When I was a Masters student in Liverpool in 1996, I deliberately walked the long way into the city centre from university every day.
It wasn’t superstition or paranoia. It was because I longed to experience the infamous Bold Street Time Slip.
A handful of people claim to have been strolling down this gently sloping thoroughfare only to be suddenly transported back to the 1950s.
Nicholas Lyndhurst in the BBC sitcom – he plays Gary Sparrow, a Londoner in the 1990s who is able to travel back in time to the same area during World War II
The Tarmac beneath their feet becomes cobbles, trainers and jeans are replaced with period clothing and the shop fronts become antiquated.
This is one of the most notorious time slip legends, not least because so many people claim to have experienced it.
But as the extraordinary letters from Mail readers show, time slips can seemingly happen anywhere and at any time. After reader Jeanette Kelly wrote in some weeks ago describing a time slip that she had experienced decades earlier, when a suburban London street suddenly morphed into an expanse of forest, the paper was inundated with readers sharing their own all-too-similar experiences.
So what is really going on when, in the blink of an eye, you find you’re no longer in the same decade, or even the same century? As a psychologist specialising in the paranormal — and someone who has spent more than three decades studying the subject — I have a few theories which might help decode the spooky stories detailed across these pages.
The archetypal time slip is when an individual perceives that they have ‘slipped’ into a different time period — essentially like involuntary time travel.
I’m going to propose four possible theories all rooted in scientific research and let you decide which best fits the mysterious cases you see before you. My first explanation rests on how fragile human perception really is.
Half a century of research into ‘perceptual psychology’ proves that perception is deeply affected by factors such as tiredness, hunger, fear, excitement — and even alcohol and prescription drugs.
Could time slips simply be hallucinations brought on by these factors? We all know that when you’re extremely tired, even sleep deprived, it becomes difficult to concentrate, listen, measure distances or recognise faces and places. Perhaps time slips are exaggerated examples of the same sensation. Remember, our perception is easily distorted — and never to be fully trusted.
My second theory is that time slips are caused by cognitive errors such as confirmation bias. In other words, when the brain convinces itself of whatever it wants to believe.
If you’re walking down the street, ‘see’ a lady in period clothing and perhaps subconsciously want to believe you’re in a time slip, the brain is very accomplished at filling out that picture for you.
That first visual stimulus — in this case the lady in period clothing — is what we call the ‘anchor’ upon which the greater illusion is constructed.
The third theory regards ‘altered states of consciousness’ (ASC). These typically occur naturally just as you’re falling asleep or waking up — when you are both dreaming and semi-conscious. The brain can quickly become confused and conflate dreams with reality.
It might not apply while walking down the street but if you’re lying in bed in that liminal moment between waking and sleeping, you can actually see your dreams play out in front of you as hallucinations.
This isn’t exclusive to sleep either, but can occur when doing mundane tasks such as driving or ironing. When the mind begins to day- dream, imagination can mix with reality.
Finally, time slips might be explained by electromagnetic fields. Research from Canadian academics shows that such energy fields can produce hallucinations by toying with signals in the brain.
Bold Street in Liverpool happens to be right above the centre of the city’s underground rail network. Perhaps the electronic signals from the railway are inducing hallucinations in the people walking above it?
Some people will tell you all my theories are wrong and insist that time slips are proof of time travel. If you’ve seen Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi film Interstellar — or even know your Einstein — you’ll be aware that time is not necessarily linear… and jumping between time periods can be achieved if only we can break out of our three-dimensional experience.
As an academic and a scientist, I’m sceptical of some of this. But I’m not a cynic.
Some say humanity is nowhere close to truly understanding the secrets of the universe, the power of the mind or the nature of our existence.
And what’s more, I’m sure no rational explanation will ever suffice for someone who’s experienced the terrifying sensation of slipping backwards in time.
Ciarán O’Keeffe is an Applied Psychologist and Parapsychologist and Head of School of Human & Social Sciences at Buckinghamshire New University.
‘Walking past our local war memorial, I was surrounded by market stalls and horses. I was in the 19th century’
A shepherd and his dog hold up traffic – a single motor vehicle – in early 20th century Lewes in East Sussex
Letter that started it all
I’m in my late 60s and 20 years ago, I was walking through some South-East London back streets (to get to my mum’s house) when suddenly the area looked different.
A large wall appeared in front of me with two old looking houses at each end that seemed to be empty. But the strange part is, over the wall was some kind of forest or woods, it looked dark and eerie.
There were no signs of wildlife or birds. I quickly ran back the other way as I was confused. Over the years, I have thought about it and the dimensions did not add up, a huge forest in little South-East London back streets which was never there before. I’ve read about time slips, maybe I was in one. Anyone else had an experience like mine?
JEANETTE KELLY, Wantage, Oxfordshire.
Lewes in East Sussex as it looks in 2024 with High Streets shops and a car-lined street – and no sheep
My town in a different era
Approximately six months ago, walking home from work, I stopped at our town’s war memorial to adjust my bag. People were coming and going. I looked up and still cannot comprehend what I saw — and have told no one until now.
Before me was a busy street still, but it was like a black-and-white picture. It was my town on a market day with stalls, handicrafts, horses, poultry hung on hooks, children running around. It was Portadown in a different time. Going by the dress, it was the 19th century.
In the blink of an eye, I was back in ‘normal time’. I have thought so many times about this and failed to come up with an answer.
NAME SUPPLIED, Portadown, Co. Armagh, N. Ireland.
Roundheads and Cavaliers
My father told me of his experience one night in the grounds of Burghley House, where he was convalescing during the war.
A sportsman and teetotaller, he nevertheless went out with a couple of friends to the village pub.
On their return, they were walking towards the main entrance when they suddenly heard hooves clattering and men shouting. They turned around to see two Cavalier horsemen hotly pursued by three Roundhead cavalrymen. This group passed by and then disappeared.
Dad said when they went into the house, a number of the men said that they looked as though they had seen a ghost! On relating the story, everyone believed it because they knew Dad didn’t drink.
JEANETTE MEYERS, Ashford, Kent.
Jeanette Meyer’s father saw two Cavalier horsemen hotly pursued by three Roundhead on the way home from the village pub cavalrymen
Tudor knees-up
I have been very reluctant to relate this story for fear of being regarded as ridiculous.
When I was 20, I was attending a wedding reception at an old church hall in the East End of London.
I left the party briefly and when I re-entered, I was met with a completely different function. It was a huge gathering of Tudor characters: some on a stage and lots of serving wenches carrying pitchers.
I recovered and found myself standing among the usual wedding party. Back then I was a modern young woman working in an office and as the mother of a nine-month-old baby, I was certainly not drunk.
Linda Kendall, Rayleigh, Essex.
Bookstalls on Shoreditch High Street, East London in the mid-1920s
Peckham High Street in South-East London
Bygone playtime
I had such an experience twice.
The first time was in 1951 when I was six years old. I had gone to visit friends who lived on a street with a row of shops and a back lane behind them.
As I turned into this lane I saw about a dozen children running about and playing. They wore the same sort of clothing as me. I was six years old and did not understand what was happening, but I did wonder where all these children came from.
I knocked on my friend’s door and his brother answered. I asked him about the children but he was non-committal. I had the impression he had seen them before.
The children had disappeared as strangely as they had appeared.
The second time was around the summer of 2014. I had just visited my doctor and was walking home down the same back lane — and suddenly there were the same children again.
I did not find it frightening, rather strange and interesting. I did hear that bombs fell in the area during World War II and wondered if the children were any part of that.
WILLIAM S ALEXANDER, Monkseaton, Tyne and Wear.
I drove past myself
About 20 years ago I was motoring down Whiteknights Road by Reading University when I saw my car coming towards me — with me in the driving seat.
The ‘other me’ and I stared in amazement at each other as we passed. The traffic conditions did not allow me to turn back and catch up with the other car.
I do not have any recollection of the experience had by the ‘other me’, although I frequently used that road in both directions.
MICAHEL McDONALD, Narberth, Pembrokeshire.
Caught our attention
I live next to a Roman garrison field where thousands of coins were found buried.
During lockdown when there were no planes, cars or people out and about, my son and I were in the garden and we both heard — at the same time — soldiers marching down the lane that runs alongside this field.
This could have been a time slip — or the return of spirits keen to make themselves known to us.
Mrs M. WHITMEY, Sherborne, Dorset.
Saga of our meal
About ten years ago, my husband, his brother and wife, and I were all driving to Manchester to visit the Coronation Street tour. We passed a sign for a nice-looking carvery. All four of us saw it and we thought it would be a good place to eat after the tour.
However, driving back down the same road a few hours later, there was no sign and the carvery simply wasn’t there.
We drove up and down the road three times but the carvery had just disappeared. So we had our meal in a nearby pub. We asked the staff about the carvery but no one had even heard of it. The only explanation we could come up with was a time slip.
JILL SIDDERS, Newington, Kent.
Glasto relics
I live in a village in Cornwall, and the first time I went over ‘The Beacon’ (a large hill near my house) I saw all sorts of strange people. I then discovered that The Beacon was an Iron Age hill fort.
Some years ago, a few friends and I went to Glastonbury and I saw Roman soldiers roaming around. A couple of us went up Glastonbury Tor and I saw the landscape as it was a couple of thousand years ago.
PAT POOLE, St Austell, Cornwall.
A vision in Versailles
I remember my late mother telling me about a time in the 1930s when she visited the Palace of Versailles in France.
She came across a group of lively people, the women dressed in long ballgowns and the men in powdered wigs.
The spectacle left my mother feeling shaken and disturbed. On enquiring about it, she was told that the group was ‘probably actors playing out a film scene’. She didn’t pursue the matter further, but she never forgot it.
J.WINCHESTER, Barnstaple, Devon.