The Street That Appeared Out Of Nowhere

​I tried to explain this event to someone a couple weeks ago but they just looked at me like I was telling them a tall tale. I know this happened the way I remember it, I was not alone when it happened and I even spoke with the person with me a few months later and they still do not quite understand what unfolded that day.

So I have to try and explain this in straight forward practical terms first, and then tell you what happened to us, if only to try and make it sound sensible to you.

I am going to give the streets and avenues names so that it is easier to follow along, but know that these names are not the actual names of the roads and the town name is not disclosed. I do not want people going there, not having the same experience, and trying to tell me I am crazy or something. I know what happened, my friend knows what happened, and whether it would happen again or not the same way neither of us know nor need to know.

Imagine if you will a single residential street running north and south. The street, we will call it 1st Street, goes north for several blocks before ending at a T-intersection. There is a single block, two rows of houses running east and west. 1st Street continues on north after skipping over this one block of homes. Basically there is a one block break in the continuity of 1st Street.

In order to compensate for this the traveler who desires to continue north on 1st Street must make a detour around the homes. To do this they will travel one (half) block east on 1st Avenue. Meet up with 2nd Street. Go north on 2nd Street for the length of two rows of houses (about 1/2 block) then head west down 2nd Avenue for one (half) block before turning right (north) onto 1st Street. 

Follow so far? The traveler needs to make a short jog (the length of about 3-4 homes) off course to another street in order to go a short distance (2-homes) before jogging back west and meeting up with the rest of 1st Street.

It sounds simple right?

You travel north on 1st Street until you "dead end" at a T-intersection. The road stops heading north and there before you stands a house. You look on your map and you see how you can "get around" the homes in order to continue on your way north on 1st Street.

So we did exactly that. My friend and me were out campaigning for my election. This involved walking several kilometres through residential neighbourhoods placing pamphlets on the doors of potential voters.

We were following a map provided by the local tourism office, outlining all of the residential and commercial streets in this small town. 

We walked north, and stopped face to face with the houses. We walked about 2 houses to the east where we met up with another North-South street (which I am calling 2nd Street). We walked north on 2nd Street for 2 homes, then turned left down 2nd Avenue. We expected to walk 2 or maybe 3 houses west before we should be standing in another T-intersection. This time we would turn right and continue on north up 1st Street. We should see houses to our left at this intersection and the road we were standing on (2nd Avenue) continuing west for several blocks to meet up with the main road.

The strange thing was, when we walked those couple houses west, and got to the intersection, we found ourselves at a four-way corner. To our left should have been houses. The next row of houses running behind those we had to divert around to get to the other 'half' of 1st Street.

I stood there in the intersection and called out to my friend to come look at the map and where I was standing. He came over and we both looked south. Instead of houses the street continued south, dead ending at a small pedestrian bridge and then clearly continuing on for several blocks until reaching another part of what we figured was the end of the main road we had started walking up 1st Street from.

But how could this be? We had walked 2-3 houses to the east, 2 houses north, and 2-3 houses to the west. We should be standing in another T-intersection and not looking south down a street. The street, at least that portion of it should not have existed according to the map. The map was, maybe, 5-10 years old, but the houses in that block, particularly the one at the T-intersection we faced heading north, was at least 40-50 years old. 

So walking north we met up with a T-intersection. Standing one block north of that T-intersection we were in the middle of a 4-way intersection?

How is that possible? It is not like it was easy to get lost or disoriented. We had barely traveled half a block on foot no less. So from the street heading north we saw at least one, if not two, houses, and from the street looking south there was a street where the houses should be.

It was a very strange event. At the time we wrote it off to a map error, since we were trying to get as many pamphlets distributed as possible before sunset. Neither of us can remember what town we were in where this happened nor come up with a reasonable explanation for it. If I were saying it was paranormal it is almost like we found one of those glitches in the matrix you hear about. I personally still think it was just a map error and, somehow, even though we had walked less than one block, we were just disoriented. Still, you have to wonder, why neither of us can remember what town it was in.

We did not try going south, we continued north on 1st Street and did not return to that spot later on. It was a strange day indeed.