Bizarre Stories That Could Actually Prove The Existence Of Time Travel

#1 Einstein's Theory of Relativity explains why time machines would have to be complicated (and perhaps impossible-to-build) devices.

So--is time travel impossible then? Real time travel seems to be possible "with or within the mind," according to author John Gribbin. He writes that time warps do exist, but traveling through them doesn't involve the use of a special machine-other than your own mind.

Real time travelers recount using much more normal travel means. First, many people have visited another time or place in their dreams. Others have said that they somehow "saw" another time. Finally a few people even claim to have lived in another time--during an earlier life; whether their claims are true, though, is another matter.

#2 Time Travel to the Past Is Called Retrocognition

Retrocognition occurs when a person somehow "travels" to the past.

#3 Here's a common retrocognitive experience, as reported to researchers Celia Green and Charles McCreery.

A man named Ronald Dawson decided to revisit his hometown after a long absence. Much of the downtown area had been torn down since his childhood and rebuilt. But as he drove his car down the main street, he saw a little store where he used to shop as a child. Mr. Dawson told Green and McCreery:

I was delighted to see it and parked the car opposite. As I turned to cross the road it just wasn't there. I cannot exactly say that I saw it go, it just was not there, although I had seen it clearly.

Notice that he didn't see any people, and he didn't observe any other changes. But the sudden appearance and disappearance of the store points to the possibility of time travel.

#4 A Time Traveler to the Past Cannot Change History

According to people who claim to have taken retrocognitive time trips, you may see people and buildings from past times. You may be aware that the weather has suddenly changed. You may see many things that no longer exist in the present. But you will not be able to touch or pick up any objects you see. And the people you see in the past will not speak or even see you. They exist in their time, you exist in yours--and the two never seem to interact.

#5 Visiting a Past Time and Seeing a Ghost Are Related

Retrocognition is very similar to the experience of seeing a ghost of the dead. Suppose that you are walking down the street when you see the ghost of a neighbor who died a year ago. If you have read much about ghosts, you will know that they are not the scary phantoms that many people think they are. The neighbor's ghost may be walking in her garden or sitting on the front steps of her house or standing on the front lawn, gazing into the distance--something she may have often done. As you see her ghost, you are glimpsing a kind of "video replay" of a past moment in that woman's life. You are in the present time, but somehow and scientists don't know how a part of her life has become visible for a moment.

#6 Traveling back in time is similar, except that instead of seeing a person's ghost you are seeing the ghost of a past event or place.

Suppose, as you step out of your house one morning, you are aware of an eerie silence. Then you notice that many of the houses on your street are gone; you see woods instead. You hear the sound of a horse's hooves coming down your street--only it's not the street you saw yesterday. It's not made from cement or asphalt; it's now made from cobblestones or hard packed dirt. You see a man and a woman leave a nearby house, dressed not in today's clothing, but in clothing from the early 1900s. A man in a horse drawn wagon stops in front of their house to deliver a block of ice.

Instead of just seeing one person's ghost, you have stepped out your door and momentarily entered the past. In a few moments, though, it will all fade from view, replaced by the present.

#7 Time Travel to the Future Is Called Precognition

Travel to the future is called precognition, or "knowledge of future events before they happen."

#8 Here is an example of a real precognitive experience.

Mrs. Appleton, according to author Brian Inglis, had a recurring vision when she was a child. At bedtime, she frequently saw in her mind a young boy wearing a sailor suit. In the scene that she pictured, the boy was always standing on a roof, holding a tomato plant. He would smile at her, and she would find herself smiling. She had the vision until the day her mother died, and she was placed in an orphanage. From then on, the vision never reappeared.

As an adult, Mrs. Appleton married an optician and lived a happy life. One day, after she had been married fifteen years, her husband brought home a photograph album that contained many pictures from his childhood. Since she hadn't seen many photos of him as a child, she eagerly looked through the book.

As her eyes focused on one picture, "my heart stopped, and I felt physically ill," she wrote. "There in front of me was the little boy from my childhood."

The photograph showed her husband as a young boy: wearing a sailor suit, standing on the roof of an apartment building. Although he was not holding a tomato plant, one was beside him on the roof.

Why had she seen a vision of her future husband as a child? Was this a peek into the future by peering into the past? Or did she have a vision of the day that she would see the childhood picture of her husband?

"For so long I have felt alone with my story, not daring to discuss it fully with anyone for fear of being thought a crank," she wrote author Inglis. "I have never told my husband."

#9 Swiss watch found in ancient Chinese tomb

Chinese archaeologists were allegged to have found a small, but perfectly formed metal watch when they opened a previously undisturbed giant coffin in the 400-year-old Si Qing tomb in Shangsi County, China in December 2008.

They were reportedly shocked to find the object with its time frozen at 10:06 and ³Swiss² engraved on the back.

Suggestions were made at the time that the only plausible explanation was a time traveller had gone back from the future with the watch, and somehow, who over's tomb it was had at some point obtained the futuristic timepiece from the time traveller.

However, it is now widely accepted the watch was a clever and original digitally-edited addition.

Despite, this the picture still makes it onto several sites as "proof of time travel".

#10 John Titor

At first glance, nothing seems to odd about this old black and white photo which turned up on the Virtual Museum of Canada website.

It was said to be of the early 1940s reopening of South Fork Bridge in Gold Bridge, British Colombia.

In 2003, Titor began posting on message boards about his alleged “time traveling” experience. He included a photograph of a “trip” he took to 1941 of the re-opening of the South Fork Bridge in Gold Bridge, British Columbia.

On closer inspection, one of the crowd appears to be out of place with modern urban clothing, complete with shades and logo-emblazoned top.

It was also billed as being proof of time travel, as surely no one from that era would have been dressed like that.

But further research concluded his appearance may not have been so unusual for the time.

It was established that the style of sunglasses had been available from the 1920s - to 20 years earlier.The "modern printed T-shirt" was also found to probably be a sweater with a sewn-on emblem, and of the type worn by sports teams of the period.

It was even found to be similar to the one used by the Montreal Maroons, an ice hockey team of the day.

#11 Woman on mobile phone in 1928

In October 2010 a YouTube film claiming to prove time travel went viral and led to many TV news and newspaper reports.

George Clarke from Northern Ireland uploaded the clip entitled "Chaplin's Time Traveler".

It was made from a new DVD release of the Charlie Chaplin film The Circus bonus, including previously unreleased footage.

This included recordings taken at the film's Los Angeles premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in 1928.

During these scenes, a woman walks by, holding an object to her ear.

Mr. Clarke concluded she was speaking into a modern mobile phone, so could possibly be a time traveler caught on camera.

But Nicholas Jackson, associate editor for The Atlantic, later decided it was probably a portable hearing aid, as the technology, including rectangular-shaped ear trumpets, was just being developed back then.

#12 Rudolph Fentz

In New York City in 1951, a man wearing 19th-century clothes was hit by a car and killed. Police learned his identity and discovered that he had gone missing… in 1876. The items on his person suggested that the man had traveled through time from 1876 to 1950 directly. This urban legend was actually a short story published in a magazine in the 1950s.

#13 Woman on mobile phone in 1938

Three years later in 2013 video from 1938 emerged which also appears to show a woman speaking on a mobile phone, prompting fresh claims of time travel existing.

The black-and-white footage shows a group of young factory workers, walking out of a building with one brunette, in a light-coloured dress, smiling for the camera, with a hand pressed against her ear as if holding a large mobile phone.

But a woman later came forward, claiming to be the grandchild of the time-travelling cell phone woman, who she named as Gertrude Jones.

The grandchild posted under the name Planetcheck online, saying her nan was 17 at the time.

She said: "I asked her about this and she remembers it quite clearly.

She says Dupont [who owns the factory in the video] had a telephone communications section in the factory."

"They were experimenting with wireless telephones."

"Gertrude and five others were given the phones to test out for a week.

"She is talking to one of the scientists holding another wireless phone who is off to her right as she walks by."

Another woman in the video appear to be holding one in her right hand, but far from her ear.

#14 Billy Meier

This self-proclaimed prophet believes that he was abducted by aliens who took him to many different times and places. Meier claims that they introduced him to dinosaurs and also Jesus Christ.

#15 Andrew Carlssin

In 2003, Carlssin was arrested for SEC violations. With an investment of just $800, Carlssin ended up with over $350,000,000. In a four-hour confession, he claimed that he was 200 years in the future.

#16 CD case and box in 1800s painting

This painting was allegedly created in the 1800s, and it has been suggested it appears to be a man holding a CD box with one being taken out.

At least, that¹s what they say.

As we know CDs were not in use until the 1980s, leading some to conclude it could only mean a time traveler was showing off his Eurythmics CD collection to his new Victorian friends.

However, it has since been suggested it was just a glass lid on an otherwise normal box of the time.