The scientific
possibility of parallel universes first arrived with Hugh Everett’s “Relative
State Formulation” in 1957. Not long after, Bryce Seligman DeWitt renamed
Everett’s theory, introducing it to the rest of the world as the term “Many-worlds
Interpretation.”
One day in 2008
in Spain, Lerina Garcia woke up in a world — our world — that did not belong to
her … or so she claimed.
According to the
story, as her day progressed she continued to notice “small incongruities,”
little things that were just off … as her bed sheets were a different color.
But there were big things, too:
“So I went to work in my car, which was parked where I’d always parked,
and it was the same office I’d worked in for the last 20 years. But when I got
to my department, it wasn’t my department. It has names on the door and mine
wasn’t on it. I thought I was on the wrong floor, but no, it was my own floor.
I went over to the office’s wireless section and looked myself up. I still
worked there, but in another department, reporting to a superior I didn’t even
know.”
In 2000 on the
Venezuela campus of the University of the Andes, a well-known faculty member
left one of the university’s buildings, crossed a parking lot to his parked
car, and entered it. Many saw him as he
walked to his car, some even called out to him and waved.
The professor
opened his car door, climbed in, sat down, and closed the door. The car sat
there unmoving. Eventually, a few curious students went to the car and found it
empty. The professor had been a victim
of a multi-verse shift.
In 1954, a
strange man arrived in Tokyo with a passport from a country that didn’t exist,
called Taured. Japanese customs officials detained the man, but his passport
was not a fake: it had the proper stamps, was issued by the country of Taured,
and even included Japanese stamps from a previous visit. The man swore that
Taured was a European country that had existed for 1,000 years, and he also
held other papers, such as bank statements, with the country’s name on them.
After several hours, customs officials eventually placed the man in a hotel, with security nearby to ensure that he did not leave his room, while they checked things out.
The next morning,
he was gone. No trace. A manhunt ensued, but there was no point; he had simply
vanished.
