Scientists around the world are struggling to understand or even conceptualize the event being called “The Swiss Leap”.

What is by our reckoning outside of the affected region, September 15th, 2049 is mid January 2050 in parts, but not all of Switzerland.

At approximately 1:33 in the early morning hours of September 14th, 2048 residents in a rough circular radius centered around Zermatt, Switzerland watched the sun rise roughly 5.5 hours early, only to watch it set over the next half hour. The next sunrise came in 15 minutes, with sunset following 7 minutes later. This pattern continued,  with days reportedly passing in less than a second before slowing and then returning to normal. All told approximately four months were lost in the event. 

The leap resulted in massive disruption within the nearly 115 sq. km region, but to those outside the region, the Swiss Leap was a one day tragedy, hardly being reported as a strange phenomenon in progress before it was over.

Now a year later the effects are still being felt by a TAP positive population a year advanced and a year out of sync.

While time is by all attempted measurements now moving forward at the typical pace in the region, everything from satellites and weather, to the sun, moon, and stars themselves appear to be more permanently affected leading researchers to ask whether these celestial bodies have been duplicated, split, exist in multiple superpositions or if the affected area has been pulled into another universe entirely.

Transit to the region is certainly possible, and extensive efforts are being made to account for the difficulties in accounting for Switzerlands exclusive new time zone, but travelers report everything from vomiting and nausea to episodes of sudden unconsciousness, and in at least one instance psychosis.

Officials have posted warnings and gates and locals are swift to caution foreigners away, but this has not stopped avid climbers, skiers, and zealous researchers from making the trek.