 Many people fantasize about the opportunity to time travel. I know for myself that if I could get into some sort of vehicle and travel back in time, I would love to go to the 17th century of Europe. And the story that we're going to look at today is a story of possible time travel. There's also some other theories as well. One of the other theories being that the ladies who claim to have experienced this time travel were crazy. But before we go any further, you know what to do. Please hit that subscribe button and give us a like also. As always, a very, very, very special thank you to all of our patrons. Once more, we've picked up more patrons and I am so grateful to all of you. Because of our patrons, we were able to set up a new camera system, so that's exciting. If you would like to join our Patreon program, there is a link down in the description box below. Welcome to Esoteric Atlanta, my name is Bryce, and today on Mystery Monday, we are going to be talking about the Moberly Jordan incident of 1901. E. Hartley once said, the past was like a different country. They do things differently there. And in 1901, Charlotte Moberly and Eleanor Jordane surely experienced a very different timeline that they happened to step into on a trip to Versailles. Charlotte Moberly was born in England in 1846. She was an academic and a writer and was the 10th child in a long line of 15 kids. She was the daughter of a man named George Moberly who was the headmaster of Westminster College. Moberly came from a very, very well respected family in academia. Her father also became Bishop of Salisbury and Charlotte herself became her father's secretary. Charlotte was so respected in her line of academia that in 1886, St. Hughes Halls was established for girls and Charlotte was appointed as its principal. In the year 2021, such academic and professional accomplishments aren't that big of a deal for women, as it's more common for women to be educated and to hold jobs of high responsibility, especially in our educational system. But back in the 19th century, this was a pretty big ordeal. The academic world as an industry respected Charlotte Moberly. She was considered very intelligent, obviously was very well educated, and was handed the responsibility to start governing the way other women were educated. Her reputation does come into play later on in this story. Eleanor Jordan was born in 1863. Now, she was a good bit younger than Charlotte Moberly, but the two women had a lot in common. Eleanor Jordan also came from a very large family. She was the first of 10 children. Eleanor also was heavily engaged in academia. And once again, this was quite rare for the 19th century. Eleanor Jordan ended up working for Charlotte Moberly as an assistant and then became a colleague. The two women were both Spensters. A word that you don't really hear that often anymore, Spenster. Just a woman who wasn't married. Now, the two women also became very, very close, as one often does with one's colleagues. They ended up living together. And of course, there were rumors that they were lesbian lovers. I don't know if they were lesbians or not, and frankly, I don't really care. But maybe that's because I live in modern times where that sort of stuff really doesn't matter anyway and isn't shocking. But in the 19th century, this was quite, quite, quite a scandal. However, because of their reputation in academia, they were able to maintain their jobs with respect. Actually, the story of Charlotte Moberly and Eleanor Georgian remind me a lot of stories my father's mother used to tell me growing up. In fact, my father's mother, my paternal grandmother, is the only grandparent that I still have left. And my grandmother, Marianne, grew up in South Georgia in a small town called Quipman, Georgia, a little bit outside of Valdosta. She's the only grandparent that I have who is from the state of Georgia. All my other lineages lie outside the state. Now, where equipment is located, it's right on the Georgia, Florida state line. Very, very, very small towns. And my great-grandfather, my grandmother's father, a man by the name of Paul Bennett, owned a dairy farm. The Bennett family was also a family that was known for its academic pursuits. My grandmother told me growing up that she had aunts who were also spinsters and who worked for universities and colleges. My grandmother said that when she was headed off to university, which was super rare for girls at that time, even in the early 20th century when my grandmother was a child, that she didn't want to end up like her aunts who were spinsters. She wanted to get married. However, upon looking through this story more, I have a feeling her aunts who were spinsters were probably also lesbians, but I don't know that for sure. My grandmother ended up going to college, university, and she actually graduated the valedictorian of her class, which, again, was really rare for women back then. She was playing the piano one night at a little house party going on, and my grandfather was passing through with the military, and that's when he fell in love with my grandmother, and the rest they say is history. So studying about Charlotte Moberly and Eleanor Jordane really reminded me of some of my own stories I learned growing up from around the same time period, maybe a little bit later, with my grandmother's aunts. Now, as roommates, colleagues, possibly lovers, Eleanor and Charlotte would go on these little history trips. Now, living in England, of course, they were close to all these other little European countries. They can go and explore, and frankly, that sounds like something that I would love to do. And it was on one particular day in 1901 that Charlotte and Eleanor went on a tour of Versailles. Now, we've talked about Versailles a lot over these past few weeks as we have been exploring French royalty. Versailles is obviously the palace in the town where the French monarchy lived, starting with Louis XIV, the Sun King. For his father and grandfather, the Versailles Palace wasn't really a palace. It was more of a hunting lodge, but of course Louis XIV moved his government and court out to Versailles and expanded the palace. Now, just a side note, I have been watching the series Versailles with Louis XIV, and it's quite good. There's only three seasons, but they do go over a lot of the stories that we have talked about on this show. So, if anybody's looking for a good series to watch, Versailles is pretty good. Now, the story goes that on the tour of the palace, Charlotte and Eleanor were unimpressed. I have been to the palace of Versailles. I was 17 when I was there, but I remember being pretty floored away by its elegance. I still remember the hall of mirrors like it was yesterday, and the gardens outside were absolutely spectacular. So I don't know why Charlotte and Eleanor were unimpressed, but for whatever reason they just weren't feeling the palace and so they decided that they would break away from their group and go look at the grounds, the gardens of the Petit Trinon. Now, the Petit Trinon was built by King Louis XV. It started its construction in 1762 and ended in 1768. It was a smaller portion of the Grand Trinon, makes sense, right? Petit is small, Grand is big. The Grand Trinon was built by Louis XIV for his mistress, Madame de Montespaigne, which is a show that we have covered, we've covered her because she was into like black magic and Satanism. And if you missed that episode, I will link it down below. Now the Grand Trinon and later the Petit Trinon weren't just humble abodes for the ladies of the kings, the mistresses, but they were also kind of like getaways from court life, so it served multiple purposes. And it was later on that the Petit Trinon would become even more famous with Marie Antoinette and her husband Louis XVI. Now most people are familiar with the historical figure of Marie Antoinette. She supposedly is the woman who said let them eat cake because of the starving people of France that needed bread. Now we know that she actually never said that. But this fake quote of Marie Antoinette does describe a bit of her ignorance about the financial situation of the kingdom of France. You see, Marie Antoinette was a Habsburg. She was from a huge ruling family out of Austria. And of course, it was arranged for her to marry Louis XVI when they were both like 14 years old. It is said that when Marie Antoinette showed up at Versailles as a per routine teenage girl to meet her husband and her new in-laws for this political alliance or treaty, she was completely uncomfortable with the bells and the whistles of Versailles. Now in Versailles, everything was scheduled. People watched her eat, watched her dress. There was ceremony to everything. I think that this says a lot coming from a Habsburg princess because it's not like she wasn't used to the finer things in life. It wasn't like she wasn't used to her life being on display all the time. However, it goes to show you the excessiveness of the Versailles culture. And so when Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were crowned King and Queen of France, Louis XVI gave the Petit Trianon to Marie Antoinette. Now again, normally these were places for the King and his mistress. But in this situation, Louis XVI is giving it to Marie Antoinette to be hers and hers alone. Now Marie Antoinette would end up spending a lot of her time at the Petit Trianon. And it is said that even though it was only about 15 minutes from the main palace, even the King himself had to have her permission to enter. Only her closest of closest friends were allowed to spend time with her in this area of Versailles. She even had her own estate where she decorated part of the property to look like a small village. And it is said that her and her friends would play peasants on the village property. Now I know a lot of people think this is pretty disrespectful of someone like Marie Antoinette to do. But part of me wonders if her whole desire to play peasant meant that she just wanted a normal life. She was craving normalcy that she was not born into. Now little did she know, I think that she was completely unaware of how the peasants or the normal people were really suffering at this point. The finances of France were completely screwed up and the people, as always, it's the people of a nation who are the collateral when things go wrong. In fact, very famously it was on October 5th of 1789 that one of the pages rushed to get Marie Antoinette to tell her that a crowd was about to storm the palace. Not only a crowd, but an armed crowd. This became known as the Woman's March on Versailles. And this was again all started because the rise in price of bread was starving the people of France. While the ruling family of France was living in opulence. Of course, this was the start of the very, very bloody French Revolution. At this point, this would be the last time Marie Antoinette would see the Petite Trinone or Versailles for that matter because her and her family had to then leave the palace and head back to Paris. Now there are stories about them trying to escape back to Austria where Marie Antoinette was originally from but unfortunately were caught right before they were about to cross the border. Now by 1792 the monarchy of France had been abolished. And we know, most of us know, that Louis XVI had his head taken off by the guillotine and then nine months later Marie Antoinette met the same fate. We do know that a few of their children did pass away and one of the surviving kids is now the Paysor family which I can't think of a more powerful family to be at the top of this global pyramid than somebody who is both the House of Bourbon and Habsburg. Now a lot of the valuables from the Petite Trinone as well as the Palace of Versailles were then taken to the Louvre which of course by this point was turning itself into a museum. It had at one point been a palace. And then by 1793 other valuables went on auction. Now Versailles and its gardens, the Grand Trinone and the Petite Trinone both kind of went to waste for a little while. The people in France couldn't really afford to keep up with these monstroses buildings and estates that had been built by their very rich rulers at one point. It wasn't until Napoleon Bonaparte took over France that he kind of inherited Versailles and ended up giving his sister the Petite Trinone for herself. Now over time as we know if you've been to Paris, if you've been to Versailles this is all owned by the country and it's basically for tourism now they've done a really good job cleaning it up and putting it back to where it used to be so people can go and see the history of what it was like living in Versailles for a good part of the time of the House of Verben's ruling of France. And this is exactly once more what Charlotte Mobley and Eleanor Jardin were doing on that fateful day in 1901. As I said they were not impressed by this magnificent palace and they decided that they really wanted to go check out the botanical gardens that they heard were beautiful at the Petite Trinone. When they got down to the Petite Trinone they had to enter through the Grand Trinone and they saw that it was closed. They had with them a tour guide book which for the young kids watching that's what you got for a long time was like a book or a pamphlet that showed you around the property because obviously nobody had cell phones, little GPS to tell them where to go and they found a side entrance to get in to look at these beautiful gardens. Now it kind of reminds me, my mother used to tell us growing up that sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission and it seems like that's what Charlotte Mobley and Eleanor Jardin were doing. They were just going to go in anyway and if someone caught them just ask for forgiveness instead of seeking that permission. While walking in to the gardens they took a wrong turn on the Ele de Trinone which is the main avenue or road path through this massive garden. Now it might seem kind of silly to think about getting lost in a garden like this but you have to understand this property was and is huge. In fact from what I remember of Versailles and its gardens yes I can absolutely understand somebody getting lost there especially if they're just using or relying on a pocket guidebook to tell them where to go. Well as they took a wrong turn they both claimed to immediately feel the atmosphere change. All of a sudden they felt an air of oppression. Charlotte Mobley claimed that she saw a woman standing up in a building shaking a white linen towel out the window and Jordane claimed that she saw a deserted farmhouse and a plow. Now the plow is super fascinating because at this point plows weren't really used anymore and so this instrument was definitely out of place for the time. Now as they kept walking through the gardens not only did they feel oppression but they also felt tension and fear. They noticed that there were some guards standing around and the guards had on a particular costume, garment and Mobley believed that maybe these guards were in costume for a particular reason. In fact she said and I quote very dignified officials dressed in long grayish green coats with small three-corned hats. Jordane also claimed that she saw a woman holding a huge jug of water standing in the doorway trying to give it to a younger girl. They found themselves at the Temple de Amour which was a temple that was a little scandalous in its day as well because it was a temple built to pagan gods that Marie Antoinette had built and people were whispering about it. She built it for her first pregnancy and when she delivered a girl the town gossip was that she delivered a girl and not a boy because she was praying to those pagan gods. But nonetheless there was a man sitting by the temple. Now the women said that this man had a dark and rough complex with what appeared to be smallpox scars. We don't see smallpox scars that much anymore. He had a cloak on and a hat and he seemed a little scary that the women did not really want to make his eye contact or get close to him. At that point they saw another supposed guard who showed them the way out of the petit train on. As they were walking out, Moberly noticed a young woman sitting in a period-style dress painting. She made a note to herself that this woman looked like Marie Antoinette but once again just brushed it off that perhaps they had accidentally walked into a staged event where there were actors in costume acting out the times when the petit train on was really being used by Marie Antoinette. Now oddly enough, the ladies did not talk to each other about what had happened for another week. At first they thought that perhaps the petit train on was haunted which would be my first guess too and I would absolutely not doubt you if you said Versailles surrounding areas were in fact haunted. In fact I would be pretty shocked if Versailles and its surrounding areas were not haunted. Now it's important to mention that both the women had had paranormal experiences before so this was not something that they were unfamiliar with but they decided what they would do is that they would go and write down notes separately about what they had each experienced when they were in the petit train on and then they would come back and compare notes. Well then they took it a step further. They then decided that they were going to do a deep dive into research about the petit train on. They realized that the date that they had gone to see the petit train on that it was about 109 years after the execution of the monarchy and in fact the August 10th date was six weeks before they had to evacuate Versailles and because they knew, like the people of Versailles, the King and the Queen they knew that there was tension, they knew what was happening in Paris and that they were possibly in trouble, of course there would have been stress an atmosphere of stress on the palace grounds. Well the women decided that they were going to return back to the property back to the petit train on to see what they could find and when they went back a second time they realized that some of the landmarks they had seen were no longer there. For example there was a bridge that they had seen on the petit train on that was no longer there. However it had been there during the time of Marie Antoinette. So once again being logical academic women who might believe in ghosts might have been a ghost situation. They wanted to double check and so they thought well their original thought when they were walking through the petit train on was that they had stumbled upon some sort of event that was a reenactment of what happened there over 100 years ago and so they checked with the reservations to see if there had been any parties booked and there had not been any parties booked at all. In 1911 they published a book called An Adventure Under Pseudonyms. They did not use their real names at first to talk about their experience falling back into time at the petit train on. The book was immediately a huge success but it also garnered a lot of backlash hence why they originally used fake names to write this book. Now of course one of the biggest explanations for people who believe in the paranormal was as I said in the beginning time travel that it was possible that Charlotte Moberly and Eleanor Jordane had fallen through a wriggle in time into a time warp that there possibly is portals on the property of Versailles. I can totally believe this because we know most castles were built on portals. We also know because of a lot of Albert Einstein's research time travel is probably actually a reality. I mean time is a construction of humanity or mankind anyway. It's not like time was really created by the divine because time is part of nature which isn't consistently eternal. Another theory that many people have which is also a theory I can absolutely see being legit as well is that they saw an imprint. This is really common with what people call hauntings. Sometimes when something really traumatic happens the trauma will leave an imprint in motion in the area where the trauma existed in the first place. The imprint doesn't interact with the person seeing the imprint. If that makes sense it's like watching a movie or seeing a picture it doesn't interact with you it just does its thing and that's it. If you can remember they had an interaction with a guard. Now a lot of people also thought that these two ladies were crazy. It's kind of funny in some reports it said that because they were lesbians they were crazy but you don't have to be a lesbian to have paranormal experiences. In fact your sexuality, your gender, your socio-economic background has absolutely nothing to do with paranormal experiences. You may or may not have. Some people are just susceptible to it. Now in my opinion I think that this was just a smear campaign and obviously this argument would not fly today but it wasn't argument then and so I felt like I needed to bring it up. But it's obviously BS. Their sexuality had nothing to do with what happened or didn't happen that day in Versailles. Now an interesting thing too about the women being unstable or crazy is that they were respected in the field of academia. They were not people that went off on wild goose chases are told silly stories. They were very practical, grounded, well-educated women. Now this story still is spoken about a lot to this day. In my opinion something pretty incredible happened to Charlotte and Eleanor on that fateful day of August 10th 1901 in Versailles. Now another interesting thing, another proof if you will that what happened was real is the man who was sitting at the temple de la mort. The man with the cloak, the rough dark skin and the smallpox scar. Well many people believe that this man was a man by the name of Comte de Vadille. Now this man was a good friend of Marie Antoinette. His portrait shows a very fair-skinned man as was the style back in the day to paint people possibly whiter than they really were. He had dark skin, his mother was from the West Indies. This would not be apparent by his portrait only by people who knew him or perhaps wrote about him. Now even though these women were big in the academic world they were not historians. And so there's a lot of credibility to them claiming he had darker skin. Alright so what do you think? What's your opinion on this story? Have you ever experienced anything like this? I would love to hear if you have. Don't forget tomorrow night I will be on the dark outpost again with David Zublik who will be discussing the Gospel of Judas. The Cliff Notes version of the Gospel of Judas will air on this channel on Wednesday. I hope you guys have a fabulous Monday and a fabulous rest of your week. If you would like to purchase the opening song there is a link down in the description box below. Thank you so much to Josh McKay for doing our opening music and thank you to Todd Roderick for helping me get this video out to you guys today. I hope you have a fabulous day and I will talk to you soon. Bye!