For the Love of Truth - Weed Out Untruth

From time to time - quite often - we get requests to do a write-up on specific stories. Some of them are quite famous and oft-quoted on other similarly themed websites and blogs as "evidence" for dimensional anomalies- and their absence makes appear this blog woefully inadequate in terms of coverage of such material.

Of course we haven't covered yet all - or even most - of the reasonably well-documented stories of the kind (this blog is only a little hobby, not a life mission). But many famous stories of "time slips" haven't been covered here for the simple reason that, upon closer inspection, their sources appear to be dubious at best.

(We here have the great advantage of being able to read - and therefore, search in - quite a few Indo-European languages, so we do not rely on English-language material alone.)

Nevertheless, one of the original purposes of this blog was precisely to "unmask" urban legends or stories of the kind that are simply not factual, being fiction, or their facts have been misrepresented. 
In fact, we have discussed some of these stories in the past. Two notable examples are the stories of David Lang, Oliver Lurch & Co. and the famous story of Benjamin Bathurst's disappearance. (You can find more of these stories by searching the blog for the tag "possibly explained".)

But, in light of certain requests for "famous cases", we thought it might be a good time to collect a few of the stories that have been making the rounds, bouncing from website to website, with no shred of evidence that they were ever anything more than a figment of someone's overheated imagination.
We won't be discussing them; it's just a simple roll-call.

The Lincoln Tunnel (Jackson Wright) disappearance

The Stonehenge Hippies' disappearance

The Man from Taured  
(Featuring a mysterious man in Tokyo's airport, in 1954 or thereabouts.
Apparently it started as an anecdote in Paul Begg's Into Thin Air: People Who Disappeared, and then, by virtue of the mighty internet, it just took off.
We conducted a totally informal "research" with the help of a few Japanese friends, and apparently none of them could find any mention of the incident in the Japanese media... with the exception of a few forum posts that had been translated from the English versions. In other words, copy & paste strikes again. Even in Japanese.)
For other versions of basically the same story, see this forum post. 
They are also discussed in The Directory of possibilities

The French Hotel time-slip
(In truth, we cannot ascertain - nobody can - that this beloved story IS a hoax; however, there is simply no evidence of it being the truth, except the word of those who claim that it happened to them. For all we know, it could have been a joke that got out of hand. It happens more often than you might think.)


Here's a very, very simple rule of thumb to discern the veracity of a story. Search for it on the internet, then compare the wording of the results. If you see a story repeated in basically the same (often identical) wording over and over again, that's a big red flag. Copy & paste material is usually highly suspect. 
(Some cases, predating the internet, are found in very differently worded versions, simply because they first appeared in books and/or TV programmes. That alone does not necessarily signal authenticity; it simply signals better narrative skills in those who read books.
One such case is the famous French hotel story mentioned above.)

If you're truly interested in any given story, find it in reasonably respectable books about the subject - searching them (online) one by one, if necessary.
When you find a mention, look for the source referenced by the author. 
(A book with no reference notes - making it clear where exactly the material discussed came from, citing the publication and the page number  - is a book unworthy of your time and attention.)

After you have identified the source, try to verify the accuracy of the source itself. Often you will find that reference notes take you to ever earlier sources, because authors, naturally, borrow material from earlier authors. You have to find the original source - and then verify its credibility, if possible.

It takes time, yes - and considerable critical thinking.
That's research.

The benefits of such an approach should be self-evident, but weeding out falsehoods that obscure the beauty of real mysteries and smear the credibility of unorthodox lines of thought in general is not the least among them.


If you want to report a perceived dimensional anomaly, please do, but read this first.

Time and Consciousness: Two Faces of One Mystery

What, then, is time?

If no one ask of me, I know;

if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not.

St Augustine, The Confessions, book XI

(HIGHLY recommmended!)

A scholarly - highly readable - article by Gregory M. Nixon on the role that consciousness may (or may not) play in the human perception of time.
Love of philosophy (would that be philosophiophilia?) required.

Time and Consciousness: Two Faces of One Mystery

Because, let's face it, most of us here aren't really dreaming about mechanical time machines, are we? :-)

The Bohinj Triangle

Here's a "triangle" that is not really a triangle, but may be just as mysterious and perhaps dangerous  as the one purportedly devouring ships and planes in the Bermudas. It is the name the locals give to a densely wooded area covering about 40 - 50 km2 around the lake Bohinj (pron. BAW-Hin) in the heart of the Julian Alps, in Slovenia.

Unfortunately, there is very little information about the mysterious goings-on  to be found online, and practically none in languages other than Slovene. That means we can only offer you a very brief "briefing" on the place, based on what we know from reliable local sources. 

Apparently quite a few people have vanished in this area. Not really surprising considering the terrain: lots and lots of unpredictable twists and turns and holes in the ground, some possibly leading to subterranean caves, not to mention the extensive woods themselves. And it is significant that most of the vanished seem to have been visitors, i.e. people foreign to the area. But not all of them. Some were reputed to be very familiar with those woods.

And while the remains of some were found, years later (and in some cases unusually far away from the place they had been last seen), there seem to be quite a few cases where no trace of the vanished was ever found.
(Among the latter is - so far - a British minister, Rev. David Fox, who disappeared in 2008. There are much older disappearances that remain unsolved, with no leads or traces.)



Größere Kartenansicht

What caught my attention most of all was the following story. (It seems to be at least two decades old, possibly much older.)

A couple - husband and wife - were walking along a path in the woods. Suddenly they encountered a rock barring their way. They walked around it - the wife from one side and the husband from the other. In doing so the husband allegedly vanished into thin air. Just like that. According to his wife, he never emerged from the other side of the rock. 
Naturally the area was searched, but apparently no trace of the husband - or his remains - was ever found.

Does it sound familiar?
If you've been reading this blog, it must have rung a bell. Exactly the same is said to have happened in the famous case of Paula Welden's disapperance  in the "Bennington triangle", in Vermont, USA.

The Alps, as mountains in general, can be notoriously "voracious" when it comes to unsuspecting - and reckless - humans roaming around. (Read about the Untersberg if you dare.) 
But some disappearances truly are baffling.
Is there something in the composition of the rocks - their geo-magnetic forces, perhaps - that messes with people's minds and/or obstructs the search for them afterwards?
(Magnetic fields  can do such things. See Is it the fault lines' fault? for more on this.)

More on the possible causes for such phenomena on some other occasion.
Meanwhile, if you know specific stories of unexplained disappearances in this area, please do let us know.

This stone-faced pretty gal gazing languidly on the hikers below - a wonderful mimetolith that nature carved into the face of a mountain (Prisojnik) - is not actually visible from Bohinj, as far as I know, but it is so picturesque, and relatively nearby, that I just had to include it here. It is the so-called Heathen Maiden (Ajdovska deklica), and there is a legend attached to it. Of course. However, the legend transcends the scope of this blog.

If you want to report a perceived dimensional anomaly, please do, but read this first.

The Disappearing shop in Moscow

Here is a puzzling little story from one of our readers, J. K.
Enjoy.

This happened to my mother and a friend in the early 1980s, in Moscow, USSR. They went on a trip there with a group of other tourists. 

One day they fancied some fur hats, so they found a shop that sold them. My mother doesn't remember if she was told about it by a hotel receptionist (that's what she thinks) or somebody else told them about it. Anyway, they found a shop and bought some nice, cheap fur hats. 

That same afternoon or maybe the day after, soon thereafter in any case, they decided to go back and buy some more fur hats as gifts for friends and family, so they went back to the shop.  

The shop wasn't there. 

They walked the street up and down searching for the shop, they asked people, including a man standing on the doorway next to where the shop had been, but they were told there was no shop and there hadn't been one there for many years.

TBH, I don't think this was a timeslip but rather some fishy business in very fishy times in a very fishy country. But my mother still puzzles over this incident today.

Thank you, J. K.

What a lovely - and oddly amusing - story this is!

I must say, I agree with your "fishy" assessment. 

Assuming they didn't  mistake the street and the location of the shop, my first thought was: was it an illegal shop, perhaps - one that only operated  when they knew customers were coming? (The hotel receptionist could have informed the "shop" owner that customers were coming.)

But, as logical as this may seem, it does strike me as odd that such a highly risky operation could be performed - and in Moscow, of all places.

If any of our readers have an idea of what may have happened, please let us know what you think.

IF YOU LIKED THIS, YOU MIGHT LIKE:
Moving House
Have you seen this house?

Miss Morison's Ghosts

At last, you can watch - for the time being - the entire film based on the first story in this blog, the so-called "Moberly-Jourdain incident", starring Wendy Hiller and Hannah Gordon.

Enjoy.


EDIT (May 25, 2013):
Sorry, the video has been removed.
It was fun while it lasted, wasn't it?

However, do not miss our last post, The Disappearing Road, about another very real trip in slightly surreal circumstances. :)


EDIT (June 19, 2013):

Here's another version of the video (and there's a transcript available on Youtube).

Many, many thanks to G. J. for bringing it to my attention! :-)

EDIT (December 1st, 2013):

It's gone again - to "private" this time.


EDIT (August 15th, 2014): With many thanks to our reader, Patricia, who alerted us to it (see the comment below), here is the original book by Misses Moberly and Jourdain:

An Adventure,

with appendices and maps (1913)

The Disappearing Road

(HAPPY 5th ANNIVERSARY TO US!* 

Where does time go? :))

We don't usually borrow other people's stories. But from time to time we happen to find delightful stories, delightfully written.
Here is one of them - with a whole lot of extra goodies (comments) for good measure.
It happened to Michael Graeme, in 1981, between Windermere and Coniston, in the Lake District: the perfect place for romantic escapades out of time and space. (It is often mentioned as a "hotspot" of anomalies, possibly of geomagnetic origins; see, e.g., the video in Is it the fault lines' fault?)

In short: a road that should have been there because it was there in the past (marked on the roadmap) and was there in the future, suddenly was nowhere.

The Disappearing Road 

View Larger Map

This is not the first such occurrence to be noted in this blog. We've had  (see the links below) a disappearing road in Japan, Barbara's disappearing cottage, a wandering Georgian house, complete with flower beds and a frightened horse, and many others.
Michael Graeme's story only reaffirms the fact that you don't have to be a stupid-ignorant-senile-blind bat for such things to happen to you, as many self-styled "sceptics" (who are no such thing) would have you believe.

Enjoy the road... while it lasts. :)



* I've been kindly reminded that the anniversary was actually on the 7th... 
All right then: happy 5-and-7/365-th anniversary to us.



IF YOU LIKED THIS, YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:

The Long Way Home

Moving House

Have You Seen This House?



If you want to report a perceived dimensional anomaly, please do, but read this first.

First multiverse created... in a lab

That's right. That's what scientists from the University of Maryland, College Park and Towson University are reporting.

You can read about it here:

PHYSICISTS CREATE WORLD'S FIRST MULTI-VERSE

No time to comment right now - too busy creating multi-verses of our own.
(And I am not even kidding.)
But we'll be back.

I hope. :)

Meanwhile, make sure you read the comments, too. 
Most of them are considerably better than the article itself.

The 33 Cosmic Portals

This information comes from Diana Cooper's book 2012 and Beyond: An Invitation to Meet the Challenges and Opportunities Ahead.
We have no opinion on the information presented in this book, so don't ask us about it. (Although you are, as ever, welcome to comment on it. Politely, of course.)

1.  ATLANTIS. The portal is already opening. (As of 2009, when the book was published.)

2.  LEMURIA. Already opening in Hawaii, activating "the great crystal of Lemuria".

3.  HOLLOW EARTH. A portal in the centre of the world; it "will profoundly affect the leylines". It is supposed to be "an elongated oval in the U.S.A. covering Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and southern North Dakota". It will "reach its full glory" in 2035.

4.  MU. A portal in the Pacific ocean. Closed until 2012, when it supposedly reopened.

5.  ULURU (AKA Ayers Rock), Australia. Opened in 2012.

6. FIJI. Opened in 2012.

7.  SEDONA, U.S.A. Opened in 2012.

8.  The BERMUDA TRIANGLE. Sometimes closed, sometimes open.

9.  BANFF, Canada. Opened in 2012.

10.  ALASKA, the Arctic. Opened in 2012.

11. The SOUTH POLE. Opened in 2012.

12. Mayan settlement in HONDURAS. "Already opening" (as of 2009).

13. PERU (all of it). Opened in 2012.

14. MALI. Opened in 2012.

15. The SPHINX at Giza, Egypt. Opened in 2012.

16. MESOPOTAMIA. "Opening after 2012".

17. The SOURCE OF THE GANGES, India. "Ready to open in 2012".
(N.B. The Ganges has at least two sources: the Gangotri glacier and the Satopanth glacier.)

18. VARANASI (AKA Benares), India. "Beginning to open now" (as of 2009).

19. MANILA, the Philippines. Opened in 2012.

20. MONGOLIA. Opened in 2012.

21. ANGKOR WAT, Cambodia. "Slumbering" as of 2009 and preparing to open"before 2012".

22. The SILK ROAD. Opened in 2012.

23. WUHAM, eastern China. "Opening in the period from 2012 to 2014".

24. ANSI, northern China. Opened in 2012.

25. YORK, Great Britain. Supposed to be a "huge portal"; opened in 2012.

26. ANDORRA. Opened in 2012.

27. Underwater portal off the coast of MARSEILLES, France. Opening "soon after 2012".

28. OMSK, the Urals, Russia. Opened in 2012.

29. SIBERIA. Opened in 2012.

30. AGATA, northern Russia. Opened in 2012.

31. OPALA, Kamchatka, Russia. Opening in 2014.

32. CHEN mountain, the Kerkeyansk range, Russia. "Already beginning to open" (as of 2009).

33. NORTH POLE, Antarctic. "Beginning to open now" (as of 2009).

All these portals, except the Hollow Earth one, will "rest after a few years" and then re-open. For more information about them, as well as other "sacred" points, see the book.

If you live in any of the areas, or have recently visited any of the places listed above, do give us your impression of what, if anything, is going on.

If you are interested in the actually demonstrated "portals", as the NASA itself calls them, you may want to read this: About those magnetic portals...