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Time Or Dimensional Slips

Carl Grove said:
Well, there are two possible replies to this question.
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Only two ?

The empirical answer is that time slips are usually (not always) related to features of human geography -- a village, a garden, a house, a street, even a room. It is this fact, more than any other, that tends to point towards the virtual reality/glitch in the matrix kind of explanation. If this is the case, it would put time slips in a wider category of events.
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OK seems more likely than people strolling many millions of miles in a few paces, then back again without feeling shear forces etc.

The theoretical answer is that Einstein spent much of his early presentations of the theory of relativity completely undermining the Newtonian model of the universe, which involved an absolute physical framework and time that was everywhere the same. In such a universe time slips would indeed involve displacements in space as well as time such that the witness would find himself in the vacuum of space.

However, Einstein specifically denied that time was absolute, i.e. that events at location A and B could be said to be "simultaneous." So whereas Newtonian physics would have ruled time slips inadmissable, Einstein implies that they do not violate his relativistic model. (He has to do this in order to permit the distortions of time and space predicted by Relativity.) Time slips may seem unlikely, but so too do the predictions of Einstein's theory -- time slowing down when you move faster, space distorting around dense objects, things shrinking at high speeds etc.
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Einsteins relativity == the possibility of perfect to the inch translation of slips in space time is a huge fudge, which I'd not be able to be entertain.

In my memory Einstein didn't like such correlations, and did not believe information could travel outside normal channels, hence his distrust of entanglement etc.
 
" I'd like to see more of her."

I see what you did there.

Bit like me saying "I'd like to make love with Bettany again."
Not that I have made love with her. But it's not the first time I would have liked to.....
 
Carl Grove said:
I wonder if, in those cases where people have bought items in shops or had food or drinks in cafes or pubs, and were given change, that DNA might be recovered. I'm not sure how that might help except maybe in identifying the vendor and possibly finding him (if still alive) or his relations... We also have the cases where drivers have reportedly bought petrol which might be analysed for such things as lead content or other chemicals. Time Slip Forensics?
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Ha. Time Slip forensics? Well yes, I guess that's what we'd be looking at. We all want to find that holy grail level item from the past, to support the notion of a real Time Slip - Mr Squirrel's Envelopes or the Receipt from the Transdimensional Gas Station. But physical forensic level evidence on a person who had just been involved in what they believed to be a time slip experience could be invaluable.

I guess the problem with many of these experiences is that while to some they are odd experiences at the time to many it's not until much later that the person involved considers that they have been involved in a time slip.

The Avignon guys claim to have been confused/annoyed that they couldn't find the hotel again as they passed through on their way back to England. But it wasn't until the photos they believe that they took were not on the roll that they considered the time slip possibility.

Taking the kind of forensic samples for testing which could aid proving such a thing would ideally need to be taken on the same day as things originally occurred.

So unless you happen to be the kind of person to take regular samples of yourself for cataloging - which is worrisome in its own right - getting that level of evidence is unlikely.

Objects such as receipts or other things acquired during an experience are your best bet.


Roland Deschain said:
Pretty much 26 pages of no one really addressing the issue of how a slip in time doesn't put the alledgedly time travelling witness in the vacuum of space.

Where you are now isn't where you were yesterday, include earths rotation on its axis, it's orbit around the sun, the Suns orbit around the centre of the galaxy and the galaxy's divergence from the Big Bang. Stepping into the earths past also involvolves stepping millions of miles as well.

It's clearly not 'time slips' being talked about here.
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Quite probably not.

I'm still more of the opinion that what we're looking at here is some element of the past being conjured or replayed in the present. A moment in time frozen and preserved, which by some strange means has been repeated.

That doesn't explain the number of people who claim to have interacted directly with their 'time slip', of course. But it would not be implausible for the bulk of experiences.
 
The Timeslipped Convenience Store


Location: Seguin, Texas. USA.

Date: Summer 1975

Type: Type 4: A sharp realistic image, in which the witness is completely integrated; they can communicate with people around them, handle objects, and even purchase things.

Persons Involved: The brother of FTMB poster Ulalume

Number of Persons Involved: 1

Interactions:
  • Visual – Change in Environmental Appearance and/or attire of persons in the vicinity.
  • Physical – Interacting with Objects or Environment.
Source of Testimony: Posts #207, #215 and #315 in this very thread.

Description: In May 2016 Ulalume detailed an experience which her brother had had back in the mid 1970s:


This is how I remember the story being told, but I can also ask him for more details if you'd like. (Also, I misspoke in my post above, it was ten years the shop had not been there, though the time slip may have been 15 years into the past)

This happened while my brother was visiting home from college, so it would have been sometime between 1973 and 1977. Brother had been working with our dad outside of Seguin, Texas, and after they were done for the day, Dad decided to stop at his usual barbershop in town for a haircut.

My brother was eager to avoid having a haircut himself, so he told dad that he was going for a walk instead. Brother walked for a block or two, looking in shop windows, when he came across a sort of general store. Now, my brother is a serious comic book nerd, so I don't know if he spotted the rack of comic books through the window and that's what drew him in, or he just happened to walk in and find them. At any rate, that's the thing he really noticed in the shop, the comic books on the rack.

Because he was such a comic book nerd, he quickly realized that all the comics were all at least 15 years old. They didn't look old, there was no sign that the paper had aged, but they were all long out of date. Thinking he'd stumbled upon a treasure trove, he was excited, but as it happened, he didn't have any money with him at that moment. He resolved to return on payday, in two or three days time.

Payday came, and my brother went back to the shop - except there was no shop. Instead, it was a restaurant. Thinking he'd been confused, he retraced his steps and walked around every block in the neighborhood, but there was no sign of the place. He says he kept up the search for a good long while, because it was so strange - a shop doesn't just disappear. The only place it could have been was where the restaurant was now located, though, and finally he went inside and asked one of the employees how long the restaurant had been there. The employee told him it had been about 10 years.

I've asked my brother if he noticed anything else peculiar about the shop, and he said no, everything else seemed ordinary. He also said there was a clerk working inside, but there was nothing odd about their interactions, either.


Having posted this from memory, the following day Ulalume had the opportunity to raise the subject with her brother in person (mentioning some questions from other posters on the thread to him) and was able to publish the following clarifications from that conversation:


I happened to see my brother tonight, and quizzed him about the details. This is what he remembers:

He recalls it was Summer, probably 1975. It must have been mid-afternoon on a Wednesday, because he and dad had been at the cattle auction that morning. When the auction broke off for lunch, dad and brother went into town to the barbershop.

He says the shop was a small grocery store, the mom 'n pop type. It was on the corner, a free standing building, not attached to the others. He chose to go inside because he was just looking to kill time, but didn't want to wander too far, not knowing when dad would be finished. Inside, he remembers the place had wooden floors and wooden support beams. The only other thing he remembers, beside the comic/magazine rack, was an old fashioned soda machine next to the rack. (These would have been fairly rare in the 70's but not unheard of, especially in an old fashioned store).

He can't recall anything about the clerk or their interactions, only that nothing stood out as being strange about it.

Upon returning and finding a restaurant instead of a grocery store, he also asked the employee if they knew if there had ever been a grocery store in that place, but the employee said they didn't know.

He can't recall the name of the barber shop or store/restaurant, but can remember the location. He says the restaurant closed years ago, though. I'm pretty sure I can also remember the location of the barbershop, so the next time I have a chance, I'll pop over to Seguin and have a look. If I can get the address of the store/restaurant location, I can look at the public records and see what I can find.

BTW, while we did not live in Seguin, it was the next town over and our grandparents lived there, so it was not unfamiliar to us. Also, it's a smallish town (and was smaller then) so there wasn't too much room for confusion.


Notes:

In June 2016, Ulalume and her brother managed to identify the building in question using Google Streetview.


Good news, my brother has located the site of his time slip. The barbershop and adjacent buildings have been knocked down, but the grocery store/restaurant building still stands! It's now a Victory Outreach church, so it wouldn't be a good idea to enter it unless one actually wanted to be delivered from the Thug Life, but hey, we can see pictures from Google street view.
C:\Users\MARKRO~1\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.png


My brother did not take pictures when he was there yesterday, but did show me the location on the map. Since taking screenshots on this computer is more trouble than it's worth, I just snapped these pics of the screen with my camera. Any warping or strange appearance in the photos can be attributed to that.

(I've covered up the address and phone number because I figure the parishioners have enough troubles without me throwing their number up on the internet in connection with some weirdness.)


ulalume1.JPG


ulalume2.JPG


ulalume3.JPG



Ulalume also attempted some digging into records of the property:


I could not access the property records online without paying a fee, so couldn't check into previous owners as yet, but did find some basic real estate information. The place was built in 1960, listed as "general use" type property, and was marked as having an addition built on at some point. I'm assuming the added-on bit is the very front with the "outcry in the barrio" sign on it, judging from the style. The rest of the building has a flat roof, and on the right-hand side of the addition (and to the left of the door) you can see a window made of glass slats, the kind that are opened with a crank. This, as well as the odd placement of the door, indicates to me it probably was a small store once upon a time, as this was typical of the style back then.

If my brother did experience a time slip here, it must have been to a time when the shop was new.


Looking over the photos it is not hard to imagine it could have been used as convenience store in the past, a very small restaurant or as Ghost in the Machine suggested:

Or even that it was built over the site of an older building from, say, the 50s?
 
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CuriousIdent said:
Location: Seguin, Texas. USA.

Date: Summer 1975

Type: Type 4: A sharp realistic image, in which the witness is completely integrated; they can communicate with people around them, handle objects, and even purchase things.

Persons Involved: The brother of FTMB poster Ulalume

Number of Persons Involved: 1

Interactions:
  • Visual – Change in Environmental Appearance and/or attire of persons in the vicinity.
  • Physical – Interacting with Objects or Environment.
Source of Testimony: Posts #207, #215 and #315 in this very thread.

Description: In May 2016 Ulalume detailed an experience which her brother had had back in the mid 1970s:


This is how I remember the story being told, but I can also ask him for more details if you'd like. (Also, I misspoke in my post above, it was ten years the shop had not been there, though the time slip may have been 15 years into the past)

This happened while my brother was visiting home from college, so it would have been sometime between 1973 and 1977. Brother had been working with our dad outside of Seguin, Texas, and after they were done for the day, Dad decided to stop at his usual barbershop in town for a haircut.

My brother was eager to avoid having a haircut himself, so he told dad that he was going for a walk instead. Brother walked for a block or two, looking in shop windows, when he came across a sort of general store. Now, my brother is a serious comic book nerd, so I don't know if he spotted the rack of comic books through the window and that's what drew him in, or he just happened to walk in and find them. At any rate, that's the thing he really noticed in the shop, the comic books on the rack.

Because he was such a comic book nerd, he quickly realized that all the comics were all at least 15 years old. They didn't look old, there was no sign that the paper had aged, but they were all long out of date. Thinking he'd stumbled upon a treasure trove, he was excited, but as it happened, he didn't have any money with him at that moment. He resolved to return on payday, in two or three days time.

Payday came, and my brother went back to the shop - except there was no shop. Instead, it was a restaurant. Thinking he'd been confused, he retraced his steps and walked around every block in the neighborhood, but there was no sign of the place. He says he kept up the search for a good long while, because it was so strange - a shop doesn't just disappear. The only place it could have been was where the restaurant was now located, though, and finally he went inside and asked one of the employees how long the restaurant had been there. The employee told him it had been about 10 years.

I've asked my brother if he noticed anything else peculiar about the shop, and he said no, everything else seemed ordinary. He also said there was a clerk working inside, but there was nothing odd about their interactions, either.


Having posted this from memory, the following day Ulalume had the opportunity to raise the subject with her brother in person (mentioning some questions from other posters on the thread to him) and was able to publish the following clarifications from that conversation:


I happened to see my brother tonight, and quizzed him about the details. This is what he remembers:

He recalls it was Summer, probably 1975. It must have been mid-afternoon on a Wednesday, because he and dad had been at the cattle auction that morning. When the auction broke off for lunch, dad and brother went into town to the barbershop.

He says the shop was a small grocery store, the mom 'n pop type. It was on the corner, a free standing building, not attached to the others. He chose to go inside because he was just looking to kill time, but didn't want to wander too far, not knowing when dad would be finished. Inside, he remembers the place had wooden floors and wooden support beams. The only other thing he remembers, beside the comic/magazine rack, was an old fashioned soda machine next to the rack. (These would have been fairly rare in the 70's but not unheard of, especially in an old fashioned store).

He can't recall anything about the clerk or their interactions, only that nothing stood out as being strange about it.

Upon returning and finding a restaurant instead of a grocery store, he also asked the employee if they knew if there had ever been a grocery store in that place, but the employee said they didn't know.

He can't recall the name of the barber shop or store/restaurant, but can remember the location. He says the restaurant closed years ago, though. I'm pretty sure I can also remember the location of the barbershop, so the next time I have a chance, I'll pop over to Seguin and have a look. If I can get the address of the store/restaurant location, I can look at the public records and see what I can find.

BTW, while we did not live in Seguin, it was the next town over and our grandparents lived there, so it was not unfamiliar to us. Also, it's a smallish town (and was smaller then) so there wasn't too much room for confusion.


Notes:

In June 2016, Ulalume and her brother managed to identify the building in question using Google Streetview.


Good news, my brother has located the site of his time slip. The barbershop and adjacent buildings have been knocked down, but the grocery store/restaurant building still stands! It's now a Victory Outreach church, so it wouldn't be a good idea to enter it unless one actually wanted to be delivered from the Thug Life, but hey, we can see pictures from Google street view.
C:\Users\MARKRO~1\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.png


My brother did not take pictures when he was there yesterday, but did show me the location on the map. Since taking screenshots on this computer is more trouble than it's worth, I just snapped these pics of the screen with my camera. Any warping or strange appearance in the photos can be attributed to that.

(I've covered up the address and phone number because I figure the parishioners have enough troubles without me throwing their number up on the internet in connection with some weirdness.)


View attachment 7555

View attachment 7556

View attachment 7557


Ulalume also attempted some digging into records of the property:


I could not access the property records online without paying a fee, so couldn't check into previous owners as yet, but did find some basic real estate information. The place was built in 1960, listed as "general use" type property, and was marked as having an addition built on at some point. I'm assuming the added-on bit is the very front with the "outcry in the barrio" sign on it, judging from the style. The rest of the building has a flat roof, and on the right-hand side of the addition (and to the left of the door) you can see a window made of glass slats, the kind that are opened with a crank. This, as well as the odd placement of the door, indicates to me it probably was a small store once upon a time, as this was typical of the style back then.

If my brother did experience a time slip here, it must have been to a time when the shop was new.


Looking over the photos it is not hard to imagine it could have been used as convenience store in the past. Or a very small restaurant.
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Or even that it was built over the site of an older building from, say, the 50s?
 
Coal said:
Prove it.
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Obviously I can't "prove" anything of the sort. I don't suppose you could "prove" 99% of the phenomena that we deal with on Fortean Times. And, as we can see from past experience with subjects like "ghosts", "ESP," "UFOs," etc., evidence that some people regard as totally convincing, will always find detractors who want even higher degrees of "proof", degrees that nobody in human history has ever succeeded in reaching. There is a saying in the East that such people "would want wetter water."
I am not interested in proof -- I just want to find out, to my own satisfaction if nothing else, what time slips are! I think "time travel" is a good working hypothesis, you will prefer something else. "You pays your money" etc.
 
CuriousIdent said:
Ha. Time Slip forensics? Well yes, I guess that's what we'd be looking at. We all want to find that holy grail level item from the past, to support the notion of a real Time Slip - Mr Squirrel's Envelopes or the Receipt from the Transdimensional Gas Station. But physical forensic level evidence on a person who had just been involved in what they believed to be a time slip experience could be invaluable.

I guess the problem with many of these experiences is that while to some they are odd experiences at the time to many it's not until much later that the person involved considers that they have been involved in a time slip.

The Avignon guys claim to have been confused/annoyed that they couldn't find the hotel again as they passed through on their way back to England. But it wasn't until the photos they believe that they took were not on the roll that they considered the time slip possibility.

Taking the kind of forensic samples for testing which could aid proving such a thing would ideally need to be taken on the same day as things originally occurred.

So unless you happen to be the kind of person to take regular samples of yourself for cataloging - which is worrisome in its own right - getting that level of evidence is unlikely.

Objects such as receipts or other things acquired during an experience are your best bet.





Quite probably not.

I'm still more of the opinion that what we're looking at here is some element of the past being conjured or replayed in the present. A moment in time frozen and preserved, which by some strange means has been repeated.

That doesn't explain the number of people who claim to have interacted directly with their 'time slip', of course. But it would not be implausible for the bulk of experiences.
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You could make such an argument for maybe 75% of reports, those falling into categories 1-3. That would still leave the Type 4s unexplained. But I still think that whereas Type 1s do appear to be vague visionary experiences of the stone tape type, or maybe "retrocognition," the fact is that Types 2-4 do seem to demonstrate a progression towards a kind of time travel. We may never be able to "prove" this to anyone's satisfaction, at least until we learn enough to demonstrate it in the laboratory -- and I think Reddish's work does give us some clear pointers as to how we might do that.
 
I don't know if this counts as a time slip but when I was 11 years old I had a very detailed dream, It was so vivid that it was more like a memory of something that just happened than a dream. Fast forward almost a year later and I was waiting on my friends (who had recently moved out of town) and their mom to pick me up to go on an out of town trip with them. Now I had never been to the city that we were going and didn't know the people we would be staying with so it couldn't be a situation that was just similar to a previous trip. Anyways as we got closer to our destination I realized I had been here and done this before. As we pulled on to their cul de sac I knew the houses, the huge old oak tree with its towering branches, the old log sitting on the curb with grass growing around it and I knew there was going to be a note on their door explaining that they would be at restaurant down by the river waiting for us. Every detail from the houses, trees, cars and even the weather was just as I knew it would be yet I had never been here before. I have seldom talked about this and could never rationalize or make sense of it.
Cheers
 
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anros said:
I don't know if this counts as a time slip but when I was 11 years old I had a very detailed dream, It was so vivid that it was more like a memory of something that just happened than a dream. Fast forward almost a year later and I was waiting on my friends (who had recently moved out of town) and their mom to pick me up to go on an out of town trip with them. Now I had never been to the city that we were going and didn't know the people we would be staying with so it couldn't be a situation that was just similar to a previous trip. Anyways as we got closer to our destination I realized I had been here and done this before. As we pulled on to their cul de sac I knew the houses, the huge old oak tree with its towering branches, the old log sitting on the curb with grass growing around it and I knew there was going to be a note on their door explaining that they would be at restaurant down by the river waiting for us. Every detail from the houses, trees, cars and even the weather was just as I knew it would be yet I had never been here before. I have seldom talked about this and could never rationalize or make sense of it.
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Nice story and welcome to the FTMB.
 
anros said:
I don't know if this counts as a time slip but when I was 11 years old I had a very detailed dream, It was so vivid that it was more like a memory of something that just happened than a dream. Fast forward almost a year later and I was waiting on my friends (who had recently moved out of town) and their mom to pick me up to go on an out of town trip with them. Now I had never been to the city that we were going and didn't know the people we would be staying with so it couldn't be a situation that was just similar to a previous trip. Anyways as we got closer to our destination I realized I had been here and done this before. As we pulled on to their cul de sac I knew the houses, the huge old oak tree with its towering branches, the old log sitting on the curb with grass growing around it and I knew there was going to be a note on their door explaining that they would be at restaurant down by the river waiting for us. Every detail from the houses, trees, cars and even the weather was just as I knew it would be yet I had never been here before. I have seldom talked about this and could never rationalize or make sense of it.
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Seems like a classic dream premonition rather than a time slip, and an incredibly detailed one. Did you tell anyone at the time that you had dreamed about this? It would have been good if you had said, "They're waiting for us at a restaurant by the river" before you found the note on the door!
 
anros said:
I don't know if this counts as a time slip but when I was 11 years old I had a very detailed dream, It was so vivid that it was more like a memory of something that just happened than a dream. Fast forward almost a year later and I was waiting on my friends (who had recently moved out of town) and their mom to pick me up to go on an out of town trip with them. Now I had never been to the city that we were going and didn't know the people we would be staying with so it couldn't be a situation that was just similar to a previous trip. Anyways as we got closer to our destination I realized I had been here and done this before. As we pulled on to their cul de sac I knew the houses, the huge old oak tree with its towering branches, the old log sitting on the curb with grass growing around it and I knew there was going to be a note on their door explaining that they would be at restaurant down by the river waiting for us. Every detail from the houses, trees, cars and even the weather was just as I knew it would be yet I had never been here before. I have seldom talked about this and could never rationalize or make sense of it.
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That's a heck of a premonition. A very detailed one, too.

Welcome to the boards, anros. :)
 
Carl Grove said:
Obviously I can't "prove" anything of the sort. I don't suppose you could "prove" 99% of the phenomena that we deal with on Fortean Times. And, as we can see from past experience with subjects like "ghosts", "ESP," "UFOs," etc., evidence that some people regard as totally convincing, will always find detractors who want even higher degrees of "proof", degrees that nobody in human history has ever succeeded in reaching. There is a saying in the East that such people "would want wetter water."
I am not interested in proof -- I just want to find out, to my own satisfaction if nothing else, what time slips are! I think "time travel" is a good working hypothesis, you will prefer something else. "You pays your money" etc.
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Yeah, that's true you don't have to prove anything, I agree.

But postulating two possible hypotheses, that are eminently un-falsifiable and then dismissing a third option which could be falsified, with a figurative wave of the hand is at the very least motivated reasoning, and at worst is a sort of warped confirmation bias.

You suggest a third option is the view of a 'detractor'. I suggest that, someone who will consider all options on equal merit and on the basis of proper investigation, chose the best supported option as the most likely explanation, is not a 'detractor' but just a more open minded investigator.

In the end however, one can't justify calling it a 'time-slip' (that's theorising before the data surely?) based on two possible hypotheses which are nothing more that wild conjecture with a few sciencey words and make any claim to being anything other than an 'anthologist of interesting stories'.

On that basis perhaps the thread title ought to change to "Interesting stories about people who think they've seen some old-timey stuff? (But we're trying to work out why)"
 
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Phantom Cafe at Piccadilly Station:


Location: Piccadilly Circus Tube Station, London

Date: Summer 1981

Type:
  • Type 4: A sharp realistic image, in which the witness is completely integrated; they can communicate with people around them, handle objects, and even purchase things.
Persons Involved: DS poster Doll Feet (also known as NumberNine here on the FTMB), her boyfriend (at the time) and two strangers encountered by her.

Number of Persons Involved: 4

Interactions:
  • Visual – Change in Environmental Appearance and/or attire of persons in the vicinity.
  • Social – Speaking with another individual who vocally acknowledges or responds to subject's vocal comment.
  • Physical – Interacting with Objects or Environment.
  • Sensory –Subject tastes or consumes food or drink.
  • Auditory – Hearing a sudden change in the level of background noise in the area.

Source of Testimony: The thread What is the Creepiest thing to have ever Happened to you? at Digital Spy.

Description: To quote:

"Summer '81 I was in Piccadilly Circus and was quite distressed. A couple approached me, were sympathetic to what had happened and offered to take me for a coffee. We were right by a coffee shop but the woman said she knew a cafe in Piccadilly tube station so down we went, the entrance opposite The Regent Palace Hotel, and there was this little cafe tucked away right next to the stairs.

We were the only customers, there was a waitress in a pink gingham 50's costume and an old woman at one end behind a counter on which there was a strange Heath Robinson contraption made of copper. I couldn't work out what the hell it was, it stretched the length of the counter, and I felt very unnerved by the old woman who stared intently at me the whole time we were there. Everything about her seemed to be gray.

Something strange happened (sorry to be so vague but this is very personal) and I ran out of the cafe, up the stairs and straight into the arms of my boyfriend who I'd been looking for. The couple came out after me and the woman spoke to my boyfriend, said she was relieved I'd found him and commented on how odd the strange thing that had happened was.

A couple of years later I was in Piccadilly tube station with a friend and remembered the cafe, reflected on how I'd been up and down the stairs opposite The Regent Palace Hotel countless times and never so much as glanced at it, which was odd considering what had happened there. I asked the friend if he fancied a coffee and we headed for the cafe.

It wasn't there. He said there'd never been a cafe there and I argued that there had been, it must have been bricked over...until he pointed out that the wall tiles were original and had been there since the station was built.

We checked every entrance to the station even though I knew for a fact which entrance it had been next to. The only thing resembling a cafe was the snack bar in the ticket hall. I was so distressed that my friend stopped a guard and asked if there used to be a cafe down there. The guard said no."


Notes 1/2:

DS forum poster Phoenix Lazarus asked whether Doll Feet had actually consumed anything at the cafe:

"Not a flippant question, but did you actually get as far as ordering and consuming anything?"

To which Doll Feet replied she had ordered and consumed a coffee. Which very much marks this account as a physical interaction.


This 2011 post on Digital Spy – to the thread ‘What is the creepiest thing to have happened to you?’ – was prompted in response to a poster named Andie07, who had posted about a phantom steam engine which his friend claimed to have seen, after a station was closed for the night, on the London Underground. His friend worked for London Underground and Doll Feet (as she posted there) was hoping that Andie07’s friend might be able to confirm or deny the presence of a cafe at Piccadilly Circus tube station. Or to mention if he had ever heard of anybody experiencing anything similar.


Andie07 did ask his friend, and posted the following response:


"I have spoken to my friend and he asked (I hope I've got this right) is it the Coventry Street (could be Road) entrance? Does that mean anything to you? I know London by the landmarks rather than the road names. He said there is no cafe or coffee shop down there at the station. He is not aware of there ever being a shop there either but he is going to ask around when he goes back to work."


Doll Feet made it clear that this was the “the entrance on Glasshouse Street, opposite and to the (Regent's St) side of Boots/Wimpy.” And that “The cafe was literally next to the staircase, not in the hall itself.”

Andie07 returned later to add :


"Doll Feet, I spoke to my friend again. I had a bit more time with him today as I wasn't at work. We talked a bit more about the station and explained the layout.

When you enter the station via the steps (where the phantom coffee shop would be) it takes you to the ticket hall. On that level, there are a few shops like a dry cleaners, a key cutting place and he mentioned a coffee place which is more of a kiosk rather than a shop. There is no seating there at all. And he said in his thirty years of working on the underground there definitely has not been a coffee shop down the steps or on the ticket hall level, except for the kiosk.

But he did say that he has heard of accounts where shops, door and archways, etc being sighted where there is actually "nothing but a brick wall".

There's that sentence again."


The ‘returned to find nothing but a brick wall’ theme was somewhat of a running joke in this thread.

In a response to this Doll Feet did add the following extra detail:


"I will add one other detail just as an indication of how odd this whole situation was - my boyfriend had no idea I was in London looking for him. He wasn't at the address I was expecting him to be at and in fact was living in his car at the time. Being a naive small town girl I'd been wandering round with a photo of him asking if anyone knew him.

If I'd have run up those stairs a few seconds later I'd have missed him. I had about 10 minutes left before I needed to set off back to the coach station and my hometown hundreds of miles away because I'd run out of money. It wasn't entirely unexpected that he should be in the area as the address I'd had was nearby but with so many people in Piccadilly Circus either one of us could have been lost in the crowd in seconds.

I knew he was there before I left the cafe, it's the reason I was running."


Doll Feet elaborated on the sudden circumstance in a later post , in which she also mentioned experiencing a sudden change in the level of background noise during this experience. Something which was also experienced by her at-the-time boyfriend:


"I ran up the stairs and stopped dead because there was my boyfriend exactly where I knew he'd be several metres down Glasshouse St. He saw me and froze in shock as I was the last person he was expecting to see. We stood frozen like that for a good 10 or more seconds, for me because at the time I was experiencing 2 other very strange things simultaneously, one being that everything was completely silent. It wasn't just quiet, it was absolutely silent and yet just metres behind me was one of the busiest places in London, packed with traffic and crowds of people.

My natural impulse was to turn around and look at what had happened because it had to be something big for the whole of Piccadilly Circus to be silent, but I distinctly remember deciding against doing this. My boyfriend opened his arms and I ran to him. As he put his arms around me sound started up again.

Something happened later that day and culminated the next day leaving us very shaken. This prompted my boyfriend to say that actually something odd had happened to him the previous day. He said that when he glanced up and saw me standing there all sound had stopped, total, absolute silence, and hadn't started again until he put his arms around me. He said he hadn't mentioned it before because he thought I'd think he was mad. I told him me too.

He had asked me about what the woman told him about the odd thing that happened in the cafe but I hadn't mentioned the silence thing at all."



With regards to the cafe itself, DS forum poster Hogzilla floated the suggestion that – in reference to the 50s-esque attire of the woman serving - maybe Doll Feet had gotten confused over where the couple had led her. They pointed out the following cafe, with a 50s vibe to it, located just off Glasshouse Street:


"Doll Feet, this cafe was on Denman St which seems to come off Glasshouse St on Google maps. 50s interior. Probably the best 50s cafe sign I've ever seen! Wonder if you misremember the location just slightly? Apparently it closed in 2007.

http://www.urban75.org/london/piccadilly.html"

cafe1.jpg


cafe2.jpg



But Doll Feet was sure that this was not the case.


"No that's not it Hogzilla. I am certain about the location, the woman suggested it while we were standing next to a cafe at ground level. It was much smaller than that, and the only thing 50's about it was the waitress's outfit. But thanks for suggesting it as a possibility."
 
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Notes 2/2:


Doll Feet has been a member here since 2014, and posts as NumberNine. After her account was referred to in the Timeslip at Waterloo Station thread she dropped by to offer some clarification over a few things, in November of 2017.

She began by pointing out that the two people who took her to the cafe, in particular the woman who suggested it, were not (to her knowledge) 'together' as a couple. Though she had some other suspicions:


"Haven't been on here for a long time and surprised to see this has come up again.

No the couple didn't appear to know each other. The guy came over and commented that we were both beautiful. The Regent Palace Hotel is in Piccadilly Circus, so right next to Soho. With an opening line like that I suspect he thought we were prostitutes, although I was too naive to realize that at the time.

I've also had my suspicions that they were in fact together (they were of a similar appearance, olive-skinned, black hair) and scouting for runaways - which must have been exactly what I looked like sitting in a hotel lobby surrounded by carrier bags full of my stuff. But then that logic falters because she knew about the cafe that evidently didn't exist.

It did strike me as odd that she'd suggest a cafe in the tube station when there was a coffee shop right there in the hotel with windows onto the lobby, the perfect place to sit and watch for my boyfriend. I didn't like to point out that it would make more sense to sit in the coffee shop because this was an expensive hotel and my small town mentality thought it would be cheeky to reject the offer in what was presumably a cheap cafe and ask instead for coffee in an expensive coffee shop. I only had my fare to the coach station left so couldn't afford to buy coffee myself.

I declined the offer at first because there was only a short time left before I had to leave for my coach and I didn't want to miss him if he came to collect his mail.

It was the woman who suggested the obvious, leave him a note with reception saying where I was. I remember writing the note, it would have said "I'm in the cafe in Piccadilly Tube Station." So no confusion about the location at all, the Glasshouse St entrance to the tube being just metres across the road from the hotel's main entrance, so no leading me through streets while distressed. Outwardly I wouldn't have seemed distressed. I was just sitting quietly watching the main entrance when she approached me."


She did also clarify the ‘something strange’ happening, mentioned in her original Digital Spy post. That particular comment, and speculation as to why she had chosen not to detail it, had left several posters to go off on tangents of speculation as to why.


"I did see someone on another thread ask was mine the one where I'd implied that what happened in the cafe was too frightening to talk about, in a rather derisive way, but as Carl said in that thread, I've never claimed anything frightening happened in the cafe, only that it was personal.

It was underground, there were no windows but I did indeed "see" my boyfriend in the street above (as if on a tv screen in front of me, the street actually being behind me. It's not uncommon for me to perceive visual impressions about things as if on a tv screen), in the exact clothes he was in fact wearing. Simultaneously I had a very vivid impression (but didn't actually hear anything) of being told "He's here" and absolute certainty of his exact location to the inch, which was indeed where he was when I rounded the top of the steps, several meters down Glasshouse Street.

I didn't feel comfortable elaborating on this and a couple of other details in my original post on Digital Spy at that time. It's one thing describing objective observations, it's another claiming you've "Had a vision" or "I was told..." Sounds cringingly attention getting to me and it was one of the more (comparatively minor!) personal details I didn't want to expand on, especially on a non-paranormal site like DS, that unfortunately got blown out of proportion for no other reason than I wasn't forthcoming about it.

It was only necessary to mention that "Something happened..." at all to explain why I went from sitting drinking coffee to suddenly running out of the cafe and up the stairs to the street. The only frightening thing that happened in the cafe was the look of shock and fear on the couple's faces when I suddenly jumped up, leaned forward to grab my bags and shouted right in their faces "HE'S HERE! I'VE GOT TO GO!" I'd been monosyllabic in the cafe up until that point. They'd looked scared.

They'd followed me out and the woman approached us, the guy hanging back. She said she was relieved I'd found my boyfriend because she'd been worried about me. She commented on how strange it was that I'd known he was there and told him what had happened. Again this detail doesn't fit in with them possibly looking for runaways because surely they'd have steered clear once they saw I was with him."


The Glasshouse Street entrance to the Underground can be seen here:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5...4!1s97bJc2Q8fIv4hcTX1DELDA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

With the Regent Palace Hotel a really short distance behind it.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5...4!1s97bJc2Q8fIv4hcTX1DELDA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656


While NumberNine’s recollections of the Regent Palace Hotel as being relatively posh in 1981, it is fair to say that the hotel today has seen better days. I myself stayed there while on a university theatre trip back in autumn 1999. It was somewhat run down back then. FTMB poster Henry describes his experiences of staying there in the 1990s as:


“hotel by then was a pretty cheap joint, practically a dosshouse, bathrooms down the hall, phone reception to be escorted to the shower, popular with backpackers and stag doers, but i dug it “

The hotel finally closed its doors in 2006. While the entrance and frontage to the building on Glasshouse Street appear to have survived much of the hotel itself was bulldozed for redevelopment.


I did quiz NumberNine over the “strange Heath Robinson contraption made of copper” which she mentioned in her original account.

“The copper/metal contraption is something that still puzzles me. It was several feet in length, it ran the entire length of the counter which curved into a mirrored wall so gave the appearance of being semi-oval. I honestly couldn't say for certain how long it and the counter were, the length is the one thing that swims away from me whenever I try to focus on it. But there seemed to be a lot of cylinders/tanks and pipework in copper, bronze, brass tones. My impression is that it was in excess of 6ft long. The front of the counter couldn't have been less than 6ft (allow a couple of feet for a half door with hinged counter that might or might not have been there) and then it curved.

It was way too elaborate to be a water heater. It was like an extensive still, and was out of place because there wasn't a hint of anything else even remotely steampunk in there. It was otherwise just a cheap little cafe with bog standard pine furniture and a bare floor."


She also noted that there would have to have been a second room to the cafe:


"Something I remembered after I originally posted was that it wasn't just the one room, as I'd thought, the waitress went through a door next to the counter and came out with our coffee. I don't remember there being any snacks at all on the counter or if there was a till, just the contraption, the tinted mirror tiles and the old woman stuck in my memory."
 
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Sorry for splitting that last one in two. I hit the character limit. :)
 
CuriousIdent said:
Phantom Cafe at Piccadilly Station:


Location: Piccadilly Circus Tube Station, London

Date: Summer 1981

Type:
  • Type 4: A sharp realistic image, in which the witness is completely integrated; they can communicate with people around them, handle objects, and even purchase things.
Persons Involved: DS poster Doll Feet (also known as NumberNine here on the FTMB), her boyfriend (at the time) and two strangers encountered by her.

Number of Persons Involved: 4

Interactions:
  • Visual – Change in Environmental Appearance and/or attire of persons in the vicinity.
  • Social – Speaking with another individual who vocally acknowledges or responds to subject's vocal comment.
  • Physical – Interacting with Objects or Environment.
  • Sensory –Subject tastes or consumes food or drink.
  • Auditory – Hearing a sudden change in the level of background noise in the area.

Source of Testimony: The thread What is the Creepiest thing to have ever Happened to you? at Digital Spy.

Description: To quote:

"Summer '81 I was in Piccadilly Circus and was quite distressed. A couple approached me, were sympathetic to what had happened and offered to take me for a coffee. We were right by a coffee shop but the woman said she knew a cafe in Piccadilly tube station so down we went, the entrance opposite The Regent Palace Hotel, and there was this little cafe tucked away right next to the stairs.

We were the only customers, there was a waitress in a pink gingham 50's costume and an old woman at one end behind a counter on which there was a strange Heath Robinson contraption made of copper. I couldn't work out what the hell it was, it stretched the length of the counter, and I felt very unnerved by the old woman who stared intently at me the whole time we were there. Everything about her seemed to be gray.

Something strange happened (sorry to be so vague but this is very personal) and I ran out of the cafe, up the stairs and straight into the arms of my boyfriend who I'd been looking for. The couple came out after me and the woman spoke to my boyfriend, said she was relieved I'd found him and commented on how odd the strange thing that had happened was.

A couple of years later I was in Piccadilly tube station with a friend and remembered the cafe, reflected on how I'd been up and down the stairs opposite The Regent Palace Hotel countless times and never so much as glanced at it, which was odd considering what had happened there. I asked the friend if he fancied a coffee and we headed for the cafe.

It wasn't there. He said there'd never been a cafe there and I argued that there had been, it must have been bricked over...until he pointed out that the wall tiles were original and had been there since the station was built.

We checked every entrance to the station even though I knew for a fact which entrance it had been next to. The only thing resembling a cafe was the snack bar in the ticket hall. I was so distressed that my friend stopped a guard and asked if there used to be a cafe down there. The guard said no."


Notes 1/2:

DS forum poster Phoenix Lazarus asked whether Doll Feet had actually consumed anything at the cafe:

"Not a flippant question, but did you actually get as far as ordering and consuming anything?"

To which Doll Feet replied she had ordered and consumed a coffee. Which very much marks this account as a physical interaction.


This 2011 post on Digital Spy – to the thread ‘What is the creepiest thing to have happened to you?’ – was prompted in response to a poster named Andie07, who had posted about a phantom steam engine which his friend claimed to have seen, after a station was closed for the night, on the London Underground. His friend worked for London Underground and Doll Feet (as she posted there) was hoping that Andie07’s friend might be able to confirm or deny the presence of a cafe at Piccadilly Circus tube station. Or to mention if he had ever heard of anybody experiencing anything similar.


Andie07 did ask his friend, and posted the following response:


"I have spoken to my friend and he asked (I hope I've got this right) is it the Coventry Street (could be Road) entrance? Does that mean anything to you? I know London by the landmarks rather than the road names. He said there is no cafe or coffee shop down there at the station. He is not aware of there ever being a shop there either but he is going to ask around when he goes back to work."


Doll Feet made it clear that this was the “the entrance on Glasshouse Street, opposite and to the (Regent's St) side of Boots/Wimpy.” And that “The cafe was literally next to the staircase, not in the hall itself.”

Andie07 returned later to add :


"Doll Feet, I spoke to my friend again. I had a bit more time with him today as I wasn't at work. We talked a bit more about the station and explained the layout.

When you enter the station via the steps (where the phantom coffee shop would be) it takes you to the ticket hall. On that level, there are a few shops like a dry cleaners, a key cutting place and he mentioned a coffee place which is more of a kiosk rather than a shop. There is no seating there at all. And he said in his thirty years of working on the underground there definitely has not been a coffee shop down the steps or on the ticket hall level, except for the kiosk.

But he did say that he has heard of accounts where shops, door and archways, etc being sighted where there is actually "nothing but a brick wall".

There's that sentence again."


The ‘returned to find nothing but a brick wall’ theme was somewhat of a running joke in this thread.

In a response to this Doll Feet did add the following extra detail:


"I will add one other detail just as an indication of how odd this whole situation was - my boyfriend had no idea I was in London looking for him. He wasn't at the address I was expecting him to be at and in fact was living in his car at the time. Being a naive small town girl I'd been wandering round with a photo of him asking if anyone knew him.

If I'd have run up those stairs a few seconds later I'd have missed him. I had about 10 minutes left before I needed to set off back to the coach station and my hometown hundreds of miles away because I'd run out of money. It wasn't entirely unexpected that he should be in the area as the address I'd had was nearby but with so many people in Piccadilly Circus either one of us could have been lost in the crowd in seconds.

I knew he was there before I left the cafe, it's the reason I was running."


Doll Feet elaborated on the sudden circumstance in a later post , in which she also mentioned experiencing a sudden change in the level of background noise during this experience. Something which was also experienced by her at-the-time boyfriend:


"I ran up the stairs and stopped dead because there was my boyfriend exactly where I knew he'd be several metres down Glasshouse St. He saw me and froze in shock as I was the last person he was expecting to see. We stood frozen like that for a good 10 or more seconds, for me because at the time I was experiencing 2 other very strange things simultaneously, one being that everything was completely silent. It wasn't just quiet, it was absolutely silent and yet just metres behind me was one of the busiest places in London, packed with traffic and crowds of people.

My natural impulse was to turn around and look at what had happened because it had to be something big for the whole of Piccadilly Circus to be silent, but I distinctly remember deciding against doing this. My boyfriend opened his arms and I ran to him. As he put his arms around me sound started up again.

Something happened later that day and culminated the next day leaving us very shaken. This prompted my boyfriend to say that actually something odd had happened to him the previous day. He said that when he glanced up and saw me standing there all sound had stopped, total, absolute silence, and hadn't started again until he put his arms around me. He said he hadn't mentioned it before because he thought I'd think he was mad. I told him me too.

He had asked me about what the woman told him about the odd thing that happened in the cafe but I hadn't mentioned the silence thing at all."



With regards to the cafe itself, DS forum poster Hogzilla floated the suggestion that – in reference to the 50s-esque attire of the woman serving - maybe Doll Feet had gotten confused over where the couple had led her. They pointed out the following cafe, with a 50s vibe to it, located just off Glasshouse Street:


"Doll Feet, this cafe was on Denman St which seems to come off Glasshouse St on Google maps. 50s interior. Probably the best 50s cafe sign I've ever seen! Wonder if you misremember the location just slightly? Apparently it closed in 2007.

http://www.urban75.org/london/piccadilly.html"

View attachment 7579

View attachment 7580


But Doll Feet was sure that this was not the case.


"No that's not it Hogzilla. I am certain about the location, the woman suggested it while we were standing next to a cafe at ground level. It was much smaller than that, and the only thing 50's about it was the waitress's outfit. But thanks for suggesting it as a possibility."
Click to expand...


Years ago when I lived in London I used to go that cafe quite often ... they did a great full english breakfast and often on a Sunday in the pre-internet age I could found there with an enormous pile of breakfast before me while I perused the Sunday Times.
 
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XBergMann said:
Years ago when I lived in London I used to go that cafe quite often ... they did a great full english breakfast and often on a Sunday in the pre-internet age I could found there with an enormous pile of breakfast before me while I preused the Sunday Times.
Click to expand...

Hi XBergMann

Are you talking about New Piccadilly Cafe, here? Or the disappearing cafe near the Glasshouse Street exit from the Piccadilly Circus Tube?
 
CuriousIdent said:
Hi XBergMann

Are you talking about New Piccadilly Cafe, here? Or the disappearing cafe near the Glasshouse Street exit from the Piccadilly Circus Tube?
Click to expand...

Not the disappearing cafe ... as it had disappeared.

I was referring to the one in the photos that closed around 2007.

I used to go there in the 90s ... when I was young.

Nothing like a huge breakfast in the early hours of a Sunday Morning after a heavy night of West End clubbing and partying and a nice crisp fresh hot off the press Sunday Times to read
 
XBergMann said:
Not the disappearing cafe ... as it had disappeared.

I was referring to the one in the photos that closed around 2007.

I used to go there in the 90s ... when I was young.

Nothing like a huge breakfast in the early hours of a Sunday Morning after a heavy night of West End clubbing and partying and a nice crisp fresh hot off the press Sunday Times to read
Click to expand...


Ha. :) No problem.

Thought we'd got lucky for a second there...
 
Coal said:
Yeah, that's true you don't have to prove anything, I agree.

But postulating two possible hypotheses, that are eminently un-falsifiable and then dismissing a third option which could be falsified, with a figurative wave of the hand is at the very least motivated reasoning, and at worst is a sort of warped confirmation bias.

You suggest a third option is the view of a 'detractor'. I suggest that, someone who will consider all options on equal merit and on the basis of proper investigation, chose the best supported option as the most likely explanation, is not a 'detractor' but just a more open minded investigator.

In the end however, one can't justify calling it a 'time-slip' (that's theorising before the data surely?) based on two possible hypotheses which are nothing more that wild conjecture with a few sciencey words and make any claim to being anything other than an 'anthologist of interesting stories'.

On that basis perhaps the thread title ought to change to "Interesting stories about people who think they've seen some old-timey stuff? (But we're trying to work out why)"
Click to expand...
Perhaps you should start such a thread?
 
CuriousIdent said:
Phantom Cafe at Piccadilly Station:

Andie07 returned later to add :

"Doll Feet, I spoke to my friend again. I had a bit more time with him today as I wasn't at work. We talked a bit more about the station...

But he did say that he has heard of accounts where shops, door and archways, etc being sighted where there is actually "nothing but a brick wall".

There's that sentence again."


The ‘returned to find nothing but a brick wall’ theme was somewhat of a running joke in this thread.
Click to expand...

I was interested to read this account of Gary Numan's experience at Piccadilly Station. I sent a message via one of his pages to ask which exit this had happen at but didn't get a reply;

http://www.themortonreport.com/disc...-ghosts-when-you-go-to-see-ghost-the-musical/

Piccadilly Circus station itself may be haunted, according to none other than that pioneer of electronic music, Gary Numan. In interviews for the Independentnewspaper in early 2008, and later for Fortean Times magazine, Numan described a strange incident that happened to him in about 1975 when he was 17 years old.

As he and a friend got off the train at Piccadilly Circus the two of them were chatting about the band they were going to put together and automatically following the stream of passengers out of the station. Directly in front of them was a man wearing a hat and a long grey coat. When they reached the top of the escalator Numan and his friend followed the man around a corner to their left but after a few steps they came up against a solid wall.

"It looked as if the corridor we were in had been sealed countless years before," recalled Numan. "No sign of the man. We both checked with each other that we had been following the man and then realised that all the other passengers had gone. We ran as fast as we could out of the station."

To get an idea of what to look out for, check out the covers of Numan's Dance and I, Assassin albums, which feature the singer dressed as the man he saw.
 
NumberNine said:
I was interested to read this account of Gary Numan's experience at Piccadilly Station. I sent a message via one of his pages to ask which exit this had happen at but didn't get a reply;

http://www.themortonreport.com/disc...-ghosts-when-you-go-to-see-ghost-the-musical/

Piccadilly Circus station itself may be haunted, according to none other than that pioneer of electronic music, Gary Numan. In interviews for the Independentnewspaper in early 2008, and later for Fortean Times magazine, Numan described a strange incident that happened to him in about 1975 when he was 17 years old.

As he and a friend got off the train at Piccadilly Circus the two of them were chatting about the band they were going to put together and automatically following the stream of passengers out of the station. Directly in front of them was a man wearing a hat and a long grey coat. When they reached the top of the escalator Numan and his friend followed the man around a corner to their left but after a few steps they came up against a solid wall.

"It looked as if the corridor we were in had been sealed countless years before," recalled Numan. "No sign of the man. We both checked with each other that we had been following the man and then realised that all the other passengers had gone. We ran as fast as we could out of the station."

To get an idea of what to look out for, check out the covers of Numan's Dance and I, Assassin albums, which feature the singer dressed as the man he saw.
Click to expand...

Very interesting account, but "pioneer of electronic music" oh perlease!
He hadn't even been born when the pioneers of musique concrete started their experimentation, and was barely out of short trousers when the Krautrock pioneers picked up the baton!
 
NumberNine said:
I was interested to read this account of Gary Numan's experience at Piccadilly Station. I sent a message via one of his pages to ask which exit this had happen at but didn't get a reply;

http://www.themortonreport.com/disc...-ghosts-when-you-go-to-see-ghost-the-musical/

Piccadilly Circus station itself may be haunted, according to none other than that pioneer of electronic music, Gary Numan. In interviews for the Independentnewspaper in early 2008, and later for Fortean Times magazine, Numan described a strange incident that happened to him in about 1975 when he was 17 years old.

As he and a friend got off the train at Piccadilly Circus the two of them were chatting about the band they were going to put together and automatically following the stream of passengers out of the station. Directly in front of them was a man wearing a hat and a long grey coat. When they reached the top of the escalator Numan and his friend followed the man around a corner to their left but after a few steps they came up against a solid wall.

"It looked as if the corridor we were in had been sealed countless years before," recalled Numan. "No sign of the man. We both checked with each other that we had been following the man and then realised that all the other passengers had gone. We ran as fast as we could out of the station."

To get an idea of what to look out for, check out the covers of Numan's Dance and I, Assassin albums, which feature the singer dressed as the man he saw.
Click to expand...


Was just recounting this to my wife (a huge Numan fan) who was all, like 'Yeah, how have *you* not heard that story?'

Well, I hadn't. Obviously she had.

So that was the inspiration behind this look:

IMG_1931.JPG


IMG_1932.JPG


It may also be the inspiration for the lyrics:

"there's a man outside
in a long coat, grey hat, smoking a cigarette"

from Are Friends Electric?

Intriguing to know. And obviously something which stuck in Gary's mind (which is hardly surprising).

We have had some conversation on this thread over whether or not many traditional ghost encounters (especially those observed more than once, and which repeat a certain set of actions or gestures) might actually be some kind of example of a timeslip. That you're either seeing something from the past slipping forwards in time, or maybe something repalying something which has happened before.

I'll be honest in saying that I'm not certain one way or another, but it certainly makes for a fascinating story. And should any of us be travelling through Piccadilly Circus any time soon I'm sure we'll all be on the lookout for both an elusive cafe and a mant in a grey trench coat and trilby. :)
 
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