Nick Redfern explores one of the most intriguing of all paranormal phenomena, incidents in which people apparently become immersed in another period of history.

Within the specific genre of science fiction, fantastic tales of time-travel to the far-flung future or to the distant pasta re ten-a-penny. From H.G. Wells seminal novel of 1895, The Time Machine, through the classic 1984 movie The Philadelphia Experiment, about an alleged time travel experiment in 1943, to today’s revamped Doctor Who, there is one thing such flights of fancy have in common: the journeys through time are all achieved through the use of highly advanced technology.

However, there are many reports on record of people who seem to have crossed the time-barrier entirely at random, and without the means of Sci-fi style technology.

One of the most famous examples of what some researchers think may have been a definitive Time Slip involved two British women: Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain, who firmly believed they had traveled through time while visiting the gardens of the Petit Trianon at Versailles, France.

It was August 10, 1901, when the pair paid a trip to the Palace of Versailles. While walking through the grounds, both Moberly and Jourdain were overcome by distinctly oppressive feelings of gloom and uneasiness. They would later claim to have met a wide variety of individuals, all garbed in 18th century clothing, and who they came to believe had been members of the court of none other than Marie Antoinette.

More controversially, the women said they saw a figure who may very well have been Marie Antoinette herself. Did Moberly and Jourdain really cross the time-barrier into centuries past? To this day, the story has as many believers as it does detractors. But there is one important factor of which to take careful note: their amazing story does not stand alone.

You can read the rest of this feature in Paranormal Magazine issue 38

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