Invisible Traveler

Tag Area: Time Travel Trope
Novelette

Creatures of the Light

A Teutonic scientist attempts to create a race of artificially created superman who, among other things, can jump a few seconds through time, but only as invisible witnesses to the future goings-on. The story is disturbingly prescient of Nazi ideas of an Aryan Herrenvolk. —Michael Main
Before Northwood’s horrified sight, he vanished; vanished as though he had turned suddenly to air and floated away.
Black-and-white drawing of a well-dressed man and woman struggling behind a large energy-beam projector.
  • Science Fiction
  • Debatable Time Travel
Novelette

Terror Out of Time

Until I started reading 1930s pulps, I didn’t realize how ubiquitous were the scientist with a beautiful daughter and her adventurous fiancé. This story has Dr. Audrin, his machine (to project the brain of a present-day man forty million years into the future and possibly bring another mind back), his beautiful daughter Eve, and her manly fiancé, Terry Webb. Manly Webb agrees to be the test subject for the machine, much to the dismay of beautiful Eve. —Michael Main
I must have a subject. And there is a certain—risk. Not great, now, I’m sure. My apparatus is improved. But, in my first trial, my subject was—injured. I’ve been wondering, Mr. Webb, if you—
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  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Comic Book

Journey into Mystery #47

The Blinding Flash!

In order to retrieve his cigarette lighter from a crime scene, a small-time thief agrees to be a test subject for Professor Mark Hanson’s atom-powered machine that sends an astral projection of a person into the past. Oh, I almost forgot: There’s one other volunteer, too. —Michael Main
Professor Mark Hanson has tus far been unable to get a single person to use his remarkable discovery for recovering the past!
No image currently available.
  • Science Fiction
  • Weird Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Future Science Fiction, February 1960

Through Other Eyes

Although the story is not about time travel, the characters do spend the first couple of pages reminiscing about their disappointing experiences with a time machine. —Fred Galvin
“And watching the great Pythagorous at work.”
“And the three days that he spent on that little surveying problem. How one longed to hand him a slide-rule through the barrier and explain its working.”
Pen-and-ink drawing of the head of a man staring forward while others parade beside him in futuristic dress.
  • Science Fiction
  • Cameo Time Travel
Novel

A String in the Harp

Twelve-year-old Peter Morgan is not happy about being uprooted from Massachusetts and hauled off to a tiny coastal hamlet in Wales, but he is fascinated by the ancient harp key that he finds wedged between two cracks on a dike. Oh, did I mention that the key is magic, letting him (and eventually other children) see the legendary Welsh bard Taliesin? —Michael Main
I can tell you that the things you have seen and explained with reason could fit the story of Taliesin, though your sister would rather not hear it.
No image currently available.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Young Adults
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

retold for children

A Christmas Carol

The tale is a somewhat faithful retelling for children, abridge to about a third of the original length, in simple language, and with copious illustrations by Chris Russell. It even retains the metaphysical thought that the future will be bleak for Tiny Tim if things remain unchanged. —Michael Main
If these shadows do not change, Tiny Tim will not see another Christmas.
Dressed in green and holding a torch high, the ghost of Christmas-yet-to-come beseeches a cowering Scrooge in his nightshirt and nightcap.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Movie Cartoon

Mickey’s Christmas Carol

You’ll enjoy all the Disney characters’ renditions of all the Dickens characters, from Scrooge McDuck (as Scrooge, of course) to Goofy (as Marley), Jiminy Cricket (as the Ghost of Christmas Past), and the weasels (as Scrooge’s gravediggers).


With Dickens, we always want to know whether Scrooge actually time travels or merely observes the past and present. In this case, none of the spirits explicitly explain one way or the other, but if you watch carefully when Scrooge and Jiminy arrive in the past, you’ll spot Scrooge definitely interacting with a physical object the past when he’s unable to see the festivities inside Fezzywig’s. Verdict: probably time travel!

This cartoon was based on a 1972 audio musical entitled Disney's A Christmas Carol, although the cartoon is not a musical. —Michael Main
If these shadows remain unchanged, I see an empty chair where Tiny Tim once sat.
Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and three little ones gather around Scrooge McDuck in front of a Christmas tree.
  • Science Fiction
  • Audience: Families
  • Definite Time Travel
Novella

The Hemingway Hoax

Literature professor John Baird and conman Sylvester Castlemaine hatch a plan to get rich forging Hemingway’s lost stories, but before long, Baird is confronted by an apparent guardian of the many timelines in the form of Hemingway himself. —Michael Main
I’m from the future and the past and other temporalities that you can’t comprehend. But all you need to know is that yiou must not write this Hemingway story. If you do, I or someone like me will have to kill you.
A Hemingway-esqu man has various heads and appendages coming out of his head.
  • 1991 Hugo
  • 1991 Nebula
  • Science Fiction
  • Horror
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (s07e08)

Bada Ping!

Sabrina takes Salem into the future to find out her fate after gangster Mickey Brentwood finds out that she’s writing an exposé on his shady practices. —Inmate Jan
You see, this thug nightclub owner threatened our little Lois Lame over there—
Melissa Joan Hart (as Sabrina) lies peacefully in a white-lined coffin.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel
TV Episode

Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (s07e09)

It’s a Hot, Hot, Hot, Hot Christmas

While on a Christmas trip to Florida, Sabrina and Salem travel back in time to see who robbed the condo where everyone is staying —Inmate Jan
Oh, oh, oh—I think you went back a little too far!
Melissa Joan Hart (as Sabrina) pulls the lever on an a vintage engine order telegraph, bathing herself and Salem the cat in gold and red light.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel
Feature Film

A Christmas Carol

Patrick Steward delivers a nuanced portrayal of Scrooge in this faithful adaptation. Much of the dialog came verbatim from Dickens’s original, and the costumers paid careful tribute to John Leech’s original illustrations. —Michael Main
Scrooge: Is there no chance that boy will be spared?
Christmas Present: Not if the future remains unaltered.
Dressed in a black Victorian tophat, black coat, and black gloves, Patrick Stewart (as Scrooge) raises his cane as if to strike.
  • Fantasy
  • Debatable Time Travel
Feature Film

Ghosts of Christmas Always

This time around, the usual three ghosts are only one of the many three-ghost teams who are given a yearly assignment to scrooge one of the many Scrooges who seem to be more numerous than ever before. Together with their 2022 assignment—Peter Baron, an unsatisfied son of a food baron—they provide a nice tear-jerker for the entire family. —Michael Main
He’s like the anti-Scrooge.
No image currently available.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Fantasy
  • Romance
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel