Time Travel: The Science and Science Fiction

By Nick Redfern

A look at more than 30 instances of travel—real and imagined—to the past and future

Stories gleaned from literature, film, myth, first-person accounts and historical documents

Logical organization makes finding information quick and easy

Numerous photographs

Thoroughly indexed

Authoritative resource

Sure to appeal to anyone interested in time travel

Publicity and promotion aimed at the wide array of websites focused on the unexplained and the conspiratorial

Promotion targeting more mainstream media and websites with a popular topic

Promotion targeting national radio, including Coast to Coast AM and numerous other late-night radio syndicates looking for knowledgeable guests

Promotion to local radio

• Language: English
• Publisher: Visible Ink Press
• Release date: Oct 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781578597550

Nick Redfern

Nick Redfern began his writing career in the 1980s on Zero—a British-based magazine devoted to music, fashion, and the world of entertainment. He has written numerous books, including Body Snatchers in the Desert: The Horrible Truth at the Heart of the Roswell Story, and has contributed articles to numerous publications, including the London Daily Express, Eye Spy magazine, and Military Illustrated. He lives in Dallas, Texas.

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CHAPTER 1

WORMING AROUND THE UNIVERSE

Before we take a deep look at the witness testimony and the many and varied accounts of time travel, we must first make a strong case demonstrating that such a thing is, at the very least, feasible. It’s all well and good to share sensational and exciting stories of time surfing with one and all. The fact is, though, we need much more than that. Let us therefore look at the science behind time travel. We’ll begin with a phenomenon called wormholes. Nola Taylor Redd is someone who has carefully studied this phenomenon. As her biography at the website Space.com notes, Nola Taylor Redd is a contributing writer for Space.com . She loves all things space and astronomy-related, and enjoys the opportunity to learn more. Her bachelor’s degree in English and astrophysics is from Agnes Scott College, and she worked as an intern at Sky & Telescope magazine.

Redd says: The wormhole theory postulates that a theoretical passage through space-time could create shortcuts for long journeys across the universe. Wormholes are predicted by the theory of general relativity. But be wary: wormholes bring with them the dangers of sudden collapse, high radiation and dangerous contact with exotic matter. Wormholes were first theorized in 1916, though that wasn’t what they were called at the time. While reviewing another physicist’s solution to the equations in Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, Austrian physicist Ludwig Flamm realized another solution was possible. He described a ‘white hole,’ a theoretical time reversal of a black hole. Entrances to both black and white holes could be connected by a space-time conduit.

Jillian Scharr is a staff writer for NBC. She, too, has carefully addressed the mind-boggling issues of time travel and wormholes and has stated: The concept of a time machine typically conjures up images of an implausible plot device used in a few too many science-fiction storylines. But according to Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which explains how gravity operates in the universe, reallife time travel isn’t just a vague fantasy. Traveling forward in time is an uncontroversial possibility, according to Einstein’s theory. In fact, physicists have been able to send tiny particles called muons, which are similar to electrons, forward in time by manipulating the gravity around them. That’s not to say the technology for sending humans 100 years into the future will be available anytime soon, though. Time travel to the past … is even less understood. Still, astrophysicist Eric W. Davis, of the EarthTech International Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, argues that it’s possible. All you need, he says, is a wormhole, which is a theoretical passageway through space-time that is predicted by relativity.

Now let us ponder deeply on the words of Calla Cofield, whose work, according to her biography at Space.com, "has appeared in APS News, Symmetry magazine, Scientific American, Nature News, Physics World, and others. From 2010 to 2014 she was a producer for the Physics Central podcast. Previously, Calla worked at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City (hands down the best office building ever) and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California." On the matter of wormholes, Cofield mentions the theoretical physicist Kip Thorne when she states in a Space.com article dated December 19, 2014:

In his 1994 publication Black Holes and Time Warps … Thorne proposes a thought experiment: Say he obtains a small wormhole, which connects two points in space as if they were not separated by any distance at all. Thorne takes his wormhole and puts one end in his living room, and the other aboard a spaceship parked in his front yard. Thorne’s wife, Carolee, hops aboard the spaceship to prepare for a trip. The two don’t have to say goodbye, though, because no matter how far away Carolee travels, they can see each other through the wormhole. They can even hold hands, as if through an open doorway.

The wormhole theory postulates that a theoretical passage through space-time could create shortcuts for long journeys across the universe, writes Nola Taylor Redd.

Carolee starts up the spaceship, heads into space and travels for six hours at the speed of light. She then turns around and comes back home traveling at the same speed—a round trip of 12 hours. Thorne watches through the wormhole and sees this trip occur. He sees Carolee return from her trip, land on the front lawn, get out of the spaceship and head into the house.

But when Thorne looks out the window in his own world, his front lawn is empty. Carolee has not returned. Because she traveled at the speed of light, time slowed down for her: What was 12 hours for her was 10 years for Thorne back on Earth.

Fascinating? Indeed! We aren’t over yet, though.

Bill Andrews, of Discover magazine, most assuredly gives us something to think about—and deeply, too. In an article dated July 30, 2019, he mentions the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and writes: The first problem for any explorer determined to survey a wormhole is simply finding one. While Einstein’s work says they can exist, we don’t currently know of any. They may actually be impossible after all, forbidden by some deeper physics that the universe obeys, but we haven’t discovered. The second issue is that, despite years of research, scientists still aren’t really sure how wormholes would work. Can any technology ever create and manipulate them, or are they simply a part of the universe? Do they stay open forever, or are they only traversable for a limited time? And perhaps most significantly, are they stable enough to allow for human travel? The answer to all of these: We just don’t know. But that doesn’t mean scientists aren’t working on it. Despite the lack of actual wormholes to study, researchers can still model and test Einstein’s equations. NASA’s conducted legitimate wormhole research for decades, and a team described just this year how wormhole-based travel might be more feasible than previously thought.

Now I’ll share with you the words of my colleague and friend at the Mysterious Universe website, Paul Seaburn. In 2018 Seaburn elected to immerse himself into this strange and swirling world of wormholes: "In a recent post on his Forbes blog, Starts with a Bang, theoretical astrophysicist and science writer Ethan Siegel lays out the parts and the plans for traveling backwards in time. Siegel claims this ‘time machine’ abides by Einstein’s general theory of relativity and will not destroy the universe as we know it. Siegel proposes a sort of reverse wormhole. Instead of the conventional ‘travel 40 light years out at nearly the speed of light, come back and you’ve aged 2 years while everyone else is 82 years older,’ he proposes a wormhole with one fixed end and one that moves around at nearly the speed of light. The wormhole is created, you wait a year and then enter the end that has been in motion. When you come out at the fixed end, it’s 40 years prior. That means if you entered this wormhole today, you could travel back to 1978."

One amazing aspect of wormholes is that because they can behave as ‘shortcuts’ in space-time, they must allow for backwards time travel!

Finally on this particular aspect of time travel, there are the important observations of Richard F. Holman, a professor of physics at Carnegie Mellon University. He wrote about the subject in Scientific American on September 15, 1997: "Wormholes are solutions to the Einstein field equations for gravity that act as ‘tunnels,’ connecting points in space-time in such a way that the trip between the points through the wormhole could take much less time than the trip through normal space. The first wormhole-like solutions were found by studying the mathematical solution for black holes. There it was found that the solution lent itself to an extension whose geometric interpretation was that of two copies of the black hole geometry connected by a ‘throat’ (known as an Einstein-Rosen bridge). The throat is a dynamical object attached to the two holes that pinches off extremely quickly into a narrow link between them. Theorists have since found other wormhole solutions; these solutions connect various types of geometry on either mouth of the wormhole. One amazing aspect of wormholes is that because they can behave as ‘shortcuts’ in space-time, they must allow for backwards time travel! This property goes back to the usual statement that if one could travel faster than light, that would imply that we could communicate with the past."

The Einstein-Rosen bridge is a hypothetical area of warped space-time with great energy that can create tunnels through space-time.

It’s most important to note that all of those who have addressed the issue of wormholes are well-respected figures in their own, specific arenas. Moreover, they have brought to the table significant material that suggests wormholes and time travel are both a reality—something that is most important when it comes to addressing the data ahead.

And speaking of the data ahead, how about a trip to the mysterious world of black holes?

CHAPTER 2

THE MYSTERY OF BLACK HOLES

There’s no doubt that black holes are among the strangest and most mysterious phenomena in the universe. Not only that, there is an integral connection between them and the potential to travel in time. The U.S. National Aeronautics

and Space Administration (NASA) explains: A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot get out. The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying. Because no light can get out, people can’t see black holes. They are invisible. Space telescopes with special tools can help find black holes. The special tools can see how stars that are very close to black holes act differently than other stars.

Gaurav Khanna, a professor of physics at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, provides us with some fascinating data—tying in with time travel—on black holes. At The Conversation, he writes in an article dated January 9, 2019: One of the most cherished science fiction scenarios is using a black hole as a portal to another dimension or time or universe. That fantasy may be closer to reality than previously imagined. Black holes are perhaps the most mysterious objects in the universe. They are the consequence of gravity crushing a dying star without limit, leading to the formation of a true singularity—which happens when an entire star gets compressed down to a single point yielding an object with infinite density. This dense and hot singularity punches a hole in the fabric of spacetime itself, possibly opening up an opportunity for hyperspace travel. That is, a short cut through spacetime allowing for travel over cosmic scale distances in a short period.

Horizons magazine has addressed this tricky, bizarre phenomenon, too. Pierre Bratschi wrote in the Swiss magazine on December 18, 2017: Teleportation and travelling forwards through time may be possible through wormholes, the bipolar black holes that link different regions of the universe. This is the conclusion drawn from a model created by Kyriakos Papadodimas of CERN and Rik van Breukelen of the University of Geneva. Instantaneous travel and travel into the future would become possible by travelling through a wormhole, and this completely free of the time dilation predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity. It is, however, ‘a purely theoretical model that would only apply to an elementary particle, such as a photon,’ adds van Breukelen. With their model, the physicists have developed a new category of wormhole and describe—in theoretical terms—how information stored on a particle (e.g., using its electrical charge) could travel instantaneously to another part of space-time.

Now let’s take a look at the size of black holes. As you will see, that’s not an easy issue to resolve, as the following data provided by NASA makes abundantly clear: Black holes can be big or small. Scientists think the smallest black holes are as small as just one atom. These black holes are very tiny but have the mass of a large mountain. Mass is the amount of matter, or ‘stuff,’ in an object. Another kind of black hole is called ‘stellar.’ Its mass can be up to 20 times more than the mass of the sun. There may be many, many stellar mass black holes in Earth’s galaxy. Earth’s galaxy is called the Milky Way. The largest black holes are called ‘supermassive.’ These black holes have masses that are more than 1 million suns together. Scientists have found proof that every large galaxy contains a supermassive black hole at its center. The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy is called Sagittarius A. It has a mass equal to about 4 million suns and would fit inside a very large ball that could hold a few million Earths.

One of the most important questions is how, exactly, these mammoth things form in the first place. Fortunately, there are answers for us. Back to NASA: Scientists think the smallest black holes formed when the universe began. Stellar black holes are made when the center of a very big star falls in upon itself, or collapses. When this happens, it causes a supernova. A supernova is an exploding star that blasts part of the star into space. Scientists think supermassive black holes were made at the same time as the galaxy they are in.

One of the most cherished science fiction scenarios is using a black hole as a portal to another dimension or time or universe. That fantasy may be closer to reality than previously imagined, writes physics professor Gaurav Khanna.

NASA has an important question for all of us: If black holes are ‘black,’ how do scientists know they are there? At its website, the organization explains: A black hole cannot be seen because strong gravity pulls all of the light into the middle of the black hole. But scientists can see how the strong gravity affects the stars and gas around the black hole. Scientists can study stars to find out if they are flying around, or orbiting, a black hole. When a black hole and a star are close together, high-energy light is made. This kind of light cannot be seen with human eyes. Scientists use satellites and telescopes in space to see the high-energy light.

NASA adds, reassuringly: Black holes do not go around in space eating stars, moons and planets. Earth will not fall into a black hole because no black hole is close enough to the solar system for Earth to do that. Even if a black hole the same mass as the sun were to take the place of the sun, Earth still would not fall in. The black hole would have the same gravity as the sun. Earth and the other planets would orbit the black hole as they orbit the sun now. The sun will never turn into a black hole. The sun is not a big enough star to make a black hole. NASA is using satellites and telescopes that are traveling in space to learn more about black holes. These spacecraft help scientists answer questions about the universe.

Proposing the idea of a ship circling a black hole, physicist Stephen Hawking said, The ship and its crew would be traveling through time. Imagine they circled the black hole for five of their years. Ten years would pass elsewhere. When they got home, everyone on Earth would have aged five years more than they had.

On the issue of time travel and black holes, Elizabeth Howell at Space.com said in 2017 that it might be possible to "move a ship rapidly around a black hole, or to artificially create that condition with a huge, rotating structure. ‘Around and around they’d go, experiencing just half the time of everyone far away from the black hole. The ship and its crew would be traveling through time,’ physicist Stephen Hawking wrote in the Daily Mail in 2010. ‘Imagine they circled the black hole for five of their years. Ten years would pass elsewhere. When they got home, everyone on Earth would have aged five years more than they had.’ However, he added, the crew would need to travel around the speed of light for this to work. Physicist Amos Iron at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel pointed out another limitation if one used a machine: it might fall apart before being able to rotate that quickly."

We’re getting to the point where, one day, time travel—as we understand it in movies and novels—just might become a reality. It’s just a matter of … time.

As the incredible data provided in this chapter and the previous one show, it’s very clear that time travel is not just a fantasy. We’re getting to the point where, one day, time travel—as we understand it in movies and novels—just might become a reality. It’s just a matter of … time.

Now let’s take a look at the matter of the speed of light—something that is inextricably tied to the time travel phenomenon. The website Space.com gets right to the point: "The speed of light in a vacuum is 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers per second), and in theory nothing can travel faster than light. In miles per hour, light speed is, well, a lot: about 670,616,629 mph. If you could travel at the speed of light, you could go around the Earth 7.5 times in one second.

Early scientists, unable to perceive light’s motion, thought it must travel instantaneously. Over time, however, measurements of the motion of these wave-like particles became more and more precise. Thanks to the work of Albert Einstein and others, we now understand light speed to be a theoretical limit: light speed—a constant called ‘c’—is thought to be not achievable by anything with mass.… That doesn’t stop sci-fi writers, and even some very serious scientists, from imagining alternative theories that would allow for some awfully fast trips around the universe.

Cathal O’Connell of Cosmos magazine, in an article dated April 5, 2016, provides the following: According to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, when you travel at speeds approaching the speed of light, time slows down for you relative to the outside world. This is not a just a conjecture or thought experiment—it’s been measured. Using twin atomic clocks (one flown in a jet aircraft, the other stationary on Earth) physicists have shown that a flying clock ticks slower, because of its speed. In the case of the aircraft, the effect is minuscule. But if you were in a spaceship travelling at 90% of the speed of light, you’d experience time passing about 2.6 times slower than it was back on Earth. And the closer you get to the speed of light, the more extreme the time-travel.

The American Museum of Natural History features an exhibit on time machines as part of its exhibition on Albert Einstein. Related to that exhibit, the museum provides some truly mind-boggling information relative to the speed of light and time travel: Thanks to Einstein, we know that the faster you go, the slower time passes—so a very fast spaceship is a time machine to the future. Five years on a ship traveling at 99 percent the speed of light (2.5 years out and 2.5 years back) corresponds to roughly 36 years on Earth. When the spaceship returned to Earth, the people onboard would come back 31 years in their future—but they would be only five years older than when they left. Indeed, Einstein himself could be alive today! If he could have hopped aboard a spaceship traveling at 99 percent the speed of light in 1879—the year of his birth—he would be only 17 years old upon his return to Earth today.

Now, having seen the science behind time travel and how it works, let’s take a long and deep look at the phenomenon and how people from the future may already be employing it—albeit largely in stealth. Indeed, the average time traveler doesn’t want to be found out—as you will soon find out.

When you travel at speeds approaching the speed of light, time slows down for you relative to the outside world. This is not a just a conjecture or thought experiment—it’s been measured, writes Cathal O’Connell in Cosmos.

CHAPTER 3

TIME TRAVEL IN THE WORLD OF ENTERTAINMENT

There’s absolutely no doubt that when it comes to how we perceive time travel, much of it is dictated by the world of entertainment: movies, television shows, and books. There’s also no doubting the fact that those productions range from the intriguing to the thought-provoking, from the exciting to the disturbing, and from the unintentionally awful and laughable to the sublime. And there’s no shortage of such product. Indeed, to cover just about every movie, book, and TV show on time travel would take a lifetime: the Terminator franchise, for example, is still rolling along nicely despite having begun in 1984. At the very least, an entire book on time travel in fiction could be written. Maybe even a second volume. I dare say a third, too. With that said, I’m going to share with you some of my favorite books, movies, and TV shows of the time-travel type.

We have to begin with the ultimate fictional classic: H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine, first published in 1895. Certainly, novels and short stories of time travel were written before Wells took up his pen. His novella, however, remains unbeatable. It’s a story of one man’s journey into the future—and what a future it turns out to be. Planet Earth, in 802,701 C.E., is nothing like our world. Civilization is split into two very different groups: the Morlocks and the Eloi. The former are devolved, monstrous humans who live underground and feed on the naive and innocent Eloi, who are reliant on the Morlocks for their food and clothing. They have no understanding that they are the equivalent of cattle for the Morlocks.

That our civilization is completely gone is one of the bleakest parts of the story. So much for the future. Such was the success of The Time Machine that it was turned into two movies.

As the story continues, we see the final days of humanity on Earth. Our time traveler—whose name is never revealed to the reader—presses on with his treks through the millennia. That our civilization is completely gone is one of the bleakest parts of the story. Our history and society are no more. So much for the future. Such was the success of The Time Machine that it was turned into two movies: the first in 1960 and the second in 2002. To the credit of the producers of both movies, few changes were made to the original script.

Perhaps the world’s most famous fictional time traveler is Doctor Who. The show about the time-traveling doctor first appeared on BBC television on November 23, 1963—one day after the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Viewers quickly learned that Doctor Who was not, and is still not, your average time travel–themed show. For example, the doctor did not begin as a dashing, handsome, heroic type that one might expect to see in a Hollywood movie or slick television show. Quite the opposite, in fact. The eccentric doctor was played by William Hartnell, a British actor known for his work in movies and who was in his sixties when he took on the role of the now legendary time surfer.

Doctor Who’s time machine, the TARDIS (short for Time and Relative Dimension in Space), is disguised as a British police call box—but one that is much larger on the inside than on the outside.

As for the doctor’s time machine, it was disguised as nothing less than a British police box. The TARDIS (short for Time and Relative Dimension in Space), as it is called, was no ordinary call box, however, being much larger on the inside than the outside. The whitehaired old man became a star, perhaps to everyone’s amazement. And the show became one of the BBC’s most popular shows. Of course, Hartnell, given his age, couldn’t be expected to go on playing the doctor forever. So, when he decided to quit the role in 1966, the writers came up with an ingenious idea. The doctor periodically would have to regenerate, and in doing so he would take on another appearance. And another. And so on.

It should be noted that the BBC didn’t have much of a budget when it originated the show. Special effects were not great, but viewers loved the quaint imagery, the plastic, rubbery monsters, and the not-so-good makeup. It was all good fun. Also loved by the fans were the archenemies of the doctor—the Daleks, the Master, and the Cybermen—and his ever-rotating companions.

Alas, all things come to an end. Doctor Who did so in 1989. It wasn’t due to monsters or aliens, however. Ratings—rather, the lack of them—were the cause. Nevertheless, it’s not easy to keep a Time Lord down for long. A movie was made about the good doctor in 1996, which was received in positive fashion. Things really changed, however, in 2005, when the doctor came back in big-time fashion. Hightech special effects caught the attention of a whole new generation, and there was barely an old man in sight. The new doctor (in all of his new regenerated forms) was cool. She still is. That’s right: we now have a female Doctor Who—played by English actor Jodie Whittaker—much to the delight of the fans.

There seems to be no stopping Doctor Who—whether in the past, the present, or the future.

Street Eyes is a UFO-driven movie that was written and directed by Oliver Marshall. It’s also a movie in which the primary character is seeking to see the future. As for the theme of the movie, you can get at least some of that from the back-cover blurb of the DVD version: The Dead Guy roams the streets of Los Angeles possessed by an Alien. He is the key to exposing the secrets of the reptilian underworld and their plans to turn mankind into mind controlled slaves. Well, that’s quite an opening salvo of words. While Street Eyes didn’t have a huge budget and the actors are largely unknown, that doesn’t take away the fact that the movie is both intriguing and thoughtprovoking. It’s highly entertaining, too, which is always a good quality in a movie.

The primary character in the movie is Stanley. He is a UFO researcher with a fair degree of paranoia—which, as viewers soon come to see, is pretty much warranted. It’s fair to say that the story encompasses numerous aspects of modern-day ufology. The movie begins in moody, atmospheric fashion out in the Nevada desert. Area 51 and a confrontation with gun-toting soldiers set the scene for what quickly follows—namely, an adventure of the ufological kind that takes some very dark and unforeseen twists.

Actress Chrissy Randall (50 Ways to Kill Your Lover and 9 Full Moons) plays Stanley’s girlfriend, Natalie—who we learn is pregnant. It’s her pregnancy that drives much of the theme of Street Eyes, most of which is set in Los Angeles. The pregnancy angle is just one of many threads that weave their way through the film, keeping viewers on their toes, so to speak.

As for those threads, well, they include none other than the mysterious Men in Black. Or, rather, a Man in Black. As an interesting aside, the MIB is played by none other than UFO researcher Steve Bassett. As the story progresses, we get to see just why Natalie’s baby is so important to the story. We are also introduced to one of the more controversial aspects of present-day ufology: the issue of so-called alien implants.

The cast of characters ranges from the benevolent to the downright hostile. They include the observer and the dead guy. To begin with, we’re not sure who are the bad guys and who are the good guys, only that Stanley and Natalie are in deep trouble. They are way over their heads, apparent pawns in an unfolding saga that threatens not just them but the freedom of the entire human race. Add to that the phenomenon of what are known as the reptilians, along with black-eyed entities, multidimensional time-traveling beings, and the super soldiers. That’s a hell of a lot of angles to cover in a movie that runs to just under one and a half hours. But Marshall and his cast and crew skillfully manage to ensure that the movie doesn’t become overly complicated.

It’s important, too, to note that the cast members perform well, taking on their respective characters and making them believable. The fact that much of Street Eyes takes place at night adds to the atmosphere and the growing threat to the primary characters, Stanley and Natalie. The movie has a good, solid ending, and—who knows?—maybe Marshall will one day treat us to a sequel. Until that happens, do check out Street Eyes, which has been put together by a team that was clearly enthusiastic about getting the production made and providing people with something not just to enjoy but—in terms of the overall, dark story—to ponder on, too.

The 1968 Planet of the Apes movie, based on Pierre Boulle’s 1963 novel, brought the issue of time travel to a whole new level. It was, indeed, spectacular and a huge winner at cinemas just about everywhere. It starred Charlton Heston as astronaut George Taylor; Roddy McDowall as a chimpanzee named Cornelius; Kim Hunter as Cornelius’s wife, Zira; and Maurice Evans in the role of an orangutan named Dr. Zaius.

As the movie begins, we learn that four astronauts—Taylor and his crew—are in a state of suspended animation and on a mission to a faraway star system. The team’s light-speed mission from Earth to another world somehow causes distortions in the timeline, an anomaly discussed by the astronauts. Unfortunately, one of the crew, Stewart, dies on the flight. Worse still, the crew’s ship plunges into a lake as it heads for the mysterious planet awaiting them. The ship quickly sinks, almost drowning the crew. Just before they are forced to flee their craft, the team realizes that around two thousand years have gone by.

The team’s light-speed mission from Earth to another world somehow causes distortions in the timeline, an anomaly discussed by the astronauts.

The only option for them is to head out in search of some kind of civilization. This strange world turns out not to be too bad. In fact, the atmosphere is perfect for them. The skies are blue. It’s almost as if things are too perfect. Soon the crew finds that it’s not all great: On occasion the skies are filled with huge thunderclouds. Lightning illuminates the skies. The landscape is scarred and largely desert, but for the three men, it is at least survivable. All that’s missing is food and water. Thankfully, they soon stumble onto a lagoon in an apparent paradise, and this is where they see, to their amazement, that there are creatures resembling humans. That is, they look just like humans, but they are primitive and lack the ability to speak. Things don’t seem to be too bad at all. Matters soon change, however. It isn’t long before the trio are plunged into what sounds like a deranged dream. Unfortunately, it isn’t. It’s a grim, horrific reality.

Charlton Heston, in the 1968 film Planet of the Apes, plays an astronaut whose light-speed mission sends him forward not in space but in time. There he meets a human woman named Nova, played by Linda Harrison, in a society of apes.

To their horror, the three are shocked to see this particular world is ruled by nothing less than apes. And they speak English. Humans are slaves to the apes, mere guinea pigs to Dr. Zaius, who dissects people like animals in a lab. It’s not long before Taylor is the only astronaut left alive. His one comrade is a beautiful young woman named Nova. Like the other humans of this planet, she is unable to speak, but that doesn’t stop the two of them from cementing a deep bond. After being experimented on, beaten, jailed, and nearly killed, Taylor knows it won’t be long before his time is up. He and Nova hit the road, so to speak, without looking back. They flee to what is known as the Forbidden Zone. Dr. Zaius, tied up and unable to call for help, tells Taylor that if he continues further into that mysterious zone, he might not like what he sees. A puzzled Taylor, still with Nova, nonetheless presses on for miles and miles. The pair continue along a lengthy shoreline crashed by waves until Taylor falls to his knees. Rounding a corner on the beach, he comes across nothing less than the ruined and half-buried Statue of Liberty. To his horror, Taylor suddenly realizes that he isn’t on a faraway world at all. Rather, he has been on Earth the whole time—an Earth two thousand years after his takeoff on that dicey flight. Taylor slams his fists down on the wet sand, cursing the human race for destroying its own civilization. It is one of the most memorable cinematic endings ever made.

It’s intriguing to note that some of the most popular and enduring movies with a time-travel theme are not the big, adventure-driven, thriller-type productions like 12 Monkeys and The Philadelphia Experiment. Rather, it’s the feel-good types that never seem to go away. Moreover, they all but ensure that the whole family will be sitting together to watch. Three particular examples stand out: It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol (its alternate title being Scrooge), and the Back to the Future trilogy. Without getting too deep, I would suggest that at least part of this popularity is due to one key point: the yearning that all of us have felt at one time or another to change the past, to put things right that went wrong, to see an old friend again who passed away too early, or to spend a few hours with a long-gone, beloved pet from decades ago. Let’s explore this issue a bit more.

Reviewer Robert Williams says of Scrooge: "This is the cream of the Christmas movie crop. The one I look forward to every year. The 1951 British version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol will stand the test of time as the penultimate version of this tale. With flawless direction by Brian Desmond Hurst, this well-known story of a miserly Counting House owner, and the effects his mean spirit have on all those around him, come alive with the incredible acting of Alastair Sim. No one comes close to portraying the mean spiritness of Scrooge, as well as his unbounded joy