A 'Time Vortex' Under Santiago? Riders Say Line 1's Universidad Católica Station Let Them Out Into the 1970s

SANTIAGO, Chile (Sept. 30, 2026) — You board a train downtown, ride a few stops, climb to the street, and the city is wrong. The cars, the shops and the buildings belong to Santiago of half a century ago.

That’s the story that went viral in Chile in August: a supposed “vórtice temporal,” or time vortex, on Line 1 of the Santiago Metro. The station named most often is Universidad Católica, on the Alameda in the heart of the capital.

✓ What we know

On the record: documents, statements, dates and places. Sources below.

• Where it started. La Hora reported on Aug. 14 that the story was spread by Daniela Améstica, a writer, cultural manager and researcher of Santiago’s hidden stories. Radio Imagina said Améstica, a Radio ADN panelist, took up the mystery in an Instagram post that drew replies from users with similar stories.
• The author. Améstica’s 2026 book Santiago subterráneo explores the tunnels and hidden spaces beneath the city center. She told Radio Concierto in January that it grew out of research for a route at her tourism agency.
• The stations. According to Radio Imagina, the stations named in the stories include La Moneda, Universidad de Chile, Santa Lucía, Universidad Católica and Baquedano, with Universidad Católica among the most repeated.
• The station itself. Universidad Católica opened on March 31, 1977, as part of Line 1’s extension east from La Moneda. The Metro began service in 1975 with the first stretch of Line 1. La Hora notes that the station is part of the network’s first generation and keeps architectural features from the era it was built.
• No footage. We found no photos or video of the alleged jumps. Radio Imagina noted that, for now, there are no audiovisual or official records of the phenomenon. We found no public statement from Metro de Santiago about the claims.

? What’s claimed

Accounts, testimony and theories, as told by the people who tell them.

All quotes below are translated from Spanish.

• The vortex. According to the story as La Hora summarized it, a temporal anomaly tied to Line 1 can, under certain conditions, create a kind of “desfase,” an offset between the present and the Santiago of 50 years ago. Riders are said to come back up to streets, vehicles, shops and buildings from decades earlier, in some tellings for about 20 minutes, before everything snaps back to normal, per Radio Imagina.
• “The same thing happened to me.” Replies quoted by La Hora included: “The same thing happened to me, but at Tobalaba,” and “It’s not like traveling to the past or the future, it’s more like being in a strange environment.”
• Above ground, too. One user said their girlfriend had it happen on Huérfanos, a downtown street she walks regularly: “One day she saw shops that didn’t match the place.” Another recalled a girl on TikTok who said “she came out of the station into a Santiago of the past.”
• A theory. One commenter quoted by La Hora suggested the phenomena happen in the Metro “because its configuration is similar to a particle accelerator.”

The loop at La Moneda

Not every story is a trip to the past. One reply quoted by La Hora described a ride that seemed to fold back on itself: “I took the metro at Moneda toward San Pablo and found it was taking so long, until at one point I see that I was at Moneda again. I got off scared out of my mind.”

Radio Imagina reported a related account on Sept. 21, sent to the Instagram account of paranormal researcher Carlos Martínez. A couple bound for Estación Central said they followed the sign for San Pablo down the stairs at Moneda, on a route they’ve used for more than eight years. Once aboard, they realized the train was heading the other way, toward Universidad de Chile. Both remembered taking the right platform, they said, and no one else seemed to notice anything strange.

“Santiago smelled different”

Radio Imagina reported on Aug. 13 that César Parra, a writer it calls a pioneer of dark tourism in Chile, discussed similar stories on Canal TVR’s Buenos Días, Buenas Tardes while talking about his book Historias Chilenas Paranormales.

“Something strange happens around Bandera and Alameda, in Santiago,” Parra said, according to Radio ADN as cited by Radio Imagina. “At least three people have told me they went into that area and came out in, say, 1950, 1960.” The experiences lasted about 20 minutes, he said.

Parra also told of a woman who, by his account, left La Moneda station and walked along Teatinos. The palace was still there, but other details had changed. She came across a black-and-white Carabineros patrol, the kind used in the 1950s and ’60s, and one of the officers noticed something was off, Parra said, because of how she was dressed. The woman said “Santiago smelled different,” a mix of smoke and other scents she associated with the city of that era.

Still riding

None of the riders in these accounts has been publicly named. Their stories arrive as comments under a post, messages to a researcher, and accounts retold on radio and television. Universidad Católica still opens onto the Alameda every day. If the stories are to be believed, it doesn’t always open onto the same year.