An Inhabitant of Carcosa

by Ambrose Bierce

The ghost of a man from the ancient, fictional city of Carcosa seems destined to wander the city’s ruins, meeting wildlife and perhaps one even older ghost. Although we detected no definitive time phenomena, the time frame of the story is nebulous and intriguing, and the city’s mythos provided a fertile ground for 20th-century writers including Robert W. Chambers, H. P. Lovecraft, and George R. R. Martin.

— Michael Main

In one kind of death the spirit also dieth, and this it hath been known to do while yet the body was in vigour for many years. Sometimes, as is veritably attested, it dieth with the body, but after a season is raised up again in that place where the body did decay.

“An Inhabitant of Carcosa” by Ambrose Bierce, in the San Francisco Newsletter and California Advertiser, 25 December 1886.

The House on the Borderland

by William Hope Hodgson

Supernatural-story pioneer William Hope Hodgson was an inspiration for Lovecraft and later generations of writers. This novel of an Irish house that lay at the intersection of monstrous other dimensions seems to include time travel when the narrator witnesses and returns from a future the Earth is falling into the Sun while a second green star visits our solar system.

— Michael Main

Years appeared to pass, slowly. The earth had almost reached the center of the sun’s disk. The light from the Green Sun—as now it must be called—shone through the interstices, that gapped the mouldered walls of the old house, giving them the appearance of being wrapped in green flames. The Swine-creatures still crawled about the walls.

The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson (Chapman and Hall, 1908).

Not in Our Stars

by Conrad Arthur Skinner

After a meteor strike and some scientific mumbo-jumbo, Felix Menzies wakes up in a jail cell on the day before his execution for murdering the man he wrongly thought was his wife’s lover—an act he doesn’t remember—, and then he starts waking up on each previous morning, whereupon he begins to think he can cheat Destiny by not murdering the guy in the first place.

— Michael Main

If he did meet Savile, he was prepared to shake hands with him in the old way, and to realize what a neurotic fool he had been: also that Destiny had made an idiot of itself with the careless blundering born of the knowledge that nobody would ever know, nobody, that is, except himself; and, of course, Destiny safely relied on the assumption that nobody would believe him.

Not in Our Stars by Conrad Arthur Skinner (T. Fisher Unwin, 1923).

The Jest of Hahalaba

by Lord Dunsany

Against the advice of his alchemist, Sir Arthur calls up the Spirit of Laughter on New Year’s Eve and asks to see the coming year’s issues of the Times.

— Michael Main

Sir Arthur Strangways: Only a trifle. I wish to see a file of the Times.
Hahalaba:For what year?

The Jest of Hahalaba by Lord Dunsany, unknown first performance, circa 1926.

Doubled and Redoubled

by Malcolm Jameson

Jimmy Childers was certain of two things: that last night he’d set the alarm to silent (even though it went off this morning) and that yesterday, June 14th, was the perfect day, the likes of which could certainly never be repeated again.

This is the earliest sf story that I’ve seen with a time loop, although there was the earlier 1939 episode of The Shadow.

Jimmy had the queer feeling, which comes over one at times, he was reliving something that had already happened.

“Doubled and Redoubled” by Malcolm Jameson, in Unknown, February 1941.

Blind Alley

by Malcolm Jameson

Business tycoon Jack Feathersmith longs for the simple, good old days of his youth in Cliffordsville.

Nothing was further from Mr. Feathersmith’s mind than dealings with streamlined, mid-twentieth-century witches or dickerings with the Devil. But something had to be done. The world was fast going to the bowwows, and he suffered from an overwhelming nostalgia for the days of his youth. His thoughts contantly turned to Cliffordsville and the good old days when men were men and God was in His heaven and all was right with the world.

“Blind Alley” by Malcolm Jameson, in Unknown, June 1943.

Private Eye

by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore

A jilted man plans murderous revenge while trying to avoid any behavior that would reveal his plans to the government’s all-seeing technology that can reconstruct the past from electromagnetic and sound waves.

— Michael Main

It was sensitive enough to pick up the “fingerprints” of light and sound waves imprinted on matter, descramble and screen them, and reproduce the image of what had happened.

“Private Eye” by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, Astounding Science Fiction, January 1949.

Journey into Mystery #2

Don’t Look!

by an unknown writer and Jay Scott Pike

Yep, the mirror that Harold Whitney got from an odd old man really does let you see what people will look like in the future—a situation that we’d normally mark as a mere time phenomenon and tag as a simple kind of chronoscope. But the story also has a twist at the end that makes me wonder whether the old man was also a time traveler.

— Michael Main

I have here a strange invention, a mirror that will let you see how anyone will look at anytime in the future.

“Don’t Look!” by an unknown writer and Jay Scott Pike, in Journey into Mystery #2 (Atlas Comics, August 1952).

Journey into Mystery #2

The Pact

by an unknown writer

Frances Conrad learns the dark truth about an unholy pact made by his ancestor from the horse’s mouth itself.

— Michael Main

The year is 1693, the month is June, and the day is the fifteenth. Come and watch with me.

“The Pact” by an unknown writer , in Journey into Mystery #2 (Atlas Comics, August 1952).

Journey into Mystery #3

Hands Off!

by an unknown writer and Bill Benulis

Eugene Varo makes a dark deal with a visitor from the past who wants Varo’s perfectly crafted artificial hands. This is the first story in Journey into Mystery to have definite time travel.

— Michael Main

I have come out of the dim past to bargain for those hands. . . and take them back with me. . . they are too beautiful for this age.

“Hands Off!” by an unknown writer and Bill Benulis, in Journey into Mystery #3 (Atlas Comics, October 1952).

Journey into Mystery #4

The Bewitched Bike!

by an unknown writer and Tony DiPreta

When small-time crook Spider steals a time-traveling bike, all he can think to make a profit from it is to rob, murder, and escape to the future. No wonder he’s small-time!

— Michael Main

I can be the biggest! I can rob, murder . . . do anything! Then all I have to do is jump on my bike an’ presto, I’m 40 years in the future.

“The Bewitched Bike!” by an unknown writer and Tony DiPreta, in Journey into Mystery #4 (Atlas Comics, December 1952).

Journey into Mystery #6

The Man Who Went Back

by Carl Wessler and Sam Kweskin

A man on death row murders his guards and escapes, getting on an odd bus where everyone is rapidly aging. And when he demands to be taken back, that’s when the real fun begins.

— Michael Main

You’ve got to stop the bus . . . turn around or we’ll all soon be dead of old age!

“The Man Who Went Back” by Carl Wessler and Sam Kweskin, in Journey into Mystery #6 (Atlas Comics, March 1953).

Journey into Mystery #8

Time Reversal

by an unknown writer

A blackmailer demonstrates his ability to send an entire city back to prehistoric times.

— Michael Main

We received a note telling us that unless we paid the sum of three million dollars this great city would be taken back to prehistoric days.

“Time Reversal” by an unknown writer , in Journey into Mystery #8 (Atlas Comics, May 1953).

Journey into Mystery #13

What Harry Saw

by an unknown writer and artist

If you (or Harry, of course) should happen to see your wife with another man in your chronoscope, be careful about how you proceed.

— Michael Main

I turned on the futurescope and saw her kissing Edmund, a man I work with!

“What Harry Saw” by an unknown writer and artist, in Journey into Mystery #13 (Atlas Comics, December 1953).

Journey into Mystery #14

The Man Who Owned a World

by an unknown writer, Vic Carrabotta, and Jack Abel

Evil stepfather George intercepts a build-a-world kit from the future.

— Michael Main

Somewhere in the future, a postal error had been made and a package destined for a yet as unborn grandson had been lost in time and delivered to this house!

“The Man Who Owned a World” by an unknown writer, Vic Carrabotta, and Jack Abel, in Journey into Mystery #14 (Atlas Comics, February 1954).

Journey into Mystery #16

The Question!

by an unknown writer and Vic Carrabotta

Computer genius and jealous husband Paul Jessup builds a mechanical brain that can answer any question about the future.

— Michael Main

The brain can foretell events for approximately 24 hours in the future!

“The Question!” by an unknown writer and Vic Carrabotta, in Journey into Mystery #16 (Atlas Comics, June 1954).

Journey into Mystery #18

The Man Who Went Back!

by Carl Wessler and Pete Tumlinson

When Jeff Martin floats downstream, he literally floats back in time. Now, if only those two pesky men would quit following him,

— Michael Main

It looks like there was something about that swim in the river that threw me back ten years!

“The Man Who Went Back!” by Carl Wessler and Pete Tumlinson, in Journey into Mystery #18 (Atlas Comics, October 1954).

Journey into Mystery #20

The Messenger!

by Paul S. Newman and Jack Abel

Jeff Calder is a true prankster, but his new messenger, Dal J. Keefe, seems to take every prank without missing a beat.

— Michael Main

Messenger, you’re just in time! Recieved a priority order from the top. . . scrounge up a gallow of yellow paint with black stripes.

“The Messenger!” by Paul S. Newman and Jack Abel, in Journey into Mystery #20 (Atlas Comics, December 1954).

Journey into Mystery #21

The Missing Men

by Ben Benulis and Jack Abel

After sailing around the world, the Queen of the Sea returns to port without a sole aboard, and only private investigator Dolan knows why.

— Michael Main

It’s incredible! How in the world could all those people disappear in mid-ocean?

“The Missing Men” by Ben Benulis and Jack Abel, in Journey into Mystery #21 (Atlas Comics, January 1955).

Journey into Mystery #27

The Man Who Stopped Time!

by Carl Wessler and Dick Ayers

After George Applby’s proposal is rejected by his fiancée, George stumbles across a stopwatch that freezes time for other people in the vicinity, so naturally he hatches a scheme to use the watch to break up Nancy and her new boyfriend.

— Michael Main

I don’t want some other girl! I want Nancy! If only I could stop time!

“The Man Who Stopped Time!” by Carl Wessler and Dick Ayers, in Journey into Mystery #27 (Atlas Comics, October 1955).

Journey into Mystery #28

They Wouldn’t Believe Him!

by unknown writers and Pete Tumlinson

To escape a forced marriage, a woman in the future tries to disappear into the pase, but her fiance tracks her down.

— Michael Main

I’ll marry you, Everest! But first may I go on a short time-vacation?

“They Wouldn’t Believe Him!” by unknown writers and Pete Tumlinson, in Journey into Mystery #28 (Atlas Comics, November1955).

Unusual Tales #2

Madam Futura

by Joe Gill [?] and Mark Swayze [?]

Madam Futura has an infallible knack for seeing the future—a knack that businessman Ben Gainer plans to exploit, even though he figures her for a fake.

— Michael Main

That Madam Futura knows everything! She can see the past, the present, and the future!

“Madam Futura” by Joe Gill [?] and Mark Swayze [?], Unusual Tales #2 (Charlton Comics, January 1956).

Journey into Mystery #33

There’ll Be Some Changes Made

by Carl Wessler and Steve Ditko

Paul Haines spends his days stewing over the money his 18th-centery ancestor wasted, until he realizes that there’s a way he can get it. I found the story oddly disquieting in that Paul never really faced punishment for his crime and he got the girl too boot—definitely not the usual weird fiction pattern, although I’ll still tag it that way.

— Michael Main

Change the past! Why haven’t I thought of this before? It can be done!

“There’ll Be Some Changes Made” by Carl Wessler and Steve Ditko, in Journey into Mystery #33 (Atlas Comics, April 1956).

Journey into Mystery #37

The Deep Freeze

by Carl Wessler and Don Heck

Fresh off a heist of $150,000, three crooks freeze themselves for 150 years to escape the law.

— Michael Main

We were in suspended animation for two hundred years!

“The Deep Freeze” by Carl Wessler and Don Heck, in Journey into Mystery #37 (Atlas Comics, August 1956).

Unusual Tales #5

The Man Who Changed Times

by Joe Gill [?] and Dick Gordano [?]

A prisoner, Vincent Rand, is offered a way out of his ten-year sentence.

— Michael Main

Wouldn’t you prefer being free, even five hundred years in the past, to serving out a ten year sentence in this prison?

“The Man Who Changed Times” by Joe Gill [?] and Dick Gordano [?], Unusual Tales #5 (Charlton Comics, September 1956).

Journey into Mystery #38

Those Who Vanish!

by Carl Wessler and Steve Ditko

Conman Pete Arlen buys a magic spring that purportedly makes people twenty years younger, and then he unloads it before knowing all the particulars of its magic.

— Michael Main

You mean to tell me that the waters of Chi-Na-Nichi actually makes people twenty years younger!

“Those Who Vanish!” by Carl Wessler and Steve Ditko, in Journey into Mystery #38 (Atlas Comics, September 1956).

Journey into Mystery #42

Life Sentence!

by Carl Wessler and Robert Q. Sale

Leo Sampsom is a four-time thief serving a life sentence. So what has he got to lose when a strange man offers him a pill that will put him back into his own body right before his last theft?

— Michael Main

But what if those pills really work? I’d be out of prison. . . free, back twenty years!

“Life Sentence!” by Carl Wessler and Robert Q. Sale, in Journey into Mystery #42 (Atlas Comics, December 1956).

Unusual Tales #9

The Day I Lived Over Again

by Joe Gill [?] and Bill Molno

While on the lam, hardened criminal Blackie Nelson gets a chance to live the day over—and this time he plans to evade the police and win the girl!

— Michael Main

The day’s starting over again! This doll’s going to fall for me. . . Only this time I’m going to work things different!

“The Day I Lived Over Again” by Joe Gill [?] and Bill Molno, Unusual Tales #9 (Charlton Comics, November 1957).

Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse (s01e6)

The Time Element

by Rod Serling

Serling wrote this one-hour time-travel episode as a pilot for a one-hour anthology show, but after it was filmed, William Dozier at CBS requested a change to a half-hour format. So, “The Time Element” was shelved while Serling worked on a new pilot (which also had a stormy history). Meanwhile, Bert Granet, producer of the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, caught wind of the original Serling pilot and quickly snapped up the production for which he had to then fight hard with the Westinghouse bigwigs in order to air.

The story involves a time traveler, Pete Jensen, who couldn’t stop the attack on Pearl Harbor, but he certainly made his mark as the Twilight Zone precursor.

I have information that the Japanese are gonna bomb Pearl Harbor tomorrow morning at approximately 8am Honolulu time.

Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse (s01e06), “The Time Element” by Rod Serling (CBS-TV, USA, 24 November 1958).

The Twilight Zone

by Rod Serling

Five seasons with many time-travel episodes. Four (marked with ¤) were written by Richard Matheson, one was by E. Jack Neuman (“Templeton”), one by Reginold Rose (“Horace Ford”), and the rest were by Serling (including “What You Need” based on a Lewis Padgett story with prescience only and no real time travel, “Execution” from a story of George Clayton Johnson, “A Quality of Mercy” from a Sam Rolfe story featuring a young Dean Stockwell, and “Of Late I Think of Cliffordville” from Malcolm Jameson’s “Blind Alley”).

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.

The Twilight Zone by Rod Serling (30 October 1959).

The Twilight Zone (r1s01e10)

Judgment Night

by Rod Serling, directed by John Brahm

Carl Lanser finds himself on a transatlantic voyage of the cargo liner S.S. Queen of Glasgow, in 1942, not knowing much about himself or how he got there, but knowing volumes about submarine warfare.

— Michael Main

There’d be no wolf packs converging on a single ship, Major Devereaux. The principle of the submarine pack is based on the convoy attack.

The Twilight Zone (v1s01e10), “Judgment Night” by Rod Serling, directed by John Brahm (CBS-TV, USA, 4 December 1959).

The Twilight Zone (r1s01e26)

Execution

by Rod Serling, directed by David Orrick McDearmon

Back in the 1880s, just after a man without conscience is dropped from a lone tree with a rope around his neck, a scientist pulls him into 20th-century New York City.

Serling wrote this script based on a George Clayton Johnson’s bare bones, present-tense treatment for a TV script, complete with an indication of where the commercial break should go. For this episode, Serling filled in the flesh and cut the fat from a bare bones, present-tense treatment by George Clayton Johnson. The treatment appeared in Johnson’s 1977 retrospective collection of scripts and stories, and in Volume 9 of Serling’s collected Twilight Zone scripts, Johnson commented that “Rod took my idea and went off to the races with it. He had a remarkable knowledge of what would and wouldn’t work on television, and he took everything that wouldn’t work out of ‘Execution’. He worked like a surgeon; a little snip here, a complete amputation over there, move this bone into place, graft over that one. When he was done, my little story had grown into a television script that lived and breathed on its own.” Serling also added a nice twist at the end that, for us, warranted the TV episode an Eloi Honorable Mention.
Rod Serling wrote this script based on a 1960 Twilight Zone episode of the same name, but I’m uncertain whether the story was published before Johnson’s 1977 retrospective collection.

— Michael Main

Caswell: I wanna see if there are things out there like you described to me. Carriages without horses and the buildings that rise to—

Professor Manion: They’re out there, Caswell.. . . Things you can’t imagine.

The Twilight Zone (v1s01e26), “Execution” by Rod Serling, directed by David Orrick McDearmon (CBS-TV, USA, 1 April 1960).

The Twilight Zone (r1s02e10)

A Most Unusual Camera

by Rod Serling, directed by John Rich

Petty thieves Chet and Paula Diedrich are frustrated, angry, and in a bickering mood when they find nothing but cheap junk in the 400-lbs. of stuff they lifted from a curios store in the middle of the night, . . . until that boxy looking camera with the indecipherable label—dix à la propriétaire—produces a photo of the immediate future.

— Michael Main

Yeah, it takes dopey pictures—dopey pictures like things that haven’t happened yet, but they do happen.

The Twilight Zone (v1s02e10), “A Most Unusual Camera” by Rod Serling, directed by John Rich (CBS-TV, 16 December 1960).

Unusual Tales #27

Look into the Future

by Joe Gill [?] and Steve Ditko

Decades ago, a prescient dream gave a young man confidence to ruthlessly pursue his ambitions.

— Michael Main

The mine did cave later . . . but mining is a dangerous business and some always die! The important thing is, I got production!

“Look into the Future” by Joe Gill [?] and Steve Ditko, Unusual Tales #27 (Charlton Comics, April 1961).

The Outer Limits

by Leslie Stevens

The original series ran only a season and a half with 49 episodes on the science fiction end of The Twilight Zone mold, but a full hour long. At least four episodes had some time travel.

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about the experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to. . . The Outer Limits!

The Outer Limits by Leslie Stevens (14 October 1963).

The Twilight Zone [s1e30] (treatm.ent)

Execution

by George Clayton Johnson

Back in the Old West, just after outlaw Jason Black is dropped from a lone tree with a rope around his neck, two scientists pull him into the 20th century. The story isn’t your typical short story; instead, it’s a treatment that Johnson presented to Rod Serling for a Twilight Zone episode that aired on 1 April 1960.

Listen to me. There is a strange world outside that door. Without us to help you, anything can happen to you. This is the twentieth century, don’t you understand?

“Execution” by George Clayton Johnson, in A Collection of Scripts and Stories written for “The Twilight Zone” by George Clayton Johnson, limited edition of 100 looseleaf copies (Valcour and Krueger, 1977).

Twilight Zone: The Movie

Time Out

written and directed by John Landis

The Twilight Zone anthology movie reprises three of the original show’s stories along with one new story, “Time Out” by John Landis, in which disgruntled bigot Bill Connor finds himself as a Jew in World War II German occupied Europe, a black man facing the clan in mid-20th century America, and a man in a Vietnamese jungle during the Second Indochina War.

— Michael Main

Ray, help! Larry! It’s me!

“Time Out” written and directed by John Landis (at movie theaters, USA, 24 June 1983).

The Twilight Zone

by Rod Serling

Three seasons with 7 time-travel episodes. Harlan Ellison was a consultant on the series that included an adaptation of his “One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty.” The series also adapted Sturgeon’s “Yesterday Was Monday’, altering the plot and renaming it to “A Matter of Minutes,” and George R.R. Martin did the script for the time-travel episode “The Once and Future King” based on an idea submitted by Bryce Maritano.

Let the record show that in any age—good or bad—there are men of high ideals: men of courage, men who do more than that for which they are called upon. You will not always know their names. But let their deeds stand as monuments, so that when the human race is called to judgment, we may say, ‘This too was humanity!’

The Twilight Zone by Rod Serling (6 January 1985).

The Showtime 30-Minute Movie [s:1e1]

12:01 PM

by Stephen Tolkin and Jonathan Heap, directed by Jonathan Heap

Kurtwood Smith portrays Myron Castleman’s noon hour over and over in this first movie adaptation of Richard Lupoff’s short story.

— Michael Main

You see, it’s like . . . it’s like we’re stuck. You know, like a . . . like a needle on a scratched record. It all starts at 12:01, and everything goes along fine until one o’clock and then Bam! the whole world snaps back to 12:01 again.

12:01 P.M. by Stephen Tolkin and Jonathan Heap, directed by Jonathan Heap (Showtime, USA, 19 August 1990).

The Outer Limits

by Leslie Stevens

Sadly, this revival (which outlasted the original by more than 100 episodes) was shown mostly on cable, so I didn’t see many of the first airings. But as I was writing up this listing, I realized that between the two runs of The Outer Limits, three runs of The Twilight Zone, one season of Tales of Tomorrow, and a handful of other miscellaneous episodes of weird anthology series, we could easily put together a full season of a new anthology show: The Time Travel Zone Limits. After one season, the network will be ours, and we can continue for many happy seasons into the future.

There is nothing wrong with your television. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are now controlling the transmission. We control the horizontal and the vertical. We can deluge you with a thousand channels or expand one single image to crystal clarity and beyond. We can shape your vision to anything our imagination can conceive. For the next hour, we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the deepest inner mind to. . . The Outer Limits!

The Outer Limits by Leslie Stevens (5 May 1995).

The Twilight Zone

by Rod Serling

One season with 4 time-travel episodes.

I reminded them that Adolph Hitler was responsible for the deaths of 60 million people.

The Twilight Zone by Rod Serling (2 October 2002).

Dimension 404

by Will Campos et al.

The Twilight Zone rides again, but this time on streaming TV (Hulu)! The first three episodes, all released on April 4, included a Wishbone meets Captain Planet episode, “Chronos,” with a model of time-travel that made no sense (but was still a hoot).

You know you’ve got the wrong equation for closed timelike curves, right?

Dimension 404 by Will Campos et al. (4 April 2017).