‘They We’re Driving From Florida To Georgia’: People Are Trying To Find This Gas Station To Prove That Time Travel Is Real After Road Trip Story Goes Viral

Did this woman accidentally time travel to the past? That’s what many are wondering after a bizarre story went viral.

TikTok user Ashlee (@ashleeinc) hosts a show on the platform called “Spooky Scary Storytime,” in which she shares viewer-submitted stories about strange or supernatural things that have happened to them.

One story has had the internet talking for several months. In the story, the woman, whose name is Maria (active on TikTok under the name @weepingangel81) claims she experienced a possible “glitch in the matrix.” What happened?

Did This Woman Really Travel Through Time?

According to Ashlee’s retelling, and echoed in the subsequent retelling by the story submitter herself, a woman named Maria was driving with her two brothers, her sister, and her sister-in-law from northern Georgia to Florida for their uncle’s sudden funeral. After the service and subsequent family gathering, they decided to begin their drive home at around 5pm.

Following several hours of driving, Maria needed to use the bathroom. While there were no signs for gas or food nearby, Maria decided to pull off at the next exit, hoping that the group would be able to find a gas station. Eventually, they did find a gas station, and Maria quickly parked and rushed to the bathroom.

When Maria came out of the bathroom, something seemed off. All of her siblings were standing outside the door with uneasy expressions. And as Maria looked toward the front of the store, she noticed a peculiar-looking man.

“I look over. And that’s when I see the gentleman behind the counter,” recounts Maria. “He’s staring straight ahead—no movement, no eye blinking, nothing. But it wasn’t like he was looking at us. It was like he was looking through us, past us.”

Things Get Weirder

As Maria began to explore the store, every detail about it seemed to unsettle her. First, the store was dimly lit, and every available surface was covered in dust and grime.

Upon looking closer at the snacks and items available at the store, Maria noticed something odd.

“I start going on the aisles. And there’s brands of things I’ve never seen before,” Maria recounts. “Just like, really old brands I did know, but like, old labels.”

After Maria’s sister exited the bathroom, the group collectively decided to rush out of the store. Turning back the way they came, they drove for about 15 minutes in a straight line—only to arrive back at the same store.

And Weirder

“I see the same sign,” Maria recounts, “so I slow down. And I’m looking out the window, because at the gas stations to my left. And, I’m looking out my window. … The man is now looking out the window, and he’s just staring.”

Disturbed, Maria continued driving, even faster this time. Despite driving for another 15 minutes, she says that the group did not end up back at the freeway. Instead, they arrived at the same gas station. Only this time, the station had been boarded up.

“Half the roof was caved in. And it looked like it had been abandoned for, like, 20, 30 years at this point,” Maria states.

Full of terror, Maria and the group drove as fast as they could away from the gas station. To their surprise, they returned to the freeway just a few minutes later.

“We talk about this frequently, and none of us know what happened,” Maria states. “We were all scared out of our minds. And to this day, I still have not been able to find that gas station. I’ve looked for it, still can’t find it.”

A New Detail Enters the Story

In a subsequent video, Ashlee says that a viewer of her channel, who did not wish to be identified, thought that the man in the video could be referring to one of his family members.

According to this John Doe, their father had claimed to have seen time travelers while working at a gas station in the area. While he was relatively sparse on details, he said that the group drove  a futuristic car.

As evidence, the viewer provided an image of the man, which Maria positively identified as someone who could have very likely been the man behind the counter.

Consequently, many in the comments began declaring that Maria, her family, and John Doe’s father had been caught in a “time loop.” Others suggested that finding the gas station would allow one to travel through time. Though given what happened to Maria, it might not be the most pleasant experience.

Is Time Travel Real? 

In our current understanding, time travel or “getting caught in time loops,” as many in the comments have suggested, is not possible. There’s no verifiable evidence that something like this has occurred.

However, while John Doe’s story is impossible to verify given the emailer’s anonymity, some guesses can be made about how Maria ended up in her strange situation.

If one were to look at this story solely from the view of a skeptic, there are a few important things to note.

Fatigue, Grief, And Group Suggestion

The first is fatigue, grief, and the power of group suggestion. According to Maria, the group had just gone through a funeral, drove five hours into the night, and everyone was emotionally drained. Sleep deprivation and emotional turmoil can cause changes in memory, which might explain how several different gas stations could be confused for the same station. This may also explain how the group perceived the station itself, with its stranger aspects heightened and its more normal aspects ignored.

Is The Gas Station Really That Odd?

Second, finding a gas station like this—a rural station with out-of-date products being run by an old man—is not particularly uncommon, especially in the mid-2000s when this story took place. Old product packaging, dirty coolers, and flickering fluorescent lights could simply be a sign that the store was neglected. The man himself may also simply be old, tired, and potentially ill.

Lost Or Something Else?

Third, as this story took place in 2007, the group did not have easily-accessible GPS. As such, it’s possible that they got stuck on parallel or looping roads, causing them to take longer to find the original station and leading to them accidentally looping back to it soon after. As for the third viewing of the station, where it appeared boarded up, this could have simply been a different, similar-looking gas station, or the same gas station after it has closed viewed both from another angle (and with the added emotions of what the group just went through).

A Retold Story—And 20 Years Later

Finally, it’s important to note that this story happened around 20 years ago. And Maria says that her family has been discussing the events of this night ever since.

It’s a well-known fact that, as stories are told over and over again, there is a tendency to exaggerate them. This has been documented by numerous studies, with some speculating that people exaggerate stories in order to feel closer to one another.

A Potential Theory

If one were to take solely the view of a skeptic, the story could have played out as follows. Maria and her family decide to turn off the road to use the bathroom. On their drive off the road, they lose their way before eventually landing upon an old, poorly-maintained gas station. They use the toilet before getting freaked out by the vibe of the station and leaving.

After exiting, they get lost again and end up passing the same station. Driving a little further, they either pass a similar-looking station that had been shut down, or loop back around and find the same station again, this time closed for business. Faltering memories could have exaggerated the state of the gas station, or made them think they saw similarities between the two stations that didn’t actually exist.

Eventually, they are able to get on the correct road and make their way back to the freeway, where the group begins sharing, and influencing, each other’s perception of the events. This could lead to them collectively believing that they experienced, as a group, something that did not actually occur.

Of course, this world is also filled with many unexplained events. It’s possible that Maria is describing events exactly how they happened. And if so, it’s definitely pretty spooky.

For her part, Maria is fully convinced that the story took place as she remembered it. There are numerous people on TikTok who are trying to help her find the station that she remembers. One can follow that journey via this playlist on her TikTok page.

Ashlee Shares Her Thoughts

In an email to BroBible, Ashlee, the TikToker who covered Maria’s story, said that overlapping details between Maria and John Doe’s story make explanations like the one laid out above unlikely.

“Regarding what happened, I still have more questions than answers,” she wrote. “While I’ve covered other stories about seeming time slips— like people who have lost time while driving or ended up somewhere else without any recollection of what happened— and ‘glitch in the matrix’ experiences, this was the first time I’ve covered a story in which two people wrote in with two different perspectives on what happened.”

She says that she was able to confirm that subsequent entries about Maria’s story did not come from the same IP, meaning it was not a single person sending multiple stories.

“Further, each story contained matching details that I hadn’t shared publicly when initially telling Maria’s story, and would have been impossible for the other to know,” she explained. “That led me to conclude that they really were from different people.”

More People Come Forward With Their Own Stories

“After sharing the story I received dozens of others from people reporting similar ‘lost time’ in or near the same area,” she continued. “Some of these stories had even been sent prior to sharing Maria’s story publicly, which raised some flags for me. If nothing out of the ordinary was going on, then why all of these reports from the same area? I posted some of these stories on my YouTube when it happened so that people could try to piece together the puzzle or, perhaps, would see something I had missed. Some commenters pointed out that CERN was fired up that same month and that the time/space continuum had been impacted. This idea intrigues me though I have not really investigated that fully.”

Regardless of what happened, Ashlee says that there’s much in this world we simply cannot comprehend.

“One thing for certain though, after covering that story and so many others like it is that I believe we understand very little about the true nature of time and space,” she concluded. “One quote I think of often is ‘just because you don’t believe in something doesn’t mean it doesn’t believe in you.'”

Commenters Believe The Story

In the comments section, many users expressed their belief in Maria’s story as-told. They also shared their supernatural theories as to why something like this might take place.

“There are NO street lights anywhere on back roads through Georgia,I ABSOLUTELY believe this happened. I stopped at some gas station one night in pouring rain, hvnt seen since,” claimed a user.

“They dipped into the wrong timeline for a bit where this gas station was still open. It was a glitch all right,” added another.

“Transition point, they died in another timeline and the system needed time to place them,” declared a third.

We’ve reached out to Ashlee via email and Maria via Instagram and TikTok DM.