Buenos Aires Shadow Registry Misplaces Noon for Seventeen Minutes

By our Department of Light · September 13, 2026

Buenos Aires — Noon was unavailable across three central districts on Thursday after the Metropolitan Registry of Shadows filed it under afternoon, forcing thousands of residents to proceed directly from 11:59 a.m. to 12:17 p.m.

The error was discovered when the shadow of the Obelisk failed to report for its shortest scheduled shift. Café owners nearby continued serving lunch but marked every bill provisional, since soup consumed outside an officially recognized midday may be classified as breakfast during an appeal.

Registry director Elisa Marín said the missing interval had not been lost. It had been placed somewhere very safe. She declined to say where.

The city still had sunlight. What it lacked was custody.

Archivists eventually found noon attached to a 1987 permit for a balcony awning in San Telmo. The permit had expired, but the light was still considered structurally sound. Technicians detached the seventeen minutes and restored them after rush hour, when they would inconvenience fewer schedules.

Residents were not required to repeat anything they had done during the gap. One couple asked whether an argument begun at 12:05 had legally occurred. The registry confirmed that the argument existed but belonged to no recognized time, an answer both parties accepted for different reasons.

The city will add the recovered minutes to a Sunday in November. Officials promised advance notice, though they cautioned that the notice itself may briefly cast two shadows.