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Why The 'Case of Kersey Village' Was An Impressive Time-Slip (Suffolk 1957)

So, are we not sure of the day?

To the extent we're 'sure' of anything, the day was a Sunday.

We don't know the date - i.e., which Sunday in October 1957 was the day of the incident.
 
..So, are we not sure of the day?..

Why should we not be sure of the day ?

INT21
 
To the extent we're 'sure' of anything, the day was a Sunday.

We don't know the date - i.e., which Sunday in October 1957 was the day of the incident.

I see, (and INT21) I wasn't sure there if the day as well as the time had been surmised by the bells and their corresponding to a Sunday service.

EnolaGia, have you read the book? I'm wondering if we know which direction they went in after leaving the village.
 
Well, they only noticed it was 'unnaturally silent and quiet with nobody about' before they drank. They sat and drank from the stream and then started to notice oddness about the village and went around peering in windows. Offhand, I can only really think of chloroflurocarbons, which can be waterborne and cause disorientation, but there could well be others, especially given the timeframe (autumn, pre-harvest pesticides may have been in run-off and in 1950's wouldn't have been subject to the stringent controls of today).
 
Well, they only noticed it was 'unnaturally silent and quiet with nobody about' before they drank. They sat and drank from the stream and then started to notice oddness about the village and went around peering in windows. Offhand, I can only really think of chloroflurocarbons, which can be waterborne and cause disorientation, but there could well be others, especially given the timeframe (autumn, pre-harvest pesticides may have been in run-off and in 1950's wouldn't have been subject to the stringent controls of today).

Personally, I'm not sure that that's when they reported the strangeness as starting. But in any case I'd still say that the most simple explanation is that nothing particularly objectively strange happened that day. Remember this whole business came to light 30 years later, and then when one of them contacted the other and then McKenzie. Which to me indicates that he may have had an interest in promoting his experience as paranormal. Equally it might not.
 
I see, (and INT21) I wasn't sure there if the day as well as the time had been surmised by the bells and their corresponding to a Sunday service.

OK - I see ... The day's being a Sunday is specifically stated in all the accounts I've seen, so I don't believe the Sunday attribution was presumptively projected on the basis of the bell ringing.

On the other hand, the bell ringing (in turn ... ) seems to be the primary reason some accounts presume the boys' Kersey visit occurred circa 1100 - 1200 on whatever Sunday it was.


EnolaGia, have you read the book? I'm wondering if we know which direction they went in after leaving the village.

I'm not sure. I believe it was among the books lost (along with the rest of my library) in a 2013 fire. If I had it, I would probably have read it circa 15 - 18 years ago.

I've seen only one account that specifies their exit point and direction, and it states they hurried into the fields to the west of the village. Their exit point into these fields would seem to have been somewhere north of the ford / splash.
 
Remember this whole business came to light 30 years later, and then when one of them contacted the other and then McKenzie.
They reported something strange had happened to their superior officers later that day.
This is in the Mike Dash account, will post link tomorrow if required.
 
They reported something strange had happened to their superior officers later that day.
This is in the Mike Dash account, will post link tomorrow if required.

Do you mean that there's a separate contemporary account, or that the accounts given to McKenzie describe their giving a report to their supervisors on their return.

I'd read that they reported it on their return, but that whoever they reported it to laughed and confirmed they'd been to Kersey.
 
DP,

A link ! Please do.

INT21
 
Do you mean that there's a separate contemporary account, or that the accounts given to McKenzie describe their giving a report to their supervisors on their return.

I'm not aware there are any contemporary (1957) records of the exercise or what these 3 boys reported.


I'd read that they reported it on their return, but that whoever they reported it to laughed and confirmed they'd been to Kersey.

Yes - with varying degrees of detail, multiple accounts claim the boys related having run into weirdness and the key listeners concluding they'd been to Kersey village and satisfied the exercise's intended requirements.

The accounts differ, however, on what those intended requirements were. Some describe the Sunday jaunt as a navigational exercise, and that's all that's mentioned. Some state the boys were supposed to return in X (usually 5) hours and report all they'd observed. Some frame it as if Kersey were the specific objective they'd been assigned to visit.
 
That's a good point ...

It's unclear from the various accounts precisely when and where they took some water. Not all the retellings state they took water from the stream, and there was a public water pump in the central village area (though not on the main lane, so far as I can tell).

The main counterargument would concern the timeframe. There aren't many pollutants one could ingest in water that would put you in a notable biochemical / psychological funk in less than 20 - 30 minutes. If one accepts the relative sequence of events insinuated in the various accounts, they were already feeling something was 'off' by the time they were at the ford / splash area.

Can we rule it out? No.

Is this a viable explanation for their anomalous experience? I'd say 'not likely' if we're talking about water taken in the central village, but 'possible' if they'd drunk any stream water earlier during the circa 2-hour hike to the village.
As far as I can tell the boys (dressed for a long hike on a cold day) began to feel hot and thirsty as they entered the slip, and took off their jerseys and drank from the small stream when they reached it, only a few minutes after entering the village. If the water was polluted with some biochemical agent that might explain the unnatural behaviour of the ducks, but unless it was extremely fast-acting, it couldn't account for the invisibility of the church, nor the absence of people, points that would have been noted rapidly.
 
I'm not aware there are any contemporary (1957) records of the exercise or what these 3 boys reported.




Yes - with varying degrees of detail, multiple accounts claim the boys related having run into weirdness and the key listeners concluding they'd been to Kersey village and satisfied the exercise's intended requirements.

The accounts differ, however, on what those intended requirements were. Some describe the Sunday jaunt as a navigational exercise, and that's all that's mentioned. Some state the boys were supposed to return in X (usually 5) hours and report all they'd observed. Some frame it as if Kersey were the specific objective they'd been assigned to visit.
Crowley mentioned that Kersey was their target, Laing didn't.
 
One reason I'd like to know which October 1957 Sunday is involved here is that there is one Sunday that month in which there was indeed a 'time slippage' that could have affected the boys' experience and / or the scene(s) they observed.

NPL's archive of British Summer Time transition dates:

http://www.npl.co.uk/educate-explore/what-is-time/archive-of-summer-time-dates#1950

... shows that October 6 was the date in 1957 when the clocks should have shifted back to GMT.
 
There's another environmental / contextual factor that may help explain some of the weirdness at Kersey - both in terms of the boys' own experience and the relative lack of human activity they reported from the village.

This would be the Asian flu pandemic of 1957.

Their school (HMS Ganges facility) was hit hard starting in September 1957 ...

1957 September. Asian Flu epidemic in the Establishment. At its peak 732 personnel were affected.

https://www.hmsgangesassoc.org/cmspage/9/hms-ganges-at-shotley

In September 1957, the establishment was subjected to an epidemic of Asian Flu, which at its peak, affected between 700 - 800 personnel.

https://books.google.com/books?id=m...e&q=September 1957 "asian flu" ganges&f=false

(Google Books edition of Before the Mast by Colin Lambird, 2010)

Early autumn is when the pandemic spread in force into eastern Britain, and the nationwide malaise was peaking during the same month as the Kersey incident.

The first cases in the UK were in late June, with a serious outbreak in the general population occurring in August. From mid-September onwards the virus spread from the North, West, and Wales to the South, East, and Scotland. One GP recalled ‘we were amazed at the extraordinary infectivity of the disease, overawed by the suddenness of its outset and surprised at the protean nature of its symptomatology.’ It peaked the week ending 17 October with 600 deaths reported in major towns in England and Wales. There was some evidence of a limited return in the winter.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2714797/
 
One reason I'd like to know which October 1957 Sunday is involved here is that there is one Sunday that month in which there was indeed a 'time slippage' that could have affected the boys' experience and / or the scene(s) they observed.

NPL's archive of British Summer Time transition dates:

http://www.npl.co.uk/educate-explore/what-is-time/archive-of-summer-time-dates#1950

... shows that October 6 was the date in 1957 when the clocks should have shifted back to GMT.
I'm not sure how this would have impacted on the experience. It might have meant their internal clock was a bit confused, but that in itself wouldn't trigger an apparent time slip (if it did, then why didn't the other 50 million people in Britain have them, or at least a significant proportion of them?).
 
There's another environmental / contextual factor that may help explain some of the weirdness at Kersey - both in terms of the boys' own experience and the relative lack of human activity they reported from the village.

This would be the Asian flu pandemic of 1957.

Their school (HMS Ganges facility) was hit hard starting in September 1957 ...





Early autumn is when the pandemic spread in force into eastern Britain, and the nationwide malaise was peaking during the same month as the Kersey incident.
It might explain why there was nobody out and about, but not why the houses they looked in were empty of people and furnishings, nor the lack of aerials, telephone wires and poles, etc., to say nothing of the missing church tower. Or are you suggesting that the flu somehow affected the witnesses mentally?
 
I was wondering why they changed it from early October to the last Sat/Sun in October in 1961 and have kept it that way ever since.
 
I was going to suggest that people involved in this thread might try to get a copy of MacKenzie from abe Books but I see that prices for Adventures in Time are now insane, ranging from £63 to £149 plus huge postage costs.
 
OK - I see ... The day's being a Sunday is specifically stated in all the accounts I've seen, so I don't believe the Sunday attribution was presumptively projected on the basis of the bell ringing.

On the other hand, the bell ringing (in turn ... ) seems to be the primary reason some accounts presume the boys' Kersey visit occurred circa 1100 - 1200 on whatever Sunday it was.
To expand on the point I think @EnolaGaia is making, it's not safe to assume either time or day on the basis of the bell-ringing. C of E services could start much earlier in the morning and, where practiced, change ringing is the precursor to the service. Ringing for evening services is also not unknown. But church bells can also be rung on different days for practise, weddings, striking competitions and even by bands of touring ringers.
 
I'm not sure how this would have impacted on the experience. It might have meant their internal clock was a bit confused, but that in itself wouldn't trigger an apparent time slip (if it did, then why didn't the other 50 million people in Britain have them, or at least a significant proportion of them?).

If the school folks (staff; boys) and / or Kersey villagers had overlooked the clock change, it would have affected who would or should have been doing what at what time.

The whole Kersey story - perhaps more than most time slip stories - hinges on the apprehensive feelings one or two out of three observers reported. Anything that rendered the observers and / or the village 'off' (abnormal; affected) on whichever October Sunday morning it was could well have exacerbated, if not initiated, such feelings.

For example, an hour's mismatch between the time ascribed by the boys versus the church personnel affects the solidity - or even the face-value validity - of the presumption the boys arrived at Kersey when the Sunday service was about to start (i.e., bell ringing to call the congregation).
 
To expand on the point I think @EnolaGaia is making, it's not safe to assume either time or day on the basis of the bell-ringing. C of E services could start much earlier in the morning and, where practiced, change ringing is the precursor to the service. Ringing for evening services is also not unknown. But church bells can also be rung on different days for practise, weddings, striking competitions and even by bands of touring ringers.

Yes - that's an aspect of what I was driving at. There seems to be more than adequate evidence the incident occurred on a Sunday. However, there's no direct evidence specifying the intra-Sunday time points or timeframes surrounding the specific events and observations.

The accounts (I've seen) that attributed the time slip to circa 1100 - 1200 all seem to base that timeframe on the presumption the bell(s) ringing signified the prelude to Sunday services.

In other words, the ascription of the bell(s) ringing to circa 1100 is a projection of a presumption as to what bell(s) the boys heard. That presumption may not be as readily justifiable as prior writers seem to have accepted.

I'm still wanting clarification (if any can be obtained ... ) on exactly what sort of ringing (how many bells; what ringing motif or pattern) the boys may have heard.
 
It might explain why there was nobody out and about, but not why the houses they looked in were empty of people and furnishings, nor the lack of aerials, telephone wires and poles, etc., to say nothing of the missing church tower. Or are you suggesting that the flu somehow affected the witnesses mentally?

I don't accept your winnowing the possibilities down this way.

Yes - it could have affected either the villagers or the boys, in a variety of ways. You've cited two of the ways it could have influenced the setting - a lack of villagers out and about, and the possibility one or more of the boys was ill, becoming ill, or physically stressed from having recently been ill.
 
I don't accept your winnowing the possibilities down this way.

Yes - it could have affected either the villagers or the boys, in a variety of ways. You've cited two of the ways it could have influenced the setting - a lack of villagers out and about, and the possibility one or more of the boys was ill, becoming ill, or physically stressed from having recently been ill.
Not sure what you don't accept. I'm just listing the key features of the report. Any explanation put forward has to account for all of the features, not just one or two!
 
Ok, try another tack.

.. The 3 boys found themselves entering a sort of medieval location, whose lanes had a brown earthen and dust surface, and with extremely ancient, small and dirty houses...

How does this equate to 1953 ?This is from the link at the top by the OP.

INT21
 
And Albert's introduction contains..

..No diehard skeptic on Earth could ever explain how three young cadets of the Royal Navy, who were quickly transiting through the village of Kersey (Suffolk) in October 1957,..

But it seems they were not quickly transiting through. They rested there and were in the place for 20-30 minutes.

Enough time to make many detailed observations.

INT21
 
I don't accept your winnowing the possibilities down this way.

Yes - it could have affected either the villagers or the boys, in a variety of ways. You've cited two of the ways it could have influenced the setting - a lack of villagers out and about, and the possibility one or more of the boys was ill, becoming ill, or physically stressed from having recently been ill.

Bit of a stretch though isn't it? I mean, a time slip is obviously a bit of a stretch but you're suggesting that this was down to the clocks going back and everyone having the flu?
That is if we are talking about the correct Sunday in October that year, which is a one in four chance.

I think that if they reported this to their commanding officers that same day, then something was awry. They must have felt something strange had happened to warrant risking ridicule in admitting it.
 
Bit of a stretch though isn't it? I mean, a time slip is obviously a bit of a stretch but you're suggesting that this was down to the clocks going back and everyone having the flu? ...

No - I'm not making any claim beyond there being other factors which could have rendered one or more of the boys' experiences that day as 'weird' without having to force-fit everything into the tenuous conclusion they'd been shifted centuries back in time.
 
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Here's the reason I find Time slips unrealistic - to go back in time surely we'd have to go back in space - we'd have to go back to 'when' and 'where' the event occurred within the universe. As much as I enjoy watching the 'investigation' here unfold, I see a much more mundane explanation for what the cadets experienced.
 
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