I’d like to relate a personal experience that I had when I was an adolescent in the hope that others might be willing to come forward and share any similar experiences that they may have had.
I’ve titled this article “A Missing Time Experience?” – with a question mark, you’ll notice – because it does not necessarily fit the “typical” missing time scenario of which we hear. It did not happen late at night on a darkened rural road; there was no UFO sighting involved (that I recall). It occurred in the afternoon, on a sunny day, on a relatively busy street in a bustling suburban town in northeastern New Jersey. In fact, I’m not entirely sure that there even was a period of missing time. Yet, it was strange in the extreme and something that I contemplate regularly to this day, more than thirty years later.
The time of year was late winter or early spring – around March or April, I believe, of 1978. I was in junior high school, seventh grade, and thirteen years of age. It was a weekday at about 3:00 PM and school had just let out. I left the junior high school, which is located next to a hospital in my home town of Ridgewood, NJ. Ridgewood is located about 20 miles from New York City, in Bergen County, a very populated area of the state. I walked, as I did most days, home from the junior high (now a middle school). My parent’s home was located about 1.5 miles from the school along a very direct route. Most of the walk was on the street on which the school was located, followed by a left and a quick right toward the very end of the walk. So, I’d normally just walk out the front door of the school, take a left, and proceed straight for about 1.4 miles, the last 0.10 of a mile being that left and the right, at which point I was at our house.
That was the route that I would normally take, however, I had a run-in with a group of boys that bullied me on a regular basis, so rather than taking a left out the front door of the school and proceeding due south for that 1.4 miles, I’d go left and then take another left at the very first traffic after leaving the school. I’d then walk to the next street over and take a right onto that street, again walking due south. It wasn’t much of a departure from my normal route, as the street ran parallel to the one I’d usually take to get home. I’d been doing that for at least a couple of months in an effort to avoid walking past the homes of the boys who were bullying me. Therefore, I’m confident of the the fact that there was no way I would have become lost or confused of my whereabouts.
However, one day as I began walking home, I noticed that everything seemed strangely quiet, almost muted. The normal noise and bustle associated with the after-school rush of children walking home from school was oddly absent and the quiet was rather eerie. There were still cars and some pedestrians present as I walked down this busy suburban street, but there was an odd, unreal feeling to everything, along with this disturbing muted silence.
The street that I was walking down was called North Pleasant Avenue, and the intersection that I was approaching was at the corner of North Pleasant and Ridgewood Avenue. After crossing Ridgewood Ave, North Pleasant turned to South Pleasant Avenue and I would pass the elementary school that I’d attended the years prior to entering the junior high in September of ’77. At crossing that intersection and approaching the elementary school, I was approximately 0.8 mile from my home. I mention these facts only to continue to emphasize that this was a route and neighborhood in which I was used to traveling.
As I continued south, from N. Pleasant toward S. Pleasant and toward the intersection of Pleasant and Ridgewood Avenues, I saw the traffic light, the same familiar stores at the corner, and the small parking lot in front of the stores. However, these landmarks appeared to be getting further away as I walked closer to them, and still this odd silence persisted. As I continued to walk toward the intersection, these landmarks continued to appear to recede further into the distance as I approached them. I began feeling very disoriented and anxious – and then, nothing; a complete loss of memory. I simply do not remember anything past the point of approaching this intersection and seeing it recede further into the distance as I walked ever nearer to it.
“Get John. He needs you.”
My next memory was of “awakening” – for a lack of a better description – on another street in a different part of town, a fair distance from where I had started from at the junior high school. I remember feeling very shaken and confused and somewhat frightened. What had happened? And how did I end up in this different area, nowhere near where I’d begun walking, and nowhere near where I’d “blacked out”? This is where things get a bit stranger still: within a couple of minutes of “coming to” my mother pulled up in her car, parking along the curb of the street where I was walking. I opened the door and she looked at me with great concern and said “John, are you alright?” Now, normally my mother did not come looking for me if I was a bit late arriving home from school. Remember, this was the late ’70s and parents were decidedly more relaxed about the comings and goings of their children. My mother never picked me up from school unless the weather was very severe or we had some kind of appointment after school, and as long as I was home by dinner my parents didn’t worry or wonder about my whereabouts. If I didn’t come straight home it was assumed that I was at a friend’s house or had some kind of after school activity.
The fact that my mother knew exactly where to find me was surprising, and I asked her how she knew where I was. She replied that she was home, doing chores around the house when a voice in her head said “Get John, he needs you”. She of course asked me what had happened and I told her about the receding intersection, the strange silence, the memory loss, and of waking up to find myself walking in this other part of town. I had no idea what had happened and to this day I still do not, other than a vague memory or feeling of having been told or shown something significant. Who told or showed me what, and where it happened, I cannot recall, although I feel at some point that I will recall the entire incident. I simply feel that this event was significant for a reason that I can’t explain, but it’s meaning will eventually be made clear to me.
Being that this was over thirty years ago, I cannot accurately recall the time that I “awoke” or what time my mother found me. However, I don’t think it was a great amount of time, certainly not more than hour, and probably less than that. Thirty minutes, perhaps? So the time was maybe 3:30 or 3:45 in the afternoon, I’d estimate. It may have been later than that, but not by much, if I recall correctly. I’ve always felt that the strangeness of this incident is compounded by the fact that my mother was somehow involved and “contacted”. If I had simply blacked out or became disoriented and wandered off, I could accept that as being a possibility – although I had no history of seizures or blackouts. But the fact that my mother was told to “Get John, he needs you” makes me believe that there was some outside design and involvement in this, the nature of which I do not know.
This, I should mention, was not the only strange and unexplained incidents that I had as a child (or as an adult). Perhaps I’ll discuss some of the others in future blog posts. Meanwhile, I’d be very interested in hearing from other people who may have experienced similar phenomena.
About 10 years ago I had a time loss experience that puzzles me to this day. I was camping in the desert with my sister and some friends, when I had one of the strangest experiences of my life. It was roughly 1:00am and we were gathered in a circle around a dead fire pit, talking with each other and having a good time. Suddenly we see lights off in the distance accompanied by dogs barking and voices. I heard a voice say something like “They’re around here somewhere.” All of us became rather scared, wondering if these crazy people were after us. But then in an instant it was all over. I don’t remember anything after the lights and noises, except waking up in the dirt surrounded by my friends who were also waking up. I checked my watch and it was around 4:30am. The lights and noises were gone, replaced by the eerie feeling that something happened to us.
Very strange! Interesting that it happened to the entire group, and not just you alone. Another one for the file…
John, thank you for your time and input on this blog. I had forgotten about Germany until you asked. l have been trying very hard to remember anything else I might have forgotten in my past and I will keep trying. The deja vu that took place after Dec 1st, I believe may have been places or objects that triggered a memory of that early morning, and when I would stop and try to reel it all in I would get a very strange feeling that would leave me slightly dizzy, as if I had just got off of a carnival ride. Also, I think I was returning from a co-op point midway between Frankfurt and Mainz Germany when I experienced the missing time there. Im going to start reading more websites on the subject and get some books. Thank you again.
You’re very welcome, RW. I appreciate anyone who has the courage to share their experiences and I thank you for your input. I’m always interested in hearing about these things, so feel free to contact me through this blog or privately by email if you recall anything else and care to discuss it.
Hi, I wanted to share my time GAINED experience.
This happened about 3 years ago, in BC Canada, I was driving on HWY 1 from a friends house in mid afternoon, I needed to go past 3 cities to get to where I was going. It was just under an hour drive and I have driving this stretch of road many times. For some reason the fact that there was a lighting storm and lighting bolts seems significant. At one point as I drove through the storm there was a lighting bolt on each side of my car. Just a few moments after that happened the traffic got backed up, almost to a stop. At this point I called a friend, simply because traffic wasn’t moving and I was bored, after a minute or so on the phone I the traffic started moving and I told her I had to go, so I could drive. I drove for no more then 30 seconds, just enough to pass the truck and trailer that was in the ditch that was holding up traffic, then it slowed right down again. I was getting annoyed at th lack of movement on the freeway so I got into the right hand lane and planned to get off at an exit, where I could take a back road to where I was going. I took note of the next exit sign and I knew I needed the next one after that, so I was watching for the next exit sign. I saw a sign for the scale, and I was a little confused, because I didn`t think there was a scale there, but figured I just never noticed it before. The next sign I saw had numbers on it, right away I was confused because the road signs in the city I was going through had names only for all their roads. As I got closer I realized exactly where I was, I was one city PAST where I was headed, and at least 4 exits. Instantly I was so confused, I didn`t know how I could have missed such a stretch of road, especially because I was looking out for the next exit. I took that exit off and pulled over to collect myself, honestly I thought I`d died, like those movies you see where the spirit keeps going on in their life after the body died, it was just the weirdest feeling ever. I checked my cell phone and the last call I had made was 5 minute before, and thats when the call started, like I said I only talked to her for a minute or two. Now the distance I drove (In backup, slow moving, bumper to bumper traffic) was 38 KM (23miles) and should have taken me about 30 minutes with out traffic, some how I did it in less then 5 with traffic.
I refused to try and call my friend back to tell her, because like I said, I thought I was dead and I was scared to find out otherwise. I turned around and took the freeway back to the exit I wanted in the first place, wondering the whole time how I missed all of these building and construction. I when into the store I was going to and was never so relived as when a sales man asked me if he could help me, not until then did I realize I wasn`t dead!!
Any one I told this story to thinks I`m nuts, I know I`m not. I`ve driving the same stretch of road since and have tried to get from point A to point B in the fastest time possible and it just would never work.
I don`t know what happened but some how I skipped over a large portion of road in minimal time.
My occurance happened just yesterday. I’m still more than mildly freaked out.
I woke up late at 6:50AM, turned on the TV and accidently dozed off. Awaking again at 7:50AM ish, I rushed to the shower and got ready for work. Once all was said and done I departed from my apartment at 8:47AM, a half hour later than I normally would. As I left Good Morning America was on and they had started into their interview segment that usually runs from 8:30AM until 8:45AM. Cursing to myself I ran to the car and left for work (which is 1 1/2 away). Stopping only to grab a cup of coffee five minutes from the apartment and not paying any additional attention to any clocks, I drove the first half hour of my trip in relative quiet. Nearing the turn-off (almost 45 minutes into my trip) to the road that leads to my work I just happened to look up at the clock and noticed it said 8:06AM. Curing that my car had reset the clock again looked at my cell phone which confirmed the 8:06 AM time. Stopping at a gas station I confirmed that somehow I had gained, by this time, almost an hour of my life back.
Still freaked by this. Really would like some form of explanation.
Wow, that’s a long commute to work! I wish I had an explanation for you Brandon, but I still haven’t been able to explain what happened to me in 1978. I’ve gotten a lot of comments in response to this blog, as well as emails sent to me privately, of equally weird occurrences. Sometimes they involve losing time, sometimes gaining. Others happen at a single location and then there are those people who find themselves very far from their original location. So there seems to be similarities and differences within this whole missing time phenomenon. I don’t know why this is, but I suspect that there might be much that we don’t understand about the nature of time itself. We tend to think of it as always being linear, but perhaps there are “wrinkles” in the fabric of time or fluctuations, and we just get caught in them occasionally. One thing that I have learned since beginning this blog and writing this article is that many more people have experienced these various types of time phenomena than I ever thought.
A question that I now ask everyone who tells me about having gone through these experiences: Has anything else like this happened to you before? Even strange things that you can’t explain that might seem completely different from this “time gain” incident that recently happened? Think about that carefully and please let me know, if you wouldn’t mind.
I’ve had many ‘weird things’ happen to me, but my house is haunted, so thats not surprise. I’ve never had any other missing time or gained time experiences. But after reading over all of the stories here I remembered something weird that happened to me a few years ago. I had lost my keys only to find them where they should be, but couldn’t possibly be.
I had gone to the beach with my friend, and I didn’t want my purse with me, so I took my key, ID, cell and money out, put my purse in the trunk then went back into the car, grabbing my keys and locking and closing the door. We started walking and I specifically put my key under the rest of the stuff in my pocket so it wouldn’t fall out. We walked the pier, got food, then headed back to the car, I reached for my key and it was gone. We retraced our steps, searched and searched, nothing.
Long story short, we got AAA to come out and open my car because I knew I had a spare in my glove box.
I get home, pull my wallet out of my purse to put my spare key under it (thats where I keep my keys, coz this purse was small) and there is my original key!!!
I knew for a fact I had my key after I put the purse in the trunk, and I knew after the car was locked that I still had the key, I even called my friend to tell her and she confirmed that I had the key as we walked away from the car.
How it got not only back into my car, but under my wallet in my purse in the trunk I will never know!!
Things like this though, I never get angry or frustrated about because I figure they happen for some reason, like had I had my keys and left when I wanted I would have gotten into an accident or something. Not everyone would see things that way but thats how I think to keep my self positive!!
🙂
This happened to me and my husband at the end of last year, and has really stuck in my mind. For some reason I’d been thinking about it a lot in the past few days and decided to look for similar experiences on the net… Which led me here!
We live about 5 minutes from the cinema- we live next to a highway, which you drive down for about 1km, then you turn a corner onto another main road and follow it in a straight line until you hit the shopping center. There’s absolutely no way to get lost, no reason to turn off, and we’d made this trip so many times.
Anyway, this particular night we were heading to see a movie, it would’ve been about 7pm. My husband was driving. We’d turned off the highway onto the main road and were deep in conversation, when suddenly we found ourselves down a side road. It was strange, it was like we’d both ‘woken up’ at the same time- we’d stopped talking, couldn’t even remember the conversation we’d been having, and we were both wondering why/how we’d ended up turned off somewhere way before our destination.
We couldn’t have lost more than a couple of minutes but it’s played on my mind over and over since it happened.
Lucy — Your experience seems a lot like mine, except for the fact that you were driving and I was walking. The road I was taking was also very direct and one I’d taken many times, so no chance of getting lost or turned around. Yet, I ended up somewhere else, in an area I’d never before had any need to go.
Have you and/or your husband had any other strange or unexplained happenings at any point in your lives? Doesn’t necessarily have to be a “missing time” experience. Just curious…
I don’t even know if this is what really happened considering my now faulty memory but I will try to come as close as I can.
One night when I was ten, I was asleep when I was jostled awake by the feeling of a presence in the room. I looked over to a shadow on the wall being cast by a night light to see an odd looking creature. It had an oblong head with an upside down semi-circular shape to top it off. I tried to scream for my parents but no sound escaped my lips. The thing looked as startled as I felt and I saw it move one of it’s hands close to my neck and I blacked out. The next morning I woke up thinking it had all been a nightmare until I looked in the bathroom mirror and saw what looked like an injection mark. This is one of the few memories that I can remember clearly from that time in my life If someone has had a similar experience please contact me I need help to try and remember.
Trey — I know that feeling of wanting to scream but no sound escaping. I had that just about every time I had one of these types of dreams or experiences. What you’re describing isn’t uncommon, although the being you saw is new to me. “Upside down semicircular?” Do you mean like a crescent or U shape? Interesting, but the more I hear of these stories, the more variety of beings are described. Not all are your typical “grey” alien types.
John I’ve just had an experience on Saturday 5/14/2011 that I cannot explain.I live in the western part of Pa.Every year I drive down to Boca Raton to de stress at my time share for a few weeks.It is always nice and relaxing.I always stop just below Charolette NC on the way down and back.It is a half way point.On this return trip it seemed some bad storms knocked out power and the local power company was out in force to restore power.
As normal I stayed at my favorite roadside motel.I had gotten up at 6:00 am after a very restful sleep.Iget in my car and get on I77 to go through Charolette.As I pass the city limit sign the HOV lanes are coming up so I moved over since even on a weekend you can get a fine if your not supposed to be there.I notice the time on my cars clock and it is 6:54am.In an instant I am still on I77 and passing a beautiful area called Lake Norman.As i am driving I thought what is up I thought Lake Norman was past the city not before it.I looked at the clock in my car and it is 8:24AM.I am missing about 1 1/2 hours.I remember a queesy feeling in my stomach before and then after this missing “space in time” event happened.I didnt get any tickets .My car had no damage.It felt like being in a dentists chair and your going to have surgery so they give you and IV .Then what seems like a matter of seconds ,your awake and find out the dentist did the job.I don’t drink or do any street drugs.I do not speed.I just have no idea how I got to this point in the right amount of time but only seemed like a second or two passed.
Frank — These type of stories are becoming more and more familiar to me. I’ve gotten so many comments and emails from people it’s just amazing. When I wrote my Missing Time article I’d really considered my experience to be relatively rare, but as it turns out there are a LOT of us out there. I don’t know if that makes you feel any better, and I wish I could offer you some type of explanation or at least a theory about what might have happened to you, but I really cannot.
To paint it in very broad strokes, here are the three possibilities of what could be happening to us missing time experiencers:
1) We can take the skeptical point of view and dismiss it as just being a matter of “zoning out” or being mistaken about the time elapsed;
2) This is some sort of anomaly that is inherent to the very nature of time — e.g., there might be “wrinkles” and “folds” in the fabric of time, and occasionally we get caught up in them.
3) Some kind of outside intelligence is involved and is purposely interfering/interacting with us for reasons unknown.
While I have no doubt that some (maybe the majority) of these experiences fall into the first category, there are many that seem very difficult to explain. I think mine falls into that category and it sounds like yours does too. Now, I don’t know if the cause of this is from #2 or #3. I honestly feel that in my case their was some sort of involvement from an outside source. I’m not quite prepared to jump to “I was abducted by aliens”, but I sensed I was contacted and told or shown something, and my mother was then contacted by the same outside intelligence. I don’t understand the nature of this intelligence, but I think it has been interacting with human beings through the entire history of our species. Perhaps they’re preparing us for something. I don’t know, I can only speculate.
Finally, can you tell me if anything at all strange or unexplained has happened to you during your lifetime? I find that people have experience these events, when they think about it, usually recall other odd occurrences that have happened to them. In other words, these experiences are usually prone to other strange events.
Thanks for sharing your story, Frank. Good luck, and please let me know if anything comes to mind. You can contact me on the blog publicly or privately by email.
John
Hi John,
I do have a few strange memories of things from mostly when I was much younger, completely unrelated though.
I used to have really bad deja vu- like all the time. And premonition-type dreams run in our family- not like future predictive things, but personal things (I think it was related to the deja vu) One thing that really stuck in my mind was from when I was 6 years old, and I went on a family holiday to another country to visit my grandparents. I’d dreamt of the house and the surrounds, it was so eerie. It was the first time I’d been there and then it didn’t feel like it.
Also dream-related, I had an out-of-body experience for a few seconds once. I would’ve been about 12 I think, I can just remember being asleep and then started to have a really vivid dream of being in my room. Then I remember looking around and seeing myself in bed and snapped awake so fast I jarred my neck, haha!
Another sleep-related thing- I thought this was just me having a form of night terrors I guess, but my little sister experienced the same thing several times in my room when we were having sleepovers. It wasn’t anything specific, but from when I was about 8- and right up until I was 14 (though it was very rare by then, the younger I was the more common it was) I used to get woken up in the middle of the night by someone pinching my calf or my arm, or slapping me, or pulling my hair. The creepy thing is that sometimes I could feel it still after I woke up. A couple of times I found myself unable to wake up, feeling completely paralysed and like something was sitting on my chest.
I was completely convinced it was a ghost when I was younger after seeing a girl walk into my sisters room, and then thinking it was her I followed her in and there was no one there. But it was more of an out-of-the-corner-of-my-eye kind of thing.
It’s all stuff that people can just explain away, but all things that stuck in my memory and affected me pretty badly later on in life. I developed really bad insomnia that came and went over the years from the anxiety I used to get from falling asleep and thinking that something was going to happen. Sounds strange, but even now, years later, I sometimes still get it.
Lucy, I just wanted to comment that I get the deja-vu, dream premonitions all the time. I dream sooo much and every once in a while something will happen and I get the deja-vu feeling, but I remember the dream I had and often I can remember what is going to happen next, I know where to find people, I know how to get around somewhere I’ve never been, I know things about people I never met, I’ve even had dreams about movies I’ve never seen. It’s strange for sure, but once I realized what it is, I accepted it and it can be helpful. Heck the other night I dreamt my neighbor won the lottery and I knew how much, which lottery and all the numbers, I woke up, wrote them and gave them to him tonight… we’ll see what happens! hahah you never know what premonition dreams might bring!
Leslie, Lucy — Thanks to you both for sharing your experiences. Leslie, I don’t think I responded to your time-gain experience. There’s another weird time-anomaly account for my archives! I hear of a lot of variations on the phenomenon, but the time-gain scenario, where you travel an impossibly long distance in an impossibly short time, is a fairly common one. I believe there are several similar stories from people who have written in the comments section of this site.
Lucy, it doesn’t surprise me that you’ve had other strange experiences (you too, Leslie). It seems to come with the territory: people who have one type of unexplained event in their lives, when they think about, will almost always realize that there’s been an ongoing pattern of strangeness throughout their lives. I think these experiences could somehow be connected, or perhaps people like us are more sensitive to these types of phenomena. Like you, my experiences were more frequent and vivid when I was a kid, but I think we tend to be more sensitive to things in general when we’re younger. I also had a number of odd incidents (some singular, some ongoing, like my night terrors) that would appear to be separate and disparate. I think though, that they were not. I feel as if they are connected to each other in some way, and their meaning is significant. I just don’t know if I’ll ever comprehend their meaning in my lifetime.
On the subject of premonitions, my mom was a great one for that. I wrote about her in My Mom, The Witch. I’ve inherited a bit of that, although my premonitions and precognitive dreams have never been as frequent, vivid, and accurate as were hers. Leslie, let me know about that lottery prediction!
I fall into that category, deja-vu, dreams, premonitions, seeing ghosts and such. I have only had one out-of-body experience but often experience remote-viewing and visions. I just wish it all made sense. What good is a premonition or a vision if you can’t connect it to anything?
I don’t know what any of this weird stuff that I write about means, and I don’t pretend to. I just have a persistent sense that it means something, and that many of these odd subjects that seem unrelated on the surface, are in fact connected with each other. Maybe another part of our consciousness can glimpse parallel worlds that may be all around us but invisible to our normal waking consciousness. And perhaps these other consciousnesses or intelligences communicate with us on this subconscious level. I don’t know, I’m just throwing that at there, but I think there’s something to the idea — as incomplete as it is.
I was thinking about my missing time experience. I do that sometimes. I’m 52, and it happened when I was eight. I remember thinking about it some years ago, and it was familiar to me yet somehow new. It felt as if I were looking into a deep dark pool or pond, and something was slowly coming to the surface.
I remember recoiling in fear, and almost physically pushing the memory back down to wherever it had come from. I haven’t been that close to it since.
The beginning is somewhat unclear, but it goes something like this.
I had left school, and thought I had gone to a friends house afterwards. He lived in the opposite direction of where I lived, which was six blocks from the school. My school and my house were on the same street.
I don’t remember walking to my friends house. For some reason, there is a memory of a man with red hair. I think he said something to me, but I don’t remember what it was.
The next thing I remember is standing on the curb of a very busy street in the pouring rain, waving my arms frantically, and hysterical, trying to get someone to stop and help me. The encounter with the red headed man took place about a mile from where I ended up.
The funny thing is, is that I would not be in that place by myself as an 8 year old child.
I don’t know how much time had passed. The next thing I remember is an old woman on a balcony of an apartment building saying something to me. She was asking me if I needed help.
I walked up to the apartment where she was, and she let me in. I walked to the apartment as if I were in a trance. I know thats cliche, but thats the only way I can descibe it.
She asked me my name, and looked it up in the phonebook. Then next thing I know, my father shows up and takes me home. I don’t remember the ride home, and when I asked my mother about it years later, she claimed no memory of it.
To this day I don’t know what happened, or how I got to where I was. I don’t know if I was abducted or what. Or by who, if I was.
I can’t seem to conjure up the memory like I did that one day many years ago. But that day when it seemed like it was coming back, I pushed it back to where it was coming from.
Maybe it was nothing.
Mike — This doesn’t sound like nothing. It sounds to me like something happened here. Whether or not you want to try to delve into this further through sessions with a psychologist or psychiatrist, or even through hypnosis, is up to you. It really depends on how much this incident bothers you, how curious you are about it, and if it seems to be affecting your daily life in a negative way. Maybe exploring it isn’t a bad idea, but sometimes it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie, particularly if it’s not really troubling you. I think about my experience fairly often, but it’s not something that bothers me that much, so I haven’t sought professional help. If it was having an negative effect on me, I would.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
By the way, nothing like that has ever happened since.
John, it’s just something I think about from time to time. I’m curious about it, but then again, let sleeping dogs lie. I did talk to therapist once about it. She asked me what I thought it was, and what was the worst thing it could be. I told her what I thought. Nothing really came of it, and I haven’t gone into it any further. I figure one day it will come if I ‘m ready.
Cool site though. I’ve bookmarked it.
That’s kind of how I feel about my experience. I think it will just come to me at some point in my life when I’m ready for it. Until then I can live with the mystery.
Thanks, glad you like the site. Got a few new articles I’ll be posting this month and I’m planning upgrade the site itself soon (I’m a web designer/developer). Always so many things to do an too little time. Thanks again for checking in with your story. — John
I actually had a dream that I commented on to my husband several weeks back, only because it was so weird and vivid… I was working in a field I’ve never done before and the strangeness stuck with me. Then I started a new job several days ago which was completely different to what I was expecting, and found myself in the dream I had! SO weird when that happens!!!
On the premonition dream thing, my grandmother (dad’s mum) was brought up in Spain- her parents were gypsy types and they all had dreams and visions. My dad and his mum had a really weird psychic type connection when he was growing up, the kind you hear about twins having. Like knowing when something has happened to the other or one is in pain.
I think it’s worth mentioning though, I’ve had strange stuff happen to me my entire life and I just accept it… But my husband is the hugest skeptic I have ever met. He just refuses to see things and accept things, which is why it was such a “WHOA” kind of moment when I brought up our missing time experience in conversation once and I could see he was disturbed by it.
I do have to say though, I remember when we started dating he went away for a weekend with his parents (this would’ve been about 5 years ago) They lived about 2 hours away and when he came back he’d taken a really dodgy looking photo on his phone of strange lights in the sky that he said he’d never seen anything like before. We live in Australia, and his family have a huge outdoor area that they sit outside in every night and throw back a few beers, and he said that they noticed the weird lights because they weren’t moving like a plane. He said they watched them just hang in the sky for about 10 minutes, weaving strangely, then it looked like they just dropped out of the sky. He grabbed his phone to take a photo but the camera quality is so poor, you can’t really make out what it is. Just looks like black backdrop with 4 spots of light. So I just had to take his word on the strangeness of it.
If you’re still listening, I would like to share a story from my childhood. I’m only 21 now but the event occurred while in elementary school. I was riding my bike in a very familiar neighborhood and I didn’t feel strange or anything of the sort. Next thing I know, I’m lying on my back and my bike is descending from the air directly above me. I blacked out again just moments before it landed. When I came to, my bike was laying across my legs. I didn’t have any scratches and the two guys I was with said I *fell* off my bike. If so, wouldn’t my bike have shot forward, landed underneath me or simply fallen over? The fact that it was propelled into the air confused me.
But your friends were there and said they saw what happened? Not so sure that fits into the missing time category, although it sounds like you were confused by the event. Thanks for telling me about it.
Hello John,
one late evening a few days back, I was sitting in the garden with some friends, and we had an interesting conversation about some strange things each of us has experienced. While talking and listening, I suddenly remembered, that I had a very odd missing time experience some 15 or 16 years back. I am from northern Germany and by the time I had this particular experience, I was around 30 years old and had just been divorced from my wife. Interestingly this wife, I was just divorced from back then, shared my experience – she was with me, when it happened.
I don’t remember the year exactly, but it must have been in very late November or in early December of 1995 or 1996. I had a job in a factory back then in a city circa 100 miles south of Hamburg. My ex-wife and I had had an appointment on this particular day, that we would met at a subway station in a part of the city, where she was living with our two kids back then. We had to do something in town together, I also could not remember exactly, but I think it could have been, that we wanted to buy some birthday presents for our son, who turned 4 or 5 years old a few days later.
My quitting time at work was 2:00 PM at that day, and we were appointed at 2:30 PM, and because I had to take the subway to get to the date on time, I had to put my personnel card in the attendence recorder exactly at 2:00 PM. I hurried to the subway station, which was near the front of the factory and the subway train, which was heading directly to the part of the city where my ex-wife lived, arrived just a few minutes later. At around 2:32 PM I was at the (overground) station, where we had appointed to met. Astonishingly my ex-wife was almost on schedule that day, something I could not remember, has ever happenend before as long as I know here.
Just on the other side of the subway station was a big advertising sign with a clock, that was showing 2:35 or 2:36 PM when the subway in the opposite direction back into the town arrived. To get to the city to the (underground) subway station, we had planned to left the train, normally would have taken around 20 minutes. In the rush hour, it could have taken very few minutes more, but in any case we must have reached the station at around 3:00 PM. I must mention, that absolutely nothing unusually happended on our way. Circa 5 minutes before the subway reaches the particular station, we were heading to, it was going under the earth, and my ex-wife and I clearly recall, that when this happened, it was daylight as it is usually the case in late autumn at this time of the day.
In town we left the subway, and the next thing I remember, I was looking at the display panel of the station, which had a clock, and the clock was showing 4:30 or 4:32 PM! We were a little confused by the fact, that if the clock had been correct, it must have been almost 2 hours, since we entered the subway, but possibly the clock was wrong. I must mention, that my ex-wife an I had no watches with us, so on the escalator upstairs out of the station, I asked a gentleman for the correct time, and he said it was a few minutes after 4:30 PM. You can imagine how confused we were, when we left the station and we saw, that it was dark outside!
Until today, I have no idea, what could have happended in the 1 1/2 hours we both are missing, but there is absolutely no doubt, that we could not have been wrong in time. Whatever happended in our missing time is still a mystery to me, but in fact it wasn’t the only strange thing I experienced in my lifetime. As one of many odd examples, my stepson and I had an UFO-sighting on January 14 in 2007 around 6:57 PM while coming from a longer car trip on the autobahn and (don’t laugh) taking a pee beside a dark railroad track before finally getting back home.
The sighting was only a few seconds long, but it was very impressive. While looking at the stars in the dark clear sky, we both discovered a cigar shaped thing high in the sky, we first thought was a satellite or something else. But then suddenly this thing flew strange maneuvers. Almost like the indicator of an electrocardiogram it literally jumped over the sky so fast, we both were a little frightended and had goosbumps on our skins, realizing what we had just seen. There are many other paranormal things I experienced in my life, but that is another story …
Hi, Ammy — Thank you for sharing your story! That’s just fascinating, and it’s very typical of the missing time incidents that I hear of. I’m not surprised at all that you’ve had other strange experiences in your life. As I talk with more and more people who have experienced unexplained phenomena I’ve found that almost of them have had other strange things happen to them. I’d love to hear of any other experiences you’ve had. Feel free to comment on the blog or email me at john@theparanomalist.com. Thanks again — John
Hi John,
thank you very much for your reply! Yes, I guess it might be a good idea to share these experiences with you and your readers. By the way: I had never posted any of these things on any blog or site (including some german language sites) until I have found your site by coincidence and wrote you – simply because I know, that very often such postings tend to lead in uncalled-for dicussions with some folks, who call themselves “realists”, but never had experienced any unexplainable things themselves.
It might be, that some people are tending to see paranormal activities in each and every thing, which are in fact by no means unexplainable. Yes, and it might even be, that some people indeed are exaggerating beyond all measures to assume an air of importance, like these guys which swear on their mother, that their 75 hp subcompact could easily reach 130 mph topspeed, doing the quartermile in less than 14 seconds and still constantly gets 45 mpg under full throttle. I think, you know what I mean.
Yes, I think, I will post some of these experiences from time to time in the nearer future, cause I really want to know, if you or any of your readers have made similar experiences. But I want you to know one thing: All things that I will write about – I am dead serious – are true. No kidding, no hoaxes. I think, there must be a reason for all these things and I only want to know – like most of your readers – what is the reason for all this.
Oh, I forgot to mention, that it’s not only me, who had strange experiences in our family – and these things I will tell you about will include paranormal activities, OBEs in near death situations, ghost appearences, strange coincidences, deja vus, a few UFO sightings, near accidents that I have prevented because I have foreseen them or accidents, that normally must have lead to serious injuries, but did not for some unexplainable reasons … or even some very odd experiences for example, when my cat died at the age of nearly seventeen last autumn …
My pleasure, Ammy. I’m honored to have people like yourself share their experiences on my web site. The fact that your family has also had strange experiences isn’t surprising either. It seems that these type of unexplained incidents are common to entire families, not just a particular individual. I’m not sure why this is. Maybe sensitivity to these phenomena or the ability to pick up on things that most of us can’t is simply a hereditary trait. Or, perhaps certain family groups are of interest to these outside intelligences. Something to consider and explore in the future. Maybe I’ll do an article about that.
I’d love to hear about anything else you’d like to share. Feel free to post another comment anytime you’d like.
I have been having a lot of strange realizations about my past. Some things I can’t explain. By far, one of the most disturbing was my experience with missing time. It happened 3 years ago. I lived in a small city in Vermont. I grew up in the area and know my way around very well, I was 28 at the time the incident occurred. I was alone, walking home at approximately 1am. I remember after walking for about 20 minutes I had arrived on my street but I was still about 20 minutes from home… so yea about half way through my walk home…. and then nothing happened….. It’s like I blinked and I was completely lost. I very much had no idea where I was. I knew I was walking north on my last memory but then I didn’t know if the direction I was walking was still north… was I north of my home? Had I gotten turned around and was now south? I didn’t have any idea. Terrified is to say it plainly. I saw a house with no lights on in a field at the end of a very long driveway with a car in it. I ran to the house and knocked franticly on the door for fifteen minutes at least before someone came and yelled at me… I tried to explain to them I was walking and had gotten lost and asked for directions back to town and they told me the proper direction to travel back to the small city I lived in. I ran back to the road and proceeded to travel back south for about 10 minutes before a car approached from behind me. I was still quite scared and I don’t mind to admit I was crying and I walked into the middle of the road and attempted to flag them down to gain assistance, the car changed lanes and proceeded to travel south not even slowing down… I must have looked completely insane. I walked for another fifteen minutes before a state trooper arrived; I assume called by the people whose house I knocked on about a half mile behind me. He ran my name and birthday gave me a breathalyzer (which can up clean), tried to calm me down and gave me a ride SEVEN MILES SOUTH back to my home. It was 4 am when I walked through my door. Somehow I lost 2 hours and traveled about 8 miles without any memory of how it happened and in what seemed like an instant. I don’t know why I am posting this story on the internet… but people should know this time travel/abduction/interdemenional travel experiences are very real. Idk what happened. Idk how it happened. But it did happen. Please if I can get any feedback about this I would very much appreciate it.
Christopher — I wish I could tell you something that you’d find comforting, but I don’t know if I can, other than I’ve heard dozens of similar stories from people since starting this blog and writing about my own missing time experience. So at the very least, understand that you’re not alone in this. My sister has lived in a small town in Vermont (South Strafford) for many years and she’s told me that she’s heard of a lot of similar incidents involving UFO sightings and missing time experiences. Do you recall seeing anything or anyone prior to losing time? I did not, but I did experience a strange sensation before losing my memory. I have a feeling that outside intelligences are involved, but beyond that I really couldn’t say who, what, or why. Besides this particular incident, have you had any other strange or unexplained experiences before or since this happened?
Strange and unexplained experiences have been on going for myself since my childhood. Things such as levitating without control, unidentified presences in my home, and the year before this experience I did see a triangular shaped craft in the sky in Brandon Vermont. This craft was absolutely not anything known to the public. Not to say that it couldn’t have been a military aircraft. It didn’t move fast enough to cause the lift required to keep a craft of this size in the air. It made no sound as it traveled, even though I was less then 500 feet of this craft at its closest point. The lighting pattern under the craft consisted of 3 large white lights located in the corners of the triangle with a red light located in the center of the craft. It flew conservatively not more than 300 feet above the tree line and slow enough for me to stop the car i was in, get out and watch it for at least 3 minutes before it disappeared out of view beyond the top of the trees that lined the road i was on.
Although, nothing occurred nor did i see anything in the days weeks or months before this event occurred. As a matter of fact it hadn’t occurred to me that this was or could have been a missing time event until very recently. I did my best to rationalize the experience and told myself i maybe was sleep walking or i blacked out for some reason or maybe there was something wrong with me mentally. Its been years since it happened and the circumstances have not repeated themselves. Short of sleep walking for 8 miles down the side of Route 7, (which i assume you’d recognize that route having family in Vermont, as it almost runs the length of the state and is a very busy road) I really don’t know how else to explain this event.
When i came to i was standing, the first thing i remember seeing was my feet walking forward. No one was around. I could believe i slept walked it if it wasn’t for the distance i traveled. I don’t understand how I couldn’t have fallen off the road into a field or wandered out into traffic. But to have followed the shoulder of the road for 7-8 miles with no memory of the walk. i can just say i have my doubts that this is a case of sleep walking.
As i left my friends home (I was still within sight of his home) two men did drive by me, stop and ask me if I needed a ride. I did tell them no and they did leave me alone and drive away. But beyond that i dont remember seeing anyone else until i was outside of town. Anyway thank you for your responce and interest in my experience.
I’ve had a number of odd experiences and things that I can’t explain that seem unrelated to my missing time episode. However, as I’ve thought about it over the years I think they are not unrelated. I believe there’s a connection there. Almost everyone with whom I’ve been in contact through this blog seems to follow this same pattern – i.e., one strange incident occurs, but when questioned they recall that other odd/unexplained things have happened to them at least once, and often many times throughout their lives. Are these people just more sensitive to various paranormal phenomena, able to pick up on entities that are invisible to most? Can they glimpse alternate realities that others cannot perceive? Or are these people being targeted or chosen by outside intelligences for a specific purpose? I don’t know the answer to these questions, but I have noticed this consistent pattern of ongoing and repeated experiences among people who have contacted me, and that leads me to believe that there’s something more going on here. Random, isolated encounters, sightings, incidents, etc., upon further inquiry, almost never are random or isolated one-time happenings. And that raises some questions. Wish I had answers.
thanks for all the info above. I had never heard of missing time until tonight when I certain it happened to me. I left a job I was doing in someones home and was pleased with myself as Id finished right on the time Id alloted for the job. which was 8.20pm. I had planned to call in on a friend and had told her Id be there about 9 ish. I checked my watch as I left the house , also the house clock said 8.20. as did my car clock when I started the engine
I took a back route rather than my usual motorway journey and was thinking “god I feel like Ive been on this road for ages ! I got into the next village ( Im in the HIghlands of Scotland) and saw a supermarket open and stopped to buy some groceries. It was 8 32pm as I looked at the car clock thinking will I have time ? There was a man outside the shop with a large black dog. I pulled up and got out and thought, “where did HE go ???” as in a couple of seconds the man had disappeared into thin air and wasnt anywhere on the road. I shrugged and Thought nothing of it and went into the shop, grabbed a couple of things paid and left. I was driving on along the road thinking, Im not coming this way again, its really long and I dont remember it being like this before. when I looked at the clock in the car and it said, 9.39 p,m the distance Id travelled was 7 miles !!
I stopped the car and put the light on to check my watch as I couldnt beleive it. It also said 9. 39 pm I then checked my mobile phone clock as I still couldnt beleive it and sure enough it said the same.
I rang the house Id been and spoke to my customer , she confirmed Id left at 8.20 pm
I thought OH well im getting old cos ive lost an hour must have left at 9.20 and continuted to my friends house.
never thought anymore of it. But then on arriving home it began to disturb me and I did a google search and found your site.
cant say I remember a thing you could call unusual apart from feeling id been driving for miles instead of the usual few minutes it takes.
the only odd thing was the man with the dog not being there a couple of seconds later when really there was no where to go apart from up or down the road.
Its very disturbing to think you lost a whole hour. !! where was I what did I do !!!
awful feeling
thanks for listening as I wouldnt tell anyone I know theyd think Id gone insane.
Hi Liz — Thanks very much for contributing to The Paranomlist with your experience. I know it can be difficult to talk about these types of mystifying episodes. My own incident happened over thirty years ago and I still don’t know what to make of it, other than I believe it was “real” and not something I just imagined. I have had SO many people tell me of these experiences since I first wrote this article a couple of years ago, it’s just amazing to me. You’re definitely not alone this, if that’s any comfort. It appears to be a much more commonplace phenomenon than I’d ever imagined.
If anything else comes to mind concerning your missing time incident, please feel free to contact me. I can’t say that I have anything to tell you about the nature of these occurrences, but the more I hear of them the better able I can see certain patterns emerge which may lead me to a better grasp of their cause.
Thanks again for telling me about this. — John
Hi,
I had an interesting situation occur when I was 11th grade. My boyfriend, now my husband, flew in from out of state (we dated long distance) and were upstairs in my bedroom eating some candy around 8:30 PM. Well my parents were very big about not ever closing the door to my room if we were both in there. My husband and I are true believers in Jesus Christ and we made a commitment to each other that we would wait for marriage to do certain things. Reason I say this is because the next thing I knew was I woke up in my underwear and bra under the covers with my boyfriend at the time and he was just in his boxers! The lights were out and the door to my room was completely closed and it was now like 1 AM. I woke up my boyfriend and we were totally freaked out about what had just happened. To this day we still talk about what happened that night and how we don’t remember any thing from roughly 8:30 PM to 1 AM.
Interesting story, Megan. Were your parents home at the time? If they were, I think it would be unusual for them not to have opened your door to see what was going on, especially if that was a strict rule of theirs. The door being closed until 1 AM would probably not have gone unnoticed. This sounds like a minor aspect of the story, but I bring it up because in many of these accounts there are these out strange little incongruities. People who are not directly involved in the phenomenon seemed to zone out or are “switched off” until it’s over.
Hi John, i’m glad i have somewhere to share my experience. I used to call it “missing one hour”. i only cant remember now was it from 3 pm to 4 pm or from 4pm to 5 pm.
This happend to me 10 years ago in 2001. i was 17 and on 3rd grade in highschool. ( i’m from europe so its different educational system) it was late september or begining of october i cant recall. so we on 3rd year in high school start with philosophy subject ( actually its logics but as part of philosophy) its was sunday sunny afternoon, i was home alone and i was laying on my bed in my room and reading notes from my notebook from philosphy introduction i had written . These were some questions we had discussed on class like “define time” or “imagine world in 64 dimensions” so after reading these two or three lines i got up from bed and stood infront of my open window ( the window is very close to bed ) so in front of my window i asked myself this question ‘what is time, actually” so this was for like less then10 seconds and then i returned to my bed. minewhile the radio was on and it began playlist chart so it was sharp 3 pm ( or 4pm i cant remember )i looked on clock on my shelf and yes it was 3 pm then i looked down on my notebook and next thing ( like someone said in comments earlier ) blink, like one second after, my eyes still on notebook but i heard the first place on music chart ( so the radio show was over) it was dj krush danger of love i looked on my clock it was one minute past 4 pm (or 5pm ). i freaked out started to cheking time on my computer and all the clocks in the flat. so it was excatly one hour missing. i didnt remember anything in meanwhile like there was no meanwhile that was just second later.
i ofcourse thought that maybe i was daydreaming but usually you have feeling of time passing when you do that and you know what you thought about.and yet if i was really daydreaming it will be like for 15 minutues or for about half an hour not Exactly one hour.and maybe if the radio was off and if there wasnt this chart on just some random music maybe i wouldnt notice it. but this (begining of the show and next thing first song on the chart and nothing in between) streessed all the ” missing hour” expierence.
i told few friends about this but they think i had imagined that or just daydreaming or they ofcourse couldnt explaint it. i myself couldnt explaint it
Hi Anđela. Yours does sound very much like the other missing time account that I received and you referenced. It’s there somewhere in the Comments section of the Missing Time? article. I’ve gotten several of those types of stories emailed to me as well. These people, like yourself, seem to experience a “jump” in time. They don’t travel anywhere or notice anything unusual, it’s just like they skipped over a period of time with no explanation. I think it’s a little too easy to dismiss all of these as being imagined or as daydreaming. I wish I knew what the cause of this was, but it’s interesting to hear so many different people telling me of these experiences and of the variations on the missing time phenomen. If I get any answers about the nature of these episodes I’ll let you know. Thanks again. — John
also want to add that i’m very rational person, agnostic and dont believe in this alien stuff but i do believe in some kind of paranormal in terms of like your mother “had recieved this message” to pick you up. but this mine missing time experience has nothing to do with this person to person “connection” like yours in the end. so i cant explaint at all, sometimes i reffer to it like there was some twich in the universe and sometimes that its some strange phychological contition.
thank you for the reply in such a short notice. i also like yourself thought about hypnosis but i have felling that it will show nothing.
I don’t have an expierence thats close to any of yours,but I still find it odd. One day when i was about 10 or 11 years old, I was walking to my friends house. I was walking along a main road(Hickman road in Windsor Heights, IA) and while I was walking. All of a sudden everything became quiet, and everything seemed to stop. But there were still cars driving by, and everything seem to go by really slow and it was strangely quiet;it seemed as if i were in a daze. Then everything I snapped back, but you see i did not have a watch on me and it was too long ago for to remeber what time I had left. So there could have been “some time missing” that I didn’t notice. But anyways just thought that I should throw that out there-Elmar
That sounds similar to what I experienced, Elmar. There was a strange quiet as I was walking. The quiet preceded my missing time episode.
I’ve never had such an experience and I came across this site accidentally. But I’ve read much about Einstein’s theory of relativity and I think relativity is where we could find an answer to this phenomenon. Einstein said time was like a river. Well, there is famous quote about time which tells us that the flow of water that has passed will never pass again. But Einstein believed that the river of time may have whirlpools and it even may fork into 2 rivers (Scientist Michio Kaku talks about this in his articles). Also time can be distorted by the strong gravity field. It is believed that UFOs (if they exist) use particles of anti-gravity as a fuel which distorts space-time by it’s large amount of energy. This would explain missing time in UFO cases. Regarding reports of many people in this blog, we should perhaps consider the possibility that some kind of miniature vortexes are being created in our world which can pull us through time. If so, they are being supplied by huge energy. Just think of how much is needed to create a wormhole? It’s equal to the energy of a star. So it would be very difficult to prove this theory since there would be a lot of energy coming out of nowhere, wouldn’t it?
Best wishes, Damir
Hi John, I too am glad I found your site. I had a strange experience this week. I am into the spiritual enlightment and have had some unexplained things happen, but, I have to admit this one has me stumped. I was at my computer Monday morning after dropping my kids off at school. The time was around 8am. I was looking at my facebook wall and laughed that a young man’s account had been compromised by a high heel ad claiming he had just bought a pair of leopard style shoes. I commented on the post and said they were indeed a great buy for him. The next post I saw was my sister’s and so I decided to reply to it as well. I clicked the post and made my remarks and noticed the time was 10:25 am??? I thought that it was a error because the previous young man was in Alabama and my sister was in AZ and perhaps my computer “stumbled”…I rebooted the computer and got up for to get some breakfast…I always eat around 8:00am. I walked into the kitchen and the clock on the wall also said 10:25?? I was still not convinced and so I checked the bathroom clock as well….I dismissed it as time flies. Later that evening I told my best friend and she told me to pull the history in the computer and see if since I was sitting there before and after the missing 2 1/2 hours that perhaps I viewed WebPages. So I went into the history and there is nothing between those two hours and when I reviewed the post one said 12 hours previous and the other said 10? I am completely spooked> Did I sit here in a trace? I don’t believe I slept for two hours in a sitting position without falling over, and my body didn’t ache from being in the same position. I have been under hypnosis many times and meditate frequently. And this was nothing like either. I am thinking MRI. I looked into seizures and they don’t last his long, and it seems if one lost consciousness they would fall over? I did try the doppelganger meditation the night before and even though I had some insights into what may be, I can’t help but think that the parallel universe thing may have had something to do with this. I am too freaked out to undergo hypnosis to find out what did happen. I wish I had been running a webcam so I could view those two hours. The thought is…was my body even present??
Hi Laura — To paraphrase what you’re saying, you’re wondering if you were physically present, but just sitting there in a “zoned out” state, or if you somehow went elsewhere, as into a parallel dimension or something, correct? Very good question if so. This seems to be one of a few different variations of the so-called “missing time” experience, and a fairly common one, too. You didn’t change locations, you seemed to have simple skipped forward in time with no sensation of losing those 2 1/2 hours, right? No sense of of feeling disoriented before it happened, or groggy afterward? I’ve been contacted by many people who have had this experience, and I’m starting to think that perhaps we do slip into an…alternate reality(?)…parallel dimension(?). I don’t know. If you were simply sitting there, frozen at your computer, I’d think you’d have some sensation of going into and coming out of that inert state of being. So the question is, did you slip out of your normal reality and into a different one, physically disappearing into it, or did time just “hiccup” and jump forward? The cause has to either have something to do with the individual, or with the nature of time itself. But if you experienced this fast-forwarding of time, wouldn’t everyone? We think of time as being universal — 24 hours in a day for me is the same 24 hours for you, even if we’re in different time zones. But can time be personal, varying from individual to individual? That sounds far out, but this is a very weird subject so I feel the need to throw that out there. I know I’m asking more questions than giving answer (largely because I really don’t have any answers) but it’s fascinating for me to hear of these different types of missing time experiences. The more I hear of them and can compare these stories, the better I can see patterns emerge and begin to draw conclusions. Can you tell me if you’ve had any other odd and/or unexplained incidents occur in your life? Anything at all, even if it seems unrelated to this particular experience.
Thanks for letting me know about this, and please feel free to contact me if you have anything else you’d like to tell me of. –John
When it comes to my life, I tell people I am a female Forrest Gump but I am not “special” LOL It started when i was born, I Actually remember the event. My mother was dying and I was trapped in the birth canal. The Dr asked my father who to save? and my father said, save my wife. I was dead for what the Dr claimed about 7 mins. My whole childhood I would talk about the nurse that picked me and ran out of the room and into an elevator, down to the lobby, across a hall passing A old coke bottle vending machines and into the big room. My mother would tell me that she was unconscious and not sure how I was revived. On my 16th Birthday, I was with a friend and I happened to meet his mother, when she heard my name, she started to cry,,, She was the nurse! She was 9 months pregnant with my friend and she felt she had to save me…not my mother, so she fled with me, and revived me in the downstairs ER. So I recall an out of body experience at birth. I hear star children “walk in”. As bizarre as that seems to me, I think I may be one. When I was 8, I was a latch key kid and was all alone when a man appeared and sat beside me while I played Barbies. He explained some things to me and told me I had to join the Mormon church that what they would teach me would start my epic journey, When my mom returned home I told her, I wanted to join the Mormon church. She was like….WHY? I said the man that was just here told me too. She asked if I opened the door to the Mormon missionaries, I said no, He just appeared. She asked me what he looked like and I described someone like Ceaser. She contacted the Missionaries and at 8 and all by myself I was baptized and started going to church. The Mormons taught me about the preexistence and that I chose to come here to be perfected to become a God. I started questioning the dreams I was having and had theories unlike theirs. Like, most of my dreams were of helping other people, so I asked If I could be a guardian Angel in my sleep? They laughed. I was also having dreams I swore were previous lives, they said it was my ancestors wanting me to do their genealogy, and so I got into that. And when I started seeing my ancestors and conversing with them. They found that exciting. When I started seeing events before they happened, or just knew things, I was told that I could have personal revelation but I was not allowed to know things about other people, that was probably the Devil. When I started seeing ghosts and could talk with the dead, angels, guides, God, Christ, and even encountered demons and other dark things…I left the church. I try to live as normal of a life as possible but I am not by any means normal. LOL I have learned to astral travel, I can go anywhere I chose, In this reality and in any other. I frequent the realms with my guide “Julia”. She has helped me heal from my pass lives and this one. (one of which I have a actual photo of me on V-day..I look exactly like I do in this life.) My relationship with Christ is even unbelievable to me. I have had all my questions answered; I have even had my own miracle. I had full blown cancer and told I was probably going to die and after a night of sincere conversation with Christ I was granted a miracle. I was scheduled for my first day of Chemo and I showed up demanding that they retest me before they hooked me up to the IV. I told them I was healed, they told me I had cancer in my breast and in my brain. I needed Chemo. I said I had the right to another opinion. So after 5 hours of fighting they gave me my test. The Dr came in with the test and sat down and said he was referring me to a friend of his, who was doing a study on prayer. Because I was indeed Cancer free! I know we are all connected and that we are living in a world of matter to experience what we created. My missing time, has a development. I have realized I must have filled my truck up with gas during my missing time. How I paid for it? I have no idea. I never took out any cash and no gas is on any of my cards?? I am single mom and nobody else would have the keys to gas it up for me. I was hoping I had a receipt of something..I wanted to see the video at the pumps. So I must have been with someone? Like I said, I am really stumped on this one. I need to go to my guides and ask…but, I am not sure I want to know…LOL
Hello – I also had a strange experience. I worked in an office at Prudhoe Bay at (Alaska’s ‘North Slope’) in the 1990’s. I remember setting at my desk and would see a flash of light that was so bright, it would overtake everything in the room. Then, the next thing I knew, I’d still be sitting at my desk, only a couple of hours had passed and I had no idea how or what had happened. I had a co-worker who’s desk was right next to mine in this small office. I never told her about my experience. One day she asked me “do you ever experience a flash of light, almost like a camera flash, then look at the clock and realize you don’t know what had happened over the last 2 hours?”
Jen — It’s understandable that we often try to explain away strange events that don’t fit our perception of reality, but it’s so much more difficult when there’s another person that’s had the same experience and can corroborate what you’ve gone through. Couple of questions for you, if I may: 1) Have you heard of other strange phenomena happening in this area of Alaska?; 2) Have you experienced any other unexplained or strange incidents before or after this has happened? Just curious, but if you’d rather not answer, I’ll understand. Or if you’d prefer to reply privately, my email is john@theparanomalist.com.
Thanks for sharing this with me. — John
Hello. My name is Devin i’m 15, i live in a small town in PA. Last night my father and i were taking my friend home who had spent the night and lifted with us, it was about 2 minutes to get to his house, then we drove directly to the grocery store and bought 4 gallons of water. the store was like 5 minutes away, then we went directly home. we only spent maybe 10 minutes in the store. so all together it was like a 20 minute trip. we got home, got out of our car and noticed three huge bright orange-yellow lights in the sky. they were huge, and very close to each other, they stood still and made absolutely no sound. i asked my dad what it was. and he said he had no idea. we stood there watching for about a minute and then it began to move towards us and over my house and it looked like a huge fast moving jet. my dad dismissed it as only that, but i was skeptical. it was strangely dark last night. you couldn’t tell the sky from the horizon, and there was an eerie feeling in the air even before any of this happened. my dad said it was cloudy and so you couldn’t see the moonlight, but if it was so cloudy how did we see the anomaly? it felt as if it were two different moments, one in which the “jet” had flown over our house, and the one where we were seeing the bright lights. we had left around 7:20 to drop my friend off, and when we walked in the house after seeing the lights it was after 9. i was extremely paranoid of something taking me when i was trying to fall asleep and when i finally had i had nightmares of bright white lights, and hearing my fathers voice talking to someone. when my dad gets home from work i’m going to see if he experienced anything similar. but this entire situation was extremely strange, and frightening. i’ve found myself staring at the sky where we saw the lights all day long, and i began google searching “missing time” and i came across this page, and felt obligated to post something, and tell someone who knows this situation and won’t tell me i’ve got an overactive imagination.
Hey Devin,
There’s certainly a lot that you described here that is difficult to explain, so I wouldn’t go beating myself up about having an “overactive imagination” if I were you. First of all, “jets” aren’t huge and glow orange-yellow, and they don’t hover. It sounds as if you’ve had a fairly typical UFO sighting — and by UFO, I mean “Unidentified Flying Object”, which is not to necessarily say that we’re talking about space aliens here, just that this particular aerial phenomenon could not easily be identified as any known type of aircraft.
As for the missing time component of your story, that is particularly strange because it coincided with your UFO sighting, which could indicate that the two incidents were connected. You seem quite clear about the sequence of events that evening, and I agree that it seems as if you have an hour to an hour-and-half that is unaccounted for.
The first time I’d read about missing time in connection with UFOs was in the book Missing Time, and later in Intruders, both written by the late Budd Hopkins. Personally, I have no recollection of seeing any kind of object in the sky I had my experience, and the majority of the people who contact me about such incidents don’t mention UFOs. Interesting though that yours does. Have you experienced any odd or unexplained happenings prior to this incident? Often, when people think about it, they recall other strange events in their lives. I don’t know if this will help much, but you might want to consider taking the following survey: http://www.abduct.com/survey. Maybe it will reveal a pattern. I wish I could give you an answer, but I’m trying to figure all this out myself. Please feel free to keep in touch if you’d like to talk about this further. You can email me at john@theparanomalist.com if you’d rather not talk publicly in the comments area of the blog.
Best of luck.
John
About 15 years ago I had a “strange” experience; unlike anything else I remember. As I traveled to work at about 10:00AM on a weekday, I felt strangely euphoric/elated over the possibility of buying a tractor! The road I traveled is the one I always used; and as you mentioned in your account; I noticed the amber light in the distance did not seem to be getting closer; and it was raining just beyond that intersection. The next thing I knew I was on an unknown road; and I felt I was coming out of a drug induced stupor as I gradually held my head up to look around. I was still driving; albeit slowly. I felt panic. I kept looking for the amber light and the rain! Nothing looked familiar; and about 20 minutes had lasped according to my watch. I kept driving, and finally realized I had somehow taken a right turn at the caution light; which made no sense; since this only took me away from my destination. I finally got turned around and made it to Milton. I called my supervisor & tried to explain what had happened. Being a recovered alcoholic, she understood how I felt; since she had often had such experiences due to “blackouts”. But since I neither drink nor use drugs; it made no sense. I did tell my physician; and he did not seem alarmed and felt I had experienced a “fugue” which he had seen with other patients. I still wonder about this experience.
Another one for the files! Thanks for sharing that, Mary. Have you had any other strange or unexplained experiences before or after this happened?
It happened twenty years ago….still so vivid in my mind, like it happened yesterday! Working as an LPN at a convalescent center in Bennington, VT, I had just finished my 8 hr. shift working 3-11 pm. After giving an oral report to the night staff nurse which took approx. 25 min. , I left en route for home, traveling the 12 miles on route 7 to Babcock Lake. My normal route took the usual 20-30 min. depending on the weather. It was the same route I’d taken for 5 years. I crossed the NY/ Vermont border and had gone about 6 miles when I looked to the left and saw the strangest green lights! There were 2 green beams of lights moving in tandem with each other in a corn field about 500 ft from the road. I thought, ” since when do tractors have green lights and what would they be doing at this time of night”? Since no cars were coming from either direction , I stopped the car, leaving my foot on the brake, and periodically checked in my rear view mirror for cars approaching from behind. I looked into the sky above the lights, but it was so dark I couldn’t tell what the lights were shining from! My sunroof was closed, but I searched the sky above. It was pitch black, no moon, no stars, just pitch blackness. The green lights just kept beaming down like they were searching the corn field. The corn was full grown and green, what on earth? The next thing I knew I was pulling into my driveway at my home! Following my usual routine , I flicked on the kitchen lights and went to the refrigerator for a drink. Sitting down on the couch, I turned the T.V. on, and flipped to my favorite channel. A different show was on….hhmm, I flipped to a different channel I watched, and that’s when I looked at the clock, 1:30AM. I lost 1 1/2 hours! I was shaking uncontrollably. In my mind I retraced my steps, where did the time go? How did I drive home when all I can remember was stopping to look at the lights! I couldn’t have sat on a busy road for 1 1/2 hrs with my foot on the brake! I didn’t drive or I would have remembered it. How did I get home? Normally, I turn left into my driveway. I just remember driving straight in, almost like I had landed gently and drove in. The strange thing is I would have had to drive over a lake and a house to drive in straight! I never told anyone about my experience until 10 years later. Strangely, noone knows what to say, so they say nothing. Thank-you for letting me share my experience with you, and know that you’re not alone. I came out of the experience feeling like I have a mission when the time is right? Will we ever find out the truth and the answers we seek? Perhaps in time we’ll find out there is a higher intelligence who can scientifically mastermind and manipulate all these things effortlessly, and I can honestly say I don’t feel threatened. Is it divine intervention?
Hi Cindy — Thank you for sharing your story. Your experience seems to fit what most people think of as a “typical” pattern within the missing time phenomenon — e.g., at night, dark & deserted country road, lights in the sky; whereas mine was in broad daylight on a busy suburban street. My point being is that there seems to be a spectrum of different ways in which these experiences manifest themselves. However, my belief is that the underlying cause of these incidents probably come from the same source. There is, I believe, an outside intelligence that’s been interacting with us (or at least some of us) for as long as humankind has existed. To what end and purpose they’re interacting with us, I don’t know. I didn’t have any sense later on of having felt threatened either, and I did come away with the same feeling of having been told something or having been instructed in some way, and that I’m meant to remember this experience when the time is right. I’ve had several other people who have had this experience tell me that they’ve felt the same way afterward. It’s been weighing on my mind more heavily these days, so maybe that time is soon approaching. Don’t know, but sure wish I had the answers.
Please keep in touch if you recall any other strange events or anything occurs in the future. Always interested and glad to listen.
— John
Hi, I just had a case of “missing time” earlier today. I decided to go to a local casino for a dinner buffet, and had to take two buses to get there. The trip should have taken about 45 minutes. As I neared the casino, I suddenly had this odd feeling, like I was suddenly “waking up” from a period of unconsciousness. I looked at my cell phone, and it showed that I had been traveling for 1 hour and 45 minutes. The thing that strikes me, is that I was in public the entire time, surrounded by people, and yet I somehow “lost” one hour of my life. I guess I would be completely freaked out by this, except that I’ve had “UFO” type experiences before, just none that I can recall for the past few years.
Hi Michael – Once again, I’m struck by the variety of different situations and circumstances in which people have described these periods of missing time. The last commenter had what we think of as a more “typical” missing time episode — alone on a dark country road and first having witnessed unusual lights in the sky. Yours was more like mine, having occurred while traveling in a busy, populated place during the day. The only difference is that I was walking alone and you were on a bus, presumably with other people traveling with you. I think that ups the strangeness factor even more, actually. Not surprised either to hear that you’ve had UFO type experiences in the past. Sometimes people don’t even remember that they’ve had these or other odd or unexplained experiences in their past until I ask them if they have. Then they’ll often say, “Well, know that you mention it, I’ve had this or that weird thing thing happen (sometimes one thing several times, or an isolated incident, and sometimes a series of strange events throughout their lives). I think some people are either “experiencers” — people who are more sensitive to picking up on paranormal phenomena, or that they’ve been chosen by whomever these entities are, and they’re being communicated with for a purpose. I tend to agree with Cindy, the previous commenter, when she said that she thinks we’re meant to remember everything when the time is right. I’m not sure why I feel that way, but I always have.
Hi Michael – Once again, I’m struck by the variety of different situations and circumstances in which people have described these periods of missing time. The last commenter had what we think of as a more “typical” missing time episode — alone on a dark country road and first having witnessed unusual lights in the sky. Yours was more like mine, having occurred while traveling in a busy, populated place during the day. The only difference is that I was walking alone and you were on a bus, presumably with other people traveling with you. I think that ups the strangeness factor even more, actually. Not surprised either to hear that you’ve had UFO type experiences in the past. Sometimes people don’t even remember that they’ve had these or other odd or unexplained experiences in their past until I ask them if they have. Then they’ll often say, “Well, know that you mention it, I’ve had this or that weird thing thing happen (sometimes one thing several times, or an isolated incident, and sometimes a series of strange events throughout their lives). I think some people are either “experiencers” — people who are more sensitive to picking up on paranormal phenomena, or that they’ve been chosen by whomever these entities are, and they’re being communicated with for a purpose. I tend to agree with Cindy, the previous commenter, when she said that she thinks we’re meant to remember everything when the time is right. I’m not sure why I feel that way, but I always have.
Hi John. Thank you for creating this site and posting your story. After I got home I couldn’t stop thinking about it, trying to rationalize it actually. So like others have mentioned, I did a Google search and that brought me here. Reading everyone else’s stories helped me stop trying to explain it away.
It’s almost dawn now and I still haven’t slept, so I thought I’d share a few more things with you. I was a strange kid, curious about everything under the sun, but one thing I always avoided was any shows or books that talked about UFOs. Then, when I was out of college and living on my own, I accidentally stumbled across Intruders I think, and just devoured it. Afterwards I freaked out, because I couldn’t get this thought out of my head that I shouldn’t have read that book. I did not want to go to sleep that night. I don’t know what I was expecting, but when I woke up the next morning I was looking at myself in the bathroom mirror feeling relieved, when suddenly I sneezed, and then my nose began to bleed. That hadn’t happened in years.
I took that abduction survey and got 20 yes answers. At first it was 17 but then I started to remember a few things. The last time I had a really strange event happen, I was waking from a dream, except that it didn’t seem like a dream at all. I don’t normally remember my dreams, and this one seemed more like a real memory. But oddly enough, I “dreamed” that I was out and about during the day, when I was suddenly abducted, and I found myself talking to this being. That was a few years ago.
One thing I’ve noticed, is that these events tend to happen before major life changes. I think we all know by now that our cell phones track us every moment of the day. I’d sure like to know where my cell phone records say I was during that missing hour.
Hi Michael — Sorry for the delay in replying. Sounds like we have some things in common. I’d describe myself as having been a strange, curious kid (now I’m a strange, curious adult) and I read both Budd Hopkins’s Intruders as well as his Missing Time book. I was very fascinated by both of them, particularly since I’d experienced my own missing time incident just a few years earlier. I’ve also had some other weird experiences, such as my strange “dreams” that I discuss in Aliens, Gnomes, Boogeymen, Night Terrors?. There are a few other strange, half-remembered incidents that occurred when I was younger. I’ll write about those sometime.
John, I experienced two events. The first occurred in the summer of 1978 around 10 AM on a weekend in Hays, Pennsylvania. I believe it was it was a Sunday in June. It was warm and Sunny. Not extremely hot as July and August are known for. I was twelve years old at that time and living with my relatives. My cousin and friends had gathered together to ride our bikes. We were carefree and a little wreckless in our style of riding, testing our ability. We left around 9:30 AM on a residental street that ran parralel to a main thoroughfare. We may have been rambuntious but not careless. The street is a dead end with an entrance to a gated drive through for a raw materials company that did not utilize it that much. There was always room to fit through the gate. It also parraleled the main thoroughfare. We raced through the drive and performed a few jumps over piled quarry stones. We quickly became bored and had a discussion as to what to do next. We all agreed to meet in a field relatively close to my relatives home. My cousin and friends decided that they wanted to set up and jump the piles of rocks a few more times. I decided to leave and wait for them at the gate where we entered. While I waited I decided to suprise them and positioned myself just behind one of the first rock piles nearest the gate so when I saw them pass or I was discovered I could give chase. I was essentially in the open and as soon as they passed the pile I would have been seen. Chips and Smokey and the Bandit were popular then and we simulated these during our bike chasing endeavors. I waited with anticipation. This is where my experience occured. In my mind its around 10 AM however I am now disorientated. The shadows on the ground are noticably incorrect. I feel as though my position has changed but I dont think so. I wait for about 10 minutes. The shadows and sky seem incorrect. I think the sun is in the wrong place. Now I’m a little disturbed and decide to check on their progress. I head back down and no one is there. I then think they must of took another route, but that would have been stupid. I headed home to my relatives home. All the time thinking the lighting and shadows were wrong. When I arrived I entered and my relative asked where have I been and that I had missed dnner. I couldn’t explain. She let me know that I had missed the fried chicken dinner and made me a sandwich to suffice. She was upset so I kept quiet. It was now a little after 5 PM. That would explain the light and shadows that perplexed me. Later that night I asked my cousin about route they took back. He confirmed that they passed through the gate and thought I decided to venture elsewhere. I should have seen them pass me and heard them pass. We were quite loud when we chased one another with bikes. I’ve visited the location on a number occasions in the past 23 years witout intrepidation. I lost 6 hours of my existence. I was a healthy skinney 12 year old who loved my relative’s cooking and was one not to miss it. Especially her fried chicken. It’s a void that I think about on occasion.
The secound event occurred in the fall of 1983 around 7:30 at night walking down a street to go to a store to buy junk food for a party. It wasn’t far from my friends home that hosted the party in Port View, Pennsylvania. I do recall thinking that the road did seem longer than normal, but blamed it on the twilight lighting. I also recall not really paying attention to the houses I passed only on the paved sidewalk which is odd. I never made it to the store. My cousin and a few friends pulled up in his car and asked where have you been. It’s been more than 2 hours. I told them that I just left a few minutes ago. They joked and said he got lost. They thought I had gotten lost and decided to search for me in my cousins car. The store was 5 minutes away on foot from where they picked me up. I never got there. We headed back. They had purchased the junk food over and hour prior to picking me up. Not one of them recalls seeing me on the sidewalk. I was not disorientated. When i saw and heard the car horn and their joking yelling for me I raised my head slowly torward them … it was like a cold frosty night when you close your eyes and inhale and exhale and then open your eyes slowly. It takes a little time for your eyes to acclimate. I haven’ t had another event since then.
AJ — Thank you for letting me know about your experiences. Wow, I’ve got to tell you, there has to be something to all this. I’ve been getting more and more blog comments and emails lately from very sane and rational-sounding folk like yourself about these missing time episodes. I know mine was strange in the extreme and still perplexes me, so I’m the last person to scoff at these tales. It’s astounding to me that so many people seem to have had similar experiences as mine. I only wish I knew what they meant. I’m trying to see if there’s a common thread here, but so far I’ve been frustrated in my attempt to understand the phenomenon’s meaning and origin. Have you had any other strange or unexplained events happen to you at any point in your life? One thing that I have noticed is that these are rarely isolated incidents, and often other (sometimes seemingly unrelated) unexplained occurrences have taken place — e.g., premonitions, incidents of clairvoyance, poltergeist activity, ghostly encounters, UFO sightings, extremely strange, disturbing, vivid dreams, etc. Any recollection of anything along those lines? Just curious.
Thanks again for sharing your story. — John
John … I used to have reoccuring dreams where I was in an unfamiliar place such as an estate with an industrial feel to the esthetics. I belived I was being chased … I hid most of the time. Each dream started the same, however I was presented with slight variations. I could recall what I did in previous dreams and opted to take a different course of action. The different rooms and its effects realitively stayed the same. After a period of time I my fear deminised regarding the dreams and I began to seek out what I was hiding from. On the lines of the hunted becoming the hunter. I set traps and fabricated devices that in reality could never work. A few were too fantastic and dimensional engineered that they could exist in thought but not in reality. Each dream gave me an opportunity to expand on the last. Some outcomes were dismal where I died and woke up scarred. Others were successful in which I had the entity at bay or where I wanted it to be and then woke up never clearly recalling what it was. The dreams were at night and the rooms were poorly lit.
The last time I had the dream had to be approximately 1998. During that dream I isolted the entity in a corridor. A door shut and I was bathed in white light. I dream in color. The dream changed from visual to audible. I could hear a voice. It was neither male or female. Now that I think about it … it was weird. I communicate with the voice. It stated you have done well. I asked why have I experienced the same dream over the years and how come I recall what I did in previous dreams. The simple reply I got was because we like you. The white light faded to black and I woke up. I have never had the dream since.
I have had premonitions which are few and far between. Just wish I could get those Lotttery numbers.
I must say that I am a scientist by nature and very analytical. I have my own thoughts as to what I experienced. The multiverse is a wonderous place where anything and everything is possible. I can not prove or disprove theories I have of my experiences. Thought in itself is a wonderous concept considering where does it come from. An organ down to tissues down to molecules to atoms to sub-atomic particles and even smaller particles to be discovered. We must remember that we see only a small portion of the light band spectrum. There has to be a number of items and objects that we cannot see with the human eye.
I must apologize for going so deep and that I’m using my Nook Color to communicate this. No spell checker and the electronic pad keys are a little too small for my fingers.
John, I just thought of two lfe saving events I experienced when I was young. The first occurred when I was in fouth grade. Pennsylvania is geographically full of hills. I was riding my bike approaching a four way street intersection with stop signs for each. I was travelling downhill. There were row houses and clear sight of the street running perpedicular was nil until you reached the intersection. As I approached I started to apply the foot. My chain disengaged and I had no break. I had a toy gun in my hand. Forr an unknown reason, my front wheel stopped as though I struck something. Needless to say with the sudden stop, the bike and I tumbled and stopped at the crosswalks and my toy gun proceeded at the velocity at which it left my hand. A speeding car travelling perpendicular to the street I was on and also heading down hill did not stop and struck my toy gun shattering it to pieces. If I hadn’t had my bike accident, I would have ended up at the same point as my toy gun when it was struck by the car.
The second event occurred when I was was living with my relatives as mentioned prior in another thread. My sibling, cousin and his pet used to go hill climbing to explore. The construct of the hills is limestone in the form of sedimentary rock. We climbed the highest peak noting the abundant amount of wildlife at that height in the woods. We weren’ sure where we were and decided to move to the rim to look down. There were too many trees to exactly see clearly so we decided to climb higher to an area that the trees were sparce. Needless to say, since there wasn’t a number of trees around there was nothing securing the rock which gave way and I fell over head first twenty feet, blacking out as my body changed positions. I came to and I heard a voice in my head say “move you right foot out” and I complied. My right foot caught a tree root stopping my momentum just two feet before the rim. The
This has been very interesting reading for me. I found this sight because I too had an incident just last night. I was wide awake watching tv about 12:15am. I accidentally changed the channel while trying to change the volume on the tv and when I turned the tv back to the original channel there was a completely different show on! I thought well that is weird and then I looked at the clock on the cable box and over an hour was GONE! It now showed it was after 1:20am. I was very disturbed, to say the least! I was not sleepy at all and actually was sitting up so it wasn’t like I somehow fell asleep for a while. I am still bewildered about what happened.
I’m not sure how to classify this. There is so much that I can’t comprehend about it and that is missing from the equation that I almost feel that it didn’t happen! Early 1980: My family moved again, to Gaithersburg, MD. My father was in the Navy and had completed his enlistment. He found a good job working for a development company not far from where we lived. I went to Brown Station Elementary and I always walked home by myself. After several months I learned going out the back door of the school was the fastest route. Cutting across the edge of a farmers field directly to where our apartment was, I could avoid confrontations with older children as well as saving time.
On the day in question, I went home early because I had hurt my finger that morning. As I explained before I took the short cut. As I opened the large glass door in the front of the building to step in out of the cold, I heard a door open down the stairs. I poked my head around the corner to see who it was and saw a boy about my age. I said, Hello! He smiled and asked me if I wanted to come down and play? I said that I could come down for a minute but I had to get home. I walked down the stairs and into the apartment.
He said, Come in my parents aren’t home. and closed the door behind me. I followed him around the sectional couch and sat down facing a large coffee table with a very large piece of graph paper on it and continued to draw a maze from where he had left off. I asked him what he was working on? He told me that he liked to draw mazes. I thought it a little peculiar but dismissed it because I liked to draw. I sat and watched him draw for several minutes and then told him I had to go home! He stopped drawing and asked me if I wanted to play later in the day? I told him that I would have to ask my mother and that I would likely be back later. As I left I noticed that the apartment was beautifully decorated, more nicely than any place I had ever been. Everything was blue and glass it seemed. The apartment was the exact layout as my families directly above it on the next floor. I told him bye and he told me bye, I shut the door and ran up the stairs to tell my mom about my new friend.
My mother answered the door and said that I had gotten home quick! I interrupted her and frantically told her that I had a new friend. I told her that he wanted me to come play with him later. She fed me lunch (she had apparently forgotten that I was home early) and she sent me back out the door to my new friend’s house.
I knocked on the door and waited a moment he answered the door and quickly went back to drawing. He explained that his parents wouldn’t be home til late and that he wanted me to spend the night. Again I explained that I would have to ask my mother and that I didn’t know if she would allow it because his parents weren’t there. He got up and walked down the hall to the bathroom. He called me in and then sprayed me with a Teledyne Waterpik. I asked him what it was? He explained that it was for cleaning your teeth but it was fun to play with and we did for awhile making a watery mess of the bathroom.
Next he showed me his bedroom he had a bunk bed and little more than a toy box with a large collection of h.o. trains and track maybe some army men and matchbox, hot-wheels cars. As we played with them he explained that there was something that he had to tell me before I spent the night. It was at that point that things got weird!
We stopped playing and walked into the kitchen. I assumed to get something to eat? We sat down at the table. I noticed that it was getting dark, it had been a bright sunny day even though it was winter. So it must have been around 5:00. He explained that his family had a traveling ghost and that it had manifested a green explosion of light outside their house once. I was intrigued as most children are by it and asked him to tell me more.
He went on to tell me that it opened and closed doors and turned things on and off like a poltergeist. As he told me the TV turned on! We were sitting close to a small black and white that was on the kitchen table. So I thought he did it and then it shut off! I asked him how he did that? He told me that it was the ghost. I told him I had to go ask my mother if I could spend the night and that I would be back!
I rushed up the stairs and asked if I could spend the night? I also explained that his parents wouldn’t be home until late. It must have been a Friday because she told me I could and she didn’t seem to have a problem with his parents not being home but wanted to talk to them. I gathered a blanket and pillow and raced down the stairs. Noticing the orange dome lights illuminating the outside of our glass fronted building in the darkness.
I knocked and he again and he opened the door only quickly this time. He told me that he felt better having me there! I asked when his parents would be home and told him my mother wanted to talk to them as soon as they got in. He told me it would be late! I told him that was okay but she wanted to talk to them! We went into his bedroom. To be continued..
we constructed a large section of semicircular track and placed the engine and cars on the track setting up cars at the railroad crossing to be hit by the train. Fun!
After a while strange things began to happen doors opened and shut in other rooms we would chase the sounds but nothing was there! I admit I was scared! But I liked my new friend and I was still intrigued by the whole situation. We sat in the kitchen and talked about everything that had happened and even at that time things happened! The microwave turned on and off more noises from other rooms.
It was time to turn in: He explained that his parents would be home soon and that he we had to be in bed before they came home. I shrugged my shoulders and said, okay! Grabbing my pillow and blanket I followed him to his room. I said that I wanted the top bunk. He told me that he didn’t care, he switched all the time between the two. I climbed up he shut the light off leaving the hall light on just in case someone needed to use the bathroom. I heard him climb into bed, I looked down and said, good night! He did likewise and laid down to sleep.
I laid there with my eyes closed hoping that his parents would come home or I would fall asleep because I was scared! Then I heard the noise that changed my mind! It sounded as if someone had thrown every single piece of the train set against the walls. I quickly looked down to see what it was? The train set was everywhere and my friend looked up at me and smiled! I told him that I wasn’t staying! I don’t remember him trying to stop me? I gathered my pillow and blanket and walked down the hall as quickly as my feet would carry me. I don’t remember saying goodbye or him opening the door? All I remember is walking back up the stairs crying and shaking! I knocked on the door and my mother let me in promptly. She asked me what happened and said that it must have been my imagination. I explained that it wasn’t through the crying and shaking. Some movie about a killer VW Beetle was on the TV. My mother hugged me and assured me that everything was okay. That’s all I remember for a few days..
I walked down the stairs to the haunted apartment feeling as if it would be okay to go in. I missed my friend and was curious to see how he was after all of the things that had happened? I knocked on the door! No answer! I knock again! No answer! I let several minutes pass. ..knocking again! I was startled by someone fumbling with the lock on the door next to me in the hall! The door opened and an old woman stuck her head out. She asked me what I was doing messing around in the hall? I explained that I was waiting for my friend to answer the door. She looked at me square in the eye and told me, Nobody has lived there for months! ..and quickly shut the door!
As a kid I didn’t think to much of it. I went on with my life! It was years later that I told this story to friends and they explained the truly unique nature of this story. I swear to God that it’s true! No matter how far out it sounds it happened! It still sends chills down my spine. ..and I don’t know how to define it? Was it a ghost? Did I step into another dimension? Was I abducted? I don’t know? ..and years later I have researched the location and found that I can find very little info on it. I have seen an aerial picture of the location and there are some things that are missing that I know where there!
There is a picture of Gaithersburgh, MD that shows Harold Rabbitts farm circa 1972. The apartment building that I lived in is along his property. I lived there for a year or so around 1980. The apartment building is close to the middle of a large pyramid of farm land. I remember climbing a large tree that was higher than one of those buildings. Some of the neighborhood boys thought it would be fun to use be for target practice throwing rocks at me. Subsequently I took one in the nose. ..and had to climb down as I bled. I examined this picture: There is no tree(s) in front of the building I lived in, in this photo taken in 1972, yet in 1980 there is a tree higher than the front of one of these apartments. I looked at Google Earth pictures there is no tree there now either! Yet, I can show you where anything I remember in Gaithersburg is? I’m open to ideas? I don’t know?
This is a picture of the location. The farm land in front of the apartments is Herman Rabbitt’s farm. The apartment building where I lived is the first building facing toward the farm on the left side of the triangle of land. There was a tree in the left side yard of that building that was taller than the building when I lived there in 1980 yet there isn’t even a sapling in this picture: https://www.gaithersburghistory.com/aerials/rabbit_qonist72.html
Also: the more I think about it, the more I am starting to realize there are large spaces of time that are missing, mixed with short events that conceal the time inconsistencies. Such as the fact that I left school around 10 am walked a quarter mile from the elementary school (in the upper corner of the photo) to where I lived (in the middle of the left side of the triangle) stopped to talk to the boy for what seemed like a long time. Arrived home, to have my mother tell me that was quick? The sun was in the same place when I left school as it was when I arrived home!
The events don’t match the time they took! The more I think about it the more I see. I will keep you posted!
wow, I was talking to sombody else about my experience when decided to look it up and found this site, and was amazed at how similar the story was to mine.
I was walking from my stepgrandmothers house to my fathers to catch him before he went to bed at midnight so i knew what time I was going to arrive when I left my grandmothers a walk that usually takes abut an hour and a half down a remote highway through a dirt road into my hometown(wich I had done several times throughout my life and seemed like no big deal) It was about 10:00 because, I only needed a ride to my sisters, and knew he wouldn’t pick me up. While I was walking, shortly after I left the house I heard a strange noise but didtn’t think anything of it .(it was kinda like screaching metal or nails on a chalkboard).I kept walking and it started to feel quiet,and really strangely ambient. I had the same feeling that you did like things where not getting closer like they should, but like i was on a treadmill but it felt like I was making good time. As I continued to walk I made it to the dirt road that led into town. Above the farm house to the right I saw lights like luminecent flies way off into the distance, flying around each other in circles, and then they all disapated out all the same direction, in straight lines no longer visible. This like the noise I figured was a harmless anomolee.When I finally made it into town (after what seemed to be an hour and a half maby less) I came up to my fathers house. I knocked on the door and noticed that it took him a little longer to awnser, and I figured he had gone to bed early. When he awnsered the door he seemed somewhat irritated and told me I shold not bother him so late, so i asked him what time it was. He replied that it was 2:30 at night.i thought no way i know i made good time it was like the time just dissapeared. Ever since that night ive always wanted to know what happened. please email me if u can.
and for anybody else that reads this please email me at wickertheian@yahoo.com if u might have had somthing similar
Ian — Just emailed you a little while ago.
Eric — Strange story! I have a few memories myself of weird events in my childhood that I’m not quite sure were real or not. Yours seems to have a very bizarre and unreal quality to it. Perhaps it was a screen memory to mask some other kind of upsetting event? Or a ghost? Hard to say. The fact that you had these time inconsistencies is interesting too.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read Whitley Strieber’s Commnunion but I recalled that he talked about large periods of missing time when he was younger that he’d forgotten. Something about being on a train and meeting these people and running from someone or something.
My point being is Strieber describes a significant portion of time out of his life involving some elaborate scenarios and other characters, and he didn’t recall or had repressed these events for years. It reminds me of what you’ve described, although the details are different. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a lot more to this than just the little boy and the weird events in his apartment. Not sure how I feel about hypnosis, but in your case it might be something to consider.
Good luck – and please let me know if anything new comes to mind.
— John
John,
It definitely happened! I’ve told the story to other people over the years and I never thought that the boy was a ghost, dimensional shift or alien. I just thought it was a strange story that really happened, to me. ..other people suggested that this might be the case? I hadn’t seriously thought about it for 30 years and it occurred to me that it might hold some kind of meaning? So I decided to post it and see what others think and to find out if anyone has ever had anything like it happen to them?
It also never occurred to me that there might be time missing until I re-evaluated the story in my head as I was posting it. The thing you have to understand is that I remember things I did when I was 3 years old! But this incident was sketchy.?. .almost like some of the things the boy said where meant to fill in the time inconsistencies.
The other thing that blows my mind is the fact that the apartment was fully furnished and at that time the ’70’s decore hadn’t quite fizzled out and this apartment matched and looked modern! ..and none of it was there!
I have a friend who is a licensed hypnotist and has been doing it for over 20 years. He said he would regress me at some point. When he does I will be sure to post the findings..
Thanks, Eric
Eric — I don’t doubt you! Funny, my memory goes way back too. I remember things from when I’m three, maybe even two years old.
I’d love to hear about your hypnotic regression if you don’t mind sharing that, if/when you decide to do it. There’s obviously a lot more to this story than what you’re recalling, in my opinion. Good luck,
John
After reading so many accounts I felt it was a good idea to share mine but first —
John Carlson — thanks for adding your story and sharing it with others, you should probably start a new blog page lol.
Eric Hockenberry — I have read of other incidents like this on the web they are more frequent in Europe it seems, people believe it to be the Fair Folk who abducted them in an attempt to keep them as slaves or something. Right down to the ‘spend the night’ and not all of them attempt to freak out their ‘guests’. Look up Modern Fae Abductions.
and way back to Leslie — If you read this anytime soon..wow…just…scary/wow now if only we could use Gained Time every time lol.
————————–
I have a few accounts of my own, and I felt like sharing them to everyone not just your email John, so pardon me on that, my first was when I lost time as a child. I grew up in lower Ohio with my parents (before they divorced when I turned 18) and grew up in a rural area. The closest neighbors were across the dirt and gravel road the but the second closest was a mile or so away. In all directions there were woodlands, fields, and a few country roads. When I was growing up most of the roads were unpaved and I use to ride my bike all over during the summer (there wasn’t much else to do) and would go walking up and down them in winter (again…country area, nothing much to do) I had no close friends and everyone my age lived either in the farthest town or even the nearest city. Either way the first occurrence of my lost time was during one late summer afternoon and according to my digital watch it was roughly after 2:18pm or so. I can recall this clearly, its because I had to be home by 5:00pm or my mother would have punished me or at the very least gotten angry at me. This was when I was 13 years old so I still had reason to fear a mother’s wrath and all :p
I was riding down a dirt road that stretched out into a deep set hill which dipped into a valley and up another hill, which I always had to walk up because I just wasn’t able to even one first gear to get up it due to steepness. This road was about 7 to 8 miles long and I would take it to another road which then I would always turn left at the road’s end (where a stop sign and a main backroad was) to head back towards another well known road which I would then turn left onto another small dirt road and eventually make another left onto another paved road which would eventually come back to the road I was on at a cross road where I would then turn right and head back home which often took me between 1hr and 1hr 35min. Now I was already 10min into this ride and I had assumed at a good pace I would make it home by 3:30~ish. ((As a side note here are the GPS cords from Google for perspective where the ‘start’ from pavement was 38.929603,-83.712137 and 38.921356,-83.681942 where the pavement was back and my ride would often ‘end’)) I continued down the road, following it’s odd curves and movements and came to my first turn, I waited for any cars, checked the time and it was 2:49pm and when I was sure I had no cars to worry about I made my turn left, followed this to the very next road, and turned left again. As I rode down the last road about less then a minute or two I got an odd sensation, I couldn’t really tell how it felt, at the time I was disoriented suddenly, became confused, and the next thing I know I am blinking and things have shifted greatly. Now at first I was startled and I had to pull my bike over and catch up to my surroundings as they looked very off kilter and I was very very confused. I felt very thirsty with out warning and noticed my throat was dry, I found my water bottle and my watch in a backpack I often carried and noticed the time it was 4:30pm!! Now I knew this was beyond impossible because it had just been 2:50 a no more then 2 to 3 minutes ago and I knew if I didn’t high tail it home I’d be in trouble. So on the way home I tried to figure out how it had taken me so long to go
The next incident was gained time; when I was 17 I started taking a lot of car trips because as we all know being a teenager when you gain freedom you take it more often then you should and with my new mobile phone contacting people was easier. One of my trips was a round trip to visit a friend in Dayton, Ohio. This was often a 2 hour trip by back roads and a 1 hour 30 – 50min trip by highway, I often took back roads for the view. The way there was uneventful and very nice, it was mid-October and the sun way shining and the day was cool but not unpleasant; I had went to visit for a few hours after dawn and began my trip home sometime after 4:05pm, that was my starting time anyway, I recall this because I have a slight obsession about time and when strange things occur I tend to recall exacts about it if your curious. Anyway I had taken off that evening headed home, knowing the sun would set soon I wanted to be home before it did. I drove a white Oldsmobile 88 Delta which got about 20mpg and had enough V-8 power to mosey over the small Ohio farmland at a decent safe speed but I was still new to driving so I often drove 5 miles under limits to be safer when heading down some back roads or even some towns. The trip would often take a full 2hrs due to that and I rarely went over limit. This particular day the drive home felt awkward as I came to my mid-point, a small town called Wilmington which had a large nearby Airport called Airborne Express, I knew this was the mid point and when I looked down the clock was roughly about 5pm (according to my phone and car clocks, I know this because I had called my dad to let him know I was on my way home from Wilmington)
From here I had two more towns to go through and I would arrive around 6 to 6:15pm, however as I drove past town and down the road that led to the second town called Hillsboro I had a sudden sour feeling in my stomach, I grew dizzy, and squinted my eyes. It didn’t seem relevant at the time I just continued driving and the feeling passed, it was then I noticed in the twilight that things looked odd, different, and not where they should be. Trees turned cold toned from brilliant orange and red to dull sepia browns, the grass and nearby water bodies felt lifeless, the sky was less blue then gray, and the sun was no longer brilliant orange more of an off yellow color. I drove onwards and noticed I passed no other cars, trucks, or tractors. And for Midwestern who knows this time is often the last harvest week of the year so I should have seen a lot of people but I didn’t. Sound muffled out for a brief moment, my CD player had stopped, the air blower in my car was sill on but it felt neither warm nor cool, and I had become aware of the issue. And then as I went down a hill and back up the next it was like someone had lifted a filter and all of the color came back in a flooded instant but felt somehow off. I knew then something had just happened but didn’t know what; my car clock still showed the same time as before but it was not until I checked my mobile phone and noticed it had reset it’s time…it now read 4:40pm. I knew this couldn’t be correct as it had been that time more then an hour ago, my car clock read 5:40pm and I just put that all out of my mind until I reached home. My car clock said it was 6:00pm on the dot but my phone still read the wrong time around 5:10pm. I shrugged it off, walked in, and my dad said that was quick for me to get home and that he thought I had said I was in Wilmington, I said I had been and noticed the microwave, stove, and even our computer clocks all read 5:12pm. I checked my phone history really fast, it showed I had made a call not but 20min ago, which was impossible for me to have made that call and been where I was accordingly. I told him my phone must have been messed up or my clock. He asked me what I was talking about, I explained that I had called him a while ago and I had been in Wilmington, of course my dad denied this to be a fact he showed me the house phone record – 4:55:06pm — basically 30min or so ago I had supposedly called while I was more then an hour away! While spooky nothing major, wish I could invoke it more often tho :p
I will post more later, thanks for reading!
Danny — Feel free to share your experiences publicly here in the Comments section if you’d prefer. I just like to let people know that if they’d rather email me privately they’re welcome to. Sometimes it’s difficult to talk about these things and not everyone wants to share them with the world.
Awesome stories, and thanks for letting me know about them. The first one sounds very similar to mine, although yours took place on a quiet country road while mine was on a busy suburban street. But the strange sensation that preceded the incident appears to be very much like what I felt.
Regarding your second account involving the “time gain” incident, that is not as uncommon as you might imagine. If you haven’t looked through all the other comments on this post, scroll up near the top and look at one that was submitted by Barbara Fann. It’s quite a bit like yours. I’ve been told of these time gain episodes a number of times from people who appeared at to be at a genuine loss to explain what had happened. As I’ve said before, these time anomalies seems to come in a variety of different flavors — e.g., missing time, time gain, time slips, even possible journeys into the past or future or parallel dimensions (if you haven’t read Train Ride to a Parallel Dimension, you might find that one interesting).
Thanks again. Feel free to post any time. — John
🙂 Well John I meant to say that I wanted to share with everyone, i hope I didn’t come off as rude tho, I really didn’t mean it that way 🙁
Once I had an odd occurance with my pet dog which my mother insists happened in a different way however I would like to think of it as more of a probable reality shift than a time slip. When I was younger I had a golden cockerspaniel with long hair we kept trimmed. She use to run all over with our neighbor’s dog; one day she vanished from the woods and our neighbor found her body on the highway squashed by a truck. The dog they found matched mine 100% down to the blue collar and heart-shaped name tag however — as I sat crying on the porch all of a sudden I felt warm licks all over my face, I looked up and my dog was back! She wiggled and acted concerned, still had her bright blue collar and heart shaped tag on but weirder still the body of the other dog was brought back and buried and several days later….it vanished and a pit was left where the body was but the ground and grass that began to grow were undisturbed. Keep up the good work John!
Hi Danny — No, that didn’t sound rude at all. Just want to let people know that they’re free to post what they like (as long it isn’t spam of course) but they can also email me if they prefer. Great story about your dog. I’ve heard a few good ones involving pets. A recent one was about an old man who was dying and he was visited by his dog who had died a number of years earlier before he himself passed on. I’ll have to try to find that one again if I can. I can’t recall all the details, but it was kind of touching. I believe that animals have souls and pass on to the afterlife.
Check in on the site again any time!
— John
Well my mother can attest that our dog had not returned as a spirit as she lived until the ripe old age of 17 before passing away of cancer 🙁 But my mother keeps insisting she saw our dog come out from under the porch and had wondered who’s dog they had buried. ..in fact I called her last night and had a talk about it, she swore it was someone else’s dog but I saw the dead body…it had my dog’s name tag even…”Lassie Lady” how much of a coincidence would it need to be to be a similar looking, named, and shaped dog???
I had 2 both on routes I have traveled for years and know well a 15 minute drive turned into 45 minute drive on a street I had traveled for decades , I made a left at familiar roads and land marks and next thing was a city i had never seen before , not a single person nor car anywhere I was lost ! after 45 minutes suddenly all went right ! 2020 another road 10 minutes on a street i knew since child turned in to 35 minutes of where is the four way ? , never came to the four way but somehow next i was on the street without ever seeing the four way or turning right , the body has a strange electric feeling right afterwards .