Time Travel

The Abbeville, Louisiana Time Slip Incident

In the Spring 1988 issue of Strange Magazine, Ken Meaux shared a remarkable tale about a time slip incident that occurred on Highway 167 north of Abbeville, Louisiana.

It happened on October 20, 1969. A man, revealed by Meaux only as L.C., and his “business associate” Charlie, were driving down Highway 167 at about 1:30 in the afternoon. It was a cool but comfortable day, so they had their windows rolled down.

After driving for a while, they noticed a very old “turtle back” car traveling in the next lane over. They pulled up alongside of it, matching its speed. It was “mint,” they said, with an orange license plate dated 1940. They thought, perhaps, that it was off to a car show, or maybe it belonged to a collector.

What was truly strange, however, was that its driver — a young woman — also appeared vintage. She wore 1940s attire, and there was a child in the passenger seat. Same deal. 1940s clothing.

Their confusion turned to urgency when they realized the young woman was in distress. As Meaux described, “She appeared on the verge of tears.” This prompted L.C. to ask the woman, through her rolled up car window, if she needed help. She nodded yes. So he motioned her to pull over, and she nodded again. L.C. and Charlie then drove in front of her and pulled over to the side of the road.

But when they turned to look back at the woman and her old car, expecting her to pull up behind them, she had seemingly vanished. They were alone.

At that moment, another car pulled up behind L.C. and Charlie. Its driver jumped out, himself panicked, asking what had just happened to the car in front of him. From his point of view, it had simply blinked out of existence!

They talked for a moment, then searched in a daze for an hour. The woman and her car were simply gone. L.C and Charlie wanted to keep the event a secret, while the third man felt they should report the incident. But what, after all, could be done?

You can read the finer details of this story, as I said, directly from Ken Meaux’s article in Strange Magazine. But I wanted to briefly highlight it as the first of many time slip, alter vu, and parallel universe stories I’ll be sharing in the coming months.

Are these experiences valid, or just stories? When a person finds him or herself suddenly staring down an unknown road, or losing time, or finding an object out of place, or remembering something that never happened, what’s going on there?

All we have are stories. But maybe they’re worth a look.

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Rob Schwarz

Writer, blogger, and part-time peddler of mysterious tales. Editor-in-chief of Stranger Dimensions.