In the Spring 1988 issue of “Strange Magazine,” Ken Meaux described a very eerie event experienced by someone he had personally interviewed, a friend Meaux named only as “L.C.” Meaux described it as a “time-slip” story, although it reads to me more like an encounter with a ghost. (Admittedly, the line between those two types of paranormal phenomena is a very blurry one.) As the story Meaux relates is not a first-hand account, and possibly falls into the “too good to be true” category, I make no claims about its authenticity. However, it’s such an intriguing little tale, that I decided to pass it on.
According to “L.C.,” on October 20, 1969, he and a business associate, “Charlie,” had lunch in Abbeville, Louisiana, and then began driving north along Highway 167. The highway was largely empty, until at about 1:30 p.m. they saw ahead of them an old “turtle-back-type” car. The auto was moving very slowly, so they soon caught up to it. Their attention was arrested by the fact that although the car seemed to be a make from decades past, it looked in pristine condition. They were also puzzled by the fact that the car bore a large orange license plate with the year “1940” printed on it. They could only surmise that the car was used in parades or other ceremonial occasions which allowed it to sport such an unusual plate.
As they passed the antique car to its left, L.C. noticed that the driver was a young woman wearing 1940s style clothing. A small child was in the seat next to her. The windows of the car were rolled up and both the woman and child were very warmly dressed. L.C. was bemused by this, as it was a warm, pleasant day. When the two men looked more closely at the woman, they were disturbed to see that the woman seemed panicky, even frightened. She kept looking back and forth as if she feared danger of some sort. L.C., who was in the passenger seat, called to the woman and asked if she needed help. She nodded, “yes,” while looking at their car in a confused manner. Although her rolled-up window made communication difficult, L.C. was able to motion to her to pull over on the side of the road. As they saw her begin to do so, the men continued to pass her car so they could pull over ahead of her. After they parked on the shoulder of the road, the men turned back to look at the vintage auto. They were stunned to see it was no longer there. Somehow, on this open highway with no side roads, the car and its passengers had instantly vanished.
As L.C, and Charlie sat there, trying to process what had just happened, a third car pulled over behind them. The driver ran over to them, demanding to know what had happened to the car that had been ahead of him. The man explained that he was driving north on Highway 167 when he saw ahead of him a new car (L.C. and Charlie’s) slowly pass a very old car and pull onto the shoulder. The vintage car began to do the same, when it suddenly disappeared.
After comparing notes, the three men fruitlessly examined the area for about an hour. The third man wanted to contact the police to file a “missing person” report. L.C. and Charlie, however, thought that would do no good. They had no idea what happened to the woman and child, and trying to explain what had happened would likely just make them all look like lunatics. The man finally agreed. The three of them did exchange addresses and phone numbers. For some time afterwards, the man would periodically contact them to discuss the incident, out of an apparent desire to reassure himself of his sanity.
Meaux concluded, “High strangeness points to ponder over: what if--she was from the past, and went forward in time, and she is now an old lady still living today, and what if on that same day it had been her instead of L.C. and Charlie behind the ‘old car,’ that same now old lady would have met herself. What if--the Earth itself has a super mentality and it creates as a cosmic joke all these anomalies of life on its surface just for its amusement or some other esoteric reason. What if--and this is the final and most depressing of the "what ifs"--she had come from the past, popped into the future and did not return to her past. The newspapers of 1940 would puzzle over a disappearance of a mother and her child one cold October day, foul play suspected, the search continues--while she and the child continue traveling in and out of various time zones forever.”
I suppose one can offer a simpler theory: Imagine a woman driving down a Louisiana highway one day in the 1940s, in a state of great fear for herself and her child, desperate to escape--to somewhere, anywhere.
Perhaps, for a few moments, at least, she managed to do just that.
It could be a ghost story, indeed, but if a time-slip story, it seems to be one in which the woman and child from the past were the protagonists, since LC and Charlie didn't slip into a different time. They may have met two people who had.
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