History Main / JustOneSecondOutOfSync

This is a bit difficult to figure out with most models of how time works. Let's say time is a horizontal line. In this case moving it to the left or to the right should result in the same line. As a consequence, the object you are trying to hide won't disappear at all, only get a second older or younger. In universes with branching timelines, your precious item may be placed on a different branch, but then again, people in that parallel universe can still interact with it. Possibly, it's analogous to putting it in a different "boat" in the same "river"; you're both traveling through the timestream at the same speed, but it's "ahead" of you, so you can never catch up with it. How that works in the physical world is anyone's guess.

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

** The original use was in First Doctor serial [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E7TheSpaceMuseum "The Space Museum"]]. The TARDIS "jumps a time track" and deposits them on the museum planet's in this manner. It eventually wears off on its own but while in this state the Doctor and companions are invisible and inaudible to everything around them. The glimpse of the near future they receive while like this is what starts the serial's plot.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E6TheKeeperOfTraken "The Keeper of Traken"]]: The Master does it to the Doctor's TARDIS to cut off his escape route.
** The ATMOS devices in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E4TheSontaranStratagem "The Sontaran Stratagem"]] work as advertised on the surface, but their true purpose is to spew a noxious gas the Sontarans can use to turn Earth into a clone farm. This facet of its design is disguised by hiding the dangerous part one second out of time.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E12TheStolenEarth "The Stolen Earth"]]: The Daleks use this to create a pocket universe for their [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt multiverse-destroying]] machine, hiding their headquarters, the 27 planets they've stolen, and the large nebula they're hiding out in one second out of sync with the rest of the universe. This causes the Doctor some trouble when he's trying to reach Earth.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime "The End of Time"]], the Doctor hides the TARDIS from the Master this way.

** "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS4E8YearOfHell Year of Hell]]": The Krenim weapon ship exists outside of normal space-time when the temporal core is online. This doesn't render the ship invisible but makes it immune to conventional weaponry and, most importantly, immune to being affected by changes to the timeline. Also, the crew doesn't age in this state. There's also the more primitive Krenim torpedoes, which use a similar effect to bypass shields.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS5E23Relativity Relativity]]": Seven of Nine is sent through time by the timeship USS ''Relativity'' (which is from the 29th century) to save ''Voyager'' from being destroyed by a strange device that is "out of phase" with normal time, since she is the only one that can see it due to her ocular implant.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'' episode "A Matter of Minutes", based on the 1941 short story "Yesterday Was Monday" by Creator/TheodoreSturgeon. A young married couple woke to find numerous faceless workers in blue coveralls disassembling their home around them. It turns out that they are the beings responsible for breaking down the minute that has just passed in order to re-use the raw materials to build the minute yet to come. (They actually work with a few hours worth of buffer as a safety factor.) On occasion the time workers muff their stage directions, which is why your car keys will be missing one minute, and back where you left them the next. It's explained that the viewpoint couple have dropped out of sync with their own timeframe, necessitating their disappearance from reality. (It's implied that this has happened to individuals such as Amelia Earhart, Judge Crater and Jimmy Hoffa.)
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone2002'' also had a similar one called "Gabe's Story". A man takes a blow to his head and begins seeing a fellow in blue overalls who keeps doing stuff to mess up his life. He's eventually told the little fellow was supposed to make sure [[spoiler: his wife left him, his assistance to a theft was discovered and he went to prison.]]

Contrast TheSlowPath, PortalToThePast. Compare BagOfHolding, PocketDimension, PhantomZone, and InvisibleMainCharacter, especially if invisibility occurs because the character is "out of phase." Has nothing to do with foreign dubs where the overlaid dialogue is out of sync with the lip movements; for that you're looking for HongKongDub and other issues related to LipLock.

* An equivalent is weaponised in ''ComicBook/BlackestNight'', when Nekron- the ruler of the Black Lantern Corps- is able to sent Black Lantern rings after the various resurrected heroes by confronting them with Black Lantern Batman, resulting in an intense emotional reaction that allowed the black rings to control heroes such as Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Arrow; Hal Jordan and Barry Allen are able to escape the black rings focusing on them by Barry taking himself and Hal a few moments into the future, severing their connection to those rings (although Barry notes that he and Hal will have to take care to stay in control of their emotions so they don't attract any new rings).

* Shows up in ''WebComic/{{Drive}}'' as [[NotTheIntendedUse an alternate use for the Ring Engine.]] Warping space ''around'' a vessel, rather than ''in front'' of it causes the ship to become undetectable and invulnerable. The Veetans use this to trick the enemy into thinking that they Grandfather Paradox'd their homeworld, forcing a surrender.

* A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56NRz0u2ieU particularly memorable skit]] from ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' features the entire cast operating on different temporal lines due to the effect of [[OurWormholesAreDifferent the SOL passing through a wormhole]].
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1963'' episode [[Recap/TheOuterLimits1963S2E16ThePremonition "The Premonition"]]. A test pilot and his wife are trapped 10 seconds into the future. They slowly move back toward regular time at a rate of 1 second per 30 minutes of subjective time. Their problem: they discover that their daughter will be run over by a truck once they return to normal time, and must find a way to stop it.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
** The aliens in the episode "Time's Arrow" live scant fractions of a second out of phase with the rest of reality.
** In "The Next Phase", Geordi and Ro think they're dead, when they're actually a little out of sync with the rest of the universe.

** "Year of Hell": The Krenim weapon ship exists outside of normal space-time when the temporal core is online. This doesn't render the ship invisible but makes it immune to conventional weaponry and, most importantly, immune to being affected by changes to the timeline. Also, the crew doesn't age in this state. There's also the more primitive Krenim torpedos, which use a similar effect to bypass shields.
** "Relativity": Seven of Nine is sent through time by the timeship USS ''Relativity'' (which is from the 29th century) to save ''Voyager'' from being destroyed by a strange device that is "out of phase" with normal time, since she is the only one that can see it due to her ocular implant.

* ''Future Times Three'' written by René Barjavel used a shifting device. It allowed the time traveler to shift one second back and forth, making him unreachable.

* ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'' has [[spoiler:Chao]] making herself invincible by using a time-travel device to very briefly (as in, milliseconds) jump to a different point in time and then back again. No-one is able to lay a finger on her until Negi figures out a way to engineer a similar effect.

* In ''ComicBook/ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog'', Knothole was shifted three hours into the future when the Ultimate Annihilator hit it. It was ''supposed'' to outright destroy it, but Snively modified the weapon to only kill Robotnik. When Robo-Robotnik showed up and decided to forcefully restore Knothole to its proper time (and, thus, destroy it), Sonic strapped himself to a Super Chaos Emerald and used his speed and the emerald's power to stop Robotnik's weapon, with the side effect of turning him into his ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'' variation.

* This was how ComicBook/{{Thanos}} kept Comicbook/TheAvengers from interfering with him in the storyline that introduced him back in the 1970s.

* In the ''FanFic/PonyPOVSeries'', the [[TheWatcher Interviewers]] eventually explain that this is how they operate in relation to the ponies they're interviewing, at least when acting as TheVoice.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' has an example in the staff of Orican the Seer, said staff existing half-a-second before the "now". The effect is described that the staff will hit the enemy before Orican even swings it, ensuring a hit. In game-terms, this allows Orican to reroll to-hit dice.

* Parodied in [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/01/22/episode-1085-hardly-knew-ye/ this]] ''WebComic/EightBitTheater''.

[[folder:Fan Fic]]

* In Creator/DavidEddings's ''[[Literature/TheElenium Elenium]]'', it is mentioned that different gods have different ways to appear invisible. One of the troll gods uses time in this way.
** It's noted that the explanation is nonsensical, but that since Ghnomb is a god and believes it should work, [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve his belief makes it work.]]

* ''Collision with Chronos'' by Barrington J. Bayley. A criminal in a city of time-twisters is sentenced to exile a second in the past. This is ''total'' exile: life only exists in the present moment, with human structures slowly decaying either side of the moving wave of "now".
* In ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoNewAdventuresTheAlsoPeople The Also People]]'', the Doctor does it to hide the TARDIS from the [[Literature/TheCulture advanced race]] whose DysonSphere he's visiting, so they aren't tempted to reverse-engineer it.
* In C.S. Lewis's Literature/SpaceTrilogy, Eldils are ephemeral to average people due to this type of reason.

* Literature/PerryRhodan has this happen with the entire solar system... twice. First time around, they shift the whole thing "[[TechnoBabble a relative five minutes into the future]]" so as to be able to avoid an attack without causing unneccessary bloodshed. The second time, they throw in a randomiser (because the MonsterOfTheWeek has access to superior technology), meaning ''the entire solar system keeps randomly leaping and bounding across the timeline'' (going from a split second to up to twenty minutes into the future).
* In James Patrick Kelly's novellette "Undone", the time-traveling protagonist is trapped by an "identity mine" that keeps hovering five minutes pastward of her. [[spoiler:If she travels backward a full five minutes, her mind will be mush.]]
* This happens in the Stephen King story "Literature/TheLangoliers" (and the miniseries adapted from it). A plane-load of people get stuck an unspecified but short time behind the normal timeframe, and have to escape before they are eaten by the [[ClockRoaches titular creatures]]. In the meantime, their separation from the present means that the rest of the world is entirely empty, the day/night cycle is fading into perpetual twilight, sounds and echoes are deadened, food is tasteless, carbonated drinks are flat, and matches won't light. To top it all off, a horrible chewing noise in the distance grows ever louder as the Langoliers approach. It ends with them being a moment in the ''future'', but it's more tenable since they shift back to the present.
* ''Future Times Three'' written by René Barjavel used a shifting device. It allowed the time traveler to shift one second back and forth, making him unreachable.
* Creator/CliffordSimak's signature trope. He loves writing alternative Earths that are between that and alternative history. Other variations have been used too, such as hiding a time machine in a second in the past, rendering it inaccessible without the hero's powers of time control.

* In Creator/JasperFforde's Literature/ThursdayNext series, this is described as a common hazing prank in the Chrono Guard which was banned after they lost a cadet there.

* One of the endings in the Literature/ChooseYourOwnAdventure book ''The Cave of Time'' has you end up five minutes out of sync with the rest of the universe. This doesn't make you unreachable, but it does have the effect that others perceive you doing things five minutes after you've actually done them.

* The History Monks in ''{{Literature/Discworld}}'' have worked out how to weaponise this. By performing a complex ritual, they're able to displace a training dummy's head by a split-second, resulting in it being blown off.
* The time stops in ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'' take a certain area out of time for up to 8 hours so criminals can be arrested and {{Muggles}} can have their memories erased without interference.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

** The original use was in the classic-series First Doctor serial [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E7TheSpaceMuseum "The Space Museum"]]. The TARDIS "jumps a time track" and deposits them on the museum planet's in this manner. It eventually wears off on its own but while in this state the Doctor and companions are invisible and inaudible to everything around them. The glimpse of the near future they receive while like this is what starts the serial's plot.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E6TheKeeperOfTraken "The Keeper of Traken"]], in which the Master did it to the Doctor's TARDIS to cut off his escape route.

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E12TheStolenEarth "The Stolen Earth"]], the Daleks use this to create a pocket universe for their [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt multiverse-destroying]] machine. (The 27 planets mentioned above.)

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': The aliens in the episode "Time's Arrow" live scant fractions of a second out of phase with the rest of reality.

** "Relativity": Seven of Nine is sent through time by the timeship USS Relativity (which is from the 29th century) to save ''Voyager'' from being destroyed by a strange device that is "out of phase" with normal time, since she is the only one that can see it due to her ocular implant.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'' episode "A Matter of Minutes," based on the 1941 short story "Yesterday Was Monday" by Creator/TheodoreSturgeon. A young married couple woke to find numerous faceless workers in blue coveralls disassembling their home around them. It turns out that they are the beings responsible for breaking down the minute that has just passed in order to re-use the raw materials to build the minute yet to come. (They actually work with a few hours worth of buffer as a safety factor.) On occasion the time workers muff their stage directions, which is why your car keys will be missing one minute, and back where you left them the next. It's explained that the viewpoint couple have dropped out of sync with their own timeframe, necessitating their disappearance from reality. (It's implied that this has happened to individuals such as Amelia Earhart, Judge Crater and Jimmy Hoffa.)

* Giorno Giovanna's Stand, Gold Experience, can inflict something akin to this in ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureVentoAureo''. By infusing a still living persons body with its life-giving power it can throw their perception of reality out of sync with how their body is reacting to it. He can use this to literally make their brain think further ahead than their body can react or make the effect of a one-second punch to the face feel like it's stretched out to five minutes of bone-crunching agony.

* In ''ComicBook/BlackestNight'', the only way Flash and Green Lantern were able to get away from the black rings was to time-travel two seconds into the future.

* In ''ComicBook/YokoTsuno'', Monya hides her time machine, the shifter, by moving it to a nearby time spiral (time is shaped like spirals in this comic).

[[folder:Film]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Epic}}'' the tiny inhabitants of the forest are hard for humans to see because they exist in a state where they naturally move faster than larger animals, humans included. Seen from MK's perspective, Queen Tara is vibrating so fast that she leaves after-images even when she's not actually moving.
[[/folder]]

* In Isaac Asimov's short-short ShaggyDogStory "A Loint of Paw", a criminal named Stein uses a time machine to travel forward in time, to avoid his crime's statute of limitations. The judge rules that [[spoiler:"A niche in time saves Stein."]]

** There are also several spells and abilities that function in a similar manner to this, such as the obvious Time Stop spell, or one of the uses of Wish/Miracle. The psionic power Time Hop allows a manifester to send a target forward in time for a short period - they disappear and reappear when the power's duration has elapsed, having experienced no time at all.

* Powerful Time mages in ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'' can shunt objects into the future for safekeeping.

* Technically ''everyone'' experiences events in their environment a very small fraction of a second later than they actually happen, as it takes several milliseconds for the human nervous system to receive input from their sensory receptors and to process that information once it reaches the brain. The conscious mind is therefore slightly out of synch with the physical universe. This fact is the reason people have a reaction time to begin with, otherwise they'd act instantly. Training yourself to react faster includes training to process things faster in your brain and thus isn't all that easy.
** There's also the speed-of-light delay, and the much larger speed-of-sound delay. Do not try to track a supersonic airplane by sound.
* Videogame lag can cause this effect. You shoot at someone, but you miss, because you're actually shooting where they were a second ago.

* Literature/CliffordSimak's signature trope. He loves writing alternative Earths that are between that and alternative history. Other variations have been used too, such as hiding a time machine in a second in the past, rendering it inaccessible without the hero's powers of time control.

* Giorno Giovanna's Stand, Gold Experience, can inflict something akin to this in ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureVentoAureo''. By infusing a still living persons body with its life-giving power it can throw their perception of reality out of sync with how their body is reacting to it. He can use this to literally make their brain think further ahead than their body can react or make the effect of a one-second punch to the face feel like it's stretched out to five minutes of bone-crunching agony.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]

* The History Monks in ''Literature/Discworld'' have worked out how to weaponise this. By performing a complex ritual, they're able to displace a training dummy's head by a split-second, resulting in it being blown off.