Do Parallel Universes Exist? | Unveiled XL Documentary

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Do Parallel Universes Exist?</h4>

Have you ever felt as though there could be more to reality? Like there are whole worlds somewhere out there, hidden from view? Research into parallel universes has dramatically accelerated in recent years, and with good reason… because many now believe that there’s more to this life than just this life.

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; do parallel universes exist?

While the concept of parallel universes can be traced as far back as Ancient Greece, it wasn't until 1957 that the idea really took hold. It was in that year that Hugh Everett established the first major multiverse theory, suggesting that our universe coexists parallel to an infinite number of other universes. From here, many came to believe that you might be able to cross over and intersect at various points in time and space… across an intricate web of interdimensional doorways. And, although the multiverse is yet to be officially proven and therefore remains theoretical, there are several stories and legends of incidents so seemingly inexplicable that there are suggestions of a glitch in this hidden structure.

For today’s first case, we’re heading to Japan, and to an oft-repeated tale of the man from Taured. Exact dates tend to differ between retellings of this story, but it’s generally said that sometime in the mid-to-late 1950s a man presented his passport at a Tokyo airport, expecting to be let through the gate. All his documents seemed to be in order except for one thing; the country that had issued the passport, Taured, did not exist. Assuming he was some kind of criminal, the customs officers at the airport allegedly held the man for questioning. Bizarrely, when he was asked to point Taured out on a map, he could apparently do so… only it was labeled as what we know to be Andorra, instead. According to the man, the unknown country of Taured was a thousand years old, though. And he was reportedly able to show the officers several official passport stamps (as well as currencies) from various other countries where he had seemingly had business in the past… to further prove his case.

Naturally, the officers did a little more digging, according to most versions of the story, and called up the company the man claimed to work for. They discovered that it did exist, but not in anywhere known as Taured. The hotel at which the man insisted he had a reservation was also called, and again it was real… but no reservation was found under the correct name. The officers were, then, at a loss. Everything seemed to be legitimate and in order, except for the fairly significant fact that Taured, and by extension the man himself, just did not exist. 

Pending further investigation, it’s said that the man was then sent to a nearby hotel, where he was placed under armed guard (with the suspicion being that he may still be a criminal, of some kind). However, after just one night’s stay, in the morning the man was gone. And all his documents, too. Every trace of him had vanished, and he was supposedly never heard from again. So, what happened? Perhaps unsurprisingly, this tale is seen by some as just a complicated hoax. Official records of the mystery man don’t, after all, appear to exist. And his story has some similarities to another case of a genuine fraudster, again in Japan, around the same time. But still, some believe that he was really a visitor from a parallel universe who had accidentally spliced between his world and ours. Ultimately, his fate remains unknown.

For our second story, we’re heading a century further back in time, to news of a case first published in the UK, in 1851. Reports centered on the small German village of Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, where a man was reportedly discovered wandering around in a confused haze. When questioned by the local authorities, he allegedly managed to explain that his name was Jophar (or Joseph) Vorin and that he had no idea where he was. He claimed that he had come to Germany in search of his brother but had previously been shipwrecked in an unknown location. The man insisted he was originally from a country called Laxaria, though, a place that no one else had ever heard of… because it doesn’t exist.

Vorin is said to have explained that Laxaria was found in a continent-like region of Earth called Sakria. But, again, no one had heard of such a place. What's more, Vorin couldn’t retrace his trip to that point on a map, and didn’t recognize any of the names of the continents as we know them. He reportedly continued to reveal more about his home world, though, explaining that the Earth he knew was divided into five main regions in total… apparently called Sakria, Aflar, Aslar, Auslar, and Euplar. He professed to speak fluent Laxarian, too, as well a second unknown language of Abramian. Finally, and again according to reports at the time, he described himself as a follower of Christianity, but of an unknown branch called Ispatian. 

It’s said that authorities ultimately sent him to Berlin for further questioning… with some retellings claiming that he escaped on his way there, never to be heard from again. As with the man from Taured, though, there is little by way of an official record of Vorin’s appearance, and especially of his alleged disappearance at the end of the story. So, could this simply be another hoax? Or was there really an error in the multiverse once more, before Vorin was sent back to his own reality?

Unlike with our first two stories, where residents of alternate universes purportedly visit our own, today’s remaining two tales are of individuals from our reality allegedly making an accidental visit into a foreign dimension. The first has been widely attributed to an account given by a Doctor Raul Centeno, in Peru, concerning the country’s infamously spooky Markawasi Stone Forest. Centeno claims to have treated a woman who accidentally passed through an interdimensional doorway that can be found somewhere within this particular piece of the South American landscape. 

Centeno’s patient, along with a group of friends, reportedly decided to go for a night hike through the woods there, when they happened across a small wooden cabin, clearly with people inside. So the story goes, the group soon discovered that the people in the cabin were incongruously dressed in old-fashioned, what’s usually described as seventeenth century, clothing. It’s then said that the hikers claimed to have quickly felt an unusual, out-of-control desire to join in with the unexpected celebration… and so the woman, Centeno's patient, attempted to enter the cabin, before her friends changed their minds and pulled her back. But not before half of her body had passed through the doorway. 

It was allegedly then that the woman discovered that the side of her body that had passed through had become paralyzed. This was predominantly why she sought treatment from Doctor Centeno in the first place, who diagnosed her with hemiplegia. But, despite the diagnosis, the doctor couldn’t decipher a clear cause for this sudden and inexplicable condition. Instead, reports are that he believes that the woman’s unfortunate fate may have been the result of a brief visit into an alternate dimension. One lying just beyond that mysterious Markawasi doorway.

Finally, one Pedro Oliva Ramirez also reportedly took a wrong turn through another universe, but this time in Spain, in November of 1986. According to another of the most infamous (and widespread) interdimensional claims out there, Ramirez was on his usual route home from work in the city of Seville, when he passed by an odd and previously unknown part of the road. An instantly peculiar six-lane highway that he definitely didn’t recognize. Along the side of this new road were tall buildings that Ramirez had never seen before, despite traveling that way most days. It gets stranger, though, because Ramirez then reportedly felt a hot and distinct temperature change in his car, and he heard a series of voices… allegedly informing him that he had been transported to a different hemisphere. 

Unsure of how to proceed, the story typically continues that Ramirez drove until he came to an intersection with signs pointing in three directions. Taking one of the roads, and believing he was headed back to Seville, Ramirez was apparently amazed when his car came to a stop, he glanced out of his window, and found he was parked right in front of his home - where he had been trying to get to all along. It’s said that a confused Ramirez then tried to retrace his steps several times, but he could never find his way back to that six-lane highway. So how did he get home, and who were the voices that spoke to him through his car? To this day, it’s a mystery.

Importantly, with all four of these cases, there’s precious little by way of an official account. Or an official investigation. These tales predominantly exist as urban legends, but some of them have been debated for decades now… and with no clear solutions.

From “Star Trek” to Marvel and everywhere in between, science fiction loves itself a good ol’ fashioned, interweaving tale of parallel universes. But, for some - for increasing numbers, in fact - the idea that this reality isn’t all there is… is really starting to catch on. Other dimensions and apparent glitches between here and there continually crop up in actual real life…

The incredible story of Lerina Garcia from Spain. In 2008, when Garcia was 41 years old, she posted onto a Spanish online forum asking for help as she’d come to believe that she may have jumped into a parallel universe. According to Garcia, the world around her had changed in subtle but definite ways… leading her to think that one morning she had simply woken up in a different version of the reality she had lived in up until the night before. 

The first change was her bedsheets, which she literally didn’t recognise as belonging to her. At this point confused (but still not suspecting what was to come) she got up, went through her usual daily routine, and went to work. But, when she got there, she found unknown people in her building, and then that her name had been replaced on her office door. After a little searching, she found that while she did still work for the same company, she was apparently employed in a totally different position. The day before, everything had been as it normally was… but today, everything was different.

By now, Lerina was beginning to get seriously worried, and so she visited her doctor, to check for any physical abnormalities - including the possible presence of drugs or alcohol in her system - but she was given a clean bill of health, no substances were present, and was sent on her way. Things quickly got even stranger, however, when her own boyfriend was nowhere to be found… and when she then came to learn that she was, in fact, still with her ex-boyfriend, who she’d broken up with a few months beforehand. Her entire life had seemingly rewritten itself.

Other members of Garcia’s family were at least the same people, but more inconsistencies kept coming up - including that her sister had apparently no longer had shoulder surgery (despite Garcia distinctly remembering that she just recently had been to the hospital for the procedure) and also that many of Garcia’s messages and emails had apparently disappeared, too. For the most part, the rest of the world hadn’t drastically changed… but this one person’s personal life had dramatically altered. And, while it’s difficult to verify the story, some believe that Garcia had fallen victim to a reality slip - leaving her just a few timelines removed from her original life.

Next, the story of an anonymous blogger who goes by the name James Richards, and who also claims to have experienced a parallel world where the Beatles never broke up. His story - again posted online, and which he claims happened on September 9th 2009 - is certainly attention grabbing. First he says that he cannot reveal his true name due to safety concerns, and then he reveals all about how he came to own an apparently genuine Beatles album that was never actually released in this reality.

According to his account, Richards (with his dog) had been driving through Del Puerto Canyon, California, when he pulled over for a rest and to let his dog out for a walk. When the dog started chasing down a rabbit, though, Richards ran in pursuit, literally fell (or tripped) down a rabbit hole, and wound up unconscious. When he came to, he was in a strange room in a strange house, his head had been bandaged, and judging by outside noise he was no longer in a rural location like the one he’d just left. Soon, another man entered his room.

The man introduced himself as Jonas, and Richards thanked him for his help before asking a load of questions. Where was he? How did he get here? And was his dog OK? Thankfully, the dog was there, too, and was totally fine… but the other questions had far less straightforward answers. Richards says that Jonas then revealed to him that he was actually just a few feet away from where he had fallen. The house (and apparent town) outside hadn’t been there before, however, because Jonas had also taken Richards to a parallel world. To an alternate dimension that he (Jonas) called home.

Jonas then went on to explain that in his world, Parallel Travel Machines were all the rage. Yes, they could be dangerous, but they were also a wholly accepted technology. Richards suggests that parallel travel may even have superseded space travel, in this other place. The pair then spent the next few hours together, including for a meal that Richards says was basically normal except for purple ketchup. The really interesting hook, though, came when they started talking about music.

Richards discovered that in Jonas’ world the Beatles were still touring. The iconic Liverpool group were still together, with all four members still very much alive. Jonas had a collection of albums, too, mostly on tape - as Richards says that CDs had never really caught on in the other dimension. There was a version of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” on the side, although Richards recalls that the famous cover looked slightly different in some ways. Better still, there were later albums (post Beatles break-up in our timeline) that Richards had never seen or heard before. He and Jonas apparently wiled away some of their time together listening to all of that later material.

Finally, and just before Jonas transported Richards back to his own reality, Richards says that he managed to steal one of the later tapes which, according to his blog post, has the title “Everyday Chemistry”. Upon returning to this plane of reality, then, Richards uploaded “Everyday Chemistry” for all to hear - an apparently never-before-seen Beatles album, because it really doesn’t exist for us. It was soon pointed out that the “new tracks” sounded very much like variously mashed up versions of some of the Beatles’ solo material… but one counter argument says that that isn’t so unexpected. After all, in a just slightly altered version of reality, John, Paul, George and Ringo might well have had many of the same ideas again, mightn’t they?

What do you think? About the bizarre Beatles story and the unnerving tale of Lerina Garcia? Both have their own unique space in the modern history of the strange and unknown, but could they really serve as proof of parallel universes? 

Science is no stranger to the big questions. From the beginning of the universe to the fabric of reality itself, we’re always trying to find answers. But, when it comes to the multiverse, the boundaries between right and wrong, between probable and improbable, dramatically widen, enough to leave you questioning your very existence in time.

Midway through the twenty-first century, we’re at a potentially crucial bridge for modern research between the macro and micro worlds. Work around quantum physics has taken off in a big way but, bizarrely, its greatest impact could yet be to do with one of the largest structures imaginable; the multiverse. Starting with Hugh Everett’s Many Worlds Interpretation - a then game-changing theory when it was first put forward in the late 1950s - we’ve grown to develop a number of hypotheses around the idea that this world isn’t all there is. 

Broadly, it’s said that whenever a decision is made, reality is split into two separate planes. Usually, this is visualized via large and clear decisions, such as choosing between an apple and orange for lunch, or taking the left or right turn at a junction. The idea is that even when you decide to turn left, there’s another you in another, parallel universe, that decides to turn right, and your lives diverge forever based on that one point in time. However, at the quantum level, the same concept can be applied to create an infinitely more intricate mesh; a truly neverending multiverse of realities. Now, every time an atom splits, every time a molecule is made, or even every time light moves between wave and particle… a new reality is potentially born. Only, here, the differences between each and every one of them are so infinitesimally small that we (in our macro state) could never hope to recognise them. 

In an extreme variation, we could be talking about one world where the only difference is that you have one hair less on your head than you do in this one… or another where the atmospheric makeup of a planet that’s thousands of lightyears away is just ever so slightly different, but everything else is the same. Importantly, this isn’t where all multiverse models lead, most don’t go so far… but the principles at play can still take us there, and perhaps it could be argued that it’s even an inevitable endpoint. To even try to contemplate a reality web that’s so closely woven between one layer and the next is, frankly, a major headache for us mere mortals. But, could that mean that we’re actually moving across that web all the time, we’re just wholly unaware because nothing’s ever actually noticeable?

We took a closer look at the story of Lerina Garcia. To briefly recap, Garcia was aged 41 in the year 2008, when she posted claims on a Spanish online forum about how she believed she had woken up in a parallel universe. Among the apparently unexplained changes she encountered on that one fateful day were; waking up in a bed made with sheets she didn’t own… arriving at her place of work only to find that her office and position had changed, as if overnight… and realizing that not only was she still dating her ex-partner, but her until-yesterday-current partner was literally nowhere to be found. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the story has never been fully corroborated… but some have suggested that Garcia may have fallen victim to a so-called reality slip. Her surrounding world was otherwise unchanged - she reported no major differences in global politics for example, or fundamental physics - it was just that certain parts of her own life were inexplicably altered. It’s said that Garcia herself believed that she had entered a kind of parallel universe.

If, for the sake of argument, we take Garcia at her word, then here is an example of someone entering a parallel world and realizing that they’ve done so. But, although the changes were apparently noticeable to Garcia, she would still have needed to skip A LOT of timelines to make those changes possible, as per Many Worlds-style multiverse models. Consider her reported change of job position at her place of work. How many decisions does it take for you to land a job in the first place? How many assignments need completing, meetings need to be held, deadlines need to be met, etc.? There are countless different points in time at which her path might’ve diverted, all of which she will have presumably had to have reversed back through… to then emerge with a different job entirely. Even the unknown bed sheets she woke up in: To buy bed sheets, you need to enter a certain shop, choose to spend a certain amount of money, decide on that one product based on countless other preferences… and all while the subatomic world silently hums through endless splits and decisions of its own, all around you. All of those moments in time would need to have been skipped back through, just for Garcia to awake on some unfamiliar cotton.

Interestingly, Garcia did reportedly visit a doctor to check, among other things, whether she was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. So, even with such personally massive changes, she seemingly had some inkling to doubt herself. And, as it happens, no substances were found in her system, although doctors could find no other explanation for her experiences, either. 

Consider, then, how it might feel if you ever felt your life was different, but much less dramatically so. If you felt that there was just something off but you couldn’t put your finger on what exactly that something was. You perhaps wouldn’t be worried enough to visit a doctor, as Garcia was, but you might be left with a real sense of unease. Of course, there are certain real life phenomena that inspire something similar, in some people, including déjà vu, the Mandela Effect, and lucid dreaming. Sometimes these sensations are loosely referred to as “glitches in the matrix”, sometimes it’s joked that they’re the multiverse at work. Regardless, if parallel universes do exist - which increasing numbers of theories reckon they do - then could we ever hope to confidently tell the difference between one and the next, and the next? If we ever were presented with proof, would we believe it, or even properly recognize it?

As per some of the more extreme interpretations, the multiverse - if it does exist - is unfathomably rich and complex. In just the time it’s taken for you to watch this video, reality will have subatomically split off into countless different directions… leaving you here, in this reality, but other yous, enjoying any one of those other realms.

In today’s world it’s increasingly accepted that, really, there could be countless other worlds out there that we don’t yet know about. And perhaps can’t even comprehend. The multiverse is alive and kicking as a mind-bending concept, but also increasingly as a physical consideration.

What would you do if you could enter into a parallel universe? Would you do things differently or exactly the same as you have in this reality? Would you seek out your parallel self and make contact, just to freak them out a bit? Or would you try to guide history from the shadows? Let us know in the comments! But, beyond sci-fi thought experiment, is any of it actually possible?

The multiverse is a fundamental idea that dates back probably far further than most would guess, to the famed philosophies of ancient Greece. However, in the modern sense it only truly began to take hold toward the end of the nineteenth century. It was only seriously considered for the first time in the mid-twentieth century, and it only appeared in science fiction for the first time in the early 1960s. As ideas go, then, the multiverse is still an emerging one. And, while it remains wholly hypothetical, it comes in many different varieties. 

The most well known of the more contemporary models is arguably Max Tegmark’s four-leveled multiverse, which imagines a physical structure that could hold it all together, with varying degrees of complexity.

No matter the model, though, it’s almost always thought that to travel across the multiverse - to move from one parallel world to another - would require an unfathomable amount of energy. Even an Einstein-Rosen Bridge (or wormhole) wouldn’t be enough in this instance. Traditional wormholes are imagined structures that pierce through the fabric of spacetime to link between locations that are potentially light years apart. As such, they’re a proposed means to achieve faster-than-light travel. While there are theories as to how and where they could form, however (including inside the deepest depths of a black hole) there are no confirmed wormholes in reality. And, in fact, there are no known sites in the universe with even the hint of a wormhole about them. 

Nevertheless, we can still speculate (to some degree) over building one… and, indeed, some have proposed that an advanced enough civilization could even build itself on a sophisticated network of wormholes. The only problem is that we (as we are) know of no physical substance that’s strong or energetic enough for the task. For this reason, whenever the construction of wormholes is considered, the plans always require so-called “exotic matter”... which, broadly, is an unknown (and possibly physically impossible) material. And, even then, most predictions are that a traditional wormhole would inevitably collapse in on itself, whenever it was actually used.

All of this goes to show just how alien it would be to travel between parallel universes. Wormholes are generally offered as an option to traverse just this universe, and even they are currently incomprehensible. We’d need something even more exotic and unusual, then, to move from this universe to another one. On the Kardashev Scale, this is the massive difference between the already lofty Type Four and the even greater Type Five. For a physical, carbon-based, organic human being such as ourselves, it’s almost certainly not going to happen. And, if it did somehow happen, it could in all likelihood kill us, in a way something akin to the spaghettification our bodies would go through if we were to fall into a black hole. Even the individual atoms that make us probably wouldn’t survive the journey.

That said, what if there were a way to achieve it? What if we, as we are, could somehow switch between this universe and another? What kinds of scenarios would we be faced with, and how could the experience shape us?

First off, to have any immediate meaning for us, it would need to be that we’d disappear and reappear in the same place, from one universe to another. Much as with hypothetical time travel, even an iota beyond our target location and we’d find ourselves entirely cut off from the life we’d just left - such is the enormous scale of the universe and reality. Get it wrong, and moving between parallel universes would just be confusing and pointless… but, get it right, and we could be thrust right back into the life we know, but with an all new perspective.

Next, would you really want to meet yourself? Or, to put it another way, should you meet yourself? Imagine that moment from the otherside, from your current perspective as a being in this reality… how would you react if you bumped into you? How would everyone else react if you tried to tell them what had happened? How would the world react if the two versions of you were confirmed, and the true nature of reality were then revealed? Travel between parallel universes and let other beings know about it and, at best, you could be labeled unstable and/or locked up… at worst, you could trigger mass hysteria and the collapse of humankind. Perhaps, then, even with this incredible ability, you’d be wise to keep it to yourself.

But, how would you handle such immeasurable power and knowledge? It would certainly be easy to form something of a god complex. Make it to a parallel universe and keep your true identity secret, and you’d know that you knew more than everyone else around you. You’d know that reality really is guided by even the most forgettable decisions (if the Many Worlds Interpretation rings true) or that there really are higher planes of understanding out there (if the Tegmark Model is correct). And yet, it could prove a lonely and unfulfilling existence. With the secret of life laid bare, would it ever be possible to even be interested in anything else again? With the true nature of nature revealed, where would your motivation come from?

Perhaps there would be a darker path down which you could travel, where you stem the boredom by just playing with everyone else’s realities. Life, death, love, hate, happiness and fear… the entire range of human emotions could suddenly seem quite futile, like levels in a game, or expansion packs to complete. Moving around a parallel universe, far removed from your original reality and now all-knowing, you could quickly become mean, merciless and indifferent to such lower level states as pain and suffering. But, of course, you could also view your new reality in the opposite way; as somewhere that could benefit from your guidance. You could be benevolent rather than malevolent, and rather than seeking infamy or destruction… you could work and try to ensure that your parallel universe avoids some of the mistakes that only you know were made in your original one.

Again, what would you do if you could enter into a parallel universe? How would you handle your heightened position? For now, what’s clear is that this is a thought experiment, only. The multiverse is still a wholly hypothetical structure, and humanity knows of no way to build even regular wormholes… let alone bridges that can link between here and literally another reality entirely. 

So, what’s your verdict? Do the stories at the beginning of this video make you believe that parallel universes are real? Has the ordeal of Lerina Garcia left you questioning your very existence? Whatever your view, it’s clear that there is so much about the nature of reality that we just can’t be sure of. Unless, of course, you do already knowingly exist in a parallel universe… in which case, we’re onto you, your cover has been blown, and the truth really has been unveiled.

Strange things happen all the time. Unexplainable events unfold every day. And perhaps that’s why parallel universes really could exist!