Missing Time Experience

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Written by:John CarlsonParanormal Experiencer

John Carlson (A.K.A. The Paranormalist) is a bipedal hominoid who can sometimes be found stalking the sidewalks of New Jersey USA or lurking at his favorite neighborhood watering hole. His wife and sons have put up with his interest in and occasional confrontations with the paranormal. John encourages readers of this website to share any personal experiences, if they wish to do so. You are not alone.

Missing time and temporal anomalies are far more common than many might guess. This true account of the missing time event that I experienced as a teenager has gotten, by far, the greatest number or responses than anything I've written.

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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.

Missing Time
Missing Time Experiences

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.

890 thoughts on “Missing Time Experience”

  1. I forgot to mention a couple of important details about the incident;

    First, we looked for footprints but found none. In the morning there was about a foot of snow (8am) so we knew any prints from the night before would have been buried but still there would have been indentations of where a footprint would be. But there were no indentations, no indications of any person being outside.

    Second, two of us were under 18 years, and my friend (16) had an extremely strict father. Yet, our parents never contacted each other, the only communication I have since had with that girl, who back then was my best friend, was that it was so odd how her parents did not react; never called the police, etc., which would have been the norm. I was raised by my grandparents and they never mentioned anything (I was 17) about not coming home all night. This was also extremely odd. And with all that – it seems like once that night/day was over, I never had any memory of it until watching that movie some years ago. For some reason, now this whole incident bothers me – mainly because I wonder why we never questioned it, never talked about it much, or why we never got in trouble.

    Reply
    • Hi Cindy — Odd, out-of-place/out-of-character reactions are commonplace in these missing time/memory loss reports (see the previous comment by Angela). Also, other people on the periphery but not directly involved often seem to neglect to ask questions or mysterious forget or sleep through these incidents. That is further indication that these happenings are not always random, but are orchestrated in some way. By whom (or what) and why, I don’t know.

      As I always ask, do you remember anything like this happening to you before, or any other unexplained or strange occurrences at all, prior to or after this?

      Reply
  2. Thank you for your reply. I have finished reading all the other comments and I do feel a little better knowing I’m not alone. I found it interesting there were other reports of other odd incidents in Wisconsin, I think around a similar time.

    I have this recurring memory that just pops into my head and has always bothered me for a long time. I remember telling this story to a lot of people because it was just a strange occurrence. In WI we lived on a larger piece of property by a highway in southern Wisconsin so my sister and I used to play outside a lot together and alone. One time I was swinging by myself, then next thing I know I was in another area of the yard just standing there by myself. I felt like I had just ‘woke up’, and as I was trying to get my bearings down I looked at my arm and saw a HUGE, white spider on my arm. It was so big it took up my entire fore-arm. Now the largest spiders we had we daddy long legs with the largest being about the size of someone’s hand – and they were brown. So when I saw this stark, white spider on my arm I screamed and jumped around for a couple of seconds – then stopped to look for it, but it was no where in sight. The area I was standing in was a ‘clearing’ of sorts, with only brown dirt under me. As a child, I wanted to find that spider so I could tell a grown-up, because it was so unusual. But I could not find it. After a few minutes I convinced myself it was an hallucination. In spite of having occurrences where I have seen things out of the corner of my eye or whatever, and then the things I thought I saw really weren’t there, this one always bothered me because I feel I KNOW it was there; that it was not a hallucination.

    I don’t know if there was ‘missing time’ as times were more relaxed then. We often played outside, alone for hours at a time. So the thing that was weird was swinging, then being in another area of the yard and seeing the white spider. I had always ‘assumed’ that the explanation for the change in location was my spaciness from being a child.

    Reply
  3. Hi, John. In 2012, I posted here about a four-day missing time experience that happened to me. Last night I was reading other stories that have been posted since, and came upon a Dec. 2012 post by Lisa Marie. She wrote: “The strange thing that I never told anyone, that I spent the morning pulling wires out of my back shoulder. Long skinny wire threads.” This really bothered me, as I had a similar experience….I have never told anyone either, because it just seemed too crazy. I pulled several wires out of my legs some time in summer 2001, in the year following my missing-time experience. They looked like fiber optic wires.

    Reply
    • Hi Debra — That’s just fascinating. As I aggregate more and more of these missing time and time anomaly reports I try to look for consistencies among them. That’s the only way I can begin to draw some conclusions about these baffling phenomena. Accounts of physical effects of these experiences are a powerful indication that these are not simply some sort of mental aberration or mistaken perception by the experiencer. Reports such as yours point to the implementation of some kind of technology, the purpose perhaps being for tracking or monitoring of the individual. This leads clearly to the intervention of some sort of intelligent beings. Whether this is being carried out by our own government or non-human intelligences is an unanswered question, but it would definitely seem to preclude that incidents such as your and Lisa Marie’s was mental or due to some kind of natural phenomenon.

      Thanks so much for sharing that. I’m working on a new version of the site and I’ll be created a forum section that will have a section for people who have had these experiences. The more people who are willing to open up about their encounters, the better we’ll be able to draw conclusions and move closer to answer (if this question is at all answerable). Thanks again.

      Reply
  4. hi,im mexican so im not so well at english but i will try to explain what happened to me, it happened right know an hour ago i was looking at my celphone it was like 3:00 am i was tryng to sleep reading but then i saw 3:03 then i remember that 3:33am is not a happy hour but i say to my self its bullshit i dont care… then i saw 3:06am then i say ok then when i watch the clock it will be 3:09 and then it pass when that pass i say ok its just coincidence… then i started to play a video game for like 8 minutes then again i watched the clock it was 3:14am then i said well it is not a number related to 6 so i forget it then turned off the screen on my cellphone i looked at the sky from my window like 2 minutes then prepared to sleep i was going to put my alarm here comes the scary thing it was the 3:44am… i thinked ok maybe the clock is wrong then chequed the hour on my hand watch and it was 3:45am i missed 30 min of my life and i dont know what happened.. im really scary becouse of whats people says about that our.. i dont know and here i am trying to find a reason or find people that experienced the same, im very sorry for my bad writting and gramatic but in spanish there is no information so please excuse me…. i dont know what happened may be my clock started to malfunction but the extrange is that i was looking the clock many times how is it possible?, im sure that 30 min passed im really sure that i wasnt looking the sky for 30 min
    thanks by the way
    im 22

    Reply
  5. JOHN.. i know this seems a bit strange.. but i’d really appreciate if you would contact me.. something strange happend to me last night.. really strange (no ppl i wasn’t raped or sotomized) but just too much to type. i’ve never reached out to any one like this, but i’ve also never had anything like this happen to me. i lost time.. well not exactly.. a friend of mine did. and i watched the entire time lapse in paralysis watching what
    happend to him, no funny creatures, or lights.. but i was totally paralyzed. it was as if the only thing that was allowed to move in the universe was my cat.. he just had these siezures like spells, and i’d go completely numb watching, and my cat would start brushing and biting my leg like she was trying to pull me out of some unkown world.. please, i swear to GOD this is driving me

    Reply
    • Hi Lori — So sorry to hear. When bizarre things like this happen to people it’s very upsetting, I know. I’m around for a few minutes this morning but I have more time in later on today (I’m on Eastern Standard Time, USA). I’ll email you.

      — John

      Reply
    • MSB –Yes, I did. Sorry about that. Fascinating account of your experiences! I was away on June 8, camping out in the Pacific Northwest.

      The more of these types of time anomaly reports that I receive, the better I can begin to see patterns appear. Bright, flashing or floating lights are often associated with these missing time incidents. I don’t know if that’s because of some kind of electromagnetic phenomena or if they are intelligently directed and controlled. I read a book that I’ve mentioned a few times in this thread called “Time Storms” by Jenny Randles. She believes that these episodes happen because of naturally occurring EM activity that somehow distort time in a way that we don’t yet understand. She makes a very compelling argument in her book, which is very well-researched, but that explanation doesn’t fit in with a lot of the reports that I receive. Your second incident seems less likely to fit into that theory because other people were present and would have experienced the same thing if it were a natural phenomena that visited your area. Also, these things appear to happen repeatedly, and it would be very unlikely if it were a freak “storm” of some kind — similar to a person getting hit repeatedly by lightning. Not too likely.

      Are you generally a sensitive or somewhat psychic person? Do you have premonitions or have you seen or experienced any other unexplained phenomena? That’s often the case among those who tell me of having these experiences.

      Thanks again, and sorry for the delay in getting back to you. — John

      Reply
  6. I also think that I might have experienced missing time during my childhood, its a very hard thing to be sure of especially because it was when I was so young, I want to say I was around 5-6 years old (maybe younger?) but I’m not sure. There are also a few odd memories that have stuck with me for 30 years that don’t really make much sense.

    I don’t remember much from that early when I was a kid, but I have never forgot this because it just seems so odd and out of place. Anyways, I remember laying down to go to bed and after what seemed like only 2-3 or so hours of darkness the sun came back up. I don’t ever remember going to sleep, I remember laying there trying to get to sleep and being so puzzled why the sun was coming back up when it did.

    For years I thought this was what people were calling daylight savings time, being so young I didn’t understand the concept of what it really was until later. It might simply be that I fell asleep and woke back up without realizing it, regardless this has stuck in my memory through the years as something that just felt odd.

    There are some irrational fears, or more like images in my head that I am afraid of, one is of a strangely shaped tree branch outside of a window. It doesn’t make sense why I am afraid of such a thing, even I can’t understand it but that image freaks me out when I think about it. Another is of a dog I thought I saw in my room one night with tiny “lights” for eyes, that night I hid under the covers never peaking back out the most scared I’ve ever been in my life until I finally went to sleep. I am not scared of trees or dogs in general, but those particular images stick in my head and give me chills when I think about it.

    This kind of stuff could be a number of things from hallucination, childhood imagination, falling to sleep and not realizing it, or anything. Like I said though I have just never forgot them because it seemed out of place from normal life and very real.

    Reply
  7. 14 hanging out washing for my mother lost 4 hours no strange events besides disorientation. I lived for seven years of my childhood with the same visits at 3.30am every night heavy breathing followed by something leaning over me I can still hear the breathing a deep inhale loud exhale. Then on some occurrences it would place a hand or w/e on top of the blanket all one can do is pull the covers up restrict breathing and hope for the best. I have no idea if its all related but it followed were ever I went and stoped soon as I hit adolescence. Now 40 and events are still imprinted very clear and to detail weird stuff does happen…

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  8. I don’t know where to start so I guess I will begin with my first time loss . It was Christmas time 1989, I was 4 years old, after lunch me and my older brother went well outside to play in the yard my mother had bundled me up in my coat and hat. I remember that it started to snow and my brother and I laid down on the ground and was watching the snow fall. I felt like I was in a trance the next thing I knew my brother was playing with my older sister on the porch and my mother had came out of the house to call us in for dinner. I remember getting up and my coat was missing. The ground was covered in snow and there was snow under me when I had laid down there wasn’t any snow on the ground I remember feeling dazed and confused we had just ate lunch and I couldn’t understand why we were having dinner. I don’t remember what had happened to me but that was just the beginning. After that I began having dreams vivid dreams of floating away from my home.. I would wake paralyzed and scared with out being able to speak. I would see very dark people shadow figures at night in my room. This went on for 6 months or so I know this because we had moved shortly after I had started kindergarten, I had gotten into trouble at school for a drawing I had drawn, I have no recollection of me drawing the picture. ( I did later see this drawing when I was around 10 years old, it was three dark figures and a little girl floating above a house and a craft with lights.) the day after I had got in trouble our house was put on the market and we moved across country. We moved in with my grandparents and things were quite for a while the dreams had all but faded. Years had passed and they had all became a distant dream. Then shortly after my 8th birthday the dreams came back I would wake up in extreme pain in my legs and back and paralyzed once again. This would happen happen at least once a month or so. Then I started to see dark figures during the day not all the time just here and there. I lived a block away from the school. It took me 5 minutes to get home every day. It was a straight walk down the sidewalk no turns just had to cross the street at the schools cross walk. School got out at 3 o’clock every day I remember getting out and crossing the Street The next thing I knew I was standing in my yard and the sun was going down my mother had ran out side screaming and crying asking where I was. I couldn’t speak I could barely stand up. My mom had brought me into the house and got me a glass of water. She looked very concerned and told me I had been missing for hours I had asked me where I was. I had told her that I had just left the school I didn’t remember how I got home, I began telling her all that was happening to me my dreams, the figures in would see. She looked concerned but not surprised. She had stopped me and told me to be quite about it. I have always felt like I wasn’t supposed to talk about it. I had asked my grandmother why my mom had shushed me and she had told me that things happen to special people and the rest of the world just doesn’t understand.

    We moved very shortly after that and things stopped happening for a long while. My next experience wasn’t till I was 16 but this time was different. I was out with a group of friends and we were walking around the wooded area behind my house the sun had just gone down and we had begun walking back towards the house. We were only a few minutes from the house and could see house through the trees. When all of a sudden there was a bright light above us and it was a blinding and it warmed the air around us. I don’t remember much but when I came to I was alone in the forest and my friends were no were to found. I was dazed as I walked out of the woods and wandered in my house, every one was gone and I was alone. I tried to call my mom on her phone but the phone wasn’t working, the tv was static and there was an eerie quite that came from the house. About an hour later I saw our car pull in the driveway and my brother came in asking where I had been. And I had been missing for hours, I was shocked every one just disappeared I didn’t go anywhere. All I remember was there was a bright light and every one was gone. All of my friends had told me that they saw the light to but it was only there for a second or two like a blink or someone turning on the car lights for a second and that’s when I disappeared. They all thought I had ran into the woods in fear or something.. I just let them think that I was messing with them and that I had ran. But I don’t know what happened.
    My dreams did come back but not all the time once or twice a month at most, we had moved a few more times but the dreams moved with me. I would wake up with bruising on my legs, back, arms, and stomach. I would find new scars on my body that looked like an old scars.
    When I was 20 I had woke up and to my surprise I had silver patches all over my legs and on portions of of arms. I was doing scared I went to my doctor that day my doctor looked confused and concerned about my skin. Because I had just had my yearly physical therapy week before. My doctor took skin samples and sent them in to get tested. Turns out that I have psoriasis that should have taken months if not years to get to the amount that I had and not overnight. It has not gone away even to this day I have tried topical creams (which made it worse) pills (which gave me seizures) tried to change my diet, exercise, tried tanning and avoiding the sun but nothing worked. (At this point I have come to the conclusion that it won’t go away.)
    Years had passed I still had the dreams but I hadn’t missed any time for a long while, I had gotten married and had a girl and a boy of my own. Then one evening 2 years ago my family and I went out to dinner at this little restaurant about a mile away from our house. After dinner we started driving home and the sun was just going down. We were driving South towards the house and the next thing we knew we were about 8 miles north from the house we had pulled over at a gas station and just looked at each other I made sure the kids were still in the car. And in a half panic my husband questions how we got where we were. We had lived in the same city for over 5 years and the same house for 3 years we traveled the same road every day and ate at the same restaurant once a week, he was dazed and confused and so was I. As we began our drive home my daughter kept asking me where we were at. And I told her we were just out for a little drive. When we got home I had realized it was almost 9pm we had lost 3 hours or so. The next morning I woke up with cramping in my stomach. My husband kept trying to figure out what was happening and what had happened to us. He was concerned about it but was afraid to talk to anyone else about it. Two weeks later I found out that I was pregnant. The pregnancy was normal but my dreams were frequent. I had my son a few weeks early but he was a healthy beautiful boy with no complications. He seems to be ahead of his siblings though he just turned 1 in July and he’s beginning to talk, he walked at a younger age and is using “tools” to get things he wants. He can unlock doors uses toys to make stairs to climb over baby gates. He’s very advanced for his age. But he’s not the only one my daughter who is six now asks odd questions like: why are we different from everyone else? She called the mall santa a “human” in a costume. And she is always asking me about other planets and the people who live there. I have never spoke about my experiences to her and I don’t know where she is getting her information from. I haven’t lost time since than so far and my dreams are only once a month or so. So I’m doing okay.
    I spoke with my grandma about it a few months ago and she told me that these things happen to us, that we are different and I had asked the same questions when I was little and so did my mother. It happens to special people all over the world and for those select few our eyes are open and we see better then the the rest of the world.

    Reply
  9. I just wanted to add that my children are remarkable. My 6 yr old has this uncanny ability to know things she was reading before she was three, she has this ability to read people and always seems to know things about people, there was one day a few months ago when we were at the grocery store in the check out line there was an elder behind us and my daughter reached out and grabbed her hand and told her she was sorry about her son but every thing was going to be okay, the lady just started to cry, after talking to the elder for a bit I found out that her son had died in Iraq the week before. But that’s not the only time that she had done that about a year ago I was driving home from a doctors appointment and she started freaking out and yelling to get off the freeway, I took the first exit off and seconds later I watched a car spin out of control hitting multiple cars and then flipping over before it came to a stop against the barrier. I was still on the off ramp when this had happened, that would have been us I would have been stuck in the middle of it. She has the ability to see things or know things. Last Christmas I had got her an inotab 3 kids tablet but I had decided to wrap it up like a vacuum cleaner using a box and the wrapping paper roll and the gift as the bottom part when she saw the “vacuum” under the tree she got all excited and screamed you got me a tablet. I was so disappointed I worked so hard to disguise that gift and she knew what it was before she even got to touch it.
    But she’s not the only one though my 2 yr old son is different also he’s really good with numbers he is always counting and adding. He tries to read but he only sounds out words. He is always trying to fly and tries to move objects with his mind ( he hasn’t been able to accomplish them) he gets extremely frustrated with it though. Though he is only 2 he is as tall as the kindergartens at my daughters school in some cases taller. His head circumference is 22.5 inches and he has to wear either a resizeable hat or an adults hat. Last year he wanted to be a cowboy for Halloween but the hat that came with the costume didn’t fit him at all. So we had to go to a western shop and purchase a hat and size 6 7/8 and today it is too small for him. He is intelligent and applies a lot of critical thinking before doing things. He is always trying to figure out locks and the passwords on the computer, he has been able to cracked the passwords on the computer and unlocks the parent locks on the tv. But the oddest thing that is that some nights he will be up talking as if he’s having a conversation with someone. I go in his room and he’s sitting in the dark on his bed or in the middle of the room. When I ask who he is talking to he either replies his “friend” or the “doctor”, but he doesn’t like the doctor. He says that the doctor can be mean at times. But his friend protects him. I fear that it’s a cycle and my kids will end up going through what I had had to, I feel like moving because it helped a little bit when my family moved from place to place every few years. I want to talk to them about their experiences and ask why he doesn’t like the doctor to get more information about it, but I just can’t get the words out its like it’s a bad omen or something. It’s even hard to write it down but it is easier to write it.
    The baby who is one has a head circumference of 19.5 inches he is gifted also he is talking early, walking early, and applies a lot if critical thinking skills also. My children are remarkable but I fear that they would become outcasts as people wouldn’t understand they just do things a little different. My pediatrician has begun to recognize the differences but it seems like she has mixed feelings about it. She has asked me if I had considered putting them in the gifted programs or gifted schools but I don’t know if I would consider it. My children are my life and I want them to be as normal as possible or at least have normal experiences and to not be singled out from the crowd.
    I d

    Reply
    • Hi Christina — Sorry for the slow response. Busy weekend and a busy work day. I’ll read through your comment carefully and respond back tonight. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

      — John

      Reply
  10. When I was in high school, I was working at a local fast food joint. One night at work, I lost exactly one hour of time some how. We always had a routine of what to do and when to do it to maximize our work output. That one night, when it was time to start the last set of dishes (right after something else that usually took an hour that I had started on an hour prior) I looked up at the clock, and it was exactly an hour past of what it should have been.

    To this day (that happened in 1997) I am convinced that I did not just lose track of time like one who was having fun would do, as this was a routine type of job, start at a certain time, do certain things at certain times, and leave at a certain time. That night, with no set-backs to remember, not just me, but all of us left an hour later than normal from work.

    I will repeat, this happened to all of us at work that night, we all lost the same exact hour, and all pretty much noticed it at the same time after it happened.

    Though, I do no recall anything weird happen like what you described, and it was not anything to do with daylight savings as this hour that was lost was from 9pm to 10pm.

    Just an hour lost, for everyone in the building, nothing more, nothing less.

    Reply
  11. My brother and I had went to go to the gas station to get a pack of smokes in Shawano Wisconsin. It was 9 pm as the news just started. The walk takes no more than 20 mins from my house to the gas station and back. We were behind the fair grounds when a bright flash of light which to me seemed like it was right above me. We looked around for a minute then went on our way. We got back home and my mom was furious. She said what took you so long. We said we went to the gas station. Well long story short it was 11pm. The walk never would take that long. To this day my brother gets freaked out when we talk about it. After this my brother was diagnosed with chrones and I have had problems with my head swelling. My question is does anyone else who had experienced time loss had physical side effects?

    Reply
  12. I am so happy to have run across this blog. I have had an experience in my life that I would refer to as traumatic in the sense that it has troubled me my entire life. I’m just going to go ahead and share the story so that others may be inclined to do the same.

    I am from Baton Rouge Louisiana, for a short time, (probably a year) my grandmother (legal guardian) and I were forced to move in with my uncle. I was in the 5th grade, attending a School called Southdowns Elementary. I was a bit rebellious because I missed all of my friends from the school I had attended my whole life leading up to the move. Nevertheless, I did make new friends, and other kids that rode bicycles around the neighborhood we lived in. One day, I’m guessing it was an afternoon after school, me and a friend (his name escapes me) were riding in the neighborhood. He kept telling me about this boy who was about our age, or maybe one or two years older, who had wealthy parents. The reason he talked about him so much is the collection of Star Wars and Star Trek models that he had. He just kept on telling me about it, so we decided to go take a ride by this boys house. The boy I was riding with told me that he had these awesome models that were so cool and with so much detail that I had to see them…When we rode to the boys house, I remember huge shrubs that lined his entire back yard, they were about 15 feet tall, and it enclosed his yard so that it was private, (very estate-like). When we arrived, I remember seeing a huge 2 story house, and one fond memory is that laying on the ground, were models of Star Wars ships…it’s not like they were everywhere, but there were some in the grass almost as if the boy had thrown them out of the window. I remember picking one up, (and being from a poor family, the thought did cross my mind in taking it ) but I didnt…Instead, and almost out of NOWHERE this boy said “you can’t have that, it’s mine”. I was startled, because I hadn’t seen him walk up and definitely didn’t hear him either…
    I started talking to the boy, as did my friend, and he was bragging about all of his models and asked us if we wanted to see more…Of course we did, we were 10 years old, and that was cool…So, he asked us to come to his room and he would show them to us…We followed him inside, and into his room…I was amazed at his collection, and as I was looking at it, that’s where everything went completely BLANK… I would say it was at about 3:30 in the afternoon, and we were all in his room, and the next thing I remembered was waking up, the room was dark, and it was almost dark outside, ( which would have made it around 7pm)
    When I woke up, I was very startled, there was no sign of the boy who’s house I was in, and my friend was gone also…The light in the bedroom was off and I was very groggy…I was so scared, scared to even open the door, but I knew that I had to leave… All I remember is how scared I was, and when I was leaving, in that huge house, all I cared about was getting to the door so I could get on my bike and ride as fast as I could home…K searched around the house unable to find the door, with a fear as if someone was watching me the whole time….In fact I get chills just telling this story…Finally I found the door, and opened it, my bike was sitting in the gravel front driveway, and I got on it as fast as I could and rode off scared to death…
    When I got home it was dark, I got into a lot of trouble, when I tried to explain myself, my uncle told me I was lying…It’s hard to make people believe a story like that, but trust me, it happened ….The weird thing, is I never saw that boy again, or the boy that I went over to that house with….When. I eventually moved back to the other side of town, I sort of deleted it from my memory…But the fact is, I lost about 3 hours of time and have NO idea where they went..
    I have ridden by that neighborhood, and tried to find that house more than 20 times in my adult life, and I have never been able to find it, it’s almost like it never existed.. I am still haunted to this day about what actually happened, and what it meant…I wish I had a way to find out more….
    If anyone has had a similar experience, please chime in…

    Thanks for reading my story…
    Jason

    Reply
    • Jason — Thanks so much for sharing your story. Are you familiar with the term “screen memory”? It’s when you’re made to believe you’re seeing and experiencing one thing but, in reality, something else is happening. I think that’s what went on. My first thought as I was reading your account was that the first boy sounded as he was trying very hard to sell you on the idea of going to this house, which makes me think he was working with the other boy who, the one in the big house with the cool models. That you never saw either of these boys again and could never find this house is not the least bit surprising to me. I don’t think either of them were boys and I don’t think you entered into a house, though I’m quite certain that something most definitely did happen to you and I do not doubt your veracity in the least. I would also guess that this was not the first and only time that this happened to you, although it might be the incident that your remember most clearly — and perhaps it’s the only consciously recollected incident that you have at all. Either way, I’d hazard a guess that some other strange or unexplained events have happened to you in your throughout your life. Correct me if I’m wrong, because I’m only going by what I so frequently hear from people like yourself who have suffered these kinds of incidents. They’re rarely singular, one-time-only events.

      Thanks again, and please feel free to keep in touch. My email is john@theparanomalist.com.

      Reply
  13. I woke up on Monday night and my watch read midnight. I fooled around with my iPad, which I often do when I wake up in the night and noticed that the time on that displayed 2:14 am. What? I could’ve sworn it was just after midnight. Looked at my watch again. 12:15 am. I know for a fact that my watch was functioning properly at 8:15 pm because my husband asked me what time it was (he was waiting for Monday Night Football to come on at 8:30 pm). I set my watch ahead 2 hours on Tuesday morning and it has been accurate ever since (2+ days).

    Reply
  14. I think you may have forgotten my about my post, I know you’re busy and don’t want to trouble you. But if you have time. Thank you for having such a wonderful Site

    Reply
    • Hi Christina — I’m so sorry for the slow response. Work and family have kept me very busy of late, and honestly, I get so many blog comments and emails from people (particularly in reference to my Missing Time post who have, like you, have had similar experiences) that it’s difficult to keep up with them all. If it’s any comfort to you, please know that you are not alone — not at all! However, I’ve got to say that yours is one of the most fascinating and detailed accounts that I’ve received, and I’m very grateful that you decided to share your experiences on my site.

      I’m not sure where to begin. My impression is that your mother and grandma have implied that they are familiar with these types of occurrences, which leads me to believe that these missing time episodes and other unexplained phenomena has happened to them. If you read up on this subject you’ll find that there is a lot of data that suggests that families are “targeted” (by who or what, I’m unsure) and that these incidents often span generations — e.g., grandparents, parents, children.

      You also have had physical side effects related to your dreams and missing time episodes, such as bruising and scarring. Your psoriasis sounds like it might also be an outcome of this. Physical evidence such as this is also commonly reported by “experiencers” (for lack of a better term) like yourself.

      The abilities of your children is a more disturbing aspect of all this, although being intuitive and extremely intelligent (as they appear to be) certainly is not a bad thing in and of itself. The fact that they might have difficulty relating to other children is a concern I would share if I were in your position, and I would probably give a lot of thought before placing them in a gifted program for the same reasons. I’d be interested in hearing about any other developments in their abilities and behavior as they get older, if you’d care to keep in touch. Also, I’d like to know of any news about yourself and the situation overall if you’d like to keep in touch. I’ll contact you with my email address.

      I’m not sure what I can say that would be all that helpful to you. My honest opinion is that this is not something that is a product of your imagination, although I think you know that already. I believe that you are one of those people — and I believe that there are many more than most would guess — that are being…interfered with? Manipulated? I’m not sure how to term it, but something seems to have had a lifelong interest in you and in your family and has been interacting with you on an unconscious level. Believe me, I know how weird that sounds, but I get too many of these stories to dismiss them all as lies or mental issues. I believe this is happening to you and to others, but I just don’t know why.

      If you haven’t heard of him, I’d recommend that you read some of Dr. David Jacobs’ books and articles or look up some of his lectures on YouTube. He uses hypnotic regression extensively with people like yourself. That’s an avenue that you might want to explore. I myself have not, but it might be worthwhile for you to consider.

      Good luck, Christina. Please feel free to keep in touch if you’d like. Not sure if I can be of much assistance, but I’m always glad to listen. — John

      Reply
  15. This happened to me just this morning, took to internet to find some answers and found your blog.

    On working days, I set my phone’s alarm at 5:10am. After turning off the alarm, I just lie for approx. 5mins until the drowsiness went away. I then went to the kitchen to prepare my day’s meal for work which probably took 15mins max. Took a quick shower and got dressed up. Normally prepare the clothes I’ll wear the night before, so getting dress didn’t take much time. Getting my shoes from the cabinet, I will be passing by our small kitchen where I would routinely glance at the stove’s clock – read 5:50am. Ready to leave, I kissed my wife who is still asleep then headed out the door.

    Once outside, heading to my car, I did noticed that the sky was brighter than normal. My typical drive time to office is 10mins, estimated that I’ll reach it at 6:15am. Traffic was light which was normal since I live and work in the suburbs. On the last main traffic light before I pull in to my office’s main drive, I had the chance to glance at my car’s clock. I was surprised to see that it read 7:10am. Thinking that my car’s clock was wrong, I checked my phone’s time. 7:10am!!!! I couldn’t have done a 10min-drive for an hour?! WTF?!?!

    Reply
    • Jose — First time you’ve had this experience, or can you think of any other times when something like this has happened? Have you had any other unexplained events in your life: things that maybe were a little odd or even downright weird? A lot of times these incidents are only the first ones that we remember, but are often part of a pattern that occurs off and on throughout the person’s life. Give it some thought and let me know, if you’d like to. Can’t say that I have any answers for you, but I can tell you that these seem to rarely be one-time, standalone incidents.

      Reply
  16. Thank you for replying John. This is the first.

    When I got home yesterday, I double checked our stove’s clock. It’s working properly.

    A friend told me that he read an article where you can unlock thoughts through hypnotherapy or something but, to tell you honestly, I am afraid to find out the truth.

    Reply
  17. Hi John, I didn’t read through all of the comments, cause that would just take way too long. But I did read through your experience. What I am about to tell you requires an open mind. I am a psychic medium. You can find your own psychic medium if you like, they should be able to corroborate what I am about to tell you. First let me preface what I am about to tell you, by saying that it is not at all uncommon for me to encounter spirits of all types. Some are kind, some are cruel, some can only be called pure evil. I have seen souls that go all up and down the spectrum of nice and not so nice. But one thing I have always noticed since I was a child and had my first encounters, spirits that are particularly malevolent and dark, the kind of energy they emit causes a sort of wakadoodle thing to happen with our senses. It is like what you described, when I encounter a particularly dark entity, all my other physical senses become almost over powered, almost paralyzed, like they are taken over. Sound begins to fade until it is utterly silent, save for what they want you hear, even vision can become compromised, as they try to control what you see. If they succeed in a full possession, you will lose the time that they have control of you. Some people have foggy recollections of the things that happened or they did during that time, but most remember nothing. Now, while this can occur to regular people, it is far more likely to happen to what is known collectively as a sensitive. A sensitive can be a psychic medium, like myself, or a physical medium, or a mental medium. Magic practitioners tend to be sensitive as a sort of side effect of what they do. To be more precise, practicing magic can “open” a person. Now what that means, to be opened, is not all people are born with their abilities, their sensitivities. Some people experience a phenomenon that “opens” them. Making them someone who can now perceive things they could not before. The different types of medium I described, these are only 3 types of abilities that a person can have, in reality, abilities that result from being open can manifest in many different ways. Some people are very receptive to perceiving their own past lives, or the past lives of others. Some people can have a combination of gifts. One of the things to realize is that we all have people who watch over us. It can be family members who have passed, or someone who has something significant in common with us, someone who can relate to us, so would know best how to guide us. These individuals are called Guides. They are with us always.

    Having explained all of this, I am going to tell you what most likely occurred based on having had similar experiences before. I cross over the dead and sometimes have to combat demons on a regular basis. So this is what I believe happened to you. I believe you came into close proximity to an extremely dangerous and malevolent entity, it may have been a demon or just a very dark ghost. Which ever it was, it was attempting to jump you, and apparently it was succeeding rather rapidly. Your Guides fought it off, by themselves temporarily taking control of you in order to evict it from you, and then walked you a safe distance away. Demons and malevolent spirits are often attached to a specific geographic region if they fail to attach to a living person. Then one of the Guides spoke to your mother, prompting her to go find you and even leading her to where you could be found. As I said I did not read through all the comments, but I am willing to bet that if you did not have any extraordinary experiences before this event, I am willing to bet you did after, and probably still do to this day. Weather or not you were open before this event, you would definitely have been open from that day on. If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail them to me.

    Anjilyn McBride anjilynmcbride67@gmail.com

    Reply
    • Thank you, Anjilyn. Those are very interesting ideas that I hadn’t considered before. My mom was a “sensitive” type, which I wrote about on this website, and I think I am as well, if to a lesser extent than she was. I had experiences before and since then — one very recently involving what I can only describe as demonic entities. This took place in the presence of two other adults, who witnessed exactly what I did. If not for their corroboration I might have thought I was hallucinating or mentally ill. This entity attack took place over several hours, two nights in a row in a very remote, forested region of the USA. And yes, they definitely seemed to be tied to this geographic area. I’ll email you about this.

      Thanks again for your insights. — John

      Reply
  18. John, I’ve previously posted of my missing time experience and have been spending time poking around various sites, and one recurring theme I frequently run across is the Rh negative blood type being associated with “enhanced” perceptiveness and being prone to odd phenomenon. It would be interesting to find out if this is indeed a factor or just a coincidence for those of us that have experienced the inexplicable. I am going for a routine checkup sometime soon and will inquire of my physician as to my own blood type and Rh factor and post it.

    Reply
  19. John,
    The other night I woke up at 4:30 am to use the bathroom and I notice that my 16 year old son and his 18 year old cousin were up. I can see from my bedroom door that his door was cracked open about 12 inches and I could see them both setting on his bed watching TV with the lights on. I was about ready to go see what they were doing but instead I went to the bathroom which is about five feet away from my bed. I was in the bathroom no more than three minutes and when I came out of the bathroom I notice that my sons light and TV were off, I yelled to my son and he said what he was sleeping and I asked him where is his cousin sleeping and he said he left an hour ago, I said that he could not of left an hour ago because I just seen them both not even 5 minutes ago. I grabbed my phone and looked at the time and it was 5:41 am. Somehow between the time I went to the bathroom and back it was approximately 1 hour. I USE TO ONLY LOOK AT MY PHONE FOR THE TIME WHEN I GOT UP AT NIGHT NOW I ALSO LOOK AT IT WHEN I GO BACK TO BED.

    Reply
  20. I too have had missing time-four hours the other night, then about 4 hours tonight. Nothing unexplainable–it’s only because time has flown reading all these posts! And John, your comments in response to each post are so articulate, caring and insightful. I have highly enjoyed reading each and every post.

    Reply
    • They contacted me to ask my permission to show my website during the movie and I agreed, but I never checked to see if it had been released or not. Cool! I’ll have to look for it. Thanks for letting me know!

      Reply
    • I found it online and forwarded it to the part with my website, but I really didn’t watch the movie. It looked pretty creepy, like something I’d enjoy. I’ll have to watch the whole thing this weekend.

      Thanks again for letting me know.

      Reply
  21. Hi John, it happened again. Got out of bed this morning at 5:20am. Routine, after preparing my day’s meal, checked our stove’s clock before hitting the shower. Says 5:28am. After getting out, before getting dressed, I checked the time from my wrist watch and expected to read 5:45am or so. It said 6:56am. Checked my phone’s clock, same. Oh my…!

    Didn’t bother telling anyone this time. Don’t want anyone thinking I’ve gone crazy. The time I shared my first encounter, my friends shared their opinions but I’m pretty sure they’re just sharing and the conversation with my wife about it didn’t end well.

    So yeah…just want to let you know.

    Reply
    • Jose — Thanks for telling me about it. Have you noticed any physical symptoms after it happened? Bad dreams the next night? I can understand that you don’t want to share this. People have difficulty accepting these things and it’s stressful to speak of it when you think people are judging you. Always glad to listen if you want to contact me at my email, john@theparanomalist.com. Good luck.

      Reply
  22. There where four points in my body that I felt light throbbing pain – two on the outer part of my left thigh, one at lower right abdomen and one at the back of my neck. Eventually went away that same morning. The whole day I felt sluggish, weak and really tired despite getting a good sleep the night before.

    Reply
    • Jose — There are often physical symptoms like this. Keep an eye out for any scars or rashes or unexplained bumps under but near the surface of the skin. If it has happened again the phenomenon may be gathering momentum. I’m not sure what advice I can offer to help you to stop it, but I’d keep track of the when, what, and how of these missing time experiences. You might want to keep a written journal to help you recall and maybe see certain patterns emerge as this (if this) continues to happen. I hope it does not, and if it does, I hope it doesn’t interfere with your life too much. If I learn anything new that I think will help, I’ll let you know.

      Reply
  23. First I want to say I say in 1968 I was 11 with several other people between when we saw something not of this world. That was never explained. I have had missing time but not really paid to much attention to it. What happened this past weekend I am now seeking answers.

    My husband, my sister and her husband left for Helen, Ga from Tampa at 8:45am. She brought breakfast and stopped for coffee at 10 am. At 1:20 we stopped before Macon, Ga for gas. My sister suggested we get a snack so we could eat at The Old Bavarian in Helen, Ga. We were about 2 and 1/2 hours out. We get back in the car and I am driving. We were on 441 on a very familiar route we have used since we were young. I remember wrapping up my chips that were left and handing them to my husband to put away. The next thing I know is I am pulled over in a parking spot that is in the same direction of the way we were going with my foot on the brake in a small town. My sister is turned around asking her husband if he was ok. I looked in the rearview and he was sitting up so straight but his head was hanging forward. Without lifting his head he said, “Yeah my head was just heavy”. We all laughed at that comment. My husband looked drowsy.

    My sister turned back around and held her hands up puzzled and asked,”Where are we”. I just sat there so confused. I had no idea how I had pulled off the road. My husband said his GPS said Alston, Ga. Then my sister really lost it when she saw the clock. It was 4:43. It was just 1:40 and we were on Hwy 441. My husband said we were over 4 hours away from Helen, Ga. We were all so confused. We only made it to Commerce,Ga 8:10 pm which is an hour away from Helen, Ga. It took us 12 hours to get to a place that should take 6 hours. I am a nurse, my husband is a regional manager for a very prominent company, my sister is a nurse with the same doctor for 28 years. We are not the type of people that would make things up. As we were trying to get back to 441 my sister said my face was swollen. My lips actually looked burnt- they looked bird like. The next day my sisters nose kept bleeding. My husbands nose was stuffed up. I went to the Dr. 4 days later and he said it looked like a steam burn and had no idea what it was (I did not tell him about the missing time) It has scabbed over now and is still sore. The inside of my mouth was swollen also. I have pictures. The four of us have no idea how we ended up hours away and do not remember anything from 1:40 to when my sister asked her husband what was wrong. Sheryl

    Reply
    • Hi Sherry — The fact that you had three other people with you and that you all suffered physical effects after your period of missing time is very compelling. It’s much easier to dismiss these things when they happen to a lone individual, but a lot harder to explain away when it happens to a group of people.

      I’m conservative in my thinking about these things, and I hate to jump to extreme conclusions. I try first to think of logical, scientific explanations when asked for my opinion about these reports (and I get a lot of them, so don’t think you’re alone in this), but it has become increasingly difficult to do so. Yours, and stories like yours, can only point to some sort of outside interference or manipulation — in my opinion. These sort of phenomena have been happening to more people than you’d probably expect, and often in broad daylight with others present, such as were the circumstances in your incident. Who or what is doing this and for what purpose is the question that needs to be answered. Otherworldly intelligences? Some sort of clandestine government program? I don’t know. What I do know is that it’s usually part of an ongoing pattern, so it isn’t a surprise to me that you had other missing time experiences.

      Dr. David Jacobs is preeminent researcher in the field, and his website is https://www.ufoabduction.com/. As his website name suggests, he’s of the opinion that these missing time experiences are of extraterrestrial nature. I don’t deny that some or all of them could, but I have received quite a few reports that don’t fit the “typical” UFO abduction scenario. Many involve missing time and quite a few are other types of time anomalies, such as time slips or time gain. Your experience does appear to typify that classic UFO abduction scenario, however. Again, I’m also reluctant to go there or even use the that phrase. I think it could be a part of a larger phenomenon that we have no idea of. People who undergo these time anomalies are often more sensitive and may have premonitions, precognitive dreams, or have experienced other strange or psychic phenomena. Perhaps this what attracts these “outside” entities to them.

      I have a lot of ideas about this, but no real answers. Slowly, as I receive more of these reports, I’m beginning to get a clearer picture of the puzzle and starting to see patterns emerge. No real answers as of yet though. I’ll keep you posted if any new insights come to mind, and feel free to contact me at john@theparanomalist.com if you have anything else you’d like to share. I hope I can help or at least act as a sounding board for your ideas. Good luck. — John

      Reply
  24. The following happened to me yesterday, on Tuesday, December 16, 2014. I’m 64 years old and I’ve never had anything like this happen before.

    I commute to work and back by primarily traveling three two-lane highway roads consisting of about 10 miles per road. I travel the first one; then, take a right onto the second one; and, finally a left to the final stretch of road. During this time of the year it’s dark coming and going to work, (I work four 10 hour days a week).

    Yesterday, I’m about to turn right onto my second leg. I look at my rear view mirror and see that there is a car traveling directly behind me. I reach my turn and make the right. The car that was directly behind me takes a left. I’m fixated at watching him through my rear view mirror. I notice that he turned, but did not continue down the road he entered, opposite of the road I’m traveling. He’s just sitting there, on the turn/corner. Later, upon reflection, I realize he had turned onto the left lane/side of this road, rather than onto the right/side lane, as is lawful. Additionally, another car pulls up beside this car and they appear to be just sitting there, side by side. I go around a curve and lose sight of them. I’m about a quarter of a mile from them.

    My next thought is, “Huh, there’s no cars out this morning.” No big deal. There’s always only few cars out at 6ish AM in the morning.

    This second leg of my commute goes through a farmland community with lots of open space. It’s peaceful with no activity other than the little bit of traffic traveling through.

    Suddenly, I don’t recognize where I am. There are houses and small businesses situated very close to the road. There’s also several cars going up and down the road.

    I’m rattled and asking myself what is going on. Where am I? I am saying out loud, “What the ____” over and over again and meaning it. Then, I begin recognizing that I’m on the last third of my commute. The last on of the three. Then, holy cow, I see a sign that tells me exactly where I am. I am literally 10 miles further than I was less than a minute ago.

    At this point I’m questioning my health. I’m scared. I thinking I’ve just had a major Alzheimer’s experience or a seizure. But, as I review what just happened I can recount every second of the last several seconds.

    Then, I get to work and go to punch “in” on the company time clock and notice I’m 15 minutes early. So, I traveled 30 miles in 20 minutes on rural back roads. This is impossible and has never happened before. My commute always takes 35 to 40 minutes one-way. On Tuesday, December 16, 2014, it took me 20 minutes.

    Now I am really rattled and can’t bring myself to speak of what just happened for fear my co-workers will think I’m crazy, seeking attention; or, that I’m old and have Alzheimer’s. So I say nothing and work all morning in my rattled state of mind.

    Finally, I have to tell someone. So, I compose an email to my son, daughter and husband detailing my experience in great detail so they’ll understand. I send the email and immediately begin waiting for a reply because I need to express/be heard so badly at this point. No response comes. Finally, I look in my sent mail and the email isn’t present. It disapeared. I contact my family members who confirm that they never received my email.

    This is what happened to me. Any speculations, support or comments will be greatly appreciated. My daughter has really been supportive and lead me to this site. My husband keeps saying, “Wow, I just don’t know what happened.”

    Reply
  25. Hi I’m 16 and never have I experienced anything like this before. This happened today.

    Dec 30
    Woke up 4am on alarm clock alarm not set off yet went to brush teeth took toothbrush back to bed went office came back with charger charge brush teeth went comp try fix daemon tools restart twice (40-50 min max up to this point) but felt more like 5-10 min. look at comp 7:34 look back at alarm and phone 7:36 am

    I woke up several times throughout the night one I remember at 2am with dreams but all relative to my life. School friends sports etc. not strange to wake up so early as I had an all nighter day before and went to bed early. What was strange was my alarm doesn’t go off until 5am so when I saw 4am I know my alarm didn’t go off yet. This is why when clock said 7:30 something I was shocked expecting it to be before 5am, as I didn’t once hear my alarm go off. No physical changes/scratches

    Reply
  26. Hi John, yesterday something happen that I’ve never thought of, nor did I know this site existed. I’m missing time between 9:34-10:02 am. I ran email phone call and texts to confirm the missing time. I’m visiting my son in Florida. I decided to go see a movie at 9:55 am. I planned to leave at 9:30. I left what I thought was right after a 9:32 email. I drove to the theatre, which is 10 mins away. Parked my car took my time, bought my ticket. Went into the movie. I remember looking at the car clock as :43. Never really paid attention to the hour. When I sat down I’m like, what the hell the movie is half way in it. Seeing the trailer I knew it was quite away into the movie. I looked at my phone and it was 10:47. While in the theatre I just figured I messed something up. Just chalked it up to ‘whatever’. Well driving back home it hit me something is wrong. It came to me I couldn’t of been an hour late, it just wasn’t possible. I took a piece of paper and did a time line. I checked all emails, texts and phone calls. At first thought it seemed simple, I left at 9:33 and something happened, who knows what. After detailing all the logs. This could sound confusing, but I never left at 9:33. Ok here goes. I texted my girlfriend at 8:47 to tell her I’m going to a movie at 9:55. I was leaving at 9:30. I called my friend at 9:27 for 37 seconds total call. I got his voicemail. I was getting ready to walk out the door for the movie. He called me back at 10:03 (didn’t even know the time until I went back to figure out what happen) we talked for 2 mins about an email he’s sending me. I received email at 10:13 (again didn’t know the time of email until later) and then he texted me did I get the email. I texted my son at 10:24 (again I didn’t know the time til I looked back at it) I look at the clock, I looked at the 2nd hand and saw it was on the half hour it was time to leave. I left and got to the movie an hour late. I wouldn’t even thought or known about missing 9:34-10:02 if I went anywhere other then to a movie. To sum this up, I left late because the 30 mins that are missing messed me up. I thought the half hour was coming up was 9:30 and because that missing half hour the half hour coming up was now 10:30 not 9:30. Not that all this makes since, heck I’m still trying to comprehend it. It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever felt.

    Reply
  27. My mom and I had started off for a hike in our local park. We had chose a trail we never had been on because it lead to an old grave yard we had never seen. It was very hot and buggy that day. We had reached the grave yard and rested for a bit, not more than 10 minutes and moved on. Nothing seemed odd at that time. Fast forward a year later. We decided on Halloween to take the same hike out to the same graveyard. Seemed like a good idea being Halloween. The problem began there.

    We followed what we perceived to be the same path we had took a year earlier. No graveyard. We followed the map, nothing. But the route we took back from the graveyard the summer before did not match the map. We couldn’t figure what had happened. We started comparing notes about the original hike. We realized something strange had happened. First, we came out of the woods on our original hike a mile from where we should have AND on the complete opposite side of the park. There is no way we could have come out where we did coming from the graveyard. Impossible. Also we realized a hike that took us a little over an hour and a half the second time took us over four and a half hours the first time. There is no way on the planet the original hike should have took that long.

    There are other strange things that we began to realize happened that made no sense, none. But the bottom line is we lost almost 2 hours and ended up a mile from where we should have been and on the complete opposite side of the park from where we started. There are “holes” in our memories we just can’t feel in. Blanks spots.

    We have been back out there several times trying, in vain, to piece together something that makes sense. We haven’t succeeded. I don’t know what happened to us but we both know something did.

    Reply
  28. I went on an under 35 coach tour of the South Island of New Zealand. Two odd incidents happened, the first was not lost time, but I’ll mention it briefly. I got into a conversation at one of the overnight coach stops with a young girl, she was about 19 and after exchanging the usual small talk I suddenly had a revelation. She was Roman Catholic, the youngest in the family, her father was in the building trades and she had three older brothers. She hadn’t told me any of this but over the next few minutes I found my perception was true, except for the fact that there were only two older brothers. Where this came from I don’t know. Cold reading?

    But the lost time was a few days later and it might seem a bit mundane. The tour ended in Wellington early in the afternoon and I was to fly back to Brisbane, Australia the following morning. Two sisters from Brisbane had been on the coach and were booked in the same hotel overnight and on the same plane. We wandered around Wellington together for a couple of hours, then around 5 pm we went back to the hotel where we had been booked in by the tour company for the last night in NZ. I agreed with the sisters that we would go out to dinner at 7 pm. They went to their room which was just around the corner of the corridor from mine.

    I closed the door, sat on the bed and took my shoes off. The next thing I knew they were knocking at the door, it was past 7 pm. I took a moment to put the shoes back on, slosh some water over my face and generally pull myself together. Then we went out for dinner.

    Here’s where it gets weird. We found a small restaurant near the hotel and I remember the meal coming. After that I recalled nothing at all, until I woke in the hotel the next morning. On the plane later that day, the sisters mentioned the restaurant and that it had been raining when we left it but I could not remember anything that had happened after we started eating. I have puzzled over this for years.

    I can account for crashing on the bed, fully dressed at 5 pm as the coach tour had been pretty much one long party but I can’t imagine why the meal in the restaurant almost entirely escaped memory, even the next day. Perhaps I wasn’t really awake and running on automatic!

    Reply
    • That certainly is odd, Trevor. I hate to immediately jump to the paranormal to explain odd an incident like this, so I suppose it could be a case of “running on automatic”, as you said. I think we’ve all done that to one degree or another, but it is very strange that you had no recollection of the dinner at all. Also that it cam on the heels of that clairvoyant-like intuition you had about the young lady. A connection, perhaps? I don’t know, but as I’ve mentioned many times, it seems that these missing time/time anomaly experiences are not isolated incidents. Much more often than not, people who have had these experiences have also had other unexplained happenings at least once in their lives — and often repeatedly throughout their lives. It may be other time-related & memory loss type of phenomena, although not necessarily. Sometime it’s clairvoyance or precognition, out-of-body experiences, ghost or spirit encounters, sightings of unexplained animals/creatures. — all sorts of things. This leads me to believe that folks who have these experiences might be more sensitive to the…unseen(for lack of a better way to put it) world. Have you had other strange experiences that are difficult to explain before or after this experience in New Zealand?

      Reply
  29. As I am quite young still I had a similar experience except instead of having any other experiences before the “waking up”. As all Teenagers do in this generation, I was playing a video game called Robocraft, kiddy game really. that’s besides the point. As I was editing my character/vehicle I seemed to have gotten out of my chair opened the door to leave the room and walk to the stairs and get half way up them. I didn’t really lose time I just seemed to lose consciousness and start walking around. I was indeed really tired but when I walked back to the computer to check what I’d done just to see random pieces of vehicle parts thrown around all over the place. I also was no longer tired afterwards, but it was such a short amount of time. This happened about two months ago. Thanks for reading. (Sorry for any grammar and/or spelling mistakes I used a phone to type this)

    Reply
  30. My entire family suffered a missing time experience. We were travelling at around 2 pm from Monterrey, Mexico to Houston, TX. At around 3 we stopped at a gas station/restaurant and around 3:30 pm we started driving to Laredo, TX. All of a sudden in a blink of an eye it was dark!!! As we arrived to Laredo, TX we realized the time was 845 pm or so, but it is only about 80 miles from the gas station and we were driving at 80 mph!!! 3,5 to 4 hours of our life simply vanished. We stopped in Laredo at another gas station and checked our cell phones and times, but the time simply was gone. We do not do drugs or anything, the time simply passed in a blink of an eye. We arrived to Houston around 3 am. We stayed up and simply looked at each other in disbelief… up to date we have no idea what happened.

    Reply
  31. Hi, Just discovered this forum whilst researching a case on the subject for a column that I write for Fortean Times each month. Wow. This is a superb collection of these accounts that I am so glad that you are all taking the time to document in here. It is very important you get this all on record in the hope that science might wake up and see what is going on beneath their half closed eyes. This really needs proper study as without question something important is going on that will revolutionise our understanding of temporal physics. So I must congratulate John for setting this site up and all of you for your great contributions. So far I have only read the first dozen or so cases (so I am still way back in 2010!) but I am really looking forward to spending a few weeks (no doubt) reading the rest and pondering the implications of what is happening to you all and your ideas on what it means. But – don’t worry – not for re-publication anywhere. This is a fascinating area of human experience that gets too little exposure. I have only had a few minor personal experiences that I could relate in this area – though they got me intrigued when they happened. I then studied physics at college and my tutors were having none of it back then, arguing it was all misperception, dream states and coincidence. Even though to me they were things that science ought to consider challenging and so be attempting to understand. Over the years I have met many people sharing their experiences with me and written several books either specifically about or that cover the subject. At first I researched this from a UFO perspective and have been involved in most of the major cases where missing time was reported in the UK since the first one we recorded 40 years ago. I have been lucky enough to travel the world in the past looking into these things and knew Budd Hopkins and gave papers at the in camera symposium on the subject of abductions and missing time organised by John Mack at MIT. However, I have come to have serious reservations about the data that emerges via hypnosis seeking to plug the missing time in UFO encounters and am not committed to the idea that these are alien abductions at all (though it is foolish to rule anything out at this stage). My approach has been to try to find a way to explain what is going on here via science, then, if that fails,by extending the known boundaries of science into areas that are possible but not yet proven. It may be that we need to go even further than this given how I have met so many fascinating people who have experienced mystifying anomalies that are very hard to categorise. However, start with what we know, move to what is possible as a result of what we know and then consider things that are well beyond what we know. That is how I was trained to do things at college years ago and most of the time it works. Though not always – and time anomalies are certainly something that puts these principles to the test. Which may be why so many scientists seem scared of the implications.

    Reply
    • Hi Jenny! Wow, I’m honored to know you’ve found my site and read my article and comments! I read your book, Time Storms a couple of years ago at the suggestion of my friend Patrick Huyghe of Anomalist Books and http://www.anomalist.com, and I thought it was just excellent. Very thoroughly researched and well written. As you read through the comments you’ll find that I’ve recommended reading Time Storms and have discussed it on several occasions. I am also reluctant to jump to the “alien abduction” hypothesis and have my reservations about hypnosis. I’m of the same mind that it’s better to look for rational, mainstream scientific explanations before considering the paranormal or extraterrestrial explanation or looking to exotic or unknown physical/temporal phenomena. Yet, there are just so many reports that I have received (and continue to receive) that seem defy rational explanations.

      I have had just a few that involved the glowing mists that you described in so many of the reports you discuss in your books, however. Some do seem to coincide with physical phenomena such as mists or glowing orbs, but others are simply blank spots in these peoples’ memories. At times they “wake up” or “come to” in a different location than they were at the time of their memory loss; at other times they’re in the same location or exact place. I’ve also received a fair number or reports involving time gain, which is very unusual. This often occurs to people who are driving their car, suffer a period of missing time, and find that they’ve covered a long distance in an impossibly short amount of time. So it would seem that the “missing time” phenomenon may be a subset of temporal phenomena in general. The number of accounts that I’ve received that involve any sort of UFO sighting or otherworldly entities have been very few.

      I’d love to keep in touch and share ideas about our findings! Please feel free to contact me at john@theparanomalist.com. Thanks so much for submitting your comment, Jenny! — John Carlson

      Reply
  32. Hi John. My experience of missing time is linked with the number 11:11 which have been seeing for the last two years. On December 3, 2014 I was sleeping and I woke up like other nights. I saw the clock that is on my table near me and I saw that the time was 1:11am. This surprised me a bit and decided to get up to go to the bathroom. I’m quite sure (because I was awake) I was in the bathroom two minutes. When I return to bed, I look at the clock and it was 2:43am. I missed 1 hour 32 minutes. I know I will not remain asleep in the bathroon because I remember everything I did. This is very disturbing to me because I find no explanation. Sometimes I can not sleep thinking abóut this and trying to find what happened to me.

    Reply
    • Mily — I’ve heard a bit about the 11:11 phenomena, but I’d have to read up on it to see if there’s any connection to missing time incidents. No one has previously reported that to me.

      Any other strange occurrences happening to you currently or in the past? I’m interested in hearing about your experiences, though I can’t say that I can provide you with any definitive answers.

      Reply
  33. Hi John. About seven years ago I had an episode of sleep paralysis. That morning, when I woke up I could not move. With great effort I could look at my husband who slept beside me. I tried to scream to wake him and could not. I tried to calm down, closed my eyes tightly and when opened could already move.
    Two years ago I started seeing 11:11 everywhere (clocks, building numbers, few times I put my GPS and the arrival time is 1:11 or 11:11exactly). I don’t know what it is, and the day of my missing time, as I told you in the last comment, I woke up at 1:11.
    I was searching in the internet and some people said that the 11:11 phenomenon is about spiritual awakening, celestial beings that want to communicate, etc.
    But i’m not sure if the 11:11 has to do with the missing time experience or if is just a coincidence or synchronicity.

    Reply
  34. Hi John, I have read some of the above comments & I am finally getting courage to write what happened to my sister & I on our way back on 81 South coming from Wilkes Barre Pa. It was Thankgiving day 11-27-2014 we were heading back home around 3:30pm & we were going to get off at the Mahanoy City exit. We were on 81 South & we were talking, my sister was driving in the passing lane all the way down 81 south, I say she was doing about 70-80 mph , all we both remember was going under a bridge that was marked 424 by the one Hazelton area which it was still light out & lots of trucks & cars around being she was passing them out, as soon as we went under the bridge, it was like a blink & next it seemed like it was almost dark like a amber color sky & it seemed very quiet, no cars around us. I look & here we see a sign that says 78 West, I said, OMG!!! How did we get here? I said to my sister get off the next exit & turn around…well we ended going to a gas station not far off from where we got off 78 which was in Jonestown Pa & I called my husband on my cell phone it was 5:05 pm, he said he was wondering where we are & not home yet. We were both in shock, we should of been home really by 4:15 pm How could this happen to us? So we re-drove it the next day around same time & we both said, we would of seen this or that after the bridge like we see now on or 2nd try…. so from Wilkes Barre to Hazelton bridge that was marked 424 it would of only taken around 20 minutes, so we left Wilkes Barre at 3:30pm till bridge it was around 3:50 pm give or take a few minutes…after that all time is lost until we hit 78 west. The trip from the bridge till the gas station is almost a hour drive. OMG! what happen to us, I will never forget this so unreal to tell someone. I now tell my husband if i have to go out & I am not back in a time to call my cell. I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but since this happened I see the clocks going 11:11, 3:33 or 5:55 like Mily above writes. My sister & I are in our early 50’s just want to mention.

    Reply
    • Hi Michelle — I live in northeastern NJ and I know the area you’re talking about. My family and I drove down south last year and came home via route 81 and 78. This particular scenario is reported to me fairly often: usually two (sometimes, but not usually, more) people in a car, both of whom have a missing time experience with no recollection of what occurred in the interim period. As I’ve often said, it’s much simpler to dismiss this as “highway hypnosis” when it happens to one individual driving alone; much more difficult to explain away when two or more people share the experience. Occasionally, it’s a time gain situation, where a very long distance is covered in an impossibly short amount of time. Nonetheless, a lot of folks tell me that they’ve undergone these anomalous time events while behind the wheel, though I don’t know why. Often it’s in broad daylight in a busy area, as opposed to the more commonly commonly envisioned scene of the person driving down the lonely country road late at night.

      If this is an intelligently orchestrated event, then it must be that whomever is carrying this out has the capability to manipulate time or our consciousness (or both), which is a pretty scary thought. The other possibility is that these time anomalies are caused by some natural event that causes time displacement or a temporal “hiccup”. I won’t even pretend that I have any clue about the physics involved in such a possibility, but we’re learning new things every day and I think it could be an explanation worth exploring. A very good book on the latter hypothesis is “Time Storms”, by Jenny Randles.

      And for the question that I always ask…have you and/or your sister had any other strange experiences? I’d be interested in learning if you have. Thanks for sharing your story. — John

      Reply
  35. Hi John, I have read some of the comments above & I am finally getting the courage to write what happened to my sister & I on our way back on 81 south coming home from Wilkes Barre Pa on Thanksgiving day 11-24-2014 we were heading back around 3:30pm & we were going to get off the Mahanoy City exit. We were heading down 81 South, I say my sister was doing about 70-80 mph, all we both remember was going under a bridge that was marked 424 by the one exit by Hazleton area which it was still light out & lots of trucks & cars around being she was passing them out, as soon as we went under the bridge, it was like a blink & next it seemed like it was almost dark like a amber color sky & it seemed very quiet, no cars around us. I look & here we see a sign that says 78 west.
    I said, OMG!!! How did we get here?
    I said to my sister get off at the next exit & turn around…..well we ended going to a gas station not far from the 78 West which the gas station was in Johnstown.
    I called my husband on my cell phone the time was 5:05 pm, I was telling him your not going to believe this what just happened to us, he said, I was wondering were you where & why you both aren’t here.
    We were both in shock, we should of been home by at least 4:15 – 4:20 pm at the latest.
    How could this of happened to us?
    So we re-drove it the next day from our starting point again. We both said, we should of seen this and that after that bridge 424 by Hazleton. Now it only took around 20 minutes from our starting point to the bridge so that time should of been around 3:50 pm give or take a few minutes…after that all time was lost till we hit 78 West. The trip from the bridge to the gas station is almost a hour drive away.
    OMG!!! What happened to us,
    So we don’t remember nothing from around 4 pm till 5 pm but end up a hour away down by 78 West with us both remembering nothing when we went under that bridge.
    My sister & I still talk about it & will never forget it, but since this has happened I always tell my husband if I am not back by a certain time to call my cell phone.
    We did check our body for marks but nothing, only thing I noticed after that happened just like Mily said above, I have been seeing so much of 11:11, 3:33 or 5:55… I really don’t know why it is happening now with the numbers too. Just want to mention my sister & I are in our early 50’s. When something like this happens too you it really shakes you up….God as my witness, it’s the truth.

    Reply
  36. Thanks John, No nothing that we have noticed since that has happened to us… but it scares you. I was too nervous to even write about it…but when I found your website here & started to read what others wrote I had to write here. Now will I tell anyone else no, because they will think were off our rocker. When & if I have to go under that bridge that is marked 424 by Hazelton I keep hoping nothing happens again at that spot Thanks

    Reply
    • Hi Mily. Yes, sorry for the slow reply. I always ask people if they’ve had other odd or unexplained experiences because more often than not, they have. It’s not always necessarily another missing time incident, but could be some other type of anomalous event, such as seeing a spirit, or having vivid or precognitive dreams, or seeing some kind of unknown animal or entity. Sometimes it’s a single experience and other times it’s a pattern of odd happenings that occur throughout their lives. This makes me believe that perhaps people like yourself who have these time anomalies or other repeated incidents of strangeness may be more…sensitive(?) and able to perceive the unknown, whereas most people are completely blind to it. And maybe these folks attract the attention of higher beings because of their perceptiveness. It’s just a thought, though I can tell you that it seems pretty rare that these missing time experiences are rarely singular events — at least among the people who have contacted me through this blog or by email (which at this point is quite a lot of people). These incidents seem rather to be a singular incident in a larger pattern of strangeness throughout their lives. I can cite quite a few examples of this from among the stories that I’ve received.

      Thanks for submitting your story and feel free to keep in touch. My email is john@theparanomalist.com.

      Reply
  37. Hi John, I have had a number of odd experiences in the last two or so years. The time lapse thing is what brought me to this sight, though. About two weeks ago, my three kids and I met my husband at my dad”s house for dinner. My husband works just a few miles from my dad’s house. So when we were leaving, about 9:30, we left in two vehicles, my boys and I were in the truck and my daughter and husband were in the car. They backed out first and headed in the opposite direction we normally go(there are two possible routes), and I decided to go the usual route.

    But I noticed my husband pulled into the church yard across the street. I remembered my dad said there was a tree fallen there which we could use for fire wood. So I drove very slowly waiting for him to catch up so we could drive the next 20 miles in view of one another. This route goes through town but most of the drive is through the country. I drove 15-20 mph for several miles waiting for him and never saw him. So, perplexed, I called him by cell and and asked where they were. They were over half way home, a few miles ahead of me. I was a little upset and thought I must have misunderstood.

    I arrived home after them, and after much discussion about possible deviations from the route, cannot come up with any explanation. However, we have experienced other odd phenomena at home. I do live in a 110 year old house and am surrounded by antique pre-owned items, which may have nothing at all to do with anything. But I have found ice cream in a bowl in my cabinet, my underwear removed from my dresser drawer and laid on the bed, a bouquet of flowers I was arranging became de-arranged and the water spilled out when I walked away for 3-5 min. and a scraping noise heard in the am regularly from my bedroom for several years.

    Then, just this past weekend, my husband and I were cleaning out the attic, which had been left as it was from the time we bought our house almost 10 years ago. We know that the very old large wooden box up there had been a transport box for, of all things, a casket for a small child who had once lived in the house. Family members of the original homeowners all agree about the box. For many years, it has held really old books. Anyway, we are cleaning up some things and finding neat little mementos left by the original owners. And for about 5 minutes we listened to loud noises like someone is moving really heavy furniture around.

    Like it could have been downstairs, but I knew my children could not be moving stuff, so I walked a few feet to the attic window and looked out at the street and saw nothing at all. The noise continued for a couple more minutes and it stopped. My daughter, downstairs, said she heard nothing. We just chalked it up to another of our weird experiences. The only other odd thing I can remember, which was very disturbing, was 30 years ago, when my, then boyfriend, said for several days that he was worried about my sister who lived 1200 miles away, We called her every day for several days and early on the fourth? day, I received a call that her husband had shot himself. Very sad. Anyway, I ended up here because of the time lapse and I had no idea how common these occurrences are! Thanks for all the comments!

    Reply
  38. John, I did forget to mention one important event. Five or six years ago, my husband was expecting a guest from out of town. They had been in business together for 20 years and I knew(the way some women know, i guess) that she had somewhat secretly always wanted him to remain unattached to another woman. Their business dissolved a few years after we married, though they remained friends. She had a granddaughter who was coming with her to visit us along with two daughters. The child and my daughter are close in age. The morning of their impending arrival, we made a trip to town about 20 miles away and on the way, I saw something I had never seen before or since. A large white rainbow in the sky. I asked my husband to go back so he could see it. He had never seen one either. I have to say, I immediately considered whether this could be an omen of some sort. My history with this woman had not been the best, though I had never, ever been mean or cruel toward her. My husband obviously cared for her as a friend and I was always fine with that. That being said, I don’t think she liked me all and I believed she hated me. So you can understand my mild apprehension about the visit. About the visit: the three women and the child had been at my home for maybe 20-30 min. and the adults went inside. My daughter had a 4-wheeler(live and learn! we very quickly disposed of it) and wanted to give the little girl a ride. My daughter has two older brothers who are mentally handicapped and has always been very mature for her age as she helps care for them. We allowed her to give them SLOW rides and she managed this very well. About 5 minutes went by and we went out to check on the girls and the guest child was crying and four wheeler was turned over. I heard moaning and finally saw my daughter, crawling on the ground and bloody. This is very painful to describe. Ultimately, we were responsible and I have had to deal with this. She lost front teeth, had broken both jaws, fractured skull, punctured eardrum, and a lacerated liver and front teeth went through her lower lip. But she lived through this event and, still, on top of all this, she’s a beautiful young lady! Just requires a little ongoing dental work. But she could not tell us what happened until about 2 weeks later she said it came to her. She was not even riding the vehicle. She was attempting to climb on and the other girl grabbed the handle and gunned it. The vehicle flipped and landed on my daughter’s head. The other child had a couple of scratches. I cannot say how all this makes me feel. After all is said and done, I can only wish that lady had never come to my home. I did research the white rainbow thing, and they do actually occur, but apparently not very often. And I don’t think I want to see another one. This lady has since died from cancer. According to my husband, the two of them had once agreed whoever died first, that one would try to contact the other. Don’t know if some of the odd occurrences have anything to do with her, since most of them have something to do with me. Just thought I would relate this one, too. Thanks.

    Reply
    • Caren — Sorry again for the slow response. That’s a very interesting story and it seems that the white rainbow (I’ve never before heard of one) may have been some sort of omen. I’m prone to premonitions and as I’ve gotten older I feel as if they’ve gotten stronger, or perhaps I’m learning to listen to them more than I did in my younger days. What an awful accident! I’m glad your daughter recovered from it so well. Did your husband attempt to contact her after she passed? I have mixed feelings about that sort of thing. Both my parents passed away in recent years and I’ve been somewhat tempted to look into it, but I don’t know that I will. It’s definitely forbidden in the Old Testament.

      Thanks again for sharing your experiences. Feel free to keep in touch! — John

      Reply
  39. I had a similar experience about ten years ago. I left my house at the usual time and walked to the train station as I do every morning to catch the train to work. I remember just observing that I was at the station without having any recollection of walking past a certain point. I was also 10 minutes early. A few years later, a colleague of mine related to me a similar incident that occurred to him that morning. He was at work an hour earlier than usual without any recollection of how he got there.

    Reply
  40. A few months ago I lost an hour and I have no idea how. I woke up to go to work at 7:30 and checked my clock which said 7:30, I left the house at 8:00 but when I walked into work my friend asked where I had been. I said what do you mean? Then she told me it was 9:30 not 8:30. I have no recollection of what happened.

    Reply
  41. To start with, I don’t believe in aliens, alien abductions etc.
    When I was in my teens maybe 15 ish?, probably in the late 1960s, I had an unusual experience and I thought I would share it.
    Basically it was bedtime, I laid on the bed and I blinked. It was then the next morning.
    We all know when we have been asleep, we toss and turn, have dreams, slowly wake up.
    I wasn’t unusually tired, it was a normal day. No drink or drugs. Normal time for bed.
    I simply blinked and I was astonished to see daylight. I felt fine and it has never happened since.
    I would be interested to know if anyone else has had a similar experience

    Reply
    • Kevin — Yes, I’ve received similar accounts from people. Time seems to pass instantaneously without explanation. It’s not unusual among the reports that I’ve gotten, though I don’t have an explanation for it. As I always ask, have you had other time-related or any kind of unexplained happenings in your life before or since this particular incident? Often these things are part of an ongoing pattern. — John

      Reply
  42. Hi i am happy to have found this blog, as i am trying to make sense of what has just happened to me it is April 10 2015 Friday at the moment. I have a place that i go to every Wednesday night, its a tradition i have held for years i always stop by my moms job before going to this place, to help her with a few things.i was walking my normal route and i also experienced a similar feeling while walking. things seemed odd but i didnt pay any attention to it. since i like to sing a long to my music the sky was a strange color like dusk it was 7pm Wednesday i know it was. but when i got to my moms job my sister happened to be there, i sat down next to her and quickly she said are you okay?? you dont seem like your doing well and i said i feel like out of place, she also mentioned to me how cold she was and i said what are you talking about its really hot meanwhile it was 40 degrees out, i didnt think much of all this. as i call my friend to tell him that i will be on way to my usual Wednesday routine. he laughs and says it was already Thursday night going into today friday? i could have sworn he was joking, i happened to have a watch and i checked it the the letters THU read clearly on my watch, all of a sudden i felt panic and a feeling i have never felt before its almost as if i just jumped through some portal and teleported into this time i checked my phone for the evidence trying to piece together pieces of things i remember and the dates dont match up at all, that same night time seemed to slow down and speed up my usual train ride only took 4 mins as opposed to 40 and i got home 4 hours earlier than i usually do. i have not slept since as i feel that i need to make up for all this lost time, as i try to make sense of it all… im glad that i am not alone out there with this, but i really want to figure this out my mind is in knots.

    Reply
    • Hi Sydnee – Are you saying that you lost an entire day? If so, that’s unusual (but not unheard of) in the reports that I receive. It’s usually between a few minutes and a few hours of missing time. A whole day is a lot! Also, the slowing down and speeding up of time that you seemed to have experienced is a new one to me. I’ve gotten more than a thousand of these and I don’t think I’ve come across that aspect of these time anomaly phenomena. Has anything like this happened to you before? Do you know if anyone in your family has a history of these experiences? Let me know if you would. — John

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  43. Mine is definately not the normal Time Lapse or Slip. Ever since I was a kid, I would go into these Blanks or traces. No idea where I went in them, all I know is when I came back, I would notice the clock had stopped. As I would stare at the clock for a few seconds and the second hand would begin to move again. I’ve had personal experiences of being in a large group of people sitting in a circle. I “black out” or “trance out”. I came back after the meeting and have no memory of anything that happened. I asked another person if I had “been in the group”, she said no, she hadn’t seen me. What is this?

    Reply
    • Hi Pamela,

      I wish I knew the cause of this, but I don’t. The four possible reasons would be:

      1) Mental – It’s a mistaken perception or the person who experiences these incidents simply “zones out” and doesn’t realize the passing of time. This of course doesn’t explain a lot of aspects of the phenomena.

      2) Physical/Natural – Meaning that it has something to do with the nature of time itself and the possibility that our concept of linear time isn’t always correct. Time might freeze, or loop back and repeat, or kind of “slip gears” between past and future. I’m not an expert on quantum physics, but some of the research in this field that I’ve read seems to support the idea, as well as a multi-dimensional universe.

      3) Personal – The victims of these time anomalies often experience them (and/or other paranormal phenomena) many times over, which would suggest that these are not freak, natural occurrences (which would sort of like being hit by lightning multiple times), but rather it has something to do with the individual. Are folks who have these experiences more sensitive to psychic and supernatural forces? The anecdotal evidence that I’ve gathered seems to suggest this. How/why this would cause missing time, time slips, time “freezes”, etc. is not something I can answer or even hypothesize at this point.

      4) Manipulative – In other words, experiencers such as yourself are being manipulated by someone or something (name your poison: aliens, angels, demons, secret government experiment). I kind of hate to go there because it seems to be the most extreme and far out suggestion, and I tend to first look to the most rational, mundane, real-world answer. But, having said that, many, many of the reports that I’ve received suggest that some sort of outside agency (not necessarily a governmental one) is at work. You’ll often see these missing time incidents occurring among family members and across multiple generations. That doesn’t seem coincidental, but instead suggests that it’s a targeted effort being carried out by…whomever or whatever. For people who believe this to be the case and who have written about it, there are a lot of theories as to why it’s going on. I’m sure you can find a lot of material on the subject if you look into it.

      What are your thoughts about it? Can you explain your experiences in a little more detail? I’m a little confused about some of it.

      Thanks,

      John

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  44. Hi John – I had a time slip of 5 hours when I was in the Army in Germany 1982. I was out on the town with my barracks mates in Russelshiem, Germany. I didn’t feel much like being in the bar, so I decided to take the train back to Weisbaden. (last run is 11:30PM) It was 9:00 PM when I bought the ticket.
    It is a straight run commuter train the travels between Frankfurt and Weisbaden and stops along the way at the various towns. However, after 9:00PM it becomes an express stopping only at the major platforms until after 11:30 then it only travels back and forth between Frankfurt and Weisbaden with no stops.
    I remember getting on the train at 9:15pm and it making all the stops in between (6 in total normally a 30 minute train ride) the stop just before Weisbaden train station is Weisbaden Ost. I remember the train pulling up to the platform and pulling away. At this time I was standing waiting to get off the next stop. The train pulls into the Weisbaden Train station, I notice that it seems very empty for a Friday Night. I look up at the clock and it is 2:30 AM and the last shuttle bus to Weisbaden Air Station is a 12:00 AM (had to take a cab)
    I have no idea where 5 hours had gone.

    The funny thing is that there was no one on the train when I got on or when I got off. I was the only passenger. and it was strange that for a Friday night there weren’t any people getting on or off the train at the stops when we stopped. When I got back to the barracks everyone was back, it turns out that they took the last train back at 11:30 and they didn’t see me on the car we usually take (the train has 5 cars and we always take the center one since it is right at the entrance to the platform.) To this day it was just like any ordinary ride from Russelshiem to Weisbaden but missing 5 hours of my life.
    I have experienced this one more time after it was more of a recollection issue.
    About 6 months after I got out of the Army, in my home town Rural Northern NY (near Canada) I was driving home one evening from my girlfriend’s house around 7:30 PM approximately 10 miles, I remember passing the huge rock-cut about half way home. Then my next recollection is, I’m shutting my car off in the driveway. It was also past 9:00 PM.
    No clue where I’ve been. Oh and I burned about a half tank of gas. Never had any other experience since. Being 52 now it still weighs heavy on me. I’ve been toying around with the idea of regression hypnosis but I’m afraid to find out what happened, but it seems like it’s something I have to know – Phil

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    • Phi — Another fascinating example of this weird phenomenon. Thanks for submitting your experiences. I too feel that it’s something I need to know, and maybe eventually will, but I have the same reticence about hypnosis. This is partially because I’m not sure if I trust its accuracy, and partly because I’m a little afraid at what I might remember. Something definitely happened to me while I was “out”, but I don’t know what — and that’s pretty disconcerting. A couple of years ago I got in with an old friend of mine whom I hadn’t been in touch with in many years and is now a psychologist. After chatting a few times he told me that I seemed like someone who suffered some kind of trauma and had PTSD. I thought that was odd thing to say because I don’t think I come across that way, but being a psychologist I suppose he picked up on some queues. I didn’t mention my missing time incident and I’m certain that he didn’t know about it. In fact, I later asked him if he’d read anything about it online and he told me that he had not. I do sometimes think that bringing it to the surface might exorcise some internal stress that I could be suffering on a subconscious level. Maybe there’s an upside to seeking treatment if you feel it’s a nagging issue.

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