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.
One update on my misisng time experience. I posted this story on a public site, either this one or another one. You know that night I woke up and my watch had stopped at 2:30 AM about the time I went to bed. It was about 6 Am when i woke up and I thought it was much earlier. That spooked me. The battery checked out fine.
And i remember one other experience that happened maybe a year or two before that missing time event. Its kind of embarassing. I woke up early one morning and found that I was naked. I had taken off( I thought) my pajamas in my sleep. They were on the floor. I had never done that before or since. I did think that maybe somebody took them off me while I was alseep but I was a light sleeper and would have woken up. If a stranger had entered the house our dog would have barked and woken the whole house. I did think that maybe I had been teleported, just physically. No nightmres about aliens, and Ive never seen a UFO.
Today is Thanksgiving and it is one that my sister and I will not forget. We where on an hour and a half road trip down the interstate to pick up family for thanksgiving dinner. This trip is made by us both several times a month for years so we know the trip and the times of the trip very well. At one point I looked at a milage sign that said we had 24 miles until we reached a land mark town on our trip. I pointed it out to my sister and she looked back down at her tablet. I looked at the time on the car clock and then looked at the gas gauge to see how we where doing on time.we where making decent time and had enough gas to get us to our destination before having to refeul.I then looked up from the gas gauge and we where 24 miles down the interstate. Just…like… that. I told my sister to look up and out the window. She had the same experience and could not figure out how we got there in a split second. Here is the kicker…I understand highway hypnosis and dissassociating. I can understand mass haulucination. I understand being so involved in something that you lose time. I do NOT understand how both my sister and I felt like we where missing 20 min of time when the gas gauge did not move and the time stayed the same! We where even 20 min early to our final destination.
It was approximately a year ago when I experienced this. I want to say it was somewhere between January or March of 2012 ? It occurred while I was at my place of employment. I am a machine operator for a global company. I work midnight shift and on this particular night I had felt a little off before I left for work. I felt that way for most of the day. I arrived at work, changed into my work boots and headed out to the machining floor area. I checked the assignment sheet only to realize that I would be doing the same job that I had been doing for several months now. I didn’t mind cause It’s a good job assignment to have. I got my job up and running as usual and settled in for the rest of my shift by putting on my ipod and enjoying music while I ran my machines. On night shift, we have breaks every two hours. First break at 12am, lunch at 2am and third at 4am. Two ten minute breaks and one twenty minute lunch break. I usually have produced a certain total numbers of product by 12 o’clock break and that night was no exception. I was right on track, within one or two pieces of where I needed to be. I’d noticed it was near 12am and headed to first break like any other night. I returned from break at around 2:15 or so and went back to work making product. I started my machines running again, turned on my ipod and decided to take out a crossword puzzle that I’d been doing a little of it here and there for a few days. I don’t remember much from that point in time on until what seemed to be only a few minutes of time had passed when I felt as if I had just snapped out of a daydream sort of state ? I glanced at my watch to notice that it was reading 1:55am. Five minutes until lunch break. I began shutting down my operation and prepared to head to lunch. I didn’t look at my production counters before I had left so I had no idea how much I had done since returning to work from first break ? I headed off to lunch, which is about a 5 minute walk to the lunchroom. I noticed on my way over that it seemed a bit quieter than normal ? not the usual loud machining sounds that I usually hear while walking to break. I got near the lunchroom and stopped at the restroom to wash up before going in to eat lunch. A routine I do most every night. I was the only person in the restroom at the time. I removed my watch by unfastening the velcro strap. Easy to put on and remove for work use. I placed it in my pocket as usual and washed and dried my hands. I was now walking out of the restroom attempting to strap my watch back onto my wrist. I looked at the time which read 2:03am as I gave it that usual flip around my wrist to strap it on when this time, it flew up into the air, as if in slow motion, spun around in flight and landed smack dab onto it’s face ! I figured, great, now I either broke it, knocked the time out of whack or generally just messed it up. I walked over and picked it up. I looked at the time and it read 4:05am. I said to myself that I had gotten lucky and that I just have to reset the time back to 2:05 and it would be just fine. I figured I would wait til after break to fix it. I strapped it on and left it at that. I proceeded to the lunchroom which was just around the corner from the restroom. I looked in and didn’t see any of my workmates or any other workers from my shift in the break room. I thought it very odd and at the same time, I’d noticed much more machine activity i.e. machining noise than usual during break time ? Thinking nothing more about it, I entered the lunchroom, grabbed my lunch box and decided to go have lunch with the guys in the quality lab since nobody was in the lunchroom. I walk into the lab and there was no one in there. They usually eat lunch in the backroom of the lab but for some reason or another, nobody was in there at the time. I sat down anyway to eat and wait for someone to come in. Finally, my friend Cirt walks in and asks ” Why are you taking break so late “? I answer him,” What do you mean, so late “? He then says,” It’s almost 4:30 ” ! I replied, “Nice try, real funny “? He then instructs me to look at the clock on the lab wall so I did and sure enough, it read 4:29am. I thought it was a joke and got up to look at the clock in the other room of the lab and it also read 4:29am. At first I thought someone was playing a joke on me so I went back to the lunchroom and looked at that clock which read 4:30. Now freaking out, I look at my watch again and it is reading 4:31. I continued walking around the shop to different locations to see other clocks and again they were all the same ! These clocks are all set by the maintenance department and you would need a pretty tall ladder to get to them.The final test was the time clock where everyone punches in and out. It cannot be tampered with and sure as heck it was the same ! I lost it at this point. I can’t even explain how I felt. Sort of in a state of shock and confusion. I grabbed my stuff and headed back to my work area. Still in shock and disbelief, I walked back to my machines to pull up my production counters only to find that the numbers were the same as when I went to first break at 12am ! I can’t explain any of this. I’ve spoken to many people about it and most say I either am making it up or say something completely idiotic and make a joke out of it ? I looked up similar experiences here on the net which led me to your site. I know I’m not crazy, especially now that it seems that so many have had similar experiences.
i meant to say I returned at 12:15am from first break, not 2:15am ! Sorry !
Cool stuff
Hello, I have enjoyed reading all the posts and have a short and puzzling story to share that I really don’t understand how this happened. Around 10 years ago I was sitting in the living room of my house in the afternoon when I glanced up and noticed something odd in the kitchen, it’s hard to describe but it looked like a semi transparent face. I sat there looking at it for what could only have been a very few seconds trying to figure out what I was looking at, and as I was looking my husband walked into view and into the kitchen to exactly the spot where the shape was and turned to me and smiled, as he did so I realized the face I had been looking at was his face, exactly is face !! It was as though someone had recorded him being there and smiling at me and I had seen an image of him there before he was there. I know it makes no sense but it was real, these experiences help open our minds.
I have had many strange experiences since I was very little. I have always tried to block these memories out. I am haunted by one memory the most. My boyfriend and I just bought a sail boat, well you see a memory I had blocked came back in the most terrifying way. My mother and her boyfriend had a 38 foot sail boat. My sister and I were 8 and 10 years old. We had one crew member so all together there was 5 of us on this sail boat. We were about 700 miles out it sea it was calm and warm. We had no idea that we were being pulled into Hurricane Aurthor. That night i woke up It was so quiet and I could hear myself screaming for my mom. It was like I was watching my self scream. I stopped and there was this silence that was defening. I felt alone and was so scared. I was unable to move and I could feel water around me as if I was laying in it. I was trying to breath and felt I couldnt. It seemed like forever and I was so tired I blacked out. The next morning I woke up to 60 ft seas and winds that were blowing 140 knots. I heard my mother say that she didnt want the guys mentioning the strange experience. My sister and I still to this day wonder what happened to us and what continues to haunt me even now. I am so afraid to be alone. I left out a bunch of details only because we were in that storm for two week it dragged us from New Zealand to Papa New Guinie our destination was Fiji. We were in the middle of the ocean and that night something happen to us. No one would talk about it. The strange thing that I never told anyone, that I spent the morning pulling wires out of my back shoulder. Long skinny wire threads. I fell asleep on our boat now all grown up. I scared my boyfriend I woke up screaming I remembered pulling wire from my back as a child. I never told him what happened. Missing time is something I have learned to live with. I am never sure where I have been. What should I do? How do I explain with out sounding crazy. Am I crazy?
Well i can completely understand the loss of time and disorientation, I have a little different story to tell. So me and my wife have been having some weird things happen around the appartment. As little as things being moved and things misplaced, just normal junk. Well we set out to do a set of Recordings (EVP) if some of you are not clear on what that is. Well on one night we set up the recorder at 12:15am the recording went for 5 hrs and 8 mins when i stopped it in the AM. Now we did not realize this till days later about the time jump ill call it. We stared the recording for the night and we set downstairs till a little after 1:30 am i did time stamps ever hour till i stopped the recording… Now i have 5 hrs and 8 mins of recording for the night and an hour of that is us downstairs. so that leaves like little under 4 hrs of time i spent upstairs watching netflix and a movie.
Here is the kicker.. that night when i went to bed i finished the last 7 episodes of Terranova 38 min ea and watched a 93 min film and watched 2 episodes of Game of thromes at 42 mins each
Terranova = 266 mins with out the breaks i took to time stamp audio recording
Movie = 93 mins
Game of thrones = 84 mins
Total = 443 mins or 7hrs 23 mins
when we noticed this we were confused to say the least because some how i finished all this before the recording was over and had laid back down to try to get some sleep before i cut the recording off at a little after 5:15 am. so threw the coarse of the night i some how watched almost double the time of shows that i should have been able to. Also in the Am when my wife got up I recalled the complete half of the series to my wife and it was the first time i had ever seen it. We have boggled our minds over it many times in the last few weeks and still have no ” ” logical reason for the discrepancy in time. It was as if i had watched everything in a compressed time slice. I have talked to a few people online and friends that i know that get all deep into the “paranormal” and they have told me similar stories of time loss or just skewed time.
If any one wants to know any more details Contact me at Spruce.pine.nc@gmail.com
Hi John,
This is a very interesting phenomenon that as I have noticed is a common experience. My experience was last Halloween night. I was staying at my uncles in a caravan in the backyard. Not just that it was halloween, but it was a very eerie night indeed nonetheless. The wind was howling, there were the usual crazy noises you would expect to here in the distance. I was not sleeping at all over the few nights I was in Taree as it was so I know I didn’t just fall asleep( I was actually detoxing from painkillers and so was having huge trouble sleeping as it was) I was completely drug free at the time as well.
The radio announcer first said it was 3.30 am, then changed his mind some 2 and half hours later. He then said it was 12.30am . I had no clock or watch so was reliant on the radio. It seemed as though I was only lying there for about 4 hours or so then all of a sudden the sun arose.
I wasn’t a happy man as I really wanted my sleep. I had no experience of blankness, blackness or the like. I completely remember every song played and every moment continuum. So I simply cannot explain that particular night.
It is interesting to note that in biblical history there is a record about the prophet Elijah who requested that God hold back the sun for a third of a day in order to defeat an army he was fighting. Astronomers have actually been able to pinpoint the exact particular time and report that we are in fact missing a third of a day!! Food for thought.
Thank you for your forum…
Matt
Thank you, Matt. Interesting story, and not an uncommon one. It’s become more and more obvious that this phenomenon is very widespread. I was not familiar with that passage in the bible, but I’d like to look into it further. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. — John
I thought I was having seizure activity I would lost the same amount of time and prolly like 1-3 times a month. strangely it was almost always the same amount of time 2hours 10 minutes.
or 1 hour 15 minutes. Thing is I’d be out workin or pilfering around in the woods (i own 5 acres) and I’d just be standing there . I still cant figure it out. I cant stand that long or sit or lay down (have spinal stenosis/multiple surgeries) . so for me to do anything over 30 minutes at a time its unusual. When my wife moved to America seems they stopped but then I woke up on morning (i sleep sitting up on the floor with my head back on the couch) I have these red triangles on my right side (3) left side (2) I got pics some place if yer interested. they were like pink triangle welps. The missing time stuff had went on for like 3 years but after that ordeal it stopped. I still cant account for what happened though.
Hi Doc. You might want to get checked out by a medical doctor. I always look to the most ordinary explanations before making any assumptions about paranormal activity. I think you’d first want to rule out any possible medical conditions that could account for these occurrences. However, you could be dealing with something that’s out of the ordinary. Feel free to keep in touch and let me know how you’re making out.
Hi John, I have posted a few comments on this link before, and I think I may have a VERY THIN explanation on why some people are targeted.
Let’s get one thing out of the way first, and that is, I BELIEVE IN UFO’s.
Weather UFO’s are extra terrestrial in nature or secret military aircraft is another question, however regardless of their origin I believe their motive is one of a scientific nature.
Just as human scientist tag and release certain animal species for research so too are these UFO’s. And despite the fact that many of your subscribers have never seen a UFO, it doesn’t mean that they haven’t been in contact with one.
Most of the subscribers in this thread have had missing time experiences and some have woken up in a totally different location.
Think about the Polar Bear. We shoot them with tranq guns, and when they are asleep, we study them, tag them and then nick-off before they wake up. they never have a chance to see us, but when they wake up all they remember is something stinging them in the ass before everything went black, then when they come-to, they have a splitting head ache and some bastard clipped a red tag to their ear, and it hurts! If they were tagged near a populated area, the polar bear will be transported back to not-so-populated area before being released.
I believe this kind of “tag and release” process is what happens to us.
As for the time difference, either lost or gained, all I can say is that MAYBE TIME TRAVEL IS A POSSIBILITY.
If I was Captain Kirk on a survey mission to another planet where the government of the host planet wasn’t keen for me to study their natives but I had the means to quickly snatch a subject away, study them for an hour and deliver them back to the exact place, without the subjects knowledge, then I guess I would.
Now imagine if our future ancestors have an osteoporosis epidemic. Time travel has been conquered, and space travel has been conquered but for all their technological advancements the bone structures of our future kin has begun to deteriorate in plague proportions, but now the purest and densest samples lay in the past. Yes this sounds like bone harvesting, but what if there was a second dimension to it.
Imagine if you wanted to study somebody with a spinal injury but you couldn’t wait around for twenty years for the results. If time travel was an option, a scientist could go back in time to where a person had sustained a serious injury, provide some kind of assistance, (experimental) and then leap frog into various points of the future to where they could observe the results.
The knowledge gained from this kind of research would be “PRICELESS” to a space dwelling population who is desperate to cure their osteoporosis crisis.
However, these studies may not be confined to bone structure, there could be other medical related illnesses that are also being observed which require the luxury of time to study such as Cancer and Alzheimer’s Disease etc.
I cannot honestly say I believe everything I just wrote, but it’s just a theory that some of your readers could probably “add to”, or “dump on” if they choose.
Aaron – It’s not a bad theory, really. Certainly as good and as plausible as any I’ve heard or postulated myself. At this point I feel quite certain that something is definitely going on, and I don’t think it’s some kind of natural phenomenon or that the people who report these missing time experiences are all delusional or are lying. It’s real, and it appears to me that something or someone is intervening and manipulating these people for some purpose that we do not understand. Yours is not an unreasonable idea at all. It does bear a strong resemblance to a “tag-and-release” type of animal study.
Thanks for the input.
Thanks for the comment John, it’s good to know that somebody is on the same page as myself.
One other very important point that I forgot to mention is DNA studies. If mankinds future has a small and confined population, then after a few generations the gene-pool might start to dwindle. New DNA may have to be introduced into the population to minimize accidental in-breeding.
i had an experience as a teen,i was driveing my car down a road i used alot and there is a curve in the road,i came to the stop signe at the end of the road,and sat there trying to figure out where the heck the cruve went i never passed through it.it was 1980’s and the car was old then no clock so i dont know how much time passed.but just a few weeks ago i was watching a recorded show that was an hour long,i started watching it at 8:30 when it ended i felt hungry so i got up and noticed it was 11:30,i quickly checked several other clocks thinking that the first was wrong it wasent.I did not fall asleep as the show was recorded and would have went to regular tv but i fasforwerded to the very end so the delete prompt would come up,very weird…
My sister and I were traveling to Virginia from Pennsylvania. We passed the Maryland House, which is a rest stop that I have often visited as a child. My sister was driving and as we passed the Maryland House, I was filled with nostalgia as I remembered spending time there as a child everytime we would travel to the Maryland and D.C. area. After, we went through the Washington Tunnel. We never turned or veered because where we were going was basically a straight roaded route. However, before I knew it, we were passing the Maryland House again and proceeded to go through the tunnel, yet again. It was the strangest thing and now both my sister and I feel that we missed time. I am still puzzled…this happened about 5 years ago.
I haven’t been able to get this incident out of my head since it happened last week. I dropped my daughter off at the Providence airport and was driving back home, which is 40 minutes from the airport. I’ve done this drive a LOT. I exited the highway (I-295) and got onto Route 146 north. I saw on my car clock that it was 11:25 am. At that point, I was 20 minutes from home. I don’t remember feeling strange at the time, and it was a nice sunny day. That’s where everything changes.
The next thing I noticed was that it was 11:45 AM. Instead of pulling into my driveway like I expected, I was merging onto Route 146 from a side street in Providence, heading SOUTH. Now remember, I’d been heading NORTH on this road 15 minutes earlier. So maybe I’d just made a stupid mistake back at 11:25, and got onto 146 in the wrong direction(?) I was willing to accept that, except I’d just merged ONTO 146 South from a side street. I knew right away that something was really wrong as I was merging — if I was heading south on 146 by mistake 15 minutes earlier, I wouldn’t be MERGING onto 146 south, I’d still be ON 146 south. So I paid attention to the first exit sign that I saw on the road after I merged, so I could look at a map later. I recognized right away where I was, and how to get home from there but it made absolutely NO SENSE what had happened. If I’d had some kind of seizure or blacked out, I should have had an accident. It gives me the creeps. I’ve never had anything like that happen to me before or since.
And when I looked at a Providence map to see the roads around where I merged onto 146? I don’t think I’d ever been on those roads before in my life. How did I even get there?? I haven’t told anyone else about this because I’m sure they’ll think I’m nuts.
Hi JAZ — I don’t think you’re nuts, if that’s any consolation! But I know the feeling. That sounds a whole lot like my time anomaly incident, except that you were driving and I was walking. I traveling due south when I lost “blanked out”, so to speak, and when I came to I was still walking directly south, but NORTH of where I had started from and almost a couple of miles from where I lost my memory.
These incidents seem to be much more commonplace than I’d ever imagined, as evidenced by the frequent emails that I receive and the comments on this article. What it all means, I’m not sure. One book that I read recently is Time Storms by Jenny Randles, and she seems to think this is some kind of naturally-occurring phenomenon. Many of the cases that she cites seem to support that, but many of the ones that I receive seem to indicate that there’s some kind of manipulation involved, which of course would indicate interference by some kind of intelligence. If you read my previous responses, I tend to shy away from the alien abduction idea — although I can’t discount it. However, I do feel that the people who have experienced this (myself included) have been on the receiving end of something that is unexplainable and appears to be intelligently controlled. For what purposes, I can only speculate.
Thanks for sharing your experience. If anything else comes to mind please let me know if you’d care to do so. — John
Hello – I would like to tell you about a missing time experience that I and co-worker had. We were working at Prudhoe Bay Alaska (the “north slope”) in 1991 or 1992. We worked in a small office room – just the 2 of us. One day, she asked me if I had ever experienced like a sort of ‘flash’ (like a camera flash?) of light so bright that it visually blocked every thing else out, then looked at the clock and realized that a few hours had passed by. I was completely amazed as this had been happening to me! When it happend to me, I sort of ‘woke up’ (my head was laying down on the desk), looked at the time and realized that 3 hours had passed and I was still working on the same invoice!! There were other strange phenomenon that occured while I was working there. Has anyone else experienced something like this before? Thanks.
Hi Jen — Balls of light, bright flashes of light, and humming/buzzing/vibrating noises preceding missing time and time anomalies are all frequently reported. Very interesting that your co-worker experienced the same thing. Did it happen to her in the office as well or in the same general area? Love to hear about the other strange phenomena that you mentioned. This is something that has me curious: are these time anomaly phenomena related to the individual or to a particular area or geographic region? That’s something I’m trying to get a handle on, so the more folks I hear from and the greater the detail, the better. There seems to be a wide variety of these incidents that we might term as “time anomalies”. Thanks for submitting your story. Please feel free to share any other experience that you’ve had or have heard of. I’m more than glad to listen. — John
Hello I have experienced three incidents of missing time, most recently this past Sunday January 20th, 2013. Two of the incidents occurred while I was alone but the first experience I had I was accompanied by a friend. The first incident occurred sometime between mid November-early January 1998/1999. My friend and I, both juniors in high school were out enjoying a weekend night. I was sixteen years old at the time but my friend was a few months older and had already turned seventeen; he had a real nice car for the time and we were probably driving around showing off. I don’t remember looking at clocks so I have no reference to a clock (which actually happens in each of my time loss experiences, I mention this because everyone seems to have a reference of time) but my friend and I were driving (in our hometown) and in a deep conversation. The next thing I remember is both of us, at the same time, seem to “snap out of it” and we both ask “how did we get all the way over here” and I remember him saying “bro, I wasn’t even paying attention I was on autopilot or something”. Now where we ended, was just the next town over..only about ten minutes from my last memory of us in deep conversation driving in our hometown. It was definitely significant because we bring it up in conversation at times. In fact I emailed him and just brought up that night when we were teenagers and asked him to describe to me what he remembered. I thought I was going to get an email back stating this odd experience but instead he said he didn’t recall. (This sort of freaked me out..i immediatley thought “oh crap i must be going insane”) So I decided to give more details and asked if he remembered it now? This is what he emailed me back verbatim, copy and pasted: “Yes hahahaha yea I drove all the by Belleville high school. I said the car took us there It felt like the stick was controlling the car it was def a stoner night hahahahaha. Good times bud! ” So he chalks this experience up to us smoking pot and just being stoned. Honestly I don’t remember smoking pot that night but maybe we did it was almost 15 years ago..either way, even if we were stoned, I don’t feel it was a reaction to the marijuana.
The second missing time event occurred sometime between 2008-2010. I was in my mid to late 20’s and single. I was in my bedroom playing a video game online, I was interacting with friends with via the video consoles headgear. We were on a team together in this particular game and I believe we were playing for a good hour; I was playing a good hour before they signed on to play. This is what I remember, I’m on a particular stage in the game lets say the 4th level for arguments sake..next thing I realize, I “snap out of it” and I’m still playing the game but I’m back on an earlier stage, a matter of fact it’s the very first stage. I hear my friends (and the other team we were playing) talking back and forth through the speakers but I’m so confused I just continue to play. I didn’t have a clock reference, I’m only going on my feelings, what i experienced and the video game evidence. It’s a very odd feeling and I would often think about it..I would think am I crazy? Did I get abducted or something? Or just the normal, what the F was that? Something quite similar to this happened to me a few days ago on January 20. In all honesty, I was feeling a bit down and out. I just got back from taking one my dogs for a long walk and decided to take a shower. After the shower, I still felt a bit “down” so I went into my bedroom (same room I had the other missing time experience) and drew the shades which engulfed the sun lit room into complete darkness. I decided to watch the movie “Thor” and really fell into the film..but halfway through I got a bit drowsy. I pressed stop on the DVD remote and I powered the player off. I put pointless tv on for background noise and cuddled with one of two dogs on my bed. However, for reasons not knowing, I just couldn’t get comfy and it agitated me a bit..enough to not make me not so tired anymore.. I figured I would not force myself to take nap because that would alter my sleep patterns later. I put Thor back on and it resumed play from where I stopped it. I remember the scene starting and my mind began to wander(which I often do, during movies, maybe I have add lol) I don’t remember what I was thinking of..then all of a sudden I “snap out of it”..my dog that is laying right next to me is staring at me, eyes wide open. He looked perplexed and concerned. I didn’t pay much mind to it. My attention redirects to the tv screen and I’m watching a part of the movie I had already seen..my first thought was it was a flashback..but as it kept playing I directed my eyes to the time counter on the DVD player and it read a little over thirteen minutes. I sat there confused. 13 minutes? I watched over 45 minutes when I first stopped it for my non-existent nap. My next thought was, did the DVD skip somehow and somehow the film rewind a bunch of chapters..so I put the movie back to a little over the 45 minute mark and watched the rest of the film. It didn’t rewind on its own that time. When the movie was finished I just felt odd. I felt very similar to how I felt the night I was playing the video game. The fact my dog had his attention on me, his eyes wide open the way they were make me feel like something happened. Did I leave my body? Did my body leave this dimension? Am I going out of my mind? Like mostly everyone I would love to hear an answer to what this phenomena is. I googled “time loss” and eventually found this site…glad I did..glad I’m not alone. So many interesting experiences and also many interesting possibilities to why this happens; my favorite being we are time travelers! Thanks for hosting and starting the topic. If anyone can shed any light into my accounts or have any opinions please share, thanks!
Hey Steven — Jeez, I wish I could give you an answer to all this, but I really don’t know what (or who!) causes these time slips and missing time incidents. Yours seems to be a case of skipping forward and rewinding in the sequence of time. This could be either something mentally or physically wrong with you (no offense — same could be said of me), some kind of naturally-occurring phenomenon that we don’t yet understand, or intervention by some intelligence that we’re unaware of, whether you want to call them angels, demons, or E.T.s — or maybe time traveling future versions of ourselves, as one reader recently suggested.
As I usually tell people, take some comfort that many people seem to be having similar experiences as yourself. Actually, I don’t know if that is very comforting, but at least you’re not alone. This seems to be much more widespread than I ever could have imagined. In addition to these comments on my blog, I get at least a few emails each week from people who have experienced these anomalous events. They’re definitely not all exactly alike, but they’re similar enough to make me think that they’re all part of the same phenomenon.
If I figure it all out I’ll let you know! Meanwhile, feel free to keep in touch. I’m always interested in hearing from people about these strange events, so let me know if anything else out of the ordinary happens to you if you feel like sharing it. Thanks — John
I deliver newspapers in a backwoods part of Maine. I’m very familiar with the route, know all the stops. This morning I stopped at one house and delivered the newspaper at roughly 4:50 a.m. This is the last thing I recall before “coming to” about five miles down the road past four more stops I needed to make. Normally I would attribute this to maybe just a momentary loss of memory or something to that effect, but the time read 4:52. I keep a close eye on time to keep on schedule, and that is not only unlikely, but impossible. I stopped the car and had to collect myself, feeling very dazed and confused. My mind has been racing all morning trying to figure out what could have happened, but there I have no explanation.
Hi Mike — The number of reports like yours that I’ve been receiving is increasing every week. I don’t believe you simply suffered a sort of mental lapse any more than I did. That conclusion is too easy and it’s dismissive. This is a real problem and a genuine phenomenon that seemingly many are encountering. I’ve replied to many people who have contacted me looking for answers, and I always feel bad when I have to tell them that I don’t have any. But I do believe you, and you’re definitely not alone. At this point all I can say is that I honestly believe this is real, it is not caused (in most cases) by some sort of mental or physical defect in the individual, and I don’t think it’s a natural phenomenon, like the weather. There seems to me to be a purposeful intelligence behind these events, but what or who this intelligence is I do not know. It could be we’re being prepared for something, or as one reader recently suggested, maybe this is a tag-and-release type of thing, just as we do to animals. Maybe we’re being monitored or parts of our makeup are being harvested. That’s kind of a dark and disturbing thought though, but it doesn’t seem implausible. Whatever is going on, I don’t think we can ignore it much longer because I’m starting to think that more people are experiencing these missing time occurrences than are not.
Sometimes things come to mind afterward, so feel free to contact me either through the comment section of this blog article or by email if you’d like to tell me anything else. I’d also be interested in knowing if any other strange events have happened to you prior to this.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Mike. Good luck and keep in touch. — John
Hi John, I just stumbled on to your blog and I’m impressed it has been continuing for as long as it has. I have been thinking more and more about a “Lost Time” event i had when i was 8 years old. I am now 46 and it has bothered me ever since. I’ve recently been searching more and more to try and understand what happened.
4 of us were playing in the woods where we lived in Salem Oregon. There was a large open field and some undeveloped wooded area where, like normal kids, we had a little fort and just one of those Secret Boy areas. Back in those days, like you mentioned, parents weren’t as on edge as we are now. Our rule was be home before dark. We played in the woods, in the field, in our fort multiple times.
This one day i remember like it was yesterday because of how shocking it was for me. We were in our fort and we realized the sun was setting and all of us had to get home before it was dark. So we headed down our normal trail. At one point one trail breaks out into the field and two of my friends take that way to their house. That left one friend and myself. Mind you we could see the field clearly and i remember watching them running across it to their house. We were approaching the point where our trail came out of the woods and into the field. Again, we were running together, both of us recall the sun shining through the trees and we clearly had enough time to get home.
This is where i have no explanation of what happened. The field was still light and you could see the sun setting but still shining on the field. Just as we were crossing by the last bushes (i might add that it was fall because the leaves had already fallen and you could see very clearly in all directions), as we crossed into the field, it was Pitch Black! And i mean dark with no light Pitch Black! House lights were on everywhere! We both stopped in utter shock and dismay. We couldn’t speak! Even looking at each other it was hard to see but i know we stood there in dismay for several minutes before the fear of being in trouble for being late hit us. Assume in fall maybe the sun sets 6ish or 7ish? When we ran home our parents had the police out looking for us for hours. it was about 11:30 to 11:45PM when i went in the house! His house was directly behind mine over the fence and my parents told him to get home immediately! All i can figure is that we lost at least 4 hours! And unlike some of the other accounts, there was no recognizable foggy feeling, dullness, silence, or anything that i recall, But i do know the woods were still and quiet and i don’t recall any bird sounds or anything. But it was sudden and instant! And of course undescribable. I have run this through my mind for 38 years now. Rewind, replay, back and forth, and i have no doubt that in an instant of crossing into the field, it went from light to pitch black! Obviously my parents were upset, scared, and then mad. I was grounded for two weeks and of course they would not believe what had happened. I did find out that my other 2 friends were home before dark!
I should add that i “think” I’m a normal person LOL. I have 3 kids and have been married for over 25 years. I own my own businesses. But no matter how many times I run this through my mind, it is like flipping a switch in a room. Light…..Dark. Just before sunset then suddenly 11:30 to 11:45. Like some of the other accounts it wasn’t just me. When my friend and i were able to talk again, we both were dumbfounded by this.
Time passed as it does, and some several years later i ran into my friend again. I think I was around 19 or so. We both talked about that night like it was yesterday and how much it freaked us out. After his parents didn’t believe him, he never told anyone else. It was interesting to have been so young, and both of us remembered it like yesterday.
I have been hoping to find some sort of answers, which I obviously haven’t, but at the same time found it very interesting to read so many experiences on your blog! Like you said, to know you aren’t alone is somewhat of a comfort in itself. I still hope to understand what happened some day. For now i look forward to you reply.
I had another time loss experience on my own in my early 20’s but it was much less dramatic and for much shorter time frame. Thanks for keeping this Blog going! It was very motivating to put this in writing to a group or blog that is also seeking answers.
Hi Dana — As I’ve noted before, there are variations within these time anomaly incidents. Mine was preceded by an odd sensation, but there are many reports like yours, where it happens instantaneously with no feeling of interruption or discontinuity. I’m not surprised that you had a recurrence because that’s something else that I hear of frequently. I think I had another incident prior to the one I wrote of in my blog post, which took place when I was younger. That people report so often report these incidents as having happened more than once in their lives is another reason I’ve come to believe that they are not just bizarre, random episodes, like stumbling into some sort of freak storm or other rare natural phenomena. It seems unlikely to happen more than once to the same person if that were the case. Oftentimes other strange phenomena have been reported by those who have had these missing time experiences, which is one more reason that I’ve come to believe that this has more to do with the individual than with outside circumstances that occur at random. But as for an answers, I still don’t have any — unfortunately!
I hope to begin writing again very soon and I’ve been thinking about a follow-up article to this one, as it’s been a few years and I’ve collected quite a few interesting stories from men and women who have undergone these anomalous time experiences. Thanks for sharing your experience! — John
I think writing about the data you have collected would be extremely valuable! Although the mystery remains, the value of the incidents could spark some in the scientific community to dig deeper. Thinking back, I can recall that our run through the woods seems, and as I recall it, to happen at normal speed. I was young and don’t remember the specific feelings, although each time I replay the crossing from the woods to the field, my mind runs it back to me in slow motion, with a definitive breeak between light and dark. I actually can’t play it back at normal speed from passing the bush to the spot in the field where we were stopped realizing it was dark. This was no more than 3 feet into the field. So i can’t say if i felt like things slowed down to me or if my mind is playing the moment back slowly. Although the loss of time still seems instantaneous, the feelings just before the moment are hard for me to pinpoint. I should add that I could see my house before exiting the woods. it was within eyesight of where I was at, maybe 200 yards at most. And i have a definite memory of seeing the house in daylight through the brush, then seeing the house lights on when it was dark at the edge of the woods where we stopped.
For what it is worth, the second instance was while driving to my girlfriends house, now my wife. She lived in the country In Vancouver Washington. I was driving on a country road which do have some houses on it. I drove the road multiple times before this. I remember coming up to her road which is the last turn before getting to her house. I recall the turn coming up, turning on my blinker, then sort of “waking” at the stop sign two miles down the road. I never made the turn. I was a little freaked out that I missed her turn and have no memory of the drive. I turned around and headed back. Again, just before her road I turned my blinker on, and again “came too” a couple miles the other direction at another stop. Again not making the turn. I have no idea how long I was at either stop before i “came to”. This instance I can recall an odd sensation each of those times almost like a “mind fog” but don’t remember either drive. I remember the 3rd time I made it no problem and my girlfriend was upset that I was an hour later than when I should have been there. I have no idea what happened and why I could not make that turn both times, or how I made the drive to both stop signs. What is odd as well is there was no traffic on the road. Usually there are always a few cars going either direction, but this night there were no cars, on the road or at either intersection. I have often wondered if I was being prevented from turning on that road at that period of time, but who’s to say.
Hey Dana — Very interesting. Not surprising to me that you’ve had more than one of these missing time episodes. Usually, upon further questioning people tell me that the incident that they described was not their first, or that there were subsequent anomalous time events. To me, this rules out the theory that these are random, freak occurrences. It seems as if certain people are singled out — by what or whom, I can’t say. But their appears to be a manipulation by some sort of intelligence at work here.
Have you had any other unexplained experiences or brushes with the unknown? Sometimes (quite often, in fact) people will mention having experienced other weird happenings that appear unrelated to the missing time phenomenon. It could be that certain people are more in-tune or sensitive to these unseen forces and thus may attract them. Just a thought… wish I had some real answers though!
Thanks again for sharing your experiences. — John
Until last night, I hadn’t had any missing time since the mid-1990s when I was experiencing a lot of ET contact. My husband and I were watching David Letterman, and I was tired but wanted to see the first few minutes of Dave’s interview with his first guest, Kevin Spacey. It was about 11, partway through Spacey’s interview, when I decided to go to bed and read for a few minutes before turning out the light. I simply brushed my teeth, straightened the bedsheets and comforter, and then crawled into bed to read one short chapter, which should have taken about 5 to 10 minutes (tops). But when I was putting my book down I noticed the clock read 11.41, and Craig Ferguson was on in the other room. So there was about a half hour missing. I called my husband into the room to ask him if he had stayed up to watch all of Dave (there was to be a comedian and a musical guest after Spacey) but he had switched the channel during that time, and he thought perhaps he had nodded off a bit, “dreaming while awake.” Anyway, very strange! Just two weeks ago we also had a daytime UFO sighting; maybe there is a connection….
Hi Stace — If you read through the comments that people left in response to this blog post you’ll notice a lot of people who have more than one missing time (or time anomaly) incident. That leads me to believe that these folks are being targeted for some reason that we don’t understand. It would also be helpful to know who it is that is subjecting us to these disturbing episodes. Unfortunately, we have too many questions and no real answers. I’d say that less than 20% of the people I’ve spoken with have told me that they recall seeing a UFO at any point in time, either before, after or during the event in question. It certainly is interesting to hear that you have had a sighting, and I would tend to think that this is significant and probably is connected to your missing time experiences. As I’ve said before, my belief is that humankind has been monitored and perhaps guided by some kind of non-human intelligence since the beginnings of our origin. I’m always reluctant to jump to the “abduction by space aliens” conclusion because I think what we’re dealing with here is probably more complex than that, and I’m not convinced that these are extraterrestrials that are interacting with us. Still, my mind is open to all possibilities.
I’m always interested in hearing as much about this as folks are willing to share, so feel free to keep in touch if anything else comes to mind that you care to discuss. Thanks for sharing you experience. — John
Hi John, sorry for the delay to your question. I have had some other experiences, or as you put it “brushes with the unknown”. In thought, I would consider them to be minor compared to the two I mentioned, but still unknown or strange experiences. Enough so that the memory of them stands out after years. Once I woke in the middle of the night with a frightened feeling and my room lit up from bright lights on the outside. I jumped up and threw the drapes open. Understand I am not claiming contact with an ET like the movies or anything. Just that the source of the light was in the air at least 3 miles away. For a second they were shining on me, then within an instant, lights off and the objects took off with speed. Doubters can call it what they may, I only know what I saw and experienced. Another was while hunting in the Washington State woods near Mt St. Helens. While walking down a ridge, a fog literally appeared to “Drop” down on me. I’ve hunted the area for years and I’ve had fog banks roll in. Never like this and never so thick that I could not see past myself. They always roll in sideways, not from above. The very odd thing was the woods were absolutely dead quiet and the air seemed stale. Again, I’ve been on this ridge dozens of times and you can’t get the squirels and birds to be quiet to save your life. This time it was dead, no wind, no sound, nothing. After several minutes I could make very faint sounds of foot steps coming from behind, very soft and faint. 2 or 4 feet I could not tell, but very faint. No sticks cracking (and there are tons of wind fall on this ridge). Whatever it was, stopped behind me, slowly circled below and around the other side, back around and then away the same direction it came. I was turning with whatever it was as I could hear, but not see it. Within minutes the fog lifted up, and at the same time normal noises, breezes and other sounds returned. During the event, my hair was raised and I was very uneasy. I was very incomfortable the entire time and I am normally very comfortable in the woods.
I could only reason maybe a mountain lion sniffing me out since the area is known to have a good population of them. But the fog dropping and the absolute dead silence I can not explain nor did I ever experience it again. Odd again as I walked down the ridge further, I came across Deer that until I encountered them they seemed completely calm. Had their been a lion on the ridge, the Deer would not have been, or would have at least been very alert. But they seemed as if everything was normal for them.
There are a couple that come to mind.
Hi John,
I have a story about lost time. It’s interesting that your situation took place in 78. I was around the same age when my time loss happened. It was in the same year as yours. I’m not sure about the time of year though. I spent the night at my best friend Dave’s house because my parents were fighting again. I went over before it was dark and had dinner with Dave’s family. After we sat in the living room watching TV. It became late and his family went to bed. We decided to have a staring contest and during that time I noticed his face was changing into all sorts of different faces and even some animals. It was pretty cool. That led us to talking about nightmares we had and Dave mentioned one involving an angry man that would chase after him. So I decided to try and see if he could project that image where a cereal bowl sat on a coffee table between us I sat in an easy chair and he sat on a couch. The TV was to my right and directly across from him. As I stared at the bowl he looked over at me and suddenly started yelling your eyes your eyes! I looked at him startled by this and he told me that my eyes turned solid black. The hair stood up on my neck and he stood up suddenly, appeared to be gasping for air and fell in a heap on the floor. I jumped out of my chair and as I did so I turned to my right to see the clock on top of the TV which was a black digital clock with red numbers. It was 12:00 on the dot. I then turned back towards my friend never slowing down. I took the last five steps reaching the spot where my friend lay on the floor. I reached down to shake him to see if he was okay and the moment I touched him he flew to his feet and screaming “what happened?” I quickly explained what I saw and as I did I turned to the clock and it was 6:00am. I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it! I looked outside to see the sky was getting light. It really happened. I was shocked but for some reason I was calm. We went outside and noticed birds flying over the house in a frenzy. Dave took a white rock and starting drawing patterns on the street. I was a bit freaked out and decided to walk home. I can’t remember anything after that moment or for the rest of the day for that matter. I have before and since had many incredible experiences and I also cannot remember my childhood in any kind of chronological order. After thirty six years I finally gathered the courage to seek help in discovering the truth. I’m now beginning to find out who I am for the first time. That’s another story though. It’s important to realize that the things we do by nature are not always bestowed upon us by our parents as have been taught. Sometimes it was what we were great at in the life we had before.
Hi Erik,
Thanks for sharing that. I have to say that yours is one of the stranger stories I’ve received. If you ever want to share any of your other experiences I’d gladly listen. Sounds to me like this particular incident is only part of a larger whole. Good luck in your journey of self-discovery.
— John
I want to respond to commenter Dari. I thought Wilford Brimley had passed away, too! Like you said, not in the “whatever happened to that guy?” way, but I remember hearing it on TV, seeing little clips, and feeling sad, because I remembered liking him a lot when I was younger because he was in Quaker Oats commercials and played the grandfather in “Our House.” As I read your story, I got so confused, and had to go to IMDB myself because I really did not think he was alive. I am still confused! I do think there are close parallel timelines that must sometimes intersect. I really could swear that it was reported that he died.
Helka — No, I think Wilford B is still hanging in there. He’s just one of those guys that has always looked old, and coupled with the fact that his acting career seems to have slowed down and therefore he’s not as visible in film or television these days, people assume that he’s passed on. Can’t say I’d chalk this up to the paranormal, but anything is worth considering I suppose.
Hi John,
Not sure if I wanna share my experience with the world. But, I felt compelled after reading all these similar stories. Mine happened during my enlistment in the Navy over in the Middle East. It was only maybe an hour or so, but it was so surreal that I thought I was dreaming. I still to this day wonder if maybe I was, but I have dreams that are lucid of the account. Strange to me, but I almost felt as though I were watching an episode of twilight zone through someone elses eyes. Dont know how to explain, but I am embarressed of the details. This happened back in 1999, and only one other time have I experienced something I couldn’t explain. Ten years later I saw something hovering in the air above the beach where I was fishing. I’ve seen most US aircraft at nightime, but this was different. It seemed to hover above a friend, and almost instantly disapear into the night after nearly half a minute of observation. All strange, and I’m not claiming it to be aliens, but I certainly couldnt identify it. Therefore, to me it is an UFO.
the incident itself was innocent enough. I was a typical sailor looking to enjoy the evening with female companionship. I rode a taxi to a building in the middle of nowhere. the taxi let me out explaining the establishment would open soon and he had to leave. there was nobody else around for miles, and I was scared that I was bait in some weird anti-American ploy. however, I could see for miles in all directions and soothed my nerves by going inside the empty “gentleman’s bar”. I had a fake piece of money meant to be a VIP note from the night before. I walked in and there was a man here, he glanced at my bill and pointed my way to the bar. I walked across the empty dance floor to an empty bar where I showed my VIP note for a free drink. As I stood there with my focus against the wall the bartender filled the order. What seemed like a couple seconds turned into the twilight zone. I turned after the drink was given to me, and the entire bar, dance floor and all, was filled with people. I know people may be skeptical and blame it on booze, but I had nto had a drink yet! I don’t know how much time I lost, but I still get nightmares from the fact that I have never felt so helpless in my life. Strange, freaky, but true.
PS, this was between an hour before and an hour after sunset. Dont know if this has any meaning, but thought I’d put it out there
one other thing, I have continued to have this happen to me. always small and meaningless, but still there. I wonder if it is my psychological well being, but I’m a psyche major so I’m always skeptical. If anyone feels similar let me know. At least I will know I’m not the only one. Strange small incidents happen around me, but coincidence says it will right? I dont know but I answered this page because I wanted to know if it happens to others as well.
Joshua — Thanks for sharing your story. Yeah, that’s a pretty strange one alright, but if you take the time to read through the many others that people have left here in the comments section (countless others have emailed me privately about things like this as well) you’ll probably notice that oftentimes these missing time incidents that folks have described seem to be just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. Frequently, they’ll tell me — and I usually make a point to ask this, as it comes up so often — that they’ve had other weird experiences or missing time episodes before and/or after the one that they’d described. This suggests that there is a pattern here and leads me to be that these men and women are being singled out. Singled out by whom or what, I can’t tell you at this time because I don’t know. Even concerning my own missing time experience, I don’t feel it was my first and I have other hazy recollections of similar incidents before the one of which I wrote. There may have been subsequent ones too, I’m not sure. I’ve certainly been plagued by some bizarre and frightening dreams for much of my life. Again, this seems typical among the people I’ve heard from and with whom I’ve corresponded.
As I so often say, you might be able to take some comfort in knowing that you’re not alone in this and that it seems pretty darn widespread. I don’t think it’s a psychological issue or something wrong with your brain’s physiology; I believe that there’s something going on and that we’re being manipulated by some kind of outside intelligence that has probably been interacting with us human beings for a very long time. That’s sounds very Twilight Zone-ish, and as much as I enjoy writing about the paranormal, I’m really quite a level-headed guy and this sort of thing honestly doesn’t sit well with me. But if you’ve heard as many accounts of these strange incidents as I have, it becomes pretty difficult to deny that there is something very weird going. I only hope that the purpose of all this is positive, not evil or nefarious. Maybe we’re being given some kind of subliminal education to further or mental or spiritual development. I hope it’s not some kind of cosmic tag-and-release genetic harvesting program that one reader recently suggested. Whatever it is though, I do believe that it’s real and I don’t think that anyone who is experiencing this phenomenon should begin to worry about his or her sanity. You’re sane, and this is something that IS occurring. We just don’t know what it is yet.
Thanks again, Joshus. I’m always glad to listen, so please keep in touch if you’d like. — John
I wasn’t going to share my experience until I saw you were still replying. So here it goes:
Two years ago I was travelling to the mountain region of southeastern Brazil. It was a bus trip that should take 5-6 hours from where I was. I remember sleeping and suddenly waking up with the bus shaking, it was still dark and I was really afraid of an accident so I prayed (that’s something I never do because I don’t believe in the mystic as most people do) so I remember of kind of seeing a strong light. I say “kind of” because it was like a dream, like foggy… like waking up and trying to remember a fade dream, that’s how I feel when I try to remember this trip.
Ok, so after the light I felt like awakening and people were leaving the bus. Apparently it was the final bus stop before actually getting to our destination. So I started to talk out loud “This trip was really fast, it is what? 4 AM?” and an acquaintance of mine said “No, it is 6:15 AM”. So I didn’t want to believe it, we were to get on our destination in 30 minutes and I just didn’t believe it so I took my ipod off my pocket to check the hour and displayed 4 AM!!! I showed my ipod to everyone I knew and told them what happened to prove it to myself.
I didn’t give too much attention to it until I saw the “missing time” definition on the internet and thought “oh my god, this happened to me”. Many strange things have happened ever since and I really feel like sharing because now it’s happening to people who are close to me.
Thank you for your attention.
I’m sorry for all the mistakes in my spelling, I am in a rush
I am reading some stories about this and for now there hasn’t been any physical evidence, I’m so glad I had my ipod -which was turned on during the whole trip- because it makes me feel sane. I don’t know why my ipod’s clock was displaying 4 AM because my cellphone’s clock was displaying 6:15. Anyway, 4 AM is the time I thought I was in and the time my ipod displayed. The ipod wasn’t defective and I even remember picking it up 7 minutes later to tell the story again and it displayed 4:07.
I would also like to note that nobody on that bus experienced the same thing and I also asked if they woke up during the night with the bus shaking and people talking a lot (so I could only assume they were awake). Oh my god, I’m sorry for the comments-in-a-row but as I think of it I remember more details. I think the bus actually stopped, I remember it stopping, something was going on and I think it was defective somehow. It got moving again and just before the flashlight I remember feeling like there was another bus side-by-side with the one I was in. I’m saying this because later on that day when I asked people about the bus shaking, the bus stoping, about the dangerous road and stuff, everyone said that nothing of that happened and they even called me a liar! ARGH! I have lots of theories about this and I don’t know if I can see it’s UFO-related… I never thought it was but now I wrote it down it looks obvious.
Lucas — I’m a little confused. Do you feel it actually was 6:15 AM, or do you believe that your iPod’s clock was correct? I’m sure it would have been much lighter outside at 6:15 (depending on the time of year) than at 4 AM. Did you arrive later than expected? The fact that only you seemed to have had this experience among a crowd of people is not unusual. How or why this happens I don’t know, but it appears that certain individuals are singled out and it doesn’t much matter where you are, what time of day it is, or if others are around you. This is contrary to the “classic” alien abduction scenario where the person is taken from their bed in the middle of the night, or they’re traveling down a dark, deserted country road somewhere and the last thing they recall is seeing a glowing object above them — a la the Betty & Barney Hill case.
Thanks for letting me know about your experience. — John
I felt like it was 4 AM, I couldn’t believe it was 6 AM already… I felt like loosing 2 hours of my life. What I meant was: I was feeling like it was 4 AM and my ipod’s clock was displaying 4 AM but it was, indeed, 6 AM. The fact that my ipod was displaying the time I thought it was made me believe something strange happen (a lot of strange things happen around me and that made me, oddly, really skeptical about everything).
Yes, it was brighter, but not a lot brighter (it was winter) and even with the brighter sky I couldn’t believe it was 6 AM. It just didn’t made any sense. I have a really great time notion and I’m used to guessing the time without looking at the clock so I’m sure about this. Anyway, I let it go until I, randomly, met the term “missing time” and everything clicked.
I only shared other non-important details because maybe they can be important, maybe you can find a pattern. I also had a terrible feeling about this trip weeks before it, my close friends also got that feeling which made them cancel their trip. It was an odd occasion because we don’t tend to believe in those things and I can’t remember a single time any of us said “I got a bad feeling about this, let’s not do this” but it happened with this trip.
Hi Lucas.
I just read your entries about your trip to Brazil and I am still amazed at how missing time experiences can occur in the midst of crowded rooms, crowded buses and while 2 people are travelling in a car.
I have a theory about the difference of time readings between your Phone and iPod.
Smart phones these days will automatically adjust their times. If you turn your phone off, and then fly across a time zone, then turn your phone back on when you land, the GPS signal will automatically adjust the clock in your phone in accordance with the time zone.
However your iPod wont do this. It will still read the same time as the previous time zone, and you will have to manually adjust the time yourself.
Tablets and iPads can do this if they are connected to a Wifi or have cellular capabilities.
I hope that offers some explanation about the Phone VS iPod, as for the Missing Time, all I can say is Good Luck. I hope you find an answer one day.
Hello. I live in Brazil so there were no time zones differences
Thanks for the clarification, Lucas. Very interesting encounter. I’m glad to listen if you’d like to discuss this further.
Aaron — Thank you for the input. I hadn’t thought of that. It might not be applicable to Lucas’s situation, but that’s a good observation that I hadn’t considered.
Found this very interesting and wll read all the stories when I get the time. I experienced two seperate losses of time. I found these to be of a paranormal nature. The first time was when I was at St. Augustine Florida. We did a ghost tour and I was listening to the guide. He was about 3 feet or more away from me. The next second he was only about a foot and half from me and the speech he was giving was over. How long the speech was I do not know but there was definately a lost of time and space as he was so much closer. I felt light headed and a strange feeling came over me. I was shocked and knew that it was real.
The second time I was at a funeral. I was with my son and some of his friends as we walked up to the graveside. My son and his friends were right in front of me as we approached. The next second I was standing there looking for my son and his friends and they were completely on the other side of a large group of people. They had to go around all of the people and the vehicles that were there to arrive at that place where they were. I was again shocked that they had gotten there in a seconds time. I felt light headed again and that same strange feeling came over me. I moved to a different place and I felt water dripping on me and realized it was a stream of tears coming from me although I was not crying. That has never happened to me. I moved again and felt the presense of someone to the left of me, but no one was there when I looked to the left then, I felt the presence to the right of me and again no one was there. I looked up on the hill behind me and there were a line of people, mostly men standing on the top of the hill. I again had that strange feeling come over me. After the funeral I asked some other people including my son if he saw the people on the hill and they said no. I have come to believe that this is happening to me when someone who has passed on is using my body in some way. Possibly to view what is happening on earth or something like that. I have had other paranormal experiences and have found over the years that the experiences are more frequent as time goes by. Maybe this could explain some loss of time for others as well. I do not feel fear of spirits as other people do, only the realization that there are people that have passed that still visit us, here on earth.
Hi Patti — Very interesting accounts, thanks for relating them here. I think the idea that your body is being temporarily used by these disembodied entities sounds like a plausible theory, particularly considering the locations in which your experiences occurred and the fact that there were others present. This could possibly explain at least some of the missing time accounts that I’ve received. Did your son or anyone else notice anything unusual about your behavior during this time? Did anyone mention that you seemed “spaced out” or uncommunicative? Just curious about that.
John, I WOULD like to discuss this further actually. I want to hear your theories because I’m seeking an answer, or maybe something that links it to everything that has been happening to me.
Hi Lucas — I wish I had some answers for you, but all I’ve got are some thoughts on what all this could be about. If you have the time, I suggest that you read through the comments section of this article (there are a lot of them, so it will take a while). Reading about others experiences might help you to draw some conclusions. If you do read through them you’ll probably notice that there’s a pretty fair amount of variety among these time anomaly reports. Feel free to email me at john@theparanomalist.com if you’d like to chat about all this off of the blog forum.
— John
I was sitting in a chair at my house today. It was almost time to let my dogs out. I looked at my cell phone. The time was 1:59pm. I stood up and walked to the door to let out the dogs. The distance from the chair to the door is about 25 feet. When I approached the door to let out the dogs, my cell phone showed that it was 2:08pm. It didn’t take me 9 minutes to walk 25 feet. What happened? Thanks.
Donato — I wish I could give you an answer, but I don’t know. Some of the reports I’ve heard from people involve periods of missing time lasting for hours and even days, and many others are like yours in that their just a few minutes that are unaccounted for. It doesn’t make it less disturbing though, I’m sure. Did you notice anything unusual before or after this was happening? Did it feel as if something strange had just happen, or was it just that the phone read that it was nine minutes ahead? Sometimes these are explainable, normal happenings and are not necessarily of a paranormal nature. Also, have things like this happened to you before? There is often a history of this missing time or time anomaly episodes, some more dramatic and pronounced than others. Give that some thought because you might notice a pattern of these types of occurrences over your lifetime. If I figure all of this out I’ll let you know! Thanks for sharing your experience.
My two friends and I were driving back from a snowboarding competion in March 1996 on interstate 90 from buffalo to rochester ny. My friend Brent was driving. It was a day that the moon was suppose to be very big or something celestial was happening. We were driving and all noticed the moon on the side of the road was huge and orange. It looked like it was getting bigger and bigger. Right before we blacked out we saw the sign for Rochester that said 40 miles. All I can remember is saying “whoa that moon is so big”. Then blacked out totally. Again like other stories we all suddenly awakened. Just like a blink back into consciousness. And we were still driving maintaining a speed of about 70 mph. As we suddenly awoke we say a sign for the outlet mall in syracuse. A good 40 miles past rochester. Making for 80 miles of missing time. The strangest thing was that we all experienced it together. No one could remember anything from that missing 80 miles. All we could recall was a bright orange moon getting bigger and bigger, than blackout. It was disturbing. Thinking back on it now I wonder if that was really the moon. At the time it didn’t look like a ufo and none of us have any alien abduction style memories. Just 80 miles of missing time and all while traveling at 70 mph. I’ve considered doing hypnosis. But frankly worried about what would come up. Some things are better left un-explained.
Hey Jim — Your story is disturbingly common. It’s amazing how many people seem to have had these kinds of experiences. The driving scenario is one I often hear of, and like yours, it frequently involves more than one person being in the vehicle — making it that much more difficult to explain away as “road hypnosis” or a case of just losing track of time. The object you and your friends took to be the moon might have been something else. These kinds of things (I think they refer to them as “screen memories”) where you think you’re looking at something but it’s actually something else, is another common element in these missing time incidents. I myself had no UFO/alien abduction memories after my experience, but something strange definitely did happen and I too have never undertaken hypnotherapy — largely out of fear, partially because I think I’ve read too much about this stuff and I think my subconscious may be tainted (i.e.. I fear my subconscious might dredge up some old stories from a Budd Hopkins book); I’m way too steeped in this stuff at this point to be completely impartial.
And the question that I always ask: Has anything like this, or any type of unexplained occurrences at all, happened to you prior to or since this incident in 1996? Very often these stories that people relate to me are part of a pattern of ongoing strangeness in their lives. I don’t know if certain people are singled out for these interactions or if some of us are just more naturally sensitive to this sort of thing. If I come up with any answers I’ll post them on the site.
I also had this happen and it bothers me to this day, I was 18 me and my GF where at my place, we got into a argument so i decided to get out away from here and go for a walk I decided togo in the near by woods where their was a path connecting our small town with another the path was about 1/12 miles long I’ve walked it many times and new it well, I decided to on this path cause i knew their were blue berry patches along its way, I was picking them for my gf to make up for the fight and she loved them, as i walk this path i was maybe almost half ways threw it, I noticed some good size berries off the side of the path ‘ my hair is standing up just typing at this point’ so I went over to pick them, but as i got closer, I noticed a clearing just in the tree line, that i`ve never noticed before, so i made a few steps inside in the tree line to the clearing, when i was in the clearing I noticed houses, i was shocked to see them as i couldn’t understand why they were here, as i walk a bit closer looking at the houses, it came apparent to me that the houses were the same houses that are at the beginning of the path, my hair stood up on my neck and a rush came over me and i ran out of the path straight home, my GF was concerned and asked where i have been for the pass 4 hours, i told her i was only gone an hour if that, she said ‘you been for 4 hours’, so i told her where i was and what i experienced, she told me she had walked that path to look for me and i wasn’t up there.
I should add that I went back to this area with a friend the next day, around where i thought was the same spot the berries had drawn me to, and i was unable to find a clearing, i then went looking off the tree line back and forth unable to find it again.
And this happened in late summer of 96 or 97
DJ — Your account is what I’d consider a very typical, classic Missing Time experience. Anything like this ever happen before or since then? Do any other odd or unexplained occurrences in your life at all come to mind? I ask this because these experiences are often a part of a pattern are not always singular, stand-alone incidents. Thanks for taking the time to share your story. — John
Nothing similar, but I did have a vivid dream a few weeks later that I still remember to this day like it was yesterday, I was frozen laying down unable to move with a scene of a being near me, it was kinda dark and as soon i sensed a presence getting very close, I went unconscious in shear fear. I know that sounds crazy like i`m a alien nut job, I don’t tell people about this dream cause i know it makes me sounds like a nut, and it was probably just that anyways a ‘dream’ but it still makes me nervous thinking about it to this day…. The only other weird thing that happen to me was way before this I was 13, and standing in line long at a coffee shop waiting to buy a donut i had 80 and figure it was more then enough, when I got to the cash she asked for 85 cents, i reached into my pocket screaming in my head ‘Damn Im short 5 cents’ as i was pulling the change out a stranger i never noticed before was almost beside me with his hand out and said here, I looked at his hand it was 5 cents, not thinking much of the situation took the 5 cents said thanks and bought the donut, went to set down to eat it, and i was thinking how did this stranger know i needed 5 cents, i was stunned, as i looked around the mall i was unable to see this stranger anywhere.
That dream was a few months later sorry, not weeks now that i think about it more.
DJ — Your dream about the being sounds familiar. I’ve had many dreams of being immobilized and having some sort of entity (or entities) stand near me, along with a lot of other bizarre dreams that were very vivid and realistic. I’ve had them throughout my life, starting at the age of four. I get them less frequently as I’ve gotten older, but I still have them occasionally. I think there could be a connection to these missing time incidents. Your story of the person with the change is interesting too. Are certain people being monitored, I wonder?
I wrote just a few comments before and you ask me if my son noticed me acting any differently when I had these loss of time episodes and no I just was not saying anything. I wonder when it will happen again and if it does I will be writing to you. It is comforting to know that I am not the only one this has happened to. Your friend, Patti
Thanks for getting back to me, Patti. You’re definitely not alone in this. It’s much more widespread than I ever knew. I have a childhood friend who is now a psychologist and I got in touch with him the other day to ask if he’d ever heard of these missing time and out-of-body experiences, and he said he had. I plan to talk with him about over the weekend to get his perspective on what he believes could be the cause. I’m sure it will be something clinical rather than supernatural, but I’d like to hear the view of professional who has some experience with this sort of thing. Wondering too if hypnosis is a worthwhile pursuit. I’m guessing that he’s going to say it’s some kind of repressed trauma that people like us are dealing with, but I’m not sure if that can explain all of the cases I’ve heard. Not so sure that yours would fit that mold.
Keep in touch. — John
Hello kinda strange but my wife reminded me of this incident and i thought i would google it and do some research. Found this story so i thought i would share. Two years ago my wife my friend and i were going out to dinner. we had to be there at 9:30 so we left our house at 9. The drive is a 23 mile drive, at some point we realized that we have passed our destination exit. the problem was that we were 63 miles away and only 20 min had slipped by and we don’t remember the drive from five miles from our house. So three people driving in a car travel 63 miles in 20 min and don’t remember the drive. so we turned around and made it to our destination late but what happened that we couldn’t remember our drive ?
Will, Jessica, Arthur —
Hey, thanks for relating your experience. Sorry for the delay, but this got past me. I try to reply to everyone as soon as they leave a comment or email. There’s been a huge increase of them lately and it’s become hard to keep up. Someone just contacted me through my Facebook page and asked if anyone had reported a time GAIN episode, and here is yours. Actually, I’ve gotten a pretty fair amount of similar stories of people gaining time rather than losing it. Oftentimes it’s when they’re driving too, like your experience. A long distance is covered in an impossibly short amount of time. There appears to be a lot of different flavors to these occurrences, which is why I’ve come to lump them all under the more general term of Time Anomaly Phenomena (T.A.P. — I like that. I think I’ll trademark that term!). Often, these incidents involve missing time, but sometimes it’s time gain or time “slips”, in which the individual(s) is/are transported into another period of time, be it in the past or future or some other alternate reality. Whatever is at the root cause of these things, I can’t tell you — though I have some theories. It may very well be a number of different explanations, rather than a singular one.
As I always ask, has anything like this happened before or since to any of you, or have you experienced any other strange phenomena? If so, I’d be curious to hear about it if you don’t mind. Thanks for relating your experience. — John
Hi John,
I’ve never talked to anyone about this incedent but cannot get it out of my mind either. And everytime it comes back to me I end up feeling scared and angry. I got my first job in 2006 and moved into a 1 bedroom apartment. A few months later, in the afternoon around 2ish I decided to go out and buy some much-needed household items and groceries. I got dressed, sat on the edge of the bed to put on my shoes and the next thing I remember is waking up late into the evening (it was pretty dark outside). My legs were still dangling off the edge of the bed, but somehow my clothes had changed. Stranger still, my laptop was playing a songlist that I only play if I have people over…the kind of songs that make good background music and aid in covering a lull in the conversation. I NEVER listen to them when alone as I prefer rock/metal. Also, im very introverted so i very rarely have guests. At first I thought I might suffer from a multiple or split personality disorder but there was no other incedent in the months that followed (or since). It’s left me terribly confused not knowing what happened and why I woke up in different clothes with pop music in the background. Every once in a while I get paranoid about it. I was so disturbed when I woke up that I never checked the time..but im definitely missing a few hours of my life. I’m not a quick sleeper, I toss and turn for hours before finally sleeping; I never sleep in the afternoon…so it bothers me that I acted so out of character. Do I have a personality disorder? Did I have a visitor for whom I played the songlist in sleepwalk mode? And why was I in different clothes…thats the freakiest part. I just hope I changed them myself…any other scenario is too disturbing.
@ HereAndThere and Nicole — Those are both very strange stories, but I receive a lot of very similar accounts as yours. These time anomaly and missing time phenomena are very widespread it seems. I understand that we shouldn’t always jump to the supernatural as an explanation, and in some cases there could be a physical or psychological cause for these occurrences. However, as I’ve said many times, I don’t think we should always dismiss the possibility of unknown forces being at work simply because that notion doesn’t fit within our accepted view of reality. We want to believe that we have a full understanding of the world and universe that surrounds us; that’s human nature. We want to put everything into neat little boxes, and it irks us if there are things that don’t fit into those boxes. My belief is that we’re being contacted by some kind of non-human intelligences who are preparing us for something. That’s very broad and admittedly, kind of “out there”, I know. Trust me, I’m a very level-headed and conservative guy, and I don’t feel all that comfortable saying things like that, but I do believe that we human beings have been interacting on a subconscious or subliminal level with these entities since the beginnings of mankind. Freaky and weird stuff when looking at things from a traditional, “hard science” perspective, but not so strange when we consider the idea that what we know of reality is probably fairly minuscule. I believe that we term as “supernatural” or “paranormal” is no more than science that we don’t yet understand — and perhaps are completely beyond our ability to fathom at this stage of our spiritual and mental evolution.
I’m sure none of this is particularly comforting either of you, and I wish I could give you some answers, but I’m still searching myself. If I gain any new insights I’ll be sure to share them. Thank you both for sharing your respective experiences. — John
I am young still but I have had many of these of ‘ time loss’ episodes. The most freaky one was actually not less than 1 week ago and I remember sitting in my living alone at around 2-3 am, I was fully awake then I got this massive migraine and stared off into space,the next thing I remember is that I was in MY room around 8 am and I wasn’t asleep either, I was sitting in my computer chair. Ever since then I have felt strange,like hitched breathing, headaches, and I barely want to be around people,although i am an active and hyper teen,but it’s weird and strange. I don’t know how to explain it,but it feels like someone or something is still with you or i will just zone out and lose interest in conversations with people while staring off into space.
Around 5 years ago, my boyfriend and I had a small experience… we were sitting in my bed discussing ideas for an upcoming project – this went on for a short while and then we put our books down and decided to call it a night (I should note that neither of us were overly tired or anything). He and I always had a tradition of giving each other a good-night kiss, saying, “I love you”, and then cuddling for a couple of minutes before going off to sleep. However, my last memory of that night was the action of going to turn off the bedside lamp. When we woke up in the morning, the first thing that came to my mind was that I didn’t remember how we got to sleep – I ran through the memories of the night and it just stops at where I’m about to shut off the lights. Funny enough, as I was thinking this, my boyfriend’s first words to me after waking up were, “I don’t remember how we fell asleep last night?”. This shocked me of course being that I was just wondering the same thing. We walked through everything we remember, and both of us are unable to remember anything past the part of me going to shut off the lights.
It always lends an added sense of validity to these experiences when someone else is involved and expresses the same impression of the events. If not for my mom’s presence, the fact that she knew exactly where to find me and had a strong sense that I was in need, I might have chalked up my missing time episode as some kind of brain-blip — “just one of those things” type of thing. Any other weirdness happen before or after to either or both of you? Any strange marks on your bodies? Unexplained lights, premonitions, apparitions…? (I think I need to make up a questionnaire!). My point is, as I’ve said many times to people on this blog and who have emailed me, that these often are not the first or last of these strange occurrences.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Please feel free to stay in touch and let me know if anything else comes to mind. — John