Temporal Anomalies

Major Nelson: The clocks haven't stopped, just the calendar.  Every day is Sunday, and if we don't do something about it, the world could be destroyed.

From I Dream of Jeannie, season 2, episode 2.

From What Time Is It? by M. Ilin and illustrated by N. Lapshin, 1932.

"Because all the clocks disagree on the time of day, it is left up to the residents to decide their own temporal reality.  All residences exist in a time warp.  If the clock is right, you are hallucinating."  From McGill Daily, Dec. 8, 1983.

Here are two temporal anomalies from Birmingham-Southern's 1955 yearbook.

From What Time Is It? by M. Ilin and illustrated by N. Lapshin, 1932.

At the Sharp Flats, in Salem, Virginia, the clocks simultaneously show 10:40 and 11:40.  As constant investigators of such phemonena, we diagnosed the problem at a glance.  Note how the treble clef on the clockface is backwards.  It's been said that clinging to backward symbols keeps society from moving forward without the weight of baggage from the past.

There is a six-hour discrepancy at this clock tower in Scranton, Pennsylvania, documented by Scott Chenoweth.  Though we weren't on location to discover the exact cause of the timely weirdness, we offer this photo to help hone the insights of would-be investigators of temporal anomalies.  The more clocks one sees that are "on the fritz" (Fritz being the German clockmaker who first went "cuckoo"), the better attuned one will be to time warps in the wild.

"The 'clock without hands' is a mandala, an archetypal symbol that stands for both ... incompleteness ... and potential wholeness, a wholeness that the mandala as a complete circle portends" (Clifton Snider, The Stuff That Dreams Are Made On.

We spotted a temporal anomaly in this clock tower from Toike Oike, 1965.  It's simultaneously 9:00 and 3:00.

From The Current Sauce, Feb. 7. 1984.

Here's some timelessness courtesy of Wake Forest's 1991 yearbook.

When we're asked, as chronologicians, to correct a temporal anomaly, we often have to explain that it's not as easy as resetting a clock, for there are mighty forces out there.  From NY School of Agriculture at Alfred University's 1942 yearbook.

Here's some relative time from Swarthmore's 1926 yearbook.

Too few home remedies for sick dolls have conveyed.  A prescription from 1906 requires that no clocks tick during the doll's illness.  Additionally, stairs mustn't creak, doors mustn't slam, and dogs must neither bark nor wag their tails.  (This we learn in Uncle Charlie's Poems by Charles Noel Douglas, 1906.)

Temporal anomaly investigator Michael Pereckas shares this photo from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Of course the clock faces on the near tower don't agree, when the far tower broadcasts non-time in four directions.  What we see here is a mechanical attempt to average out temporal incertitude and arrive at equilibriality.

We encountered many temporal anomalies in Martinsburg, West Virginia.  This one, at the Veterans of Foreign Wars buiilding, displayed two different times on its faces, both incorrect.  Due to the great number of faulty clocks in Martinsburg, we suspect a city-wide rift in the fabric of time/space.

In business proceedings, if there are no seconds then a motion fails.  In the fabric of time/space, if there are no seconds, then is our own movement suspended?  Photo courtesy of Danko8321.

As the song says, "Those were the days my friend; we thought they'd never end," and it's true -- in 1942, Dec. 7 had over 30 hours.  From December 7, The First Thirty Hours.

We spotted this temporal anomaly in Johnson C. Smith University's 1982 yearbook.

This temporal anomaly in North Carolina was documented by photographer Whe-renot.