Every now and then, people share unsettling accounts in which they suddenly find themselves in what appears to be a different time. These stories, often called time slips, describe moments when reality seems to bend, leaving people in places or situations that shouldn’t exist in their current time.
Unlike dreams or pure imagination, many who report time slips insist they are fully awake, aware, and often even with witnesses who experienced the same event or can attest that much time didn’t happen at all. What makes these stories so fascinating is not only the impossibility of the claims, but the details people seem to remember.
These stories continue to intrigue and unsettle anyone curious enough, but they remind us how little we truly understand about the world and time ourselves. And how capable people are of making stuff up.
1
Andrew Carlssin
A hoax about a man arrested for insider trading who said he was a time traveler.
2
John Titor
An internet forum user who claimed to be from the year 2036 warned of future wars and actually was right.
3
Rudolph Fentz
Although it was later debunked as an urban legend, there was the story of a 19th-century man appearing in Times Square in the 1950s.
4
Die Erwartete
Observers pointed out there was an iPhone or a smartphone-like object in a 1860 Austrian painting.
5
The impossible commute
After oversleeping and leaving home 20 minutes late, one person claims they somehow arrived at work 10 minutes early, cutting their usual 55-minute drive nearly in half. Even their mother confirmed the departure time.
6
Chaplin’s time traveller
A woman in film footage seemed to be speaking into a device like a cellphone, although it was 1928.
7
The missing 12 hours
After weeks of poor sleep, one person lay down, blinked, and found 12 hours had passed. They insist they didn’t simply sleep, as nothing in the room had shifted during the time.
8
Håkan Nordkvist
In 2006, a Swedish man claimed he met his older self after crawling under his sink.
9
The field of light
While driving, two friends saw a normally empty field lit up like a small sun. It went dark as they approached, and when they checked their phones, three hours had passed despite the encounter feeling only 30 seconds long.
10
The disappearing dual carriageway
After a late-night cinema trip, two friends drove along a familiar UK dual carriageway when the lights suddenly vanished and what seemed to be old cars drove past on their side as if it were a normal two-way road. Moments later, the road returned to its usual lit, divided layout, leaving both shaken by what they’d seen.
11
The cemetery encounter
At sunset in New Jersey, a visitor claims he saw five people in 1840s clothing gathered around a grave. One man in a top hat walked toward them, and the fear was so intense he fled before he reached him.
12
The Moberly–Jourdain incident
Two English women at Versailles claimed they slipped into the 18th century and saw Marie Antoinette.
13
The time travelling hipster
A man in a historic photo looked strikingly modern, wearing sunglasses and casual clothes.
14
The baby
A guy says he has this Kodachrome slide dated 1973 that shows him as a baby, despite being born in 1990. No one in the family could explain or identify it.
15
The vanishing gas station
On a road trip in Georgia, a traveler entered a gas station where all prices and packaging looked straight out of 1999–2000, with no modern warning labels or card readers. After leaving in shock, they could never find the station again, on maps or in person.
