Time slips are paranormal events in which people inexplicably travel through time and back. While time slips are a very convenient plot device in Science Fiction books and movies, some people believe they are real and are responsible for time travel. Some real world phenomena that are cited as examples of “real life” time slips are the Mandela Effect and the Simpsons uncanny ability to predict the future. If you want to learn more about the Mandela effect and the Simpsons predicting the future check out our blog and episode on it!
Although time travel almost definitely isn’t real, or at least isn’t yet, there are still many alleged stories about time slips. Today I’m going to present you with just one that honestly I’m not sure if I believe or no, but not for the reasons you would expect. Today we’re going to be talking about the Vanishing Motel in France.
Vanishing Motel
In October of 1979, two couples were driving through the French countryside on their way to vacation in Spain. Geoff and Pauline Simpson and Len and Cynthia Gisbym were looking for a place to spend the night near Montelimar before they finished their drive the next morning. The couples stopped at the Ibis motel, but there were no vacancies, so they were told to look for another place down the road.
They found themselves driving down a cobblestone street and recalled seeing an old fashioned sign for the circus. This was particularly weird because although the circus wasn’t nearly dead like it is today, the circus and freak shows were not nearly as popular in the 1970’s as they were in the mid to late 19th century and early 20th century. The couples arrived at a long two story inn and went inside to see if they had rooms to spare. The building had a very large bar and no one working there seemed to speak a word of English, however, the barkeep was able to communicate to them that there were rooms available.
This is where the story starts to get really strange and frankly unbelievable and we’re not even to the time travel part yet. The couples were shown to their rooms, which had windows with no glass and simple shutters, basic wooden furniture, no telephones, and no pillows. This is where I lost my mind. We’re talking about four grown ass adults here who willingly spent the night in a hotel that had no pillows. These aren’t college kids these are F***ing adults who were like no pillows no problem we will just sleep on this wooden bed. What normal adult human thinks that it’s acceptable for a hotel to not provide pillows? The first pillow was literally invented in 7,000 BC, 7,000 years before the birth of Christ and you’re telling me that this motel has no pillows? Did they literally travel back in time to 10,000 BC? That’s literally the only explanation. Anyway I digress.
If you want to hear my full rant about these time traveling idiots, check out our episode on time slips! You can find it on our website, embedded below, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and all podcast platforms.
So after not storming out or at least just not sleeping at this god awful motel, they had a dinner that actually sounds pretty solid. Before retiring to bed the couples sat down for a meal of steak, eggs, and beer. That doesn’t sound like a very French meal to me but it sure as heck sounds delicious.
So the next morning is when all the really weird time slip stuff started to happen. It all started when they went down to breakfast and noticed a bizarrely dressed woman wearing a silk evening gown carrying a small dog. “It was strange” Pauline said “it looked like she had just come in from a ball but it was seven in the morning. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.” There were also two French policemen eating at the inn and when the men went over to them to ask for “the best autoroute to take” the policemen didn’t appear to be familiar with the word autoroute and directed them to an old road miles out of the way. To be fair to the police officers, what asshole calls it an autoroute? Humans have been using the word road probably since roads were invented so it’s their fault for using a stupid word. Then when the couples tried to check out, their bill was only 19 Francs, just over two euros, which was 1/13 the going hotel rate at the time. Len assumed the manager must have made a mistake but when he tried to pay the innkeep more, he refused to accept the additional cash.
Two weeks later, when these lunatics decided they wanted to stay at that s**thole again, it was nowhere to be found. The place had up and vanished. To make things weirder, when they went to develop the film from the photos they took at the motel, the negatives were all missing. They even returned years later, but were never able to locate the hotel.
Do you believe this is a real time slip story? I’m not sure because I’m still very hung up on the whole no pillows thing, but maybe. If you liked this story check out our time slip episode and share this blog with a friend! Stay spooky misfits!
I’ve followed the “French hotel” story since it was first published. Around 2008 it was outed as a poorly-crafted hoax after multiple investigators pointed out unpluggable holes, in particular the claim that 1970s French currency had been accepted without question 3/4 of a century earlier.
Unfortunately the story’s so well-embedded on the internet that like most such myths it’ll live forever.