We found a time capsule dated 1975, but the items inside were from 2025.

It was a blistering July afternoon in Cedar Ridge, the kind of heat that makes the tar bubble in the cracks of the old high school parking lot. My younger brother Dylan and I were helping the local historical society restore the school's original gymnasium. The project was part volunteer work, part court-mandated community service—don’t ask.

We were clearing out an overgrown patch behind the gym when Dylan’s shovel hit something hard and hollow beneath the soil. “Yo, I think I hit a box,” he said, sweat dripping from the tip of his nose.

We cleared away the earth and unearthed a rusted metal capsule, about the size of a large shoebox, with “Cedar Ridge High School – Class of 1975” etched into a small brass plaque. There was even a polaroid of the class attached to the lid, protected under a now-cloudy layer of plastic. Big hair, wide lapels, peace signs.

Inside, however, nothing matched the era.

The first item was a sleek smartphone, thinner than anything either of us had seen, displaying the date: July 10, 2025. It had no charging port—no buttons at all, in fact—and powered on at our touch, showing a social media feed filled with names we didn’t recognize, and posts about events that hadn’t happened yet. Wildfires in Europe. A Mars colony update. The sudden death of a famous world leader.

Beneath it was a foil-wrapped protein bar labeled “NanoBite – 100% Daily Nutrition in One Bite.” I looked at Dylan, who shrugged and tore it open. It smelled like strawberries and desperation.

Next, a folded newspaper—yes, an actual physical newspaper—headlined: "AI President Vetoes Universal Robot Tax – Nation Divided." The date? July 8, 2025. Just two days earlier.

There was also a silver coin, no larger than a quarter, with a strange triangular symbol on one side and “One Global Credit” on the other. It felt warm in my hand.

“What the hell is this stuff?” Dylan whispered.

We brought the capsule to the head of the historical society, Mrs. Holloway. She was a retired history teacher who’d lived through the seventies and still wore cat-eye glasses. Her hands trembled as she inspected the contents.

“This isn’t right,” she said. “This shouldn’t exist.”

“I know,” I replied. “That phone shouldn’t even be possible.”

Over the next week, we contacted scientists, tech experts, and even a couple of conspiracy theorists. Most dismissed us outright. But one guy, a gray-haired ex-NASA engineer named Linwood who now lived out of an RV, took us seriously.

“This is not just a time capsule,” Linwood said after analyzing the phone. “This is a message. From the future. Or a version of it.”

He explained that time didn’t always move in one straight line. Some theories suggested loops, jumps, fractures—places where reality blurred and things got... exchanged.

“You’re saying this box came from 2025?” Dylan asked.

“Maybe not exactly. More like something from 2025 fell into 1975, and the people back then buried it thinking it was their capsule.”

“But how’d it end up back here?” I asked.

Linwood looked at us over the rim of his coffee cup. “Maybe we were meant to find it.”

After the initial shock, we decided to dig deeper—literally. Over the following weeks, we scoured Cedar Ridge, searching for other anomalies. We even got access to old school records, police reports, and town archives. That’s when we found it: a blurry newspaper article from August 1975 about a high school janitor named Gerald Knox who “went missing under unusual circumstances.” No body. Just vanished.

We tracked down Gerald’s niece, who remembered hearing rumors that he’d “seen something weird” behind the gym and went back one night alone to investigate.

That was the same spot we found the capsule.

Even weirder? The photo from the capsule lid. In the background, partially obscured by students, was a man who didn’t fit the style. Tight black shirt, aviator sunglasses, short cropped beard. Something about him looked distinctly… modern.

Dylan zoomed in on his face and ran it through an online image search. And the results? A near-perfect match to a tech billionaire named Evan Kessler. Born in 1990. Died in 2023. Or so the records said.

“But that’s him,” Dylan muttered. “No doubt. That’s Kessler.”

Which brought up a terrifying possibility: Someone from the future had traveled back to 1975—and left clues behind.

Everything spiraled from there.

Two weeks after we made our discovery public, a group of black SUVs rolled into Cedar Ridge. Men in suits. No names. No badges. Just authority. They seized the capsule and everything connected to it, including our notes and Linwood’s equipment.

“We need to forget this ever happened,” one of them told us flatly. “For your safety.”

We didn’t listen.

Dylan and I started documenting everything digitally—what we remembered, what we’d found—and uploading it to decentralized forums. Some people believed us. Most didn’t. But the ones who did shared their own stories: items in basements that didn’t belong to the present, photographs that couldn’t be explained, dreams that felt like warnings.

And then, just like that, it stopped. No more strange messages. No new anomalies.

Until this morning.

I received a package with no return address. Inside was a second capsule, smaller than the first, and clearly newer. It contained only one item:

A photo of me and Dylan, older—maybe in our fifties—standing beside a building with a glowing dome and writing above it: Cedar Ridge Quantum Archive, Est. 2045.

And a note on the back, scrawled in familiar handwriting:

“You were right. Keep digging. – J.”

I looked up at Dylan, who had turned pale.

“J… like Jeremy?” he asked. “Or J like… Janitor Knox?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to.

Because the dome in the picture? I’d seen it before.

In a dream I hadn’t told anyone about.

A dream I had the night before we found the first capsule.

Jeremy

@Cryptic709

Newfoundland and Labrador

Jeremy has not written a story.