Reversal Beyond the Event Horizon

We propose that the rate of proper time, as compared with a distant exterior observer,changes sign rather than becoming imaginary when an infalling body crosses a black holeevent horizon. Outside the horizon the hypothesis reproduces general relativity exactly.Inside, matter is displaced into the past by an amount set by the mass ratio of the infallingconstituent to the black hole, bounded above by the time elapsed since the Big Bang.Order-of-magnitude estimates show the mass returned to the early universe is about 7 ×10⁻⁵ of the baryon density, well below current observational precision. The hypothesisyields testable predictions: precursor signals before tidal disruption events, gravitationalwave echoes from a horizon discontinuity, and a contribution to the growth ofunexpectedly massive early black holes. This note records the hypothesis and its openproblems; it is not a complete theory.