I don't like elevators. In college, I once got stuck when too many students cramped into the metal box. Stuck between floors for two hours, with no room to move around, was not a pleasant experience. The metal walls were dripping with water from the condensation of our breath, and several students were making stupid jokes to hide their own fears. I rather take the stairs.

Elevators are semi-independent machines which isolate you from the world, and bring you from one level to another. They move you from the first floor to the top floor and any floor in between. They are automatic, all you have to do is push the button. Aside from being stuck in them for hours, it is a pretty straight forward ride.

However, it seems that sometimes they transport us to another dimension, realm or level of reality. Our world is not the solid state matter scientist would like it to be. What we call matter is actually condensed energy, as is evidenced in quantum physics. The world consists of frequency, vibration, energy fields etc. All that can be manipulated. We do it all the time with sound and radio waves for example. What would happen if you could change the energy states of matter itself? High energy lasers can vaporize matter. If you could change the energy state of a local space in a controlled way, would that create a kind of portal to another dimension? It is said that in nature there are vortexes that are gates to other dimensions. At the right time they can open, and one can step into another world. It is also said that some portals are under control of intelligent beings, who can come and go from one world or dimension to another. If that is the case, would it be a good idea to conceal such an artificial portal in the same local space as an elevator? An elevator has the advantage that once you step inside, you are isolated from the outside world. Nobody is seeing you, or tracking you where you are going. The elevator would operate normally unless the portal is activated and it let you out on another level of reality. It sounds like science fiction, but to some people something really strange happened when they took an elevator ride.

It is also possible that an elevator happens to be on a spot with occasional time/space anomalies. Elevators are metal boxes, and this might play a role in capturing and enhancing certain electromagnetic forces, and even infra-sound. This might have an effect on the brain of the person inside, shifting his awareness to other states of consciousness, making him experience other realities. There are also some strange time discrepancies that show up.

I think that in some instances, the person inside the elevator is temporarily taken out of this world. This would account for the fact that a lot more time passed than it would have normally taken. I am thinking about dimensional beings who take a person into their own dimension, for whatever purpose, and then put him back into our world, after erasing his memory of replacing it with a screen memory. It is something that is well-known in the UFO phenomenon, although I think we are here dealing with totally different beings. The elevator is an ideal place to take a person out of his environment without anybody else around him noticing that he is gone. Maybe some elevators are haunted, but the stories here show that other, more mysterious, things are happenings too.

One has to look at each individual case to figure out what scenario might be responsible for the event.

Here are some first-hand accounts I found that gives an idea of what might happen when you step into an elevator. I think there must be a lot more people who have this kind of experiences, but, as with the UFO phenomenon, they don't dare to talk about it because they wouldn't be believed, and they don't want to get ridiculed.

(There are more stories on a separate page called Elevators To Other Dimensions: Additional Stories for those interested in reading more accounts. (These are included in the PDF file, link above)

Contents:

Moving without Moving

Not the Right Floor

Otherworldly Levels

Strange People Going In or Out

A Glitch In Time

Moving without Moving

It sounds pretty simple but how can an elevator ascend or descend and stay at the same level? Did the people inside move through a kind of hyperspace, while in our physical world nothing moved?

So I was working in the Postroom of an insurance company years ago. Myself and another employee shared the role so basically spent all of our time together. We would start work on the 1st floor, where there were lots of other staff also working at their desks. Then later we would get the elevator to the 3rd floor and Frank letters and sort the post. One day, we went to the elevator as usual and pressed the button. We heard the elevator descend and the doors opened. We entered, pressed '3' and as usual the doors closed. The elevator then ascended, which took about 20 seconds. I felt the elevator move and then the doors opened. However, when we both went to leave, we realized that the floor we had arrived on was the 1st floor! Same desks, same people.

I was incredibly creeped out and noticed my colleague also seemed uncomfortable. I asked what was wrong, and he stated that we had definitely moved in the elevator, but had come to the same floor! (Reddit)

The same happened to this person:

Hi. So this happened maybe one year ago. Me and my partner had gone to a new shopping centre in our home town, it had been open quite a few months by this point, and I was around six months pregnant at the time. We decided to have a look around the baby section on the top floor. When we had finished browsing the aisles it was getting late, so we made our way to the elevator, which we had used several times that day since we must have stopped on nearly every floor to have a look around. So we got in the elevator as normal, laughing about something we’d seen. We were the only ones in the elevator, the doors closed and the elevator began descending to the bottom floor, I knew we were moving because my partner and I both felt that weird tickle in our abdomen when you quickly drop (like that feeling in your stomach when a rollercoaster drops you from a height). After about 15 seconds (which seemed a bit longer than usual) we stopped and the doors opened. We both walked out not paying much attention, only to realise we were still on the top floor. We immediately stopped talking and turned towards each other wide-eyed. “What the hell?” I said. “We moved! I felt it move down, we were in there for a while” my partner was clearly confused but trying to make it light-hearted. I just stood staring at the floor we’d just left and I said “I feel we’ve switched dimensions” My partner quickly ran back to the elevator and hit the open door button before it closed and we jumped back in. Thankfully this time it actually took us to the bottom floor, but to this day we can’t understand or explain how the hell a lift can move down 6 floors, and still be in the same place. (Reddit)

Here again, moving three floors but still being on the same floor:

I just had the weirdest experience of my life. About a hour ago, I enter an elevator that I use multiple times a day, and have been for months. A woman gets in before me, and presses floor 3, which is where I'm going. The doors close, and she's standing there looking at the doors, so I pulled out my phone to text. I feel the sinking feeling of the elevator going up, and hear it ding twice, for the second and 3rd floor. However, the doors never open. She looks at me confused, and I look at the current floor display, which reads "Floor 1". I ask her if we just moved up, and she confirms that we had indeed moved up all 3 floors. She then says "Crap, I hope the elevator didn't break.", then presses "3" again, expecting the door to open... But again, the elevator starts moving up, and again I hear 2 dings again as floors pass and the same sinking feeling of the elevator moving. We both look bewildered... I know how fast the elevator moves, I use it every day. But we just moved up 6 floors, in a 3 floor building with no basement. The doors open, and we're standing on the third floor, with people waiting to get in. I look at the woman and ask "Did that really just happen?" and she just nods to me with a really confused look... The fact we both confirmed it occurred really freaks me out. We'd have known if the elevator moved down at all, or if it was moving slower than normal, and I swear it didn't. I use this elevator at least 10 times a day, and I know how it feels, sounds, and how long it takes to move to my floor, and all that occurred how it normally does... Just twice in a row, with someone else in there to experience it with me. (Reddit)

Not the Right Floor

Elevators can also play a role in going to wrong level with the wrong layout of the apartments for that level:

A little bit of backstory: I live in Australia, in probably our busiest and most popular capital cities. I own an apartment with my girlfriend in the tallest building in the state, being 86 stories high. Our apartment is on the 56th floor, and there are only 4 apartments on our floor. My girlfriends family is visiting from Finland for Christmas.

Tonight, being Christmas Day, we were all just hanging out in our apartment. My girlfriends sister wanted some coke, so we had to go for a walk to a store about 15 minutes away because most stores are closed. My girlfriend, her sister and I left my girlfriends mother behind in the apartment.

Everything’s normal, we get back to the building, coke in hand. We step into an empty elevator and press our floor number. About 2 minute goes by whilst we’re in the elevator and the elevator then tells us that we’re at floor 56, being our floor and the button we pressed. Our floor is the only floor we can choose to go to because we have to swipe a card to use the elevator. We step out of the elevator and walk to my apartment which is down a short hallway. We get to our door, and my girlfriend notices that the numbers on our door looked quite dirty, as they’re chrome and normally shiny. It’s definitely our door, 03.56. I turn the handle an open the door only to find all of the lights off and a man sitting on our couch who I had never seen before. He looks straight at me but says nothing. Thinking I had opened the door to the wrong apartment (which is pretty much impossible) I quickly stepped out and closed the door. The number on the door read 03.14. Now apart from this being already quite strange, from floor 10 to 25 all of these floors have 8 apartments and are laid out completely differently. Before I walked into what I thought was my apartment there was definitely only 4 apartments. All three of us were freaking out because we all saw 03.56 on the door and spoke about the dirty numbers, and all three of us heard the elevator say “level 56”.

All of this happens within no more than 40 seconds. We give each other a weird look and walk back to the elevator to go up to our floor. I get to the elevators and notice that all 4 elevators are on the very top floor. There’s no way they all could have gotten there that quickly. What happened?

I’m not quite sure if this is the subreddit to post this in, but I’m just looking for answers.

Edit and addition: So today is Boxing Day, and here in Melbourne it’s the start of a cricket match (time to get absolutely wasted). This morning I sat down with my girlfriend and her sister, and we talked about what happened. According to my girlfriend and her sister, the guy on the couch looked very similar to me, though without all the tattoos. We have all agreed that just before we stepped out of the elevator we all DISTINCTLY remember smelling burnt toast. Once we got back to our apartment all three of us noticed that things that we remember leaving in certain places where all in different places in the apartment. All three of us noticed their mother acting a little off, and looking very very slightly and unexplainably different. Everything sorted of settled down and the three of us stepped into the balcony, and smelt the exact same smell of burnt toast. We were on the balcony for all of about 30 seconds. Once we stepped back inside, everything was back where we left it, and their mother was back as we remembered her.

Could it be possible we transcended to an alternate dimension? Could the smell have been the sign of this? (Reddit)

This woman also got to the wrong floor, and with a time discrepancy, something that seems to happen a lot with these weird elevator experiences:

This story happened at my work, a stadium. After I finished my shift I got on the elevator at the 1st level, there was no one else in there which was strange as there's like 1000 employees working there and the event had just finished and I needed to just go down one level, to level 0, so I pressed the 0 button. It seemingly went down but when I got off I was on level 6 somehow. Which didn't feel like I was in there for that long, like 15 seconds or less, so it would have been a bit longer if I actually did go up, the numbers on the elevator stayed at "0". I got out it looked fairly normal, like the other levels I thought this must have been level 0 but I checked the wall and it said level 6. I also noted it said "sos only" when I checked my phone on level 6, so I got no messages or calls also the clock stopped moving. I remember feeling lightheaded and my heart raced but I didn't pass out. I tried the doors and none of the doors would open to the centre, except one the fire escape door, I ran down the stairs in fear I would be late for my work bus leaving. I then to made it to level 0 and checked my phone clock and 30 minutes had passed when it felt like no longer than 5 minutes to me. I got a bunch of calls on level 0 when I was getting my stuff the cloaking room. The calls were from the workers from the bus angrily asking where was I and I couldn't explain what happened because no one would believe that I was transported in time or had a paranormal experience or something like that and felt like an idiot I said they made me work over time. Luckily it hasn't happened since. (YouTube comment on Elevators by channel Beyond Creepy)

Another case where not only the person was gone for a much longer time, but the scene in his own office was different. It is also significant that the elevator experienced a malfunction. Temperature change also happens in a lot of paranormal experiences:

I work on the top floor of a building (6th floor). The building I work at is a government organization with all ministries of the government and over 4000 offices. I’ve worked there for a couple of months now and I know the place pretty well. It was on a Monday the 10th of December 2018 around past 11 am when something strange happened. I’m posting this to find out if it has ever happened to someone else because I am really confused and almost nobody believes me or takes it with the level of seriousness I think this deserves.

Anyway, I’m in my office going through my daily work routines when I get a knock at the door. I habitually respond with a “come in” as I usually do. The client comes in and I process a few papers for him when I notice I didn’t have the stamp needed to authenticate the documents in my office. I tell the client to give me a minute to go downstairs to get the stamp. I leave him waiting for me in my office. The elevators are at the end of the hallway to the left of my office, 10 seconds away. I take the elevator downstairs and without wasting any time, I greet the lady in the office I was going to get the stamp from (just around the corner from the elevators) and I tell her the agenda of my being there. She directs me to take it from the counter top, of which I do and right away leaves and go back to the elevators. I get in and I press the button for 6th floor as I always do. At this time I’d say it’s been about 2 minutes since I’d left my office. As it goes up (I’m alone in it), I look at the display counting floors going up as I reluctantly do all the time. Then when the elevator reaches the 4th floor, power cuts off. Although it’s become pitch-black in the elevator I eventually locate the control panel and I press the emergency button and right away a voice comes on the P.A system asking me which floor I’m on. I tell the guy 4th floor and in about a minute he shows up. While he is manually opening the doors, power comes back up and I open the doors, and he asked me which floor I was going to. I told him 6th and he told me I could use the elevator to proceed to 6th as electricity was back. I press 6, again and the elevator closes and it starts rising again. Looking at the LCD as usual, the elevator passes through 5 and reaches the 6th floor. The doors open normally and I proceed to go on to my office. As I was leaving the elevator I feel that it has suddenly become a bit cooler than it was before (blazing heat in the summer this side). I could say it had almost become cold but I didn’t make a big deal out of it. When I reach my office door (same number on the door) I open the door and get in only to find that guy who was waiting for me not there but a lady I’ve never seen before sitting behind my desk on my computer punching away keys. Now very confused, I just briefly pause and look at her. She looks at me with surprise also and asks me if she can help me the same way you’d ask someone just walking into your office and just looking at you without saying nothing. I asked her if this was office 6-162(my office number) and she said it was. Now extremely puzzled, I look around to scan the office and I notice it has exactly the same furniture as mine and the same set up as mine. Not knowing what to say or do, I tell her I’m sorry I’ll be back soon I forgot something. I step out into the hallway and I look at the door to find it is really my office and I am on the right floor. I just decide to go back to the elevator (not sure why) and I get in and press 6 again. At this time I’d say it’s been about 5 minutes or so since I left my office. The elevator closes for a brief second and opens up again without going anyway. Only this time, the guy who works at reception I had passed on my way down just outside the elevators was now sitting there sitting down as he was the first time I went downstairs. I get out and take the same route to my office now deciding I’d just confront the lady. When I open the door to my office, I find the guy who’d been waiting for me to get the stamp sitting where I’d left him, alone with no one behind my desk. Before I even say anything, he says to me “I thought you were no longer coming back or you’d decided to go for lunch”. I say to him “why would you think that when I just stepped out for like 5 minutes to get this stamp”. Then he says “man, you’ve been gone for more than 45 minutes, you left before 12 and now it’s 12:35”. Now completely freaked out, I stamp the papers for him, and he leaves. When I sit in front of my computer I realize that I had actually been gone for more than an hour. I was a 100% sober that day, I had only had a cigarette on my way to work that day. Still sitting there blank-faced, I quickly note how hot it’s become again, as it was that day. I start recollecting my thoughts and try to see what happened. The first thing I note is I’d never seen the guy who came to rescue me from the elevator before even though I know most of the workers just by seeing them. I brush it off because it’s a slim chance I’d know all of them since this was a big place but I’m sure I’ve seen everyone who works on my wing- it was a bit out of place. I know you wondering why I didn’t check the neighboring offices. Well, there’s an explanation. That day I was the only one in my department around; others were at a workshop and others were on a field day. The only person who was there was one of the bosses that I generally don’t talk to. Another thing I remembered once I was thinking about it is I don’t remember seeing anyone at the reception area when I got “lost”. I also remembered that that woman was wearing a heavy cardigan, one that you wouldn’t wear in the blazing summer at this time. Other than that, everything was in place.

If there’s anyone who can try to explain to me what happened or if it once happened to someone please let me know. And don’t tell me I was high or something, like everyone else. I'm from Zimbabwe in case you are wondering. (Reddit)

Can spirits influence elevators?:

Recently I have noticed some physical phenomena that make me think that I am either encountering a being from another dimension, or someone who has crossed over, or the spirits are just playing tricks on me. The first thing that happened was one Saturday when I was at work; it was a day when there was almost no one else in this huge building other than security. I got on the elevator to go to the 4th floor (note that the 4th floor button was the only one I pushed), and when the elevator opened, I got off only to discover that I was on the second floor, not the fourth. I also saw the door at the end of the hallway open and close with no one visible that I could see. (Reality Shifters)

Going to the 12^th floor and stepping out on the 2^th floor:

I was on the elevator going up to my floor and it stopped at the 10th floor and then it kept going up to the 12th floor and i walked out and i went to open my door and it wasn't my room. Turns out I somehow ended up on the 2nd floor? Weird. Feel like I am loosing my damn mind because of this. (Reddit)

Otherworldly Levels

Some people step out of an elevator and find themselves at a floor that is totally out of the normal, and that does not exist on our reality. I wonder if there really exist a kind of parallel dimension similar to ours, that occasionally can be accessed.

In the following account the woman even sees a strange city-scape. The elevators disappear and appear. There is also a discrepancy in time.

Back when my mom was in the hospital, I stayed with her for about 5 days. She was on the 6th floor whereas the food court and snack machines were on the basement floor. I live in a small town so our hospital is the only place that has 6 floors. I went up and down the elevator so much that I knew this place like the back of my hands. Anyway, one day I was going down to get a drink and a kit kat. Everything was normal except the card reader on the coke machine didn't work. I got on the elevator and selected the 6th floor when I got off, there was just empty walls. No nurses stations, no rooms, no painting, furniture,  nothing. I walked towards one end to see random size white buildings and the other end to see tall skyscrapers and a shiny, metal window type building. I called out over and over but no one replied. I went to the stop where the elevators were, and they were gone. I took out my phone to call the hospital to tell them I was lost but my phone didn't have any bars (this was a few years ago with the flip phones) I kept looking at the windows hoping to find some sorta person that I can alert but no one was down there, no cars for miles. After realizing that I was literally screwed , my panic attacks kicked in. I laid on the grown, staring at the wall, trying to calm myself down for a half hour. When I woke up, the place all look the same except for the elevators, they were back and I felt a sign of relief. I got in, push the 5th floor which was the maternity ward and the doors shut. When they opened, there was the basic light colored walls, borders trimmed with little duckies and the sounds of people talking and babies crying. I found the fire escape and figured I's take my chances on getting to mom's floor. I opened the door, and I was back on the 6th floor, the real one. I walked into mom's room, and she said "That was fast". I told her I must have been gone for over an hour, but she said I had been gone for less than 5 minutes. I looked at the TV, and the Bold & the beautiful was still one  its a 30-minute show). I don't know what happened to me or where I was but I still don't trust elevators. (YouTube comment on Elevators by channel Beyond Creepy)

The following story also happened in a hospital. I am given the relevant quotes from a true story written by the author of Leelas Short Story Webpage, called An Elevator Ride to Another World, a true tale. The author used to be an elevator repair man, and was called to investigate a report in a hospital in new Jersey in 1974. A nurse supervisor had a strange experience with an elevator. He first met the administrator who told him what the nurse supervisor had reported:

Apparently the nursing supervisor had been using one of the two centrally-located elevators in early afternoon to travel from the third floor to the first floor, when (so she related to him) the elevator stopped between the second floor and the first floor at a floor which she “had never seen before”. From what he recalled of her report, the floor was totally unfamiliar, as were the people and even the lighting, which seemed somewhat blue (“bluish”). Further, she had reported that the walls and floor were somewhat blue or violet in color as well. She had apparently reported to her manager that she had stepped off the elevator briefly, and then quickly returned to it when she realized that she did not recognize the floor or its inhabitants. Apparently, she had then turned in her strange trouble report to her manager shortly thereafter, and that is why our company was then called, for we serviced the elevators under contract.

The the nurse supervisor showed up and added some details:

She had been descending on the elevator (the northernmost of two elevators) to the first floor when the elevator made an “unexpected” stop at a floor which she did not recognize, below the second floor, and above the first floor, and populated with bustling people whom she did not recognize and had never seen before. She further mentioned that the people “looked strange” and “were dressed strangely”. The floor did not appear to be a hospital floor (unlike the actual floors in the building) and the lighting on the floor appeared rather blue. As noted before, she reported that the people and their clothing were slightly funny-looking, although she could not quite put her finger on what caused that perception. She indicated as well that the floors and walls had seemed somewhat blue or violet as well, and that the furnishings and appearance of the whole floor seemed a bit alien or strange. Lastly, she mentioned that the floor was brightly lit (blue…) and seemed chock-full of modernistic “high-tech” equipment and machines, all of which appeared electronic in nature. She iterated, much as her boss had already assured me, that she had worked in this building in a nursing capacity for 14 years, and had been a shift supervisor for many of those years. She stated that she was extremely familiar with each floor of the hospital, and even with the basement, as she gone to the basement more than once to find maintenance personnel, and knew intimately what each floor looked like. Further, she reported that she knew almost all the employees of the hospital at least by sight if not by name.

He then proceeded to inspect the elevator thoroughly, but everything functioned fine, without anomalies.

The following person got out of the elevator and found himself in a metal lined corridor with safe-like doors. Aside from the totally out-of-place character of the floor, it was also non-existent in our reality. So where did he actually go?

I still work at the same place that my experience happened.....but I take the stairs unless I'm with other co-workers now. There are 18 floors were u work I went to go on my coffee time at the time I was in the 5th floor I got onto the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby the elevator stopped at the 3rd floor when the doors opened I was shocked to see metal covering floor to ceiling and big steel circle safe like doors up and down the hall ....I stepped out thinking what is this place I felt like I was being watched and should not be there the feeling was over whelming I pushed the elevator button, the doors opened, and one was on there I got in and when the doors opened I was in the lobby. I asked one of my coworkers what was on the 3rd floor and told her what I had seen she looked at my like I was crazy she took me to the 3rd floor when the doors opened it looked like any other office floor that was in the building. I could never figure out what happened. But it still creeps me out. (YouTube comment on Elevators by channel Beyond Creepy)

Here again, the people went into a non-existing floor which even had people in it, but they didn't respond to them. Is this a blending of two dimensions? The presence and disappearance of the B button is also interesting. With elevators things seem to shift in and out of our reality.

I’ve never posted to Reddit before and I’m not exactly sure if this is where this belongs but hopefully it is and someone can help me figure out what happened. Okay so to set the stage I was born and raised in a small town in Alabama. We only have one hospital here that does everything from cancer treatments to ongyn care. It should also be noted that this hospital only has one elevator for public use that goes from the top floor to the cafeteria. Well my sister and I (14 & 16 y/o) were at the hospital visiting our grandmother who was in for cancer treatments. We had been there almost every day and were getting antsy so we decided to go down to the cafeteria and get something to snack on. Upon entering the elevator and looking for the bottom button, which should have been an L, we saw a button below the L, “B”. I’d never seen this button before but I figured it must have just been an oversight and if pressed it before without thinking, so we decided to go ahead and hit it because it was probably the button for the cafeteria anyways. When the elevator opened we walked out into what looked like an office there were two rows of chairs on either side of the narrow room which led to a receptionist desk. Confused we hit the elevator button to see if maybe we had accidentally hit the wrong button. We waited around for about five minutes and nothing happened. The elevator never came. So we decided to walk to the receptionist and ask her where we were. While walking down the narrow pathway to the receptionist everyone was glaring at us. It was very unwelcoming and kinda scary. When we got to the receptionist we stood there for a minute before I eventually said “Ma’am?” Trying to get her attention. She never looked up so again I said “excuse me ma’am. Can you tell me where we are?” She continued to not answer me, so I told my sister we should just try the elevator again. We walked back and pushed the button. We waited and waited and nothing happened. I was beginning to get a little freaked out, so I pulled out my phone to call my mom but I had no service. Frustrated and afraid I started pushing the elevator button over and over again till finally it opened. We ran in and went straight back up to our grandmothers room were we tried to tell my mom what had happened. She brushed it off and said we probably just imagined it. We finally convinced her to let us show her the room but when we reentered the elevator the “B” button was gone. We went to every single floor from the top to the cafeteria and never found it again. I’m now 23 and I’ve still never seen that button again. This has confused me for the longest time and no one believes that me or my sister are telling the truth. They think we are just trying to freak them out. Has anyone ever had anything like this happen? Any explanation for what it could have been??? (Reddit)

Strange People Going In or Out

This account is really weird. The person believes that the elevator did indeed go from the first to third floor, but inside he and the group he was with experienced a very different ride to a non-existing 50^th level with no less than a Man-in-Black!

I discovered the Mysterious Universe podcast a few weeks ago and through that your blog. After hearing story after story of strange encounters with strange men dressed in black suits, I wanted to tell a story from my childhood that to this day I have been unable to explain. This took place in 2001 when I was 8 years old.
It was summer. and I was on a field trip with my town's community center's daycare program. We were at the New York State Museum in Albany, NY. I was in a group with maybe 2 or 3 other kids and one of the daycare workers for a chaperone. We got there in the morning and were told we could roam around the museum with our group until either 12 or 1 when we had to meet back up with everyone for lunch on the 3rd floor.
Our group walked around, looking at all the exhibits and after a while, we realized we had lost track of time. We only had a few minutes to get up to the 3rd floor for lunch and attendance, and we were on the other side of the museum from where the elevators are. We hurried quickly to the lobby and hopped into an elevator. Out of breath from the near sprint we had done to the lobby, our group piled into the elevator, we hit the 3rd floor button, and my chaperone said we had made it in time and that we still had a minute or so to spare. Then as the doors were closing, an extremely well-dressed man walked into the elevator. He was wearing black shoes, a black suit with a white dress shirt, black tie, black leather gloves, and a black fedora, and was carrying a black leather briefcase. At the time I thought nothing of it, but I've always looked back at this and thought this was very odd as it was summer, and he was dressed for the dead of winter.
As the man got on, I noticed that he kept his head down, almost as though he didn't want us to see his face. He quickly turned around, only then lifting his head. He just stood there with his back to us, and I don't remember ever seeing him select a floor. The elevator doors closed and this eerie feeling seemed to be emanating from the man in black. We had left the lobby on the first floor and were going up the third floor, so the ride should have been maybe 10 or 20 seconds at most. The elevator's display showed we had arrived at the third floor, but the elevator didn't stop. The numbers just kept climbing, and we were definitely still moving. (I want to preface this by saying those elevators in the lobby only have access to 4 floors, and to my knowledge the museum only has 4 above ground floors. I'll talk more about that at the end.) At this point, it had been well over a minute since the elevator started moving and the numbers on the display continued to climb; as did the elevator. That eerie feeling that had been seemingly emanating from this man was getting more intense and the air in the elevator was beginning to get extremely heavy, this seemed to get more and more noticeable as we continued to go up. The higher the elevator climbed, the feeling turned from eerie to foreboding. I remember getting the feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you know something bad is going to happen. Something definitely wasn't right, the display was saying we had passed the 50th floor, and we were still climbing.
At this point it had been around 5 minutes in the elevator. The atmosphere in the elevator had gotten almost unbearable. This heavy, ominous feeling was something I've never experienced since. The closest thing I can compare it to is that feeling you get when you walk down a dark hallway after watching a horror movie, and even that doesn't begin to describe this. Suddenly, the elevator stops. There's a sudden shift in the atmosphere of the elevator. It went from this foreboding feeling to a feeling of impending doom. Then I remember an almost panic when I thought about was on the other side of those doors. I was telling myself over and over again that the buttons on the elevator don't go past the 4th floor, so there aren't any floors beyond that, so whatever on the other side of those doors can't possibly exist. This whole experience can't possibly have happened, and when the doors open I'll see all my friends from the other groups eating lunch and everything will be okay. But that's not what happened.
And this is where things have always gotten fuzzy for me. I remember getting on the elevator with my group, the man walking in, and the elevator going up. But I can't remember my group being in the elevator after a certain point. I know it was at least five minutes from the time we entered the elevator before it stopped, and yet I can't tell you how much time passed between when the elevator stopped and when the doors opened. I can remember looking at the display to see what floor we were on, but can't remember what it said. I remember being frozen there, with no sound or movement whatsoever. I remember feeling like if those doors opened, something bad was going to happen, to the point where I remember panicking inside my head, pretending that none of this wasn't happening. But every time I opened my eyes that sinister man was still standing there, as still as a statue.
And then all of a sudden, the man who was responsible for all of this, who had not moved a single muscle since the elevator doors closed, drops his briefcase. Not even a second after the briefcase hit the ground, the doors of the elevator opened. And yet I can't remember what was beyond those doors. I have tried for the last 14 years to remember and have never been able to see it. I just remember it being white and bright. The man then calmly picked up his briefcase, tipped his fedora, almost as to bid us goodbye, and walked off the elevator. I then remember the doors closing and that ominous feeling being gone, and in an instant we were on the 3rd floor and the doors popped open.
Only then do I remember seeing the rest of my group on the elevator. All of them looking as terrified as I did, especially our chaperone. Looking out, I saw the rest of the kids and chaperones from the other groups. We walked out of the elevator, and had been expecting to be extremely late for lunch, but we had made it on time. Which is impossible, because we had initially made it to the elevator a minute or so before lunch started, and that encounter on the elevator had lasted at least five or ten minutes. I remember our chaperone pulling the other adults aside and I assume told them what had happened to us on that elevator. I remember sitting at the table with my friends eating a pizza Lunchable and the kids from my group and I sharing the story of what had just happened, no one believing us. I remember the chaperone I had avoiding the subject for the rest of the day, and the other kids in my group seemed to have dropped it as well.
I remember that I told my mom what had happened and I've always felt as though she didn't believe me. But before writing this, I wanted to make sure that really did happen since I was so young and it had been well over a decade since this happened, and that it wasn't something my mind made up over the years or maybe just a very vivid dream. So I asked my mom if she remembered me telling her about this, and she said she did. She remembers picking me up from the community center and the second we got into the car I had told her all about the man in black and the elevator going up all these floors and even that he had dropped his briefcase. She said she also remembers me telling her that he had said something to me, though she doesn't remember what, and I don't have any memory of him saying anything.
So there is my story. 14 years later, I still have absolutely no clue who that man was, where the elevator took us, what was beyond the doors where the man walked off, or anything that happened in that elevator. I just know that it happened. I have no idea how long we were in that elevator, it could have been minutes or even hours, but what I do know is that time seems to have been separate from our reality, since no time had actually passed when we got to the third floor. Hopefully you have heard something similar or at least have an idea what happened. I've gone through every explanation I can think of and none of them make sense. From not remembering correctly what elevator we got on, and perhaps getting in one somewhere else, but that's impossible for reasons I've listed in the paragraph below this. I've thought maybe it was a really vivid dream, but my mom remembers me telling her right after picking me up from daycare, the day of the field trip. I've even considered a gas leak in the elevator causing us to hallucinate. The one thought that's always been in the back of my mind has been that we got onto the elevator and took a ride through another dimension.
Just a little side note, I had a job with a catering company in the Albany area last Summer and one of the most common venues we catered at was the New York State Museum. Over that summer, I rode probably every public elevator in that building, and even a cargo elevator they have, and not a single one I rode on had any buttons beyond the 4th floor.

Sincerely,
E.S.

(Phantoms and Monsters)

I don't know what to think of this one; did they see an other-dimensional being use the elevator to transition to his own world?

I want to ask a question about my experience, so I can see what people think and if they might have any theories. Most people I've spoken to (a limited few, because I don't want anyone to think I'm crazy) have tried to explain it away as a trick of the mind or sight, but something I'll ask you to keep in mind is that my mother saw the exact same thing and was just as freaked out as I was. So, it happened at the public library where I go quite regularly. What happened was my mother and I were walking towards the elevator to go back downstairs (we were on the 4th floor, there are 5), and there was a man a little ways in front of us who was also walking towards the elevators. There are three elevators in a row, and the one on the farthest left opened and someone came out. The man in front of us was walking quickly towards it, and he went in. The door was closing, so I walked a little more quickly in order to catch the elevator by pressing the down button, and just as I got there, the door had just closed completely, but I pressed the button and it reopened right away. I am used to these elevators and the elevator sign (a down arrow) flashed twice, meaning that it was reopening. I went in the elevator, expecting to find the man there (I was going to apologize to him for reopening the door), as I'd just seen him go in, but to my complete shock the elevator was EMPTY! At first, I played it off and thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but my mother was acting strange. More people got in the elevator, and when we got back downstairs my mother said in a shaken voice "did you see that?" and we realized that we had both experienced and seen the exact same thing. Can anyone explain this phenomenon? I've been thinking about it constantly and wondering what exactly happened. There was no way that the elevator would have had time to move somewhere and then come back before I pressed the button for it to reopen. I've used these elevators enough times to know. (Reddit)

Two more people disappearing in an elevator:

Just over an hour ago I experienced the unexplainable disappearance of two people on an elevator. I had a friend with me witness this as well. We had just gotten back from a 25-mile bike ride in the area around our university. We walked back into our dorm building and headed for the elevators. Just past the room with elevators there is a station for filling up water. As we walked by the elevator room, I noticed two individuals waiting for the next one. I noticed distinguishable, bright red hair on one of the girls waiting as we walked by. We are filling our waters as we hear the elevator ding. As we rush to the elevator room (its entrance being no more than five feet from where we are) I see a woman walk out of the room alone indicating the elevator was actually there. As I walk towards the elevator, I ask for the two girls (the one with red hair, and her friend) to hold the elevator for us. I heard them shuffle and giggle, then as the door closes I get closer and see the red haired girl move away, towards the buttons, in order to avoid making eye contact with me. I hit the button for the next elevator feeling pretty damn angry. No more than 2 seconds later it dings and the same elevator opens. I assume that this will be the most awkward elevator ride of my life. As I step on the elevator both my friend and I notice that there is NO ONE in the elevator. We honestly have no idea how to explain this. One possibility is that sheer exhaustion alone caused us to hallucinate in tandem, the same exact people, with the same distinguishing features. The other is that the elevator was fast enough to drop them off one floor above and immediately return to our floor. The problem with this theory is that I had seen this girl move into my floor, The Fifth Floor of the building, the day before. On top of that I have never been in the elevator and had it move that quickly between floors. When I say it was two seconds before the door reopened, I mean that my friend barely opened his mouth to exclaim his frustration about them leaving us behind. It baffles us both. It was a reality shattering experience. (Reddit)

A reply to the post above:

This has been happening in my office building for as long as I've been a tenant here (since '86). We've grown used to it, but we don't have an explanation. A person walks into the elevator lobby and sees a woman get onto the elevator. They push the button for another elevator and the same elevator doors open to the elevator the woman walked into, but nobody is there.

Another strange one:

I'm leaving work for the day, and I've reached my parking ramp. This ramp has a bit of a weird layout: the top floor is on ground level and is numbered "1", but all of the other floors are underground and start from A at closest to the surface, running to G at the deepest. When I enter the elevator lobby, one elevator is already waiting. In the back of the elevator is an older man with grey hair and a grey beard. Kind of gave me a "wants to dress like Willie Nelson" vibe. He's already pressed level D, I press level F. This means we'll get to his floor before mine. Right as the elevator door is about to close a tall, skinny guy with dark hair and no beard enters the elevator lobby. More of a hipster vibe to him. He speeds up to catch the elevator and I go to push the door open button, but neither of us makes it in time and the door closes. Elevator goes down to D, stops and door opens as usual. From behind me, the young clean-shaven guy goes around my left side and gets off the elevator, walking quickly. I jump slightly because I know the elevator left him on 1, and it's not like he had a twin already on the elevator since the only other person on the elevator was the old guy. Who, I then immediately notice, is no longer on the elevator. I briefly considered running up the stairs once I got to my own stop on level F to see if the older guy would get off a later elevator, but decided I was too lazy. (Reddit)

In the following account, did he see something that happened in the past?

This happened to me two years ago, while I was in undergrad. I had to visit an office on campus and retrieve some documents about an honor society, so I made my way over to this towering, tacky 1960s building that housed our history department. I was accustomed to visiting this building; at least one of my classes met inside of it every day. There were two elevators accessible from the ground floor, but one had been out-of-order for the entire semester. The power to the elevator had been completely shut off to prevent both students and staff from using it. Signs were taped to its closed doors on every floor to remind us. I collected my documents without incident, but as I approached the elevators to travel back down to the ground floor, the one nearest me opened abruptly. I flinched, but thought it was lucky I wouldn’t have to wait for a ride. A woman in business attire emerged by her lonesome, carrying an abundance of files and striding past like a speed demon. Even though I was practically flush against this elevator’s door already, it closed so speedily after her exit that I couldn’t make it inside. I have never seen an elevator close so instantaneously, right on the heels of its sole occupant. I thought there was still plenty of time to call it back before it descended, so I immediately pressed the button. There was no response. I tried repeatedly, in vain, to summon the elevator back. Neither the light of the button nor the lights revealing what floor the elevator was on were illuminated. The elevator was dead and unresponsive. I thought “Oh, great, now both elevators are ruined, and I’ll have to take the stairs up eight floors for my class everyday.” Then, I heard a bell ringing behind me and turned to see the doors of the opposite elevator sliding open. I had been standing at the original dead elevator all along, and a woman had somehow emerged from it, even after the power had been shut off to it for nearly four months. I noticed only then that the sign had fallen off and now lay on the floor, courtesy of the doors opening. I asked a woman who worked there if the elevator had been fixed that day, and she denied it. I briefly wondered if I was on a hidden camera prank show, but no one came out laughing. The elevator remained out-of-order for the rest of the semester. I have no idea who this woman was or how she rode in an elevator with no electricity going to it, but I certainly won’t forget it.

Oddly enough, I do remember a bit about her outfit! It was business attire that reminded me of something a flight attendant would wear. A conservative, shin length pencil skirt and a matching blazer with low heels, I think. Either navy blue or dark grey. Her hair was down, and she had a lot of files with her. It wasn't anything remarkable. I don't know where she went after she turned the corner towards some classrooms, but she was certainly in a hurry. She could not have been involved in elevator maintenance, based on what she was holding and wearing. The only unusual thing about the woman herself was her having walked out of that dead elevator and the fact that she didn't say a word, smile, or even acknowledge my presence, even when we came awkwardly close as the elevator doors opened. (Reddit)

A Glitch In Time

In the following account the person saw a scene from the past when stepping out of the elevator. Seeing scenes from the past are not that unusual, and it can happen anywhere. I read an account of someone who rounded a street corner and saw the street as it looked like in the past. I think these are location where you can see a scene from the akashic records of that place when the energetic conditions of that local spot briefly interacts with the person. Maybe the metal lined elevator acts as an activator for this energetic interaction. Strangely enough there is also the issue that the floor was different from usual, and that the person went all the way down the hallway before he saw the scene.

When I was fifteen, I was asked to drop something off at the old White Cross Building in downtown Lakewood, Ohio. When I got off on the top floor, I was unable to locate the office in question. Looking out the window at the end of the hallway, I saw a streetcar go by on Detroit Avenue, and noticed all the cars were 1920's and earlier vintage, and even saw a horse drawn cart of some sort. My blood pressure soared, and I suddenly had a bizarre feeling of being trapped. I ran back down the hall, and managed to catch the elevator just as the doors were beginning to close. When I got back to the lobby, everything was normal. I took the stairs back up to the top floor, and found the office I was looking for immediately. I also took the stairs back down.
To this day, I believe I had been transported back in time somehow. I also believe if I hadn't caught that elevator when I did, I would have been trapped in the past. Can I prove this actually happened? Absolutely not. Do I believe it actually happened? Absolutely. Can I explain it? Not for one second. But until the day that building was torn down, I never entered it again! (Phantom and Monsters) 

In the following story, an elevator acts as a transition to a seemingly different reality, although the person stayed on the same level. I think he might have shifted to a past scene of the same floor when nobody was present at that floor.

I was 16 years old at the time and, I was traveling with a group of student ambassadors to Europe. It was our first night, and we had landed in Madrid.

Our hotel was undergoing renovations and there was a new half and an older half. Me and my roommate, “Clint”, had just gotten up to our room in the old half. The layout was fairly dated, but still nice. We had a cot in the kitchen area directly to the left as you entered. Then connected was a little living room with a couch and a bedroom with one queen sized bed connected to both a bathroom and a patio about foot floors up. The bedroom had a door leading into the living room.

We had about an hour and a half to burn, and he was slightly nerdy, and a rather large fellow, so we didn’t have much in common. He was somewhat of a serious guy and loved photography and writing in his journal in his spare time. I had severe ADD and knew we had to meet up at 7 for dinner, but I was unsure of where. We also had a group of girls from South Carolina, and I was somewhat interested in a few, so I decided I’d head down fifteen minutes early in order to get to know them a little better. I gave him the bedroom with him being a larger guy, and unaware if he could stay in the cot due to his size. I told him I was headed out downstairs, and he said he’d be there when he finished writing in his journal. So I closed the door to the bedroom and walked out of our room.

As I left, I distinctly remember the lights flickering and going to a light yellow glow with a flicker, like the power went out and it was running on reserve. So I walk to the elevator with an uneasy feeling. I chalked it up to the hotel needing the renovations and tried not to look too far into it, but something felt off. The elevator arrived, I stepped in, pressed ground floor and thought to myself, “how bad would it be to get stuck in an elevator if the power is out?” So I got out as the doors began to shut. At that point the feeling of something being off grew and I also second guessed where we were supposed to meet, so I figured I’d wait it out with Clint and get to know the girls over dinner. I walked back to the room with the lights still flickering. I opened the door and walked in, then shouted to Clint that I’d just go down with him. He didn’t respond, so I walked to the door, went to open it and it was locked. So I yelled next to the door, asking him if he was cool, and nothing. No response. I just said I’d watch tv if he was in the bathroom, but when I went to sit on the couch, I felt something else wrong as I went to turn on the TV. So I walked back to the room and yelled at Clint again, that I was getting kinda weirded out by him not responding. If he’d left, I would’ve seen him in the hallway by our elevator. So I go to open the door again and it was unlocked. I go in, realize his stuff is on the bed, but he’s not there and the bathroom light is on. I go to check the patio and again, nothing. No Clint. It was like he disappeared and with his size, I promise you he isn’t able to hide anywhere there.

Shower curtains pulled to the side, he was nowhere. I started getting really freaked out, so I decided to go find help. I left his room quickly, left the door open and rushed to the elevator to go down. As I walked back out, the lights flickered again and changed back to a more white color. They didn’t flicker near as often as they had been, but as I got in the elevator and waited for what seemed like forever, in a dimly lit hotel corridor. I got into it, pressed ground floor again, then decided I needed to wait it out in the room and that someone would come find me. Something told me venturing out would be a bad idea, so I ran back to my room, opened the door as quickly as I could and realized the bedroom door was shut again. I ran over to it, opened the door, and Clint is sitting on the bed writing in his journal. I was shocked. I asked him where he was, and he looked at me strangely and said, “I’ve been writing in my journal since you left.” I thought he was playing a prank on me, not knowing him very well, and told him the joke really had me freaked out. But he kept telling me he wasn’t kidding. He never heard me come back into the room. He swore up and down I left and never came back.

I was somehow there, but not there either. I have no clue where I was. I’ve not discussed this with too many people, so if you have any insight into what may have happened, please feel free. I’ll have to find more details in the hotel I stayed in, but I know I was in downtown Madrid. I’ve searched paranormal events, portals, and all of that but haven’t been able to find anything. I have no clue where I was, but I was not around anyone. (Reddit)

In a YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD8lRY02EcA, now taken off) of Conflict Radio Official, Dr. David Perrodin, a school safety expert, discusses a never before told experience of lost time and encountering a dimensional guide at Bascom Hall at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison. It is an intriguing story because the strangeness starts before he entered an elevator to another floor, and continues after he left the elevator, which disappeared afterwards. It seems to involve scenes from the past, but there is a curious element of strange people interacting with him. I think the overall experience was initiated and guided by some kind of intelligent beings. This is similar to the experiences in my other article of Restaurants/Cafe's That Don't Exist. The following is my transcript of the relevant section pertaining to his strange experience when entering the Bascom Hall.

It was June 2016. It was a warm, sunny day. I had an early afternoon appointment to submit and defend my final dissertation paper. When it's all done you have to take it to Bascom Hall to deliver it. Bascom hall is an administration building. It was built in 1856 on top of an Indian burial ground.

When I entered the building, I had to orient me to my surroundings. The building was under a massive renovation at this time. I had been in the building before but I had difficulty navigating myself inside.

So, I entered the building, and I could immediately see plastic sheeting and plywood walls everywhere. There were no signage to direct people. All the necessary markings like exit signs were missing. There was nobody around to even ask questions. I started to encounter a smell of warm wood. I am feeling very disoriented. I had no idea where I was, or were to turn. There was a thick dust or haze of particles, maybe sawdust, around. I am walking past tools. They were all hand tools, there were no electric tools present. I am hearing work being done at the building, but I am never seeing anybody. The sounds are also not of modern tools, but like the back and forth sawing of a handsaw. I am thinking maybe they are using these old tools to keep everything authentic. The more I am into the building, the less I recognize anything. Plastic sheeting gives way to boarded up doors and the like. I couldn't get up the stairway which was completely blocked off. I had no idea where the elevator was. I had to get to the second, or was it the third, floor, and I had an appointment, so I got nervous because I had to be on time with the person who check me out of the program. I am looking around, and it looks like this renovation is occurring in, say 1898. The interior of the building had been renovated before in 1898.

A man comes out who is formerly dressed. He approaches me. He is exuberant and very excited. He reminds of a train conductor from the old movies. He didn't seem to fit here and had different mannerisms. I remember that we didn't talk about anything that was modern. He was talking to me a little bit, and then he said: "I imagine that you are lost?" I said: "Yeah, I am trying to get to the second floor." He said: "I can help you." He goes with me to an elevator that was behind a sheet of plastic or a tarp. He pulls the tarp back, and we go into the elevator, he let the tarp go, what was weird by itself. he is striking up some conversation with me, and he says: "Today is my last day here. I am moving to the South." We get up the second floor, the door opens and I walk out into the hallway. It is kind of similar to the first floor, I don't know where things are at. So I said that I have to find whatever room it was I had to go to. He says: "You won't find it unless I take you there." he takes me to this door, which is a door that splits into two horizontally. The top part of the door opens, and the lady behind it asks if I was David, and i said yes. I turned to thank this man for helping me to get there, but he is gone. I can see 25 feet in any direction and I don't know where this guy went. I didn't hear him walk away. It was so strange.

So, I go into this very small room to meet with this lady. The only thing that is modern in this room is this huge computer monitor. She is also very happy and over the top that I am there. She said that I was on time for my appointment. This was supposed to be a very detailed process. It was supposed to be interview and a lot of things to go through. I gave her my thumb drive, and she brought up my dissertation on this big monitor. She scrolled through a couple of pages, and she says: "Yes, this looks great." She signs something, and she said "You are all set." i said: "I was expecting this to be different, but this is fine."

I left the room, walked out, but I couldn't find this elevator. There are tarps and sheets, and the stairs is blocked off. I went to the opposite end of the hallway where I found a door, and opened it and it let to a fire escape. U went down the fire escape. I walked back to my car which is at most a 15-minute walk. I don't actually remember anything of the walk back. I don't remember looking at the building, or any people I passed or cars on the road. I remember that when I was at my vehicle that was already dusk. When I entered the building, it was 2 o'clock and I should have been out of there at 4' o'clock at the latest, but when I had reached my car, which was only a 15-minute walk from the building, it was already about 7 o'clock. There was definitely some time unaccounted for. At least 4 hours passed what should have been at the most 90 minutes. This whole thing didn't really register to me, I just drove home. About two days later when I started to think back, I realized that something weird had happened.

I remember the elevator ride took a long time, we talk about a lot, but the building is only three floors high. I thought my cloths and shoes were going to be covered with the dust was flying around, when I was outside they were fine. I still have the time stamp receipt when I entered the parking garage and when I exited it, so I know for sure how long I was gone.