Hello, everyone. I've been away for awhile. I had initially posted this as a response to a different topic and someone moved it to its own topic. And what in the heck happened to my karma??
Good point, Prof. Stokes, about 1840 PT - I hadn't considered that. MB has a good theory about whatever caused the vortex to appear caused a "ripple effect" throughout all timelines.
On the other hand, Raineypark has a valid theory about Collinwood being built on a spot where the phenomenon already existed.
I assumed the "rip in time" was caused in PT since Angelique's room was in continual use up until her death and would reason that someone would have noticed the phenomenon before this (the East Wing not having been closed off in PT).
However, if the phenomenon was a pre-existing condition as far back as 1840, it might be visible only from the RT side
until someone from RT crosses thru into PT - thus leaving the "door open" behind them for their eventual return, and allowing the PT people to see through it the other way. This would explain why no one in PT had ever noticed the phenomenon until Barnabas arrived.
This might also explain the mystery of why the East Wing in RT was closed off sometime prior to 1840, a mere 40 years after Collinwood was built. Maybe Joshua discovered the phenomenon and it frightened him into closing off the East Wing in the early 1800's.
It would seem that the East Wing was re-opened at some later date, however, since Elizabeth herself closes that part of the house off sometime in the 50's to get a property tax reduction (we know Judith closed off the West Wing in 1897 which would only have left the East Wing for Elizabeth to close). Perhaps Elizabeth's parents opened the East Wing at some point but didn't use it often enough to discover the strange room that changes.