway instead of “Dillon’s”, and instead of books, the windows showed ladies’ clothing and handbags. He looked around him and realized that the people walking along the streets were dressed in clothing more akin to the Second World War era than the mid-1990s. As he was looking around, a woman walked past him and into the shop where he was standing outside. Frank hesitated for a moment before following her inside. As soon as he did so, the ladies’ clothing and accessories disappeared, and in their place were rows of books. Stranger still, the woman he had followed looked as confused as he did. He asked her if she had noticed anything strange, and she replied that she had thought this was a new clothes shop, which was why she had walked into it in the first place.

He eventually met up with his wife, but he decided to keep the strange encounter to himself. When he returned home, though, later that afternoon, he began researching the street. He found out that the bookshop had once indeed been a ladies’ clothing shop. Moreover, a shop by the name of “Caplan’s” had operated on the street in the 1950s.

It is also worth our time exploring an incident that occurred in more recent times – some time in the 2000s – when a 17-year-old girl – “Imogen” – experienced a bizarre timeslip episode while visiting a new branch of Mothercare on Bold Street. She was shopping for her older sister’s new baby, and was surprised at how low the prices were for items, putting it down to being some kind of opening day promotion. However, when she attempted to pay for the items using her card, she was informed bluntly that the shop “didn’t take those!” As she only had a small amount of cash on her, she left the goods and headed back home. Later that day, she was speaking with her mother, and she mentioned the bizarre episode. Her mother was a little shocked, informing her that this Mothercare had not been a Mothercare for some time, and had been a bank for several years. When Imogen returned to the same building the following day, it was indeed now a bank.

It isn’t just on Bold Street – or indeed in Liverpool – where these strange time anomalies take place. One of these encounters is detailed in the book Real Time Travel Stories From A Psychic Engineer by Martin Ettington, which details the bizarre experience of 12-year-old Mel Riley in the early 1950s. On the day in question, Mel was exploring the woodlands and countryside close to his home in Racine, Wisconsin. As he was making his way across a field, however, he suddenly felt the environment change around him. Suddenly, the smells of the countryside flowers and vegetation were replaced by the aroma of burning wood and cooked meats. He could also suddenly hear voices coming from somewhere nearby. He looked up and, for the first time, realized that the freshly plowed field he had been walking through a moment earlier was now a vast field that stretched for miles. Moreover, multiple Native American settlements stretched across this vast field. The awestruck child watched the scene in front of him for several moments, seeing several Native American warriors going about their daily duties. Then, without warning, the scene faded away, and the freshly ploughed field returned. When the incident was investigated, the land Mel had been on when the scenery changed had once been home to Native American tribes, tribes, incidentally, that had lived there since the Stone Age.

These encounters don’t always detail a person slipping back in time; however, some of them feature a person or an object coming from the past. According to an account from “LC”, late in the afternoon of October 20th, 1969, he and his friend, Charlie, were driving along Highway 167 on his way to Lafayette. Although their vehicle had been the only car on the road for some time, they soon found themselves behind an “old turtle-type car” that would have seemed more at home in the early twentieth century. Moreover, when LC was close enough to read the number plate, he could see that the date on it was “1940” (something illegal under US law). Eventually, LC passed the vehicle. As he did, though, he was more than shocked to see the driver, a young woman, and her passenger, a young child, dressed in clothing that was straight out of the 1940s. At this point, LC looked at Charlie, who was seemingly equally as confused.

LC looked into the passenger window, attempting to get the woman’s attention. As he did, he could see a look of concern and panic on her face. He then called out, mouthing the words more than anything, asking the woman if she needed help. She motioned that she did, and LC pulled in front of her car and pulled to the side of the road. When he got out, however, and turned to face the oncoming vehicle, it was nowhere to be seen. It had vanished into thin air. We might ask if the car and the woman and her child had gone back to their own time two or three decades earlier.

It is perhaps also worth considering just some of the many bizarre events involving time that have taken place in the air. One of the strangest and perhaps one of the most significant accounts in what it tells us about our reality is that of Bruce Gernon, an experienced pilot who flew over the Bahamas regularly. On the afternoon of December 4th, 1970, at around 3 pm, Gerney, along with his father and an associate, Chuck Lafayette, left Andros Airport from Andros Island on their way to Miami, Florida. To begin with, the flight proceeded as normal. However, not long after they left the runway, they noticed a bizarre “elliptical cloud” around a mile ahead of them, approximately 500 feet above the surface of the water. Uncertain what the cloud was, they immediately contacted the control tower in Miami to ask if there were any adverse weather conditions on their route. The response was that their route was clear.

They continued onwards, ascending to around 3000 feet. All the while, the cloud continued to grow larger and larger. Eventually, at an altitude of 11,500 feet, the Beechcraft Bonanza A36 aircraft emerged from the fog and finally into clear, blue skies. As Gernon looked back, however, he could see that the cloud was beginning to form a strange semi-circle around them. Their plane, though, which was traveling at around 195 miles per hour, outran the strange cloud and left it behind them. As they approached the Bimini Islands, they saw another strange cloud ahead of them, only this one was much larger, at least 60,000 feet across. Even stranger, the cloud, according to Gernon’s recollections, seemed to emanate directly from the Earth’s surface.

At this point, Gernon believed they were about to be engulfed by a huge storm, and when he spotted a “tunnel” in the clouds, he aimed his aircraft straight for it. As he entered the tunnel, he immediately noticed that strange lines formed around their aircraft, and the cloud appeared to swirl around them. As their plane continued through this strange tunnel, they noticed several ”bright white flashes,” and these flashes became brighter and more intense the further into the tunnel they went. Stranger still, Gernon recalled feeling something close to “zero gravity” for a very short period while inside the tunnel. As this was happening, incidentally, the control tower at Miami Airport lost Gernon’s plane from their monitors.  

Gernon later recalled that he suspected the tunnel they had entered was somehow connected to the strange cloud formation they had seen shortly after take-off. After continuing into the tunnel, Gernon suddenly noticed a U-shaped opening ahead. He immediately headed for this opening, believing this could be his only chance to get out of this strange cloud. A moment later, the plane once more emerged into clear, blue skies. As Gernon looked back, he could see the tunnel and the cloud formation “contracting” until it eventually disappeared. Gernon then attempted to establish his location, reasoning that after spending around 30 minutes in the air and then 20 to 30 seconds in the strange cloud tunnel, they should be able to see the coast of Bimini below them. With this in mind, Gernon and the other two people onboard were more than shocked to see the beaches of Miami slightly ahead of them. As confirmation of their position, the control tower at Miami Airport confirmed they were off the coast of Miami on their radar screens. From this confirmation, Gernon realized that he had, essentially, traveled nearly 100 miles in only 20 seconds, and, in total, since leaving Andros Airport, according to the time and the data, he had traveled almost 250 miles in only 47 minutes, something that everything Gernon knew about aviation told him was impossible.

Without a doubt, one of the strangest aviation encounters involving time anomalies also occurred off the coast of Miami, also at some point during the early 1970s, in an encounter that has “never been satisfactorily explained!”. According to an article in the March 24th, 1975 edition of The Desert News, on the morning in question, National Airlines 727 was approaching Miami Airport and preparing to land. The control tower was tracking the plane as they normally would be when it simply vanished from their radar screens. Emergency communications were immediately sent out to all other aircraft in the region, calling on them to be vigilant in the event they might spot the aircraft, or even the wreckage of it. However, there were no visible signs of either. Then, without warning, the plane reappeared on the radar screens in the control tower. Moreover, it was in the same place as it had been when it had vanished, and not a considerable distance away if it had merely disappeared from radar. What made the surreal situation even more so was that several planes had traveled through the exact airspace the aircraft was now in during the 10 minutes it was missing.

It soon became apparent that the pilots – and so, in turn, most likely, the crew and passengers – were completely unaware that anything strange had taken place. At this point, the captain of National Airlines 727 was instructed to land on an isolated runway reserved for “security risks and special situations!” As perplexed as he was at these orders, he did as instructed. Almost as soon as the plane had come to a stop, security forces boarded the aircraft and ushered off the passengers and crew, guiding them to a part of the airport separate from the rest. Writing in the book Ghosts of the Air: True Stories of Aerial Hauntings, Martin Caidin stated that “Federal investigators and officials couldn’t get into that jetliner fast enough” after it landed. We will return to why this might have been shortly.

It was clear to those who had been onboard the plane by the sheer number of emergency vehicles and airport police that something out of the ordinary and concerning had taken place. A short time later, with both the crew and passengers together in a large enclosure of the airport, the head of airport security made the rather candid and bizarre admission that they (their plane) had “disappeared into thin air for 10 minutes!” After being met with confused stares, the head of airport security suggested they “take a look at your watches!” They noticed that the airport clock said 9:30 am – their respective watches, however, declared the time was 9:20 am. Needless to say, a quiet wave of disbelief and shock quickly swept across the room.

Just what happened after this is not really known, as despite the initial story of the incident (itself several years later), the case then all but disappeared, revived following the global rollout of the Internet. And if we recall the statement in Martin Caidin’s book that investigators “couldn’t get onto that jetliner fast enough”, that could have been a very purposeful move on the part of the authorities.

As speculative as this is, we might ask if the reason investigators were eager to get onto the plane (as well as get all passengers and crew off) was because they – or at least those are issued the orders – were aware that there was something on the plane, something that had to be retrieved in secret and away from prying eyes. Could it be that some kind of device was onboard the plane that, as bizarre and outlandish as this might sound, literally took the plane out of existence for 10 minutes? Or, put another way, did this device send the plane forward 10 minutes into the future? Perhaps this device contained valuable data, and it would go without saying that it would need to be secured away from all manner of potentially interested parties, perhaps not least the Cold War nemesis of the era, the Soviet Union. If any of this is true – and once more, this is purely wild speculation – then we might also contemplate whether the location is of importance. Did those behind this speculative experiment somehow tap into the potential power of this infamous part of the Atlantic Ocean - the Bermuda Triangle?

Whatever the truth, if this was some kind of bizarre experiment, this might explain why only one story ever appeared in print about the incident. In the years that have followed, many researchers have made legitimate efforts to reveal details about the encounter (which should tell us something in itself as to its potential credibility), but no information has ever been found – no flight numbers, official flight records, or any witness testimony. Does this indicate that all information – including, it is presumed, the control tower data – was quickly confiscated by investigators? It is certainly a possibility. One thing that is harder to explain away, however, is why not one person in all the years that have followed has come forward to confirm they were on the aircraft that day? And while this certainly isn’t a smoking gun for the skeptics – after all, there could be many reasons for this – it is much more difficult to pass off as “something that was covered up!”

Ultimately, we will most likely find that the truth of the National Airlines 727 encounter will be found somewhere between the two extremes (that it was a completely made-up account on one side and some kind of secret time travel experiment on the other). One thing to note here is that there appears to be debate as to whether only the crew was made aware of the time anomaly or whether the passengers were also told. If the former is more accurate, then it would, of course, be much easier to maintain a secret over many decades, not least as the pilots and crew members would have undoubtedly feared for their careers if they spoke of the incident. Add to that a still-lingering, if diluted by comparison to previous decades, sense of patriotism in the face of the Cold War, and it is even easier to see how such secrecy could be maintained. Whatever the truth, the case still fascinates investigators and enthusiasts of the weird and the wonderful today.

These are, then, just a small collection of hand-picked accounts of time and reality anomalies. There are many, many more on record in various forms and on various platforms and mediums, including official records. Indeed, we just might return with a “More Fascinating Tales of…” article on such matters in the near future. One thing that is clear, though, is that time, as we understand it, is almost certainly incorrect, as is the nature of our reality. Time, for example, is likely not linear and almost certainly more curved or rounded in nature, and maybe this curved or round construct (for want of a better word) sometimes causes such things as timeslips. Our reality is likely made up of multiple different dimensions that perhaps occasionally crash into each other, and so causing, in theory, some of the anomalies we have examined here. There are many suggestions to explain these inexplicable events. For now, though, the questions remain, and such encounters remain as unexplained and still ripe for investigation.