Beyond the Veil Magazine

The Kersey Time Slip

Issue #14: February 1980

The following account was submitted by a reader who served as a Naval cadet at HMS Ganges in the 1950s. We have verified his service record and spoken with one of his fellow witnesses, who corroborates the essential details. This remains one of the best-documented time slip cases in British records.

In October 1957, three Naval cadets from HMS Ganges in Shotley, Suffolk, were conducting a routine map-reading exercise across the countryside. Their route took them through the village of Kersey, a picturesque settlement known for its medieval church and the distinctive “water splash” where the main street fords a stream.

What they experienced there has never been satisfactorily explained.

The Account

The witness, who has asked to remain anonymous, describes approaching the village from the north, coming down the lane past St Mary’s Church. Almost immediately, he and his companions noticed something wrong.

There were no cars. No telephone wires. No television aerials on any of the rooftops. The cottages appeared older than expected, their plaster darker and more weathered. The quality of light seemed different, the colours muted.

The three cadets continued into the village, increasingly uneasy. The people they passed were dressed in rough, old-fashioned clothing: long skirts, bonnets, working garments that seemed theatrical. A man leading a horse stared at them with evident incomprehension. No one spoke or smiled.

At the water splash, the ford appeared deeper than normal, the adjacent pond larger. Across the water stood what the witness describes as a medieval butcher’s shop, with carcasses hanging openly in the doorway. The smell was overwhelming.

The cadets left immediately, walking back up the hill at considerable speed. When they reached the main road, everything had returned to normal. The telephone wires were present. A car passed. The church tower displayed a clock face the witness is certain was not there minutes before.

The Investigation

The cadets returned to base and reported nothing, fearing ridicule. However, the witness has since compared his recollections with his two companions, and their accounts match in every significant detail.

Subsequent research has established that the village of Kersey has changed relatively little since medieval times. The water splash remains, as does the church. The main street still follows its ancient course. If three modern observers were somehow transported to the village as it existed centuries ago, the scene they would encounter might closely resemble what the cadets reported.

Parallels

The Kersey case bears striking similarities to the famous Moberly-Jourdain incident at Versailles in 1901, in which two English ladies claimed to have walked into the grounds of the Petit Trianon as they existed during the reign of Marie Antoinette. Both cases involve multiple witnesses, consistent details, and a complete absence of any modern features in the perceived environment.

The phenomenon known as a “time slip” remains poorly understood. Various theories have been proposed: that certain locations retain impressions of past events that can occasionally be perceived; that the fabric of time is less rigid than commonly assumed; that consciousness can, under certain conditions, access information from other temporal periods.

None of these theories is provable. What is certain is that three trained Naval cadets, on a routine exercise in 1957, experienced something in Kersey that they have never forgotten and cannot explain.

The Village Today

Kersey remains a popular destination for visitors interested in its history and picturesque appearance. No subsequent time slips have been reported, though the village’s relatively unchanged character makes it a plausible location for such phenomena.

The witness concludes his account with a question that has troubled him for over two decades: if he and his companions saw the people of medieval Kersey, did those people see them? Do stories persist, somewhere in the past, of three strangely dressed young men who appeared in the village one autumn day and vanished up the hill?

Some mysteries resist resolution. The Kersey time slip remains among them.