November 19, 2024 • 30 mins
Scientists have theorized about a multiverse or parallel universes for centuries, and it’s only in the last few decades that the ideas have gone mainstream seeping into pop culture. There are a lot of different interpretations depicting how a multiverse might work and impact our reality. Today, filmmaker Rachel Noll James discusses her research about the topic while writing her newest film INGRESS
Info on INGRESS and Rachel Noll James: https://www.amazon.com/Ingress-Rachel-Noll-James/dp/B0D5RM5X21 https://www.instagram.com/ingressfilm/ https://www.rachelnolljames.com/ Subscribe to "A Study of Strange" on your favorite podcast platform! Visit our Substack for more strange content! https://astudyofstrange.substack.com/ Theme Music by Matt Glass Instagram: @astudyofstrange Support: astudyofstrange.substack.com Website: www.astudyofstrange.com Hosted by Michael May Email stories, comments, or ideas to astudyofstrange@gmail.com ©2022 Convergent Content, LLCMark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Imagine for a moment
that there's another version of you outthere.
Are you who made different choices,took different paths,
and is living a completely different life?
It sounds like science fiction,but some of the most brilliant minds
in science believe it could be a reality.
(00:24):
On this show, where we tend to delveinto a specific story
from the weirdand wonderful world of the unexplainable.
Today is a little different.
We're having a conversationabout parallel universes.
Do they exist,and if so, what does that mean?
This is a study of strange.
(01:02):
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Michael May,and joining me on a study of strange.
This week is our special guest,Rachel Null.
Everybody's favorite.
Rachel.
Noel, I don't know,I was trying to think of a joke,
and I couldn't think of one fast enough.
Welcome to the show, Rachel.
Thanks so much, Mikey.I'm happy to be here.
So Rachel is a an actor, a filmmaker,a writer.
And you're on today.
(01:24):
You have two filmsmaking the rounds right now.
One is are both out or onejust doing festivals and one is out.
Yeah.
So ingress is currently out on streaming,on Amazon Prime.
And then inheritance is doing the festivalrun right now.
Great.
And ingress is the reasonI wanted to ask you on today
because this is a this episodeis going to be slightly different.
(01:45):
I wanted to have a discussionabout a topic
that I'm thoroughly fascinated with.
But yet, as I mentioned to youright before we started recording,
I'm also an idiotwith science and stuff, so
I'm feeling a little petrifiedto have a discussion about it.
But I love the topicand and it's essentially parallel
universes, the multiverse,alternate reality,
(02:07):
all of these thingskind of homogenized together.
They all kind of connectto quantum physics in various ways.
And your movie ingressdeals with this subject matter.
So why don't you tell us
a little bit about the movieand how it connects to this topic?
Sure.
So, yeah, ingressis, sort of a female centric sci fi film.
(02:28):
It's about a womanwho can move between parallel realities.
Just something that she's been ableto do her whole life.
And, her husband passes away,and it's kind of an exploration of,
you know, her journeytrying to get back to him,
which is ultimately more of a journey of,you know, dealing with her grief,
dealing with the loss of, you know, thisperson and her life and moving on. And,
(02:51):
so, yeah,
diving into all that multiverse stuff,but in a very grounded sort of way.
Yeah.
And it is, you know,it is in the zeitgeisty
and it kind of has been for tenor so years and pop culture and movies
and books and comics and stories,this idea of these parallel universes.
So what drew you to this topic?
Were you like,how did you first become interested in it?
(03:15):
So a couple pieces to that.
First of all,what's actually really interesting
is when I first startedwriting the script,
it was like just before Marvel started,really only this multiverse concept.
So when I would tell people about, like,the multiverse, they're like, the what?
So it was like this.
Even so, the film's already pretty fringy,but like it was even fringe year
because nobody knewwhat the multiverse was.
But then it was funny because by the timeI actually got it made,
(03:36):
and then when it was coming out,like all of a sudden that was like
everywhere, and Marvel had made it really,you know, really well known. So,
it came from, for me, a couple of things.
So my dad, is a physicistand was a physics teacher.
And so when I was growing up,
I had all kinds of cool
books on quantum physics,like the parallel realities of self and,
the holographic universeand all these things that talk about,
(03:57):
you know, from the quantum physicsperspective,
just how littlewe actually know about reality and that,
you know, this idea of,you know, every time we make a choice,
a different reality branch is offwhere we made a different choice.
And it's interesting because nowI feel like they've actually proved that.
And that breaks my brain so muchbecause I don't even know how
you could possibly prove that.
But they say they've proven itnow, which is fascinating. So,
(04:21):
I think for me, like,I've always really loved grounded sci fi.
So there's a movie called,do you ever see the movie Another Earth?
No, I know of it. Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's really cool because it's it's
technically about like anotherabout another version of Earth, like,
appears in the sky and they realizeit's like a duplicate of Earth.
And there's anotheryou living on that earth.
(04:42):
And so it's like,very like a cool sci fi concept.
But what I loved about it isit was essentially an indie drama
about two like Broken People that justhappened to be set against this kind of,
you know, out there backdrop.
And so that was an inspiration for mewhen I was thinking about ingress, because
I wanted the sort of parallel realityjumping in that to feel very grounded
(05:02):
and to have it feel like somethingthat we might all kind of go for.
I've experienced something like that.
Like, is it possible that I actually didthat, you know, to have it
be something that feels relatableand not like some crazy, spacey,
sort of Doctor Strange in the multiversekind of thing?
Your dad, you said, it is a physicist
or taught physics,and he's in the movie, isn't he?
(05:24):
I thought you're both in it. Okay.
My parents play. My parents? Yeah.
That's great.
I was like,I think that's actually Rachel's parents.
That was really cool.
Let me back up here a little bitand I'm going to give a little bit of
not necessarily history, I guess a littlebit of history, but a little background
to just the idea in caselisteners aren't super familiar with it.
(05:45):
So the idea of a multiverseis relatively new in terms
of like modern science and quantum physicsand all these things.
However,the idea that there's multiple universes
or connective realities, has actually beenaround a really long time.
I didn't know this till this week, whenI kind of did a little periphery research.
But the Greeks had two differentgroups of people that would argue about
(06:07):
philosophy and things,and they they essentially discussed
the idea that parallel worlds existed,
and they were not that differentfrom our own.
The ancient Buddhist,thought that there were parallel worlds.
And essentially there's this cyclical,very cyclical Buddhist type of idea
that things start and renew again,and it's like it tied into this idea.
(06:29):
Schrodinger MisterMister Cat fan in the 1950s,
excuse me, had some equationsthat he described as,
different histories, and he
said that they're not alternatives,but all really happened simultaneous,
which is just such a great quoteI came across.
And then the idea more specifically for
(06:49):
the multiverse came aboutin, I think it was 1954.
I didn't write down the date.
So I'm I'm trying to rememberthat off the top of my head.
But a gentleman named Hugh Everettat Princeton came up with the idea
of a parallel universeexactly like ours that exists.
And there's multiple universes, andthey branch off and and we also note it
as an alternate historyor parallel universe.
(07:12):
And that's where thethe idea stemmed for from.
And obviously it's
grown and moved and everybody'skind of aware of these different things.
And yeah.
Do you mind I'm going to read a quotefrom Live science.com.
I said, okay, of course.
All right.
So this is from Live Science.
Dot com multiverse theory suggeststhat our universe, with all its hundreds
of billions of galaxiesand almost countless
(07:33):
stars spanning tens of billions of lightyears, may not be the only one.
Instead,there may be an entirely different
universe distantly separated from ours.
And another. And another.
Indeed,there may be an infinity of universes, all
with their own laws of physics, their owncollections of stars and galaxies.
If stars and galaxies can exist in thoseuniverses, and maybe even their own
(07:53):
intelligent civilizations, it could bethat our universe is just one member
of a much grander, much largermultitude of universes a multiverse.
Yeah.
So that's kindof a little bit of the background of it.
I didn't dive too much into the science,because that's where my head explodes.
But but the science is there.
And like you
said, people have been studying this,theorizing about it, running equations.
(08:17):
One of the sort of the,I guess, converse idea behind this
is that they do say it's not testable,but I guess now it kind of is testable.
I think it's like really recent thatthey've been able to to test these ideas.
Yeah.
So what have you come acrossin your research for this?
Well, okay.
So there's some the whole like
so the holographic universe theory to me
(08:39):
is like a whole other level of crazyaround all of this because essentially,
like as they get deeper into the quantum,right, like they're really tiny, tiny.
And then as they get more intothe macro macro, they start to see that,
like science just breaks down,like it just doesn't make sense anymore.
And so that's where you mentionedSchrodinger's cat.
But like, yeah, that that concept,but also like the particle wave experiment
(08:59):
where essentially like
when a particle is observed,it does one thing
and when it's not observedit does something different.
Like that's insane.
So the idea that like tangible reality,
isn't actually solid at all,
and kind of this sense oflike what I like about quantum physics is
I feel like traditional scienceis very much like
we've we've done these experimentsand we've proven this, without a doubt
(09:20):
is true.
And quantum physics is like the morewe learn, the less we know about anything.
And I think that just feels waymore true. Yeah.
And so when you were diving into thisand trying to find that grounded science
base for your science fiction film, theyou just mentioned it, sort of the split
particle experiment, whatever it's called,but it's almost like an infinite,
an infinite amount of things can happenunless there's an observer.
(09:44):
And so when you were thinking about thismultiverse type of idea, is that
because, hey, every decision
I would just break it downfor like a personal way as an example.
But like I'm going to decideto take a sip of water.
But I also could have decided not to takea sip of water or walked over there.
And every time those decisions are made,they all of them are made.
But it's just our observing, the one thatthat happens in our own reality.
(10:07):
So is that the ideathat all these infinite things can happen
is that in your story, kind of the idea ofI can jump between all these different,
you know, options of whatever happens.
See, this is where I get dumb.I don't know how to say it.
You know what I'm talking about, thoughI do. Yeah.
I mean, I guess what I was kind of playingwith is like, sir, you know.
Yes, like the small moments. Right?
(10:28):
But like, in this case,it was like the death of someone you love.
And that sense of like,okay, if we're thinking about
parallel realities,like in one timeline, Toby dies,
in another timeline, Toby lives and every,you know, variation in between.
And so what if, as a person,you could actually slip
between these different versionsand what would that actually look like?
(10:51):
And another crazy conceptthat came into my world
that kind of shaped this is sothis one's very like brain breaky, but,
essentially so this concept of like
we think about reality
as the spotlight,like a steady stream of light.
Right? So there's the past.
It comes into the present,it streams into the future.
And it's like one continuous line.
(11:14):
But the concept was thatreality is actually more like a strobe
light, meaning moment moments that arecompletely separate from each other.
So like this moment,you and me in this room, right?
Or you were in our separate rooms.
We're talking over this,you know, video chat.
When I look around, like what I can see,what I can hear.
This is reality right now.
(11:34):
And in this moment,
I can't actually prove thatanything outside of this room exists.
Including, like, my cat in the other room.
I can't prove I have a catunless it comes into this room.
In this moment.
So this concept that, like reality,is actually just the present moment.
Memories are a story.
The future is a story.
(11:55):
And the other crazy thingthat kind of played into this was this,
you know, memories are fallible, right?
So what if
this is kindof where the ingress concept came from?
Like what if
I actually like in this moment?
I know myself, as you know, Rachel
living in Washington,having like a certain set of experiences.
(12:15):
But what if I just landed here
and like, prior to this,I was somewhere completely different.
But the minute I landedhere, memories filled in
to create the sense of,like, a continuous timeline, right?
But I actually can't provethat those memories really happened.
They're just a storythat filled in in my brain.
So ingress kind of plays with that.
This idea of like, in the momentshe's existing, she has memories
(12:38):
that fill in that kind of land, herthere as if she'd always been there,
but she hadn't.
And like,what if that's true for all of us?
Like, it's that crazy.
What if of quantum physics,where it's like, can I prove that?
No. But also,can I prove the opposite? No.
So it's kind of like that.
That's the space that becomes funas a storyteller, I think,
because it's like in all the unknowns,we can create kind of anything we want.
(13:01):
Yeah.
And that's where this, this idea really
is amazing for for fiction, for art.
Because you can take it.
So you can take itjust like the theories itself.
You can take in these infinite amountof directions.
And, and obviously people have everythingeverywhere, all at once.
The movie, I think that it's a fantastickind of unique job
(13:22):
at looking at this kind of stuff.
But it is it
is strange, which is why I wanted to talkabout it, because it is based in science,
and people are legitimately workingtheir butts off trying to understand this
and, and, you know, test ideasand all this kind of stuff.
But it's bizarre because the quantum worldis so different than than, you know,
(13:44):
Einstein's theory of relativityand basic physics.
And in fact, here I'm going to I'mgoing to get a little nerdy.
Yeah, I made it,made some notes on actual paper.
So there's a gentleman named Max Tegmark.
Did you do anything you read with him?
So he's an at MIT or was at MIT?
(14:04):
And he came up with four classifications
of multiverse series, I'll call him.
And probably misquoting that.
But, oneis the extinction of our own universe.
And, look, I'm going to, like,bring this down to dummy talk
here, but, it's the idea ofwe have the observable universe.
(14:24):
We can look back and observenear the beginning of time and quote
unquote, the Big bang.
And we have the observable universe.
But what's outside of that?
And it doesn't mean the universe ends.
We just don't know what's outside of that.
The second classificationis pocket universes.
So when inflation happen, which is likethe expansion for the Big Bang,
(14:47):
you could get these
little offshootsof, of universes off of our own
observable universe as that goes on,where physics can be entirely different.
And this ties in with string theory,which is working to kind of match up
and make physicsblend with quantum physics.
Then there's the mini worldsclassification,
(15:08):
which is very similar to your movie,which is we're we're not separated
or we're separated by time, but not place,I guess is one way to think about it.
Again, I just made your eyes roll.
That's because I.Know that that wasn't what you thought.
That was a thinking eye roll, not an Imax.
Yeah, it's,
And that one.
Yeah, that's very similar to a lot ofsort of the movies and books out there.
(15:30):
And then there's a fourth classification,which I so did not understand.
But it's called Mathematical Universeis, which sounded way more
kind of like out there and weirdto the point that what I was reading about
that I was like,I don't understand a word of this.
But anyway,those are the four classifications,
that this gentleman came up with thatI think people have been scientists
(15:51):
have been playing around with.But I do like. Oh, cool. Yeah.
It is so cool, isn't it? Yeah.
So now that I said thatwhen you were researching,
did you come across any storiesfrom people that said
that they had some kind of experiencethat made them think maybe
they were seeing into a different universeor living in it or whatever?
And yeah, what what did you come acrossand what can you share?
(16:13):
Absolutely.You know what's really interesting?
So this film has has found kindof an interesting cross-section of humans.
One is like the sort of scifi quantum physics side,
but it's really found rootsin the metaphysical community.
Yeah.
Because,
so in my movie, there's a character who'sa spiritual channel, which is a concept
that for people who aren't in that kindof more metaphysical New Age space,
(16:34):
there's people who, channel
what they call, you know, entitiesthat are other dimensional.
So, you know,the one of the most famous ones
is, like Abraham Hicks,who this woman, Esther Hicks channels.
There's a guynamed, Daryl Anka who channels,
an entity called Bashar.
These are like, you know, hundredsand hundreds of thousands of these
(16:54):
on YouTube, you know, do conferencesall over the world kind of thing. But,
a lot of the channeled content
talks about this stuff and other worlds,
other realities, kind of different waysof looking at our reality.
So I have had accessto a spiritual channel.
I grew up in Santa Fe,and my parents were kind of very cute
into that sort of spiritual community.
(17:15):
And so a good friend of theirsis a spiritual channel.
And so throughout my sort of adolescenceand into adulthood,
I had a lot of conversations with herand the entity that she channels.
And that was just so fascinating to mein terms of it's just like hearing
a completely different perspective.
And again,whether you think that's total nonsense
or whether you believethat's true, the concepts brought through,
(17:37):
I think are fascinating,
and they're very in line with kind ofeverything we've been talking about today.
So from that, there's been several people,especially once the film started
coming out who had messaged meor come up to me after screenings and say
either like, oh, I do this all the time,or like I've had experiences like that or
and let me tell you my story.
You know, about like just crazy things,you know, sitting in
in sort of a flexi place where a loved onewas alive and a loved one was dead,
(18:01):
and they could see both and not knowingwhich way it would go or,
you know, this idea and I again,the way I made the movie
and if you see the movie, you know,you can let me know if if it's exceeded.
But the concept that like the way that,
you know, these symptoms,these things that happen
that that illustratethat she's moved into another reality
(18:22):
are all things that, again, I experienceand it makes me wonder, like, so,
you know, when I get like a randomringing in my ears
just out of nowhere, like,what's that about?
Or like I'll have experienceswhere I'm walking down a street.
I've been down like a thousand times,
and all of a sudden there's a brand newthere's a house right there.
It's not like they just built it, like,not new, like,
oh, they've been doing constructionand there's a new house.
But like, that house was not thereyesterday, and now it's there.
(18:45):
And my brain immediately is like, well,
you probably just never looked over thereand it's been there all along.
But this whole movie is dealing with like,but what if that's.
Not. Like,what if it actually just is a new house?
And what if I actually just step intoa new reality and I don't even realize it?
So I think justthreading that line of like,
I don'tknow, maybe things aren't what they seem.
(19:05):
Yeah.
And it's it's really funbecause much more in sort of a topic
that I feel more comfortabletalking about.
But there are people that theorizethat maybe ghosts are just seeing into
some other alternate dimension,which could be, you know,
some sort of multiverseor parallel universe.
You'reyou're getting some sort of lift into,
there's also talk,which I think is hilarious,
(19:26):
but that, that things like Bigfootor Cryptid
are actually just beingsfrom another unit, like parallel universe
that have somehow we're seeingor have gotten into ours, or there's a
bunch of different thoughts about that.
And so it ties in to all of the more like
creepy stories that we also haveas a culture and society, where you can
(19:47):
tie in this theoryto a multiverse into those things as well.
Have youdid you read it sounds very similar to,
what you're talking about in the storiesyou've been talking about
with people that have come up to you,but it reminds me of time slip stories.
You can read Time Slips.
So I had an episodeabout one of the most famous ones,
which is Sir Victor Goddard,who was a pilot, in,
(20:11):
before World War Two,and he was flying his open
air airplane in England and passed over
a, an airport that he thought was defunctafter the First World War.
But there were people there,and the uniforms
didn't match the real military uniforms.
And he thinks he saw into the future,
because those uniforms werewhat the uniforms became later on.
(20:31):
And the planes were different.
And in my episode,people can listen to it.
I, I enjoyed the episode,but there are some discussions
to sort of debunk what he thinks happened.
But there
there have been a lot of other storiesabout time slips, people wandering down
streets, and suddenly they thinkthey're in the 1960s and the story
they were going to, which is like a gap,is now an old bookstore.
(20:56):
But when they leave, it's a gap again.
And that could tieinto the multiverse as well.
If those two, like you're saying,what if what if that is a real experience?
Yeah.
What if that's sort of sort of slipinto an alternate reality?
Well,
because when you're getting into quantumphysics, like time is also a construct,
time is a construct.
The human brains understand.
(21:16):
And like they've even proventhat like many, many animals.
And again, how do you know, like,
I always wonder this when they're like,cats don't see colors.
I'm like, but how do you know catsonly see you as big cats and like, well,
that sounds cool,but how do you know anyway?
But they say that a lot of animalsdon't experience time
the way we experience time.
And so we're so married to our timelinebased in like linear time.
(21:38):
But if that's a construct, then it'slike if you start even just having
your brain try to comprehend like, well,what if time isn't actually a thing?
What if it doesn't exist?
Like, did you see the movie arrivalwith Amy? Yes.
Oh yeah, I love that movie.
Oh, I mean,
it did such a great job of like,exploring a really complicated subject,
but that concept of, like,circular time. Yes.
And how she comes into a place
(21:58):
where, like past is influencingfuture is influencing present.
And again, lately they've been proving
that the present can alter the pack.
And like, I don't know how they do this,but it's so interesting.
It's like that they all somehow connectwith each other where it's like
future, present past,like their relationship maybe
is not what we think in terms of this onedirectional line going like that, right?
(22:21):
Yeah, yeah.
So what are your thoughts onbecause in the movie
your character has these experiences and
I don't want to use this word, butI can't think of a better one right now.
But like a power to kind ofhave these experiences
with these alternate dimensions oruniverses, whatever you want to call them.
In the real in, in our reality.
(22:43):
Is that even possible?
Or if it is,what would actually make it possible
in your in your opinions or ideas? Yeah.
I mean, I personally think it's possibleand I think
it's probably happeningall the time to all of us though.
And one thing I explored in the filmand is like,
you know, this conceptof like mental illness.
(23:04):
And again, I don't want to discreditthe fact that, like some people
and the mental illness they haveis something that requires medication
or requires,you know, institutionalization like,
depends like there'ssome very crazy stuff that goes on.
But we are very good at diagnosingand compartmentalizing people
if they have experiences that don't matchwhat we understand to be true.
And so what this film also exploresis like two people who are experiencing
(23:28):
reality in a different way,both kind of getting diagnosed,
being afraid of being otheredand kind of trying to shut it down.
And I think so many of us would do thatall the time, like the parts of us
that we're like, well,that's a little weird.
And I don't know if like, you know,
reality or friends or societywill accept that part of me.
But like, I think if we all open upto that weird a little more,
(23:51):
like the thing I learned in makingthis movie is like, by kind of
putting my weird out on the screenin this movie,
other people started being like,hey, me too.
And then I didn't feel so weird and alone.
You know, it's kind of like,I just think there's so many things
that we all experiencethat we kind of just push away.
And I think if we all were more opento just being like, well,
(24:14):
that that was an experienceI had and I can't explain it,
but that doesn't mean I'm crazyor it didn't happen.
Maybe it would just open upa little window toward some superpowers
that all of us are maybe harboringthat we're not even aware of.
Right?
Empathy, intuition, like things that,
you know, have kind of been relegatedto, like the supernatural.
But I think we've seen peoplewho have predict the future can read
(24:36):
dreams are psychics or energy healers or,you know, like, what is that thing?
Qigong where like, they can shoot energyand it like, breaks things or like,
hits a gong across the like,there's crazy stuff that we've seen
happenthat we kind of like, forget about that.
People are doing monks who meditate incaves and don't eat for like three months
(24:59):
and they don't likethey don't eat or drink
and they put themselvesin some kind of stasis and they don't die.
Like there's all kinds of incredible stuffhappening.
I wrote down a couple of quicklittle stories
that I think are fascinating.
The first one, honestly,I think just because
of the types of stories, these are like,quote unquote time slip stories.
But again,I think that fits into this theory.
(25:22):
The overall broad theory of this.
But there's a case it's called the Dunstercase, which is in 1993 when it happened.
You know, it's a coupleI think their name was the Roberts.
And they were visiting a villagein Somerset, Dunster,
and they were making their wayto their hotel around 7:30 p.m.
after exploring.
And they got lost in a villagecalled mountain,
(25:44):
and they saw beautiful flowersand landscape, you know, sort of that,
that idyllic hillside, British hillsidesort of idea.
There was a plaque that had a mention of
like the best village,and it was from 1976,
and they went backthe next day like they ended up
finding their way back to their hotel,and they went back
because they wanted to take picturesof the flowers and the beautiful scenery.
(26:06):
And when they went back,there were no flowers.
Everything was bare.
Everything was sort of falling apart.
There was no plaque from 1976,and it seemed like
the whole village had shiftedinto a different version of itself.
And so
again, that'sa kind of a brief version of that story.
There's one I,I wrote this down from memory.
(26:29):
I don't remember specifically who it wasor when it took place,
but I love it because I could see thisbeing the setup for a movie.
But there was a woman againin England is full of time slip stories,
so a lot of them are from there.
But a woman in England is passingthrough its small town,
and she saw this beautiful old church,and she went there
and she actually, like,went to church that day
and saw the beautiful congregationand had a great old time.
(26:52):
And she loved it so much that weeks later
she's like,I'm going to go back to that church today.
And she went back to the church, butit was like burned and like torn apart.
And she asked someone nearby like, hey,what happened to the church?
And they're like, oh,it was bombed during World War Two.
So it wasn't in, in the, you know, thecorrect state when she was there before.
(27:13):
Which is
just like a fascinatinglittle setup for a story.
Now, I don't knowif that story is true or not.
It could a lot of these sort of urbanlegends,
that you come across when you research it.
But they're, they're fascinating stories,which, again, is why this fits so well
with movies or books or anything thatyou can come up with some fantastic stuff.
Totally. Yeah.
(27:33):
And when you, you know, you mentioned onelike England and you know, because the
England and Ireland and Scotland,they also have this fairy culture.
Right?
And they're like,oh yeah, we'll talk about
like getting lost in fairy landand coming out in different times
or losing timeor the Rip Van Winkle thing of like what?
You know, you think you've lost a day,but you've lost 50 years, like, right.
All kinds of.
So it's like whether we're calling itfairies, parallel realities, time
(27:55):
slips like there'swhat about the Bermuda Triangle?
I'm sure you've done a podcastabout that or.
Well, but again, there's just like,there's stuff
that's like been in our zeitgeistfor so long,
that is just like enough people are havingcrazy experiences that it just makes it.
Yeah, as you said, like
we can't prove without the shadow of adoubt that this stuff is, quote, true.
But quantum physics is like, yeah, duh,
(28:17):
you don't knowwhat the hell is going on here.
And I think that's what makes it.It's like, what if it could be?
And that's what makes life so fun.
It yeah, that is a great way to put it.
And I think quantum physics is where,where that realm of the strange
kind of mixes with our perceived versionof reality in a way
that might explain all these weird thingsthat can happen in the world.
(28:37):
And it's super fun.So why don't we do this?
Thank you for being on Rachel.
And where can people find ingress?
Yeah.
So ingress is currently streamingin the US, on Amazon Prime,
Fandango at Home and Vimeo on Demand.
We're hoping to be going more wide,in the next few months in terms
of more of an international streamingrelease and, more platforms.
(28:59):
So I'll definitely be posting about that.
But please go watch it on Amazon.
And if you like it, give us a rating,give us a review.
I always love hearing what people think.
And of course,
and I will put some links as wellin the show notes for these things.
And you have another
movie called inheritance, which is,going to come out soon, I'm sure.
And I'm excited about that.
That one does not dealwith, alternate realities of any kind.
(29:22):
Not that I know any way. You know?
But. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm really excited about that. And.
Yeah. Thank you again.
I was I'm feeling again.
I was I'm still a little petrified thatI'm talking about something so scientific,
and I just feel like such a dumb dumb.
But this is a topic
that I've wanted to exploreand I continue to read about, and I do.
(29:42):
I watch YouTube videos, like at nightin bed and, my brain will explode
and you know that I'll read
some sort of scientific journala day later about the same topic again.
My head will explode.
But it's so interesting andI really appreciate you taking the time
just to explore it a little with meand teach me some stuff too.
Oh my gosh, it's so fun!
(30:03):
Thank you for letting me geek outabout this stuff.
Talk for hours.
That'll do it for the show.
Thank you for listeningto a study of strange.
Next time,I'm going deep into a serial killer story
that has intrigued me for quite some time,so it will be a very different episode.
If you're new,make sure to hit that subscribe button
(30:23):
or follow buttonwherever you listen to podcasts on.
Please leave a rating and reviewif there's a long way to helping others
find this show.
You can also support usthrough our Substack,
which you'll find the support tabon our website.
The study of strange.com.
Thank you again. Good night.
Imagine for a moment
that there's another version of you outthere.
Are you who made different choices,took different paths,
and is living a completely different life?
It sounds like science fiction,but some of the most brilliant minds
in science believe it could be a reality.
(00:24):
On this show, where we tend to delveinto a specific story
from the weirdand wonderful world of the unexplainable.
Today is a little different.
We're having a conversationabout parallel universes.
Do they exist,and if so, what does that mean?
This is a study of strange.
(01:02):
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Michael May,and joining me on a study of strange.
This week is our special guest,Rachel Null.
Everybody's favorite.
Rachel.
Noel, I don't know,I was trying to think of a joke,
and I couldn't think of one fast enough.
Welcome to the show, Rachel.
Thanks so much, Mikey.I'm happy to be here.
So Rachel is a an actor, a filmmaker,a writer.
And you're on today.
(01:24):
You have two filmsmaking the rounds right now.
One is are both out or onejust doing festivals and one is out.
Yeah.
So ingress is currently out on streaming,on Amazon Prime.
And then inheritance is doing the festivalrun right now.
Great.
And ingress is the reasonI wanted to ask you on today
because this is a this episodeis going to be slightly different.
(01:45):
I wanted to have a discussionabout a topic
that I'm thoroughly fascinated with.
But yet, as I mentioned to youright before we started recording,
I'm also an idiotwith science and stuff, so
I'm feeling a little petrifiedto have a discussion about it.
But I love the topicand and it's essentially parallel
universes, the multiverse,alternate reality,
(02:07):
all of these thingskind of homogenized together.
They all kind of connectto quantum physics in various ways.
And your movie ingressdeals with this subject matter.
So why don't you tell us
a little bit about the movieand how it connects to this topic?
Sure.
So, yeah, ingressis, sort of a female centric sci fi film.
(02:28):
It's about a womanwho can move between parallel realities.
Just something that she's been ableto do her whole life.
And, her husband passes away,and it's kind of an exploration of,
you know, her journeytrying to get back to him,
which is ultimately more of a journey of,you know, dealing with her grief,
dealing with the loss of, you know, thisperson and her life and moving on. And,
(02:51):
so, yeah,
diving into all that multiverse stuff,but in a very grounded sort of way.
Yeah.
And it is, you know,it is in the zeitgeisty
and it kind of has been for tenor so years and pop culture and movies
and books and comics and stories,this idea of these parallel universes.
So what drew you to this topic?
Were you like,how did you first become interested in it?
(03:15):
So a couple pieces to that.
First of all,what's actually really interesting
is when I first startedwriting the script,
it was like just before Marvel started,really only this multiverse concept.
So when I would tell people about, like,the multiverse, they're like, the what?
So it was like this.
Even so, the film's already pretty fringy,but like it was even fringe year
because nobody knewwhat the multiverse was.
But then it was funny because by the timeI actually got it made,
(03:36):
and then when it was coming out,like all of a sudden that was like
everywhere, and Marvel had made it really,you know, really well known. So,
it came from, for me, a couple of things.
So my dad, is a physicistand was a physics teacher.
And so when I was growing up,
I had all kinds of cool
books on quantum physics,like the parallel realities of self and,
the holographic universeand all these things that talk about,
(03:57):
you know, from the quantum physicsperspective,
just how littlewe actually know about reality and that,
you know, this idea of,you know, every time we make a choice,
a different reality branch is offwhere we made a different choice.
And it's interesting because nowI feel like they've actually proved that.
And that breaks my brain so muchbecause I don't even know how
you could possibly prove that.
But they say they've proven itnow, which is fascinating. So,
(04:21):
I think for me, like,I've always really loved grounded sci fi.
So there's a movie called,do you ever see the movie Another Earth?
No, I know of it. Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's really cool because it's it's
technically about like anotherabout another version of Earth, like,
appears in the sky and they realizeit's like a duplicate of Earth.
And there's anotheryou living on that earth.
(04:42):
And so it's like,very like a cool sci fi concept.
But what I loved about it isit was essentially an indie drama
about two like Broken People that justhappened to be set against this kind of,
you know, out there backdrop.
And so that was an inspiration for mewhen I was thinking about ingress, because
I wanted the sort of parallel realityjumping in that to feel very grounded
(05:02):
and to have it feel like somethingthat we might all kind of go for.
I've experienced something like that.
Like, is it possible that I actually didthat, you know, to have it
be something that feels relatableand not like some crazy, spacey,
sort of Doctor Strange in the multiversekind of thing?
Your dad, you said, it is a physicist
or taught physics,and he's in the movie, isn't he?
(05:24):
I thought you're both in it. Okay.
My parents play. My parents? Yeah.
That's great.
I was like,I think that's actually Rachel's parents.
That was really cool.
Let me back up here a little bitand I'm going to give a little bit of
not necessarily history, I guess a littlebit of history, but a little background
to just the idea in caselisteners aren't super familiar with it.
(05:45):
So the idea of a multiverseis relatively new in terms
of like modern science and quantum physicsand all these things.
However,the idea that there's multiple universes
or connective realities, has actually beenaround a really long time.
I didn't know this till this week, whenI kind of did a little periphery research.
But the Greeks had two differentgroups of people that would argue about
(06:07):
philosophy and things,and they they essentially discussed
the idea that parallel worlds existed,
and they were not that differentfrom our own.
The ancient Buddhist,thought that there were parallel worlds.
And essentially there's this cyclical,very cyclical Buddhist type of idea
that things start and renew again,and it's like it tied into this idea.
(06:29):
Schrodinger MisterMister Cat fan in the 1950s,
excuse me, had some equationsthat he described as,
different histories, and he
said that they're not alternatives,but all really happened simultaneous,
which is just such a great quoteI came across.
And then the idea more specifically for
(06:49):
the multiverse came aboutin, I think it was 1954.
I didn't write down the date.
So I'm I'm trying to rememberthat off the top of my head.
But a gentleman named Hugh Everettat Princeton came up with the idea
of a parallel universeexactly like ours that exists.
And there's multiple universes, andthey branch off and and we also note it
as an alternate historyor parallel universe.
(07:12):
And that's where thethe idea stemmed for from.
And obviously it's
grown and moved and everybody'skind of aware of these different things.
And yeah.
Do you mind I'm going to read a quotefrom Live science.com.
I said, okay, of course.
All right.
So this is from Live Science.
Dot com multiverse theory suggeststhat our universe, with all its hundreds
of billions of galaxiesand almost countless
(07:33):
stars spanning tens of billions of lightyears, may not be the only one.
Instead,there may be an entirely different
universe distantly separated from ours.
And another. And another.
Indeed,there may be an infinity of universes, all
with their own laws of physics, their owncollections of stars and galaxies.
If stars and galaxies can exist in thoseuniverses, and maybe even their own
(07:53):
intelligent civilizations, it could bethat our universe is just one member
of a much grander, much largermultitude of universes a multiverse.
Yeah.
So that's kindof a little bit of the background of it.
I didn't dive too much into the science,because that's where my head explodes.
But but the science is there.
And like you
said, people have been studying this,theorizing about it, running equations.
(08:17):
One of the sort of the,I guess, converse idea behind this
is that they do say it's not testable,but I guess now it kind of is testable.
I think it's like really recent thatthey've been able to to test these ideas.
Yeah.
So what have you come acrossin your research for this?
Well, okay.
So there's some the whole like
so the holographic universe theory to me
(08:39):
is like a whole other level of crazyaround all of this because essentially,
like as they get deeper into the quantum,right, like they're really tiny, tiny.
And then as they get more intothe macro macro, they start to see that,
like science just breaks down,like it just doesn't make sense anymore.
And so that's where you mentionedSchrodinger's cat.
But like, yeah, that that concept,but also like the particle wave experiment
(08:59):
where essentially like
when a particle is observed,it does one thing
and when it's not observedit does something different.
Like that's insane.
So the idea that like tangible reality,
isn't actually solid at all,
and kind of this sense oflike what I like about quantum physics is
I feel like traditional scienceis very much like
we've we've done these experimentsand we've proven this, without a doubt
(09:20):
is true.
And quantum physics is like the morewe learn, the less we know about anything.
And I think that just feels waymore true. Yeah.
And so when you were diving into thisand trying to find that grounded science
base for your science fiction film, theyou just mentioned it, sort of the split
particle experiment, whatever it's called,but it's almost like an infinite,
an infinite amount of things can happenunless there's an observer.
(09:44):
And so when you were thinking about thismultiverse type of idea, is that
because, hey, every decision
I would just break it downfor like a personal way as an example.
But like I'm going to decideto take a sip of water.
But I also could have decided not to takea sip of water or walked over there.
And every time those decisions are made,they all of them are made.
But it's just our observing, the one thatthat happens in our own reality.
(10:07):
So is that the ideathat all these infinite things can happen
is that in your story, kind of the idea ofI can jump between all these different,
you know, options of whatever happens.
See, this is where I get dumb.I don't know how to say it.
You know what I'm talking about, thoughI do. Yeah.
I mean, I guess what I was kind of playingwith is like, sir, you know.
Yes, like the small moments. Right?
(10:28):
But like, in this case,it was like the death of someone you love.
And that sense of like,okay, if we're thinking about
parallel realities,like in one timeline, Toby dies,
in another timeline, Toby lives and every,you know, variation in between.
And so what if, as a person,you could actually slip
between these different versionsand what would that actually look like?
(10:51):
And another crazy conceptthat came into my world
that kind of shaped this is sothis one's very like brain breaky, but,
essentially so this concept of like
we think about reality
as the spotlight,like a steady stream of light.
Right? So there's the past.
It comes into the present,it streams into the future.
And it's like one continuous line.
(11:14):
But the concept was thatreality is actually more like a strobe
light, meaning moment moments that arecompletely separate from each other.
So like this moment,you and me in this room, right?
Or you were in our separate rooms.
We're talking over this,you know, video chat.
When I look around, like what I can see,what I can hear.
This is reality right now.
(11:34):
And in this moment,
I can't actually prove thatanything outside of this room exists.
Including, like, my cat in the other room.
I can't prove I have a catunless it comes into this room.
In this moment.
So this concept that, like reality,is actually just the present moment.
Memories are a story.
The future is a story.
(11:55):
And the other crazy thingthat kind of played into this was this,
you know, memories are fallible, right?
So what if
this is kindof where the ingress concept came from?
Like what if
I actually like in this moment?
I know myself, as you know, Rachel
living in Washington,having like a certain set of experiences.
(12:15):
But what if I just landed here
and like, prior to this,I was somewhere completely different.
But the minute I landedhere, memories filled in
to create the sense of,like, a continuous timeline, right?
But I actually can't provethat those memories really happened.
They're just a storythat filled in in my brain.
So ingress kind of plays with that.
This idea of like, in the momentshe's existing, she has memories
(12:38):
that fill in that kind of land, herthere as if she'd always been there,
but she hadn't.
And like,what if that's true for all of us?
Like, it's that crazy.
What if of quantum physics,where it's like, can I prove that?
No. But also,can I prove the opposite? No.
So it's kind of like that.
That's the space that becomes funas a storyteller, I think,
because it's like in all the unknowns,we can create kind of anything we want.
(13:01):
Yeah.
And that's where this, this idea really
is amazing for for fiction, for art.
Because you can take it.
So you can take itjust like the theories itself.
You can take in these infinite amountof directions.
And, and obviously people have everythingeverywhere, all at once.
The movie, I think that it's a fantastickind of unique job
(13:22):
at looking at this kind of stuff.
But it is it
is strange, which is why I wanted to talkabout it, because it is based in science,
and people are legitimately workingtheir butts off trying to understand this
and, and, you know, test ideasand all this kind of stuff.
But it's bizarre because the quantum worldis so different than than, you know,
(13:44):
Einstein's theory of relativityand basic physics.
And in fact, here I'm going to I'mgoing to get a little nerdy.
Yeah, I made it,made some notes on actual paper.
So there's a gentleman named Max Tegmark.
Did you do anything you read with him?
So he's an at MIT or was at MIT?
(14:04):
And he came up with four classifications
of multiverse series, I'll call him.
And probably misquoting that.
But, oneis the extinction of our own universe.
And, look, I'm going to, like,bring this down to dummy talk
here, but, it's the idea ofwe have the observable universe.
(14:24):
We can look back and observenear the beginning of time and quote
unquote, the Big bang.
And we have the observable universe.
But what's outside of that?
And it doesn't mean the universe ends.
We just don't know what's outside of that.
The second classificationis pocket universes.
So when inflation happen, which is likethe expansion for the Big Bang,
(14:47):
you could get these
little offshootsof, of universes off of our own
observable universe as that goes on,where physics can be entirely different.
And this ties in with string theory,which is working to kind of match up
and make physicsblend with quantum physics.
Then there's the mini worldsclassification,
(15:08):
which is very similar to your movie,which is we're we're not separated
or we're separated by time, but not place,I guess is one way to think about it.
Again, I just made your eyes roll.
That's because I.Know that that wasn't what you thought.
That was a thinking eye roll, not an Imax.
Yeah, it's,
And that one.
Yeah, that's very similar to a lot ofsort of the movies and books out there.
(15:30):
And then there's a fourth classification,which I so did not understand.
But it's called Mathematical Universeis, which sounded way more
kind of like out there and weirdto the point that what I was reading about
that I was like,I don't understand a word of this.
But anyway,those are the four classifications,
that this gentleman came up with thatI think people have been scientists
(15:51):
have been playing around with.But I do like. Oh, cool. Yeah.
It is so cool, isn't it? Yeah.
So now that I said thatwhen you were researching,
did you come across any storiesfrom people that said
that they had some kind of experiencethat made them think maybe
they were seeing into a different universeor living in it or whatever?
And yeah, what what did you come acrossand what can you share?
(16:13):
Absolutely.You know what's really interesting?
So this film has has found kindof an interesting cross-section of humans.
One is like the sort of scifi quantum physics side,
but it's really found rootsin the metaphysical community.
Yeah.
Because,
so in my movie, there's a character who'sa spiritual channel, which is a concept
that for people who aren't in that kindof more metaphysical New Age space,
(16:34):
there's people who, channel
what they call, you know, entitiesthat are other dimensional.
So, you know,the one of the most famous ones
is, like Abraham Hicks,who this woman, Esther Hicks channels.
There's a guynamed, Daryl Anka who channels,
an entity called Bashar.
These are like, you know, hundredsand hundreds of thousands of these
(16:54):
on YouTube, you know, do conferencesall over the world kind of thing. But,
a lot of the channeled content
talks about this stuff and other worlds,
other realities, kind of different waysof looking at our reality.
So I have had accessto a spiritual channel.
I grew up in Santa Fe,and my parents were kind of very cute
into that sort of spiritual community.
(17:15):
And so a good friend of theirsis a spiritual channel.
And so throughout my sort of adolescenceand into adulthood,
I had a lot of conversations with herand the entity that she channels.
And that was just so fascinating to mein terms of it's just like hearing
a completely different perspective.
And again,whether you think that's total nonsense
or whether you believethat's true, the concepts brought through,
(17:37):
I think are fascinating,
and they're very in line with kind ofeverything we've been talking about today.
So from that, there's been several people,especially once the film started
coming out who had messaged meor come up to me after screenings and say
either like, oh, I do this all the time,or like I've had experiences like that or
and let me tell you my story.
You know, about like just crazy things,you know, sitting in
in sort of a flexi place where a loved onewas alive and a loved one was dead,
(18:01):
and they could see both and not knowingwhich way it would go or,
you know, this idea and I again,the way I made the movie
and if you see the movie, you know,you can let me know if if it's exceeded.
But the concept that like the way that,
you know, these symptoms,these things that happen
that that illustratethat she's moved into another reality
(18:22):
are all things that, again, I experienceand it makes me wonder, like, so,
you know, when I get like a randomringing in my ears
just out of nowhere, like,what's that about?
Or like I'll have experienceswhere I'm walking down a street.
I've been down like a thousand times,
and all of a sudden there's a brand newthere's a house right there.
It's not like they just built it, like,not new, like,
oh, they've been doing constructionand there's a new house.
But like, that house was not thereyesterday, and now it's there.
(18:45):
And my brain immediately is like, well,
you probably just never looked over thereand it's been there all along.
But this whole movie is dealing with like,but what if that's.
Not. Like,what if it actually just is a new house?
And what if I actually just step intoa new reality and I don't even realize it?
So I think justthreading that line of like,
I don'tknow, maybe things aren't what they seem.
(19:05):
Yeah.
And it's it's really funbecause much more in sort of a topic
that I feel more comfortabletalking about.
But there are people that theorizethat maybe ghosts are just seeing into
some other alternate dimension,which could be, you know,
some sort of multiverseor parallel universe.
You'reyou're getting some sort of lift into,
there's also talk,which I think is hilarious,
(19:26):
but that, that things like Bigfootor Cryptid
are actually just beingsfrom another unit, like parallel universe
that have somehow we're seeingor have gotten into ours, or there's a
bunch of different thoughts about that.
And so it ties in to all of the more like
creepy stories that we also haveas a culture and society, where you can
(19:47):
tie in this theoryto a multiverse into those things as well.
Have youdid you read it sounds very similar to,
what you're talking about in the storiesyou've been talking about
with people that have come up to you,but it reminds me of time slip stories.
You can read Time Slips.
So I had an episodeabout one of the most famous ones,
which is Sir Victor Goddard,who was a pilot, in,
(20:11):
before World War Two,and he was flying his open
air airplane in England and passed over
a, an airport that he thought was defunctafter the First World War.
But there were people there,and the uniforms
didn't match the real military uniforms.
And he thinks he saw into the future,
because those uniforms werewhat the uniforms became later on.
(20:31):
And the planes were different.
And in my episode,people can listen to it.
I, I enjoyed the episode,but there are some discussions
to sort of debunk what he thinks happened.
But there
there have been a lot of other storiesabout time slips, people wandering down
streets, and suddenly they thinkthey're in the 1960s and the story
they were going to, which is like a gap,is now an old bookstore.
(20:56):
But when they leave, it's a gap again.
And that could tieinto the multiverse as well.
If those two, like you're saying,what if what if that is a real experience?
Yeah.
What if that's sort of sort of slipinto an alternate reality?
Well,
because when you're getting into quantumphysics, like time is also a construct,
time is a construct.
The human brains understand.
(21:16):
And like they've even proventhat like many, many animals.
And again, how do you know, like,
I always wonder this when they're like,cats don't see colors.
I'm like, but how do you know catsonly see you as big cats and like, well,
that sounds cool,but how do you know anyway?
But they say that a lot of animalsdon't experience time
the way we experience time.
And so we're so married to our timelinebased in like linear time.
(21:38):
But if that's a construct, then it'slike if you start even just having
your brain try to comprehend like, well,what if time isn't actually a thing?
What if it doesn't exist?
Like, did you see the movie arrivalwith Amy? Yes.
Oh yeah, I love that movie.
Oh, I mean,
it did such a great job of like,exploring a really complicated subject,
but that concept of, like,circular time. Yes.
And how she comes into a place
(21:58):
where, like past is influencingfuture is influencing present.
And again, lately they've been proving
that the present can alter the pack.
And like, I don't know how they do this,but it's so interesting.
It's like that they all somehow connectwith each other where it's like
future, present past,like their relationship maybe
is not what we think in terms of this onedirectional line going like that, right?
(22:21):
Yeah, yeah.
So what are your thoughts onbecause in the movie
your character has these experiences and
I don't want to use this word, butI can't think of a better one right now.
But like a power to kind ofhave these experiences
with these alternate dimensions oruniverses, whatever you want to call them.
In the real in, in our reality.
(22:43):
Is that even possible?
Or if it is,what would actually make it possible
in your in your opinions or ideas? Yeah.
I mean, I personally think it's possibleand I think
it's probably happeningall the time to all of us though.
And one thing I explored in the filmand is like,
you know, this conceptof like mental illness.
(23:04):
And again, I don't want to discreditthe fact that, like some people
and the mental illness they haveis something that requires medication
or requires,you know, institutionalization like,
depends like there'ssome very crazy stuff that goes on.
But we are very good at diagnosingand compartmentalizing people
if they have experiences that don't matchwhat we understand to be true.
And so what this film also exploresis like two people who are experiencing
(23:28):
reality in a different way,both kind of getting diagnosed,
being afraid of being otheredand kind of trying to shut it down.
And I think so many of us would do thatall the time, like the parts of us
that we're like, well,that's a little weird.
And I don't know if like, you know,
reality or friends or societywill accept that part of me.
But like, I think if we all open upto that weird a little more,
(23:51):
like the thing I learned in makingthis movie is like, by kind of
putting my weird out on the screenin this movie,
other people started being like,hey, me too.
And then I didn't feel so weird and alone.
You know, it's kind of like,I just think there's so many things
that we all experiencethat we kind of just push away.
And I think if we all were more opento just being like, well,
(24:14):
that that was an experienceI had and I can't explain it,
but that doesn't mean I'm crazyor it didn't happen.
Maybe it would just open upa little window toward some superpowers
that all of us are maybe harboringthat we're not even aware of.
Right?
Empathy, intuition, like things that,
you know, have kind of been relegatedto, like the supernatural.
But I think we've seen peoplewho have predict the future can read
(24:36):
dreams are psychics or energy healers or,you know, like, what is that thing?
Qigong where like, they can shoot energyand it like, breaks things or like,
hits a gong across the like,there's crazy stuff that we've seen
happenthat we kind of like, forget about that.
People are doing monks who meditate incaves and don't eat for like three months
(24:59):
and they don't likethey don't eat or drink
and they put themselvesin some kind of stasis and they don't die.
Like there's all kinds of incredible stuffhappening.
I wrote down a couple of quicklittle stories
that I think are fascinating.
The first one, honestly,I think just because
of the types of stories, these are like,quote unquote time slip stories.
But again,I think that fits into this theory.
(25:22):
The overall broad theory of this.
But there's a case it's called the Dunstercase, which is in 1993 when it happened.
You know, it's a coupleI think their name was the Roberts.
And they were visiting a villagein Somerset, Dunster,
and they were making their wayto their hotel around 7:30 p.m.
after exploring.
And they got lost in a villagecalled mountain,
(25:44):
and they saw beautiful flowersand landscape, you know, sort of that,
that idyllic hillside, British hillsidesort of idea.
There was a plaque that had a mention of
like the best village,and it was from 1976,
and they went backthe next day like they ended up
finding their way back to their hotel,and they went back
because they wanted to take picturesof the flowers and the beautiful scenery.
(26:06):
And when they went back,there were no flowers.
Everything was bare.
Everything was sort of falling apart.
There was no plaque from 1976,and it seemed like
the whole village had shiftedinto a different version of itself.
And so
again, that'sa kind of a brief version of that story.
There's one I,I wrote this down from memory.
(26:29):
I don't remember specifically who it wasor when it took place,
but I love it because I could see thisbeing the setup for a movie.
But there was a woman againin England is full of time slip stories,
so a lot of them are from there.
But a woman in England is passingthrough its small town,
and she saw this beautiful old church,and she went there
and she actually, like,went to church that day
and saw the beautiful congregationand had a great old time.
(26:52):
And she loved it so much that weeks later
she's like,I'm going to go back to that church today.
And she went back to the church, butit was like burned and like torn apart.
And she asked someone nearby like, hey,what happened to the church?
And they're like, oh,it was bombed during World War Two.
So it wasn't in, in the, you know, thecorrect state when she was there before.
(27:13):
Which is
just like a fascinatinglittle setup for a story.
Now, I don't knowif that story is true or not.
It could a lot of these sort of urbanlegends,
that you come across when you research it.
But they're, they're fascinating stories,which, again, is why this fits so well
with movies or books or anything thatyou can come up with some fantastic stuff.
Totally. Yeah.
(27:33):
And when you, you know, you mentioned onelike England and you know, because the
England and Ireland and Scotland,they also have this fairy culture.
Right?
And they're like,oh yeah, we'll talk about
like getting lost in fairy landand coming out in different times
or losing timeor the Rip Van Winkle thing of like what?
You know, you think you've lost a day,but you've lost 50 years, like, right.
All kinds of.
So it's like whether we're calling itfairies, parallel realities, time
(27:55):
slips like there'swhat about the Bermuda Triangle?
I'm sure you've done a podcastabout that or.
Well, but again, there's just like,there's stuff
that's like been in our zeitgeistfor so long,
that is just like enough people are havingcrazy experiences that it just makes it.
Yeah, as you said, like
we can't prove without the shadow of adoubt that this stuff is, quote, true.
But quantum physics is like, yeah, duh,
(28:17):
you don't knowwhat the hell is going on here.
And I think that's what makes it.It's like, what if it could be?
And that's what makes life so fun.
It yeah, that is a great way to put it.
And I think quantum physics is where,where that realm of the strange
kind of mixes with our perceived versionof reality in a way
that might explain all these weird thingsthat can happen in the world.
(28:37):
And it's super fun.So why don't we do this?
Thank you for being on Rachel.
And where can people find ingress?
Yeah.
So ingress is currently streamingin the US, on Amazon Prime,
Fandango at Home and Vimeo on Demand.
We're hoping to be going more wide,in the next few months in terms
of more of an international streamingrelease and, more platforms.
(28:59):
So I'll definitely be posting about that.
But please go watch it on Amazon.
And if you like it, give us a rating,give us a review.
I always love hearing what people think.
And of course,
and I will put some links as wellin the show notes for these things.
And you have another
movie called inheritance, which is,going to come out soon, I'm sure.
And I'm excited about that.
That one does not dealwith, alternate realities of any kind.
(29:22):
Not that I know any way. You know?
But. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm really excited about that. And.
Yeah. Thank you again.
I was I'm feeling again.
I was I'm still a little petrified thatI'm talking about something so scientific,
and I just feel like such a dumb dumb.
But this is a topic
that I've wanted to exploreand I continue to read about, and I do.
(29:42):
I watch YouTube videos, like at nightin bed and, my brain will explode
and you know that I'll read
some sort of scientific journala day later about the same topic again.
My head will explode.
But it's so interesting andI really appreciate you taking the time
just to explore it a little with meand teach me some stuff too.
Oh my gosh, it's so fun!
(30:03):
Thank you for letting me geek outabout this stuff.
Talk for hours.
That'll do it for the show.
Thank you for listeningto a study of strange.
Next time,I'm going deep into a serial killer story
that has intrigued me for quite some time,so it will be a very different episode.
If you're new,make sure to hit that subscribe button
(30:23):
or follow buttonwherever you listen to podcasts on.
Please leave a rating and reviewif there's a long way to helping others
find this show.
You can also support usthrough our Substack,
which you'll find the support tabon our website.
The study of strange.com.
Thank you again. Good night.
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