Are you interested in the possibility of time travel? Many are, but for decades, they have hit a veritable brick wall in this regard. This is because physicists, the vast majority of them, always have stated time travel was probably impossible, always would be, and so was just the stuff of science fiction and fantasy. In other words, they utterly dismissed the idea of time travel.
Not so anymore. Now, some scientists are actually working on ways to develop a time machine. Others reluctantly, even grudgingly, state that the great Albert Einstein admitted time travel was possible according to his Theory of General Relativity, that there was nothing in that theory that forbade the idea (but he did go on to say that it would undoubtedly be very hard to do, if at all).
The reason for this sea change in scientists’ views regarding time travel, and yes, it is only with some of them, is that quantum physics seems to imply now more than ever, that time travel could well be possible. Again, physicists still fall back on the timeworn argument that it would be extremely difficult to accomplish, however, and might well be impossible still.
Yet, one scientist has even come up with a formula for time travel. This was Theoretical Physicist, Ron Mallet, who, instead of some blackboard full of esoteric and enigmatic mathematics scrawling rune-like all over the place, created this simple formula (well, relatively simple…):
Now, I’m not going to try to explain the mathematics here. That is beyond the scope of this article. Instead, I merely wanted you to see how elegant and simple this formula is in appearance. Nor does it prove time travel actually works. It just shows that it “could” work.
Even so, there is tantalizing evidence these days that time traveling is actually possible and perhaps, even has already been accomplished. If this seems like an incredible, even fanciful idea, then think again. There are intriguing cases to support this premise. Case in point:
The Strange Case Of “Sid” Hurwich. Here we have the odd case of an appliance repairman who lived in Canada. As a child, Sid was a bit strange. He was incredibly fascinated, some might say even obsessively fixated on machinery. He would scavenge bits and pieces and then create actual working devices from such random parts.
This was no simple little hobby, because as an adult, Sid became famous for his talent at repairing just about any sort of appliance. In fact, in his home city of Toronto, he became legendary for this. Sid became so good at what he could do, that at one point, a power company was instrumental in getting Sid out of serving in the military so that he could aid them in setting up an electrical grid system for the city.
Now from here on, the story gets strange. Being a virtual genius at what he could do, Sid made a good deal of money very early on in his life. When he became a victim of a heart attack at the low age of 36, he retired, having made enough money already comfortably to do so. This money also allowed him to continue working at his own and now slower speed on any projects he wished to do. This he did.
Being born in 1918 and having grown up in the early part of the 20th Century, Sid lived in a time when many odd things were popular and there were few legal restrictions to forbid people working on pretty much whatever they wanted to. This was so, even if it sometimes could be dangerous. It’s said that at this time, he managed to create not so much a time machine (although one supposes it still fits the definition of one), as a machine that could alter time sufficienctly to “freeze it.” This device could also affect machinery within a certain radius around it. Whether this was a side effect of freezing time, or a separate function remains unclear even to this day.
What is clearer is that a series of bank robberies plagued the city of Toronto in 1969. At this point, Sid told the police he could aid them with his new machine. He insisted he could cause time to freeze and so the police could then find out what had happened, how the robberies had taken place in detail. In short, the device would be an excellent aid in their investigations of the crimes.
An article in a British Columbia newspaper stated Sid Hurwich demonstrated the time-freezing device to the police at his home. One of the officers reported that when the device was activated, he couldn’t raise his weapon from a table. It was as if it was frozen in place there. Moreover, he couldn’t pull the trigger on the gun, either. It wouldn’t move. It seemed frozen. They continued to attempt to remove the gun, but could not.
At this point in the proceedings, Sid turned the device off. He told the officers to check their watches. They deviated from the current time by 25 minutes, apparently also having been frozen in time by the effect of Sid’s device. Supposedly, as the officers left the home, Sid’s wife overheard one of them comment about the possible military applications of such a device as Sid had created. This is all according to an account published in the Vancouver Sun Times.
Sid Hurwich and his “machine”
We’re not finished. Here the story gets even stranger yet, because later, the military application might just have actually happened. Sid was Jewish and attended the synagogue of Besh Tzedec in Toronto. Later in his life, Sid was given an award there. This was the Protectors of the State Of Israel Award, and was from the Zionist Organization of Canada.
The story goes that it was for a mysterious device, one which he had donated to the Israeli military some seven years prior to getting the award, and that the device had somehow been instrumental in the famous “Raid on Entebbe,” of July 4, 1976, which was later to be the subject of not just one, but two movies.
This raid rescued many trapped Israelites from where they were being kept hostage in Uganda at the time. The event had been a stunning success and hit the world’s press. The newspaper, the Toronto Star, made an astounding link or connection in a published article some weeks after Sid Hurwich was given the award. The story was picked up and sent worldwide, and so was republished in some reliable sources, being printed in the Economist Magazine in the United Kingdom, as well, for instance.
The report stated that somehow a device created by Sid Hurwich was apparently capable of altering the center of gravity, as well as nearby magnetic fields, thus interfering with mechanical, as well as electronic devices within the radius of effect. The machine did this by emitting some sort of “beams.” References have been made to this as being very similar in nature to the legendary “Tesla Shield,” supposedly invented or at least designed by Nicolai Tesla. How similar they really are, is still unknown.
Now all this may seem highly implausible, but remember, this was not a “crackpot.” Sid Hurwich started not just one, but two successful enterprises. One was SidCo Company and the other was Shock Electric, and that one is still a going and successful concern. So the man wasn’t some “fly-by-night,” nut-case, but rather far from it!
How true is the actual story? Well, the newspaper accounts seem to back it up, as does his receiving an actual award. There is no doubt they gave him one, so that part of it, at least, is true. This in itself is pretty telling, and shows that something serious had been going on.
However, whether or not the time freezing device existed or was actually used in the Entebbe raid by the Israeli military is much harder to verify. This is especially true since it’s all supposed to be top secret. All we have to go on are two bouts of newspaper reports at two very different times.
Still, if the device did not exist or was not used (and apparently if used, it worked very successfully), then why was Sid given such a prestigious award by the Israelis if he hadn’t been of a great help to them in some secret way? He had to have done something fairly impressive to earn such a thing!
But what? There seems nothing else he could have done to be of significant aid. He was too old and ill by far at that point to go on the raid himself. He was not a strategist and had almost no military background, so of what other use could he have been to the Israeli military?
Even stranger, nothing was stated at the ceremony as to why he had achieved such an honor, why they had decided to give him the medal in the first place, which was also very odd, because this was unusual. It was as if it were truly meant to be kept a secret and not ever made public.
Did Sid Hurwich actually build a time device that could freeze time in some way and perhaps used Nicolai Tesla’s designs? It seems very possible he just might have. We have tantalizing clues, some reasonable evidence that this may, in fact, be just what happened. Yet, we don’t have a “smoking gun,” as the saying goes. Still, we are not far short of one in this case!
Perhaps someday, we will know for sure. If the Israeli powers-that-be ever decide to allow the full story to become public, to share it with the world, the truth may finally become known. In any case, why Sid would receive such an award otherwise, remains a complete and compelling mystery, an enigma of no small proportions in itself. If not for a time machine that could freeze time, even as the police had reported years before, then just what was the award for?
Sid Hurwich and His Special Award
So when we think of time travel as impossible, just remember, Sid Hurwich may have actually managed it, or something very like it. Nor is he the only one involved in time travel in some way. There are many cases of people either seeing events in another time, or actually declaring they have traveled in time.
I’m not talking here about YouTube videos where dubious persons state they are time travelers and give vague and inconsistent accounts of their journeys, none of which are the least bit verifiable, but rather people of solid backgrounds. Let’s consider just one such case in this regard:
The “Time Slip” Flight. This case keeps popping up repeatedly and with good reason; the credentials of the person involved were excellent! None could be better. A Royal Air Force Senior Commander, Robert Goddard (later to become Sir Robert Goddard), told of a very strange event. In fact, so bizarre was this incident for him that it colored his opinions of things to the point where he later in life became very interested in the whole subject of UFOs. Perhaps the best retelling of this incident is in J.H. Brennan’s Time Travel: A New Perspective. For reasons of space, here is a necessarily much briefer version of the event, but it includes the main facts.
Sir Robert Goddard was a pilot for the Royal Air Force of the United Kingdom, and his record as a pilot was a very good one, outstanding, in fact. Having fought in both world wars, he was also a highly educated man, as well, and with an engineering degree from Cambridge University.
Photo of an older Sir Robert Victor Goddard
The event in question took place not long before the outbreak of World War II, which for England was in 1939. The year at the time of the event was 1935. Sir Robert had just accepted the lofty position of Deputy Director of Intelligence for the British Air Ministry. I mention Sir Robert’s background here to stress his reliability as a witness, and as far as such backgrounds go, this one would be hard to beat. In fact, it is downright near impeccable!
Sir Robert had flown from Andover to Edinburgh, Scotland. He flew over Drem, where he saw an abandoned and rundown airfield, one long in disuse, judging by the crumbling state of the buildings and the tarmac. This was not out of the ordinary in and of itself. However, on the return trip just days later, he again flew over the same area. What he saw was very different this time!
This time, the flight encountered strange stormy weather and Sir Robert later remarked on how extremely “yellow” the clouds looked, how unusual, and it was a sight he had never seen before. Sir Robert became confused, bewildered, apparently, because of the storm. As a result, he began to lose control over his plane. His aircraft started descending after first having climbed. Goddard’s intent was to clear the cloud layer somehow and so regain his sense of orientation.
Having once finally cleared the yellowish clouds, he saw below him the Drem airbase once more. At this point and quite suddenly, the storm and clouds that had caused his disorientation abruptly dissipated, as if the tempest had never been.
However, this time when he looked at the airfield, the place appeared occupied and in good repair. Gone were the cracks and the heaving tarmac with the plants that had forced their way through fissures there. Instead, there were four planes sitting on the landing field. They were yellow in color and one of them was of an unfamiliar type to him. Moreover, there were what appeared to be mechanics moving about, as well, but they were wearing unfamiliar blue outfits.
Having regained control of his plane completely now, Sir Robert Victor Goddard continued on his journey without attempting to land at the airfield. He arrived at his destination without further incident and everything was as it should be.
Nonetheless, he was naturally bewildered by what he had seen, so much so that he chose not to speak of it to anyone for fear of repercussions in the form of ridicule or disbelief. He also feared some might even go so far as to doubt his sanity. This was an understandable anxiety under the circumstances. He had a brilliant career and he did not wish to jeopardize it by speaking up.
A Younger Goddard
Within four years, the Royal Air Force began painting some of their planes yellow. Furthermore, they began switching to monoplanes instead of biplanes, ones of the exact type he’d seen parked on the runway at Drem on his journey home, and which then had been unfamiliar to him.
Moreover, the RAF also had its mechanics adopt the same blue color uniforms as Goddard had seen the men wearing at Drem on his homeward journey. The British had repaired the airfield and again placed it into service. Subsequently and for the duration of World War II, the place was an active base.
Summary of Event. Sir Robert Victor Goddard became convinced he had traveled forward in time, and had witnessed the airbase, as it would appear a number of years in the future. One wonders what he would have done if he had landed at the airfield instead of flying on. Would he have trapped himself in that future time? Alternatively, was what he saw just a glimpse of things to come, just a look or quick vision into the future?
No one will ever know the answers to these questions now, it seems. However, Sir Robert Goddard was firmly convinced that what he had seen was real. Again, this so affected his thinking about such things that after the war, he became highly interested in the subject of UFOs. He was looking for answers as to what had happened to him in 1935, and he would continue to look for them for the rest of his life.
The surprising part of all this is that such cases as the two mentioned above, are plentiful. There are many more. Some are more reliable than others are, having more detail and verifiable facts, but these are two of the best, so I included them in this article.
In conclusion, let me just say that when you now think about the subject of time travel, the seeming impossibility of it, think again! There are those that seem actually to have experienced such time journeys already. As in the case with Sid Hurwich, there may even be those who actually created time travel devices. Then there is the problem of the Mandela Effect, but this I will cover in my next article.
In the meantime, if you wish to know more about the possibilities of time travel, there are numerous sources and a number of books on the subject, including mine: Time Travel Invasion, and Mysteries of Time Travel: 35 Cases of Time Travel Intrusion, both books available at Amazon and elsewhere. Excerpts from Time Travel Invasion, my latest book on the subject, were used in this article.
Until next time, safe journeys, even if those happen to be through time!
https://www.amazon.com/Rob-Shelsky/e/B002BO9RIE
References:
http://www.amazon.com/Time-Storms-Jenny-Randles/dp/0425187373 Randles, Jenny, Time Storm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121022145342.htm News Summary
http://academicminute.org/2015/02/ron-mallett-uconn-theories-of-time-travel/ Professor Ron Mallet
http://wackulus.com/mystery-sid-hurwich-machine-freeze-time/ Sid Hurwich
(All photographs are Public Domain, and/or Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
