Parallel worlds continue to fascinate many people. The idea of interdimensional travel, after all, is a thrilling topic that involves quantum physics, mystery, and perhaps to some, a really active imagination. But until a widely-publicized experiment proves it, we’ll just have anecdotes from people who have experienced being transported to an alternate universe. Here are seven stories to keep you on the edge of your seat.
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Ong’s Hat
One day in the 1800s, legend has it that a man named Jacob Ong threw his hat into the sky and the hat got caught in a tree. It seems the owner never found it in the tangle of leaves and branches, but he did found a new place called Ong’s Hat in New Jersey through this experience.
The tale had inspired an alternate history in which two fired Princeton professors performed experiments on quantum physics and chaos theory in a facility. These two young scientists, twins Frank and Althea Dobbs, allegedly discovered an opening to alternate dimensions in Ong’s Hat, now a ghost town.
The siblings became part of the Institute of Chaos Studies, which pioneered a device that allowed interdimensional travel known simply as the Gate. It is said that the device was able to send one of its delinquent test subjects successfully to another dimension, to another reality apart from our own.
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Lerina Garcia
Ever complained about things being where they had always been? Then this story’s for you.
It stems from an email posted by a woman named Lerina Garcia on a website. Part of it claimed that she, the writer, had “jumped into a parallel universe”. Then 41-year-old Garcia said she woke up in the same room she had been in the last seven years. Going by her normal day, she dressed and drove to her company of 20 years.
Things started to be off when she arrived in the office. Her department was filled with people she didn’t know and her name wasn’t on any doors. Although nothing’s changed, she sensed something strange was happening. The fellow from her neighborhood whom she had been dating was not in his house – he could not be found! Her former boyfriend of seven years, whom she allegedly broke up with, was still with her. It’s as if nothing had happened that suggested their breakup.
All these details gone awry suggest Garcia might be troubled in the head, but she wrote that she might possibly be caught in an alternate reality.
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Gadianton Canyon
It was May 1972, around 10 PM. After spending Saturday at a rodeo in Pioche, four college girls were in a Chevy back to Southern Utah University. Upon crossing the Utah-Nevada state border, they reached a fork in the highway and turned left to Gadianton Canyon. Suddenly, the road’s pavement turned from black to white. The squad U-turned thinking they took the wrong path. But, instead of a desert, the scenery changed to rolling grain fields and ponderosa pines.
One of the girls also saw four egg-shaped automobiles with bright lights, hovering over and chasing them. That’s when they sped up, saw the road return to black, found themselves surrounded again by the desert, and finally, crashed into a creek.
The next morning they made it to Highway 56, where a state trooper found them. Hardly believable was the fact that their tire tracks halted 200 meters into the desert, yet they ended up three kilometers north of the highway. Their Chevy also lost a hubcap that was never located.
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The Mysterious Man of Taured
A man arrived at Tokyo International Airport one day in 1954. Upon checking in at the immigration counter, his identity was met with interrogation from the officer. It was not because his passport appeared inauthentic, but because it contained the information of his country of origin – Taured.
The man said it can be found between France and Spain, and had always been there for 1000 years. The map, however, showed the Principality of Andorra instead. His visa stamps corroborated with his claim of coming to Japan on business for five years already. Still, something was amiss.
He was then held in a hotel room until the officials arrive at clarifications. Two people stood guard at the door overnight. The next day, there was no trace of the man inside the room. Escape wasn’t possible as it would be a 15-story drop from the window. The all-out search for this mystery man yielded nothing as well.
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What If The Beatles Never Broke Up
What if there is a parallel world where the Fab Four is still making music, and John Lennon and George Harrison are still alive and kicking?
James Richards allegedly stumbled upon this world after he knocked himself unconscious over a rabbit hole in Del Puerto Canyon, California. He said he woke up in a room with a strange machine and a stranger, who introduced himself as Jonas. According to Jonas, he was working for an interdimensional travel agency and transported Richards to an alternative universe through the machine.
In this world, Richards found out, all members of the Beatles were still breathing and very much part of the scene. He even got a cassette tape of a Beatles album that was released in that world, but never on Earth. It’s called Everyday Chemistry, which he gladly shared on his website.
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Shadow People
Are they merely trickeries made by human eyes? What are these shadows – sometimes wispy or smoky, sometimes wearing a hat or a cloak, sometimes a man with only half a body, sometimes a figure running on its legs into closets and doors or through walls?
Someone shared an encounter on a site that collates shadow people-related stories. This person was 19 when she “spotted someone, plain as day, standing in the living room across me; I’d say about 10 feet away” form where she stood in the kitchen. This was, of course, a shadow figure. It was just shortly after midnight. While recovering with a glass of iced tea, she was spooked again by the same apparition, which now stood beside her. She screamed, and that probably woke her parents up in their New Jersey home.
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The Montauk Project
The Montauk Project was said to be based in the Montauk Airforce Station on Montauk, Long Island. It was born out of the success of the Philadelphia experiment, which was able to make USS Eldridge disappear, teleport to another dimension, and show up near a Norfolk coast in Virginia. That experiment wanted to test the possibility of a ship avoiding radar detection. Many members of the project were said to have died during the experiment while the rest lost their head. Despite the casualty, teleportation allegedly occurred.
Another group was formed, named the Montauk Project now, and was headed by Dr. John von Neumann. Experiments on mind control and interdimensional travel were said to show positive results, so a success report was sent to Congress. After fears of mass mind control, the Congress supposedly stopped funding the project and ordered the operations to halt.