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In the year 2000 a fellow started posting messages on various Internet forums proclaiming himself a soldier and time traveler from the year 2038 sent back in time to fetch an IBM 5100 computer. At first his handle was timetraveler_0 before he switched to his more commonly seen ID, John Titor.
He wove a fantastic tale of a future where we are looked upon as an egocentric, lazy, and foolhardy era that lead to a second US civil war, which in turn lead to a nuclear holocaust.
While I don’t find it implausible that we’re on a course where citizens will have to revolt against the government, I don’t believe John Titor’s tale about coming from the future. He noted that his time machine needs as accurate a clock as possible, and that his used 6 caesium based atomic clocks; a few months after this claim researchers announced a more accurate strontium based atomic clock. He discussed contention over the 2004 US Presidential Election, whereas that didn’t really occur.
Nevertheless, it was an interesting fiction, and engaging enough that there are still debates cycling about him and his claims, but one question that is getting far too little attention is: who is John Titor?
This is, of course, assuming that he isn’t who he claims. Some notes that might aid in a conclusion:
1) He’s a skilled tale weaver.
With the interest and debates that surround the man and his tales, his skill at provocation is evident. It’s a talented writer that can make people talk, and he certainly seems to have succeeded on that point.
2) He’s schooled enough in science to make an engaging prospect of time travel.
While many scientists dismiss Titor’s explanation of his time travel device, his descriptions and designs are intricate and inventive, and just plausible enough for the common man to wonder if there mayn’t be some truth to it. Though I like to keep up on what new in physics, I admit my skill isn’t enough to evaluate his claims, and must fall back on Einstein; he said time travel ain’t happening (I paraphrase).
3) He’s a sci-fi junkie, with a leaning toward the post-apocalyptic.
There are those the note that Titor’s tale follows along the same plot lines as the movie 1995 12 Monkeys. Even if that is happenstance, his tale of civilization after a nuclear strike is certainly science-fiction in it’s truest form. How many stories of the future hinge on World War III being a wake-up call to humanity? Most of the time it becomes a race wide near death experience that makes the survivors knit together and appreciate the world for what it is; Titor’s story is no different.
4) He’s a libertarian … or something like.
The very genesis of Titor’s Civil War II is the government taking rights from the citizens, and the citizens fighting back. If that isn’t a libertarian attitude, I don’t know what is.
5) He’s a Sabbatarianist.
The overt mention of the Christian sects of North America changing their Sabbath day back to Saturday makes this clear, the interesting prospects is why this is the case? It may be the libertarian slant playing though in religion, but the fact he makes such efforts to communicate this point that it bears examining.
They are rather broad points, true, but they are enough to paint a broad portrait of my quarry. Combining the above, I dare postulate that John Titor might be the creation of Dr David Brin.
The author of such novels as Earth, The Postman, and a Star Trek graphic novel, he’s proved he can write, and he tales are astute enough to show his obvious education in the sciences. And all the novels mentioned bear a post-apocalyptic element. David Brin’s political leanings are transparent on both his website and his non-fiction books—definitely libertarian.
The last point is one I cannot substantiate, however, citing events in the novel Earth I don’t doubt that Brin could support such a move.
It’s a theory, a guess, and it was fun to evolve. Of course, alternate theories are excitedly welcomed.
John Titor in wikipedia
David Brin’s Website
David Brin on Amazon
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Wow! I had never heard mention of John Titor but now I am intrigued.
I’ll be sure to follow this up with a look through the wikipedia entry.
Thanks for some fascinating food for thought.
Hmmm… The David Brin hypothesis is a nice one, but how does one disprove it? _I_ certainly don’t have any alternatives.
As for Einstein and time travel, I beg to differ. Einstein probably did more to feed plausible time travelling scenarios than anyone else, as he made a coherent and mathematically consistent notion of spacetime. “Plausible” time travel devices have been proposed by Roger Kerr ( a rapidly rotating toroidal black hole) and Kip Thorne (a rapidly revolving wormhole opening), and less rigorously by Robert L. Forward (a rapidly rotating cylindrical black hole– see Forward’s book _Future Magic_ for a discussion of this and the Kerr device). Note that all of these devices require black holes or something like as parts. Not a currently practical proposition.
Note also that Einstein’s time dilation– an effect that has been observed beyond doubting– makes a sort of one-way time machine. By getting in a spacecraft and accelerating to nearly the speed of light, one ages more slowly than his/her compadres on earth. Were one ever to return, s/he could live to see a future more distant than s/he otherwise would have. (Orson Scott Card used this in _Ender’s Game_ to keep General Mazer Rackham alive for several extra decades Earth time). Again, not immediately practical, but this “time machine” has been used to keep short-lived subatomic particles around long enough to observe them.
Hmm… Apparently Titor mentioned black holes. Intriguing.
P.S. The most accurate timekeeping device is predicted to be a hydrogen maser.
Thank you for going into the physics details, Brain; I was afraid of spraining too many reader’s brains, but if you do it, it’s okay.
I looked, and General Relativity does describe closed time-like curves, so I misspoke when I paraphrased Einstein.
Thinking on how to test a theory against who is Tutor might be to log all the times that Titor posted, and create a timeline of activity. Comparing that timeline to the known activities of prospects could serve to eliminate some suspects.
Still thinking on other testing methods.
Jason Bellows said: “Thinking on how to test a theory against who is Tutor might be to log all the times that Titor posted, and create a timeline of activity. Comparing that timeline to the known activities of prospects could serve to eliminate some suspects.
Still thinking on other testing methods.”
We actually have done this – about two years ago. On Anomalies.net we charted his posts, looked closely at who was posting just before and just after he posted as “TimeTravel_0” on http://www.timetravelinstitute.com and as “John Titor” on Art Bell’s old Post-2-Post BBS. We found no correltation. We also did some statistical work on his linguistics…and found some interesting correlations. But not concrete enough. We’re pretty sure about who Titor is. Actually we’re pretty sure about two members of Group Titor and a bit less sure about a third member of the Group. Yes, it was a group effort. “Boomer” was the main author but there were other people who helped with the creative effort.
Who might Titor be? Well, a good question to get the ball rolling might be, “Why would a time traveler’s family hire an well known entertainment industry lawyer, who puts movie deals together, to be their attorney for the John Titor Foundation, LLC (Florida)? Another question might be, “How coincidental is it that the owner/SysAdmin of Time Travel Institute (where Titor first posted) was simultaneously the SysAdmin for Celebration, Florida’s community BBS (www.34747.net)…and then how coincidental is it that The Attorney and the John Titor Foundation are both located in Celebration, Florida? And to top it all off, how coincidental is it that The Attorney and the Foundation share a common address with a movie studio, advertising agency, graphic arts studio and sound studio (VISI Corp/Apple Productions/Front St. Productions)?”
BTW: The SysAdmin for both sites is clean in this. He isn’t Titor and isn’t a part of the Titor Story. He had a hotlink to every one of his various sites on the Celebration site…and that included a link to the TTI site.
Titor’s physics was interesting but it was strictly sci-fi. In one post I couldn’t list all of the hundreds (literally) “problems” (unphysicality is more appropriate) that he had with the science end. I don’t think that it ws coincidental that when David Trott, PhD (astrophysics and astronomy) started asking him very specific physics questions on Art Bell’s site that Titor immediately decided that one of the two “windows” for his departure was open. He left rather quickly.
(Just a note: Dave Trott was a PhD candidate when Titor was posting. He received his PhD a year or so later.)
Darby,
That’s a damned awesome response, and certainly something I’ll look into when some time presents itself.
I love getting new information …
Jason Bellows said: “Darby,
That’s a damned awesome response, and certainly something I’ll look into when some time presents itself.
I love getting new information …”
Why, you’re welcome. :)
Here are a couple of places to start your search:
Florida Division of Corporations: http://www.sunbiz.org/corpweb/inquiry/search.html
Search for “John Titor Foundation” under the “Corporations, etc” tab.
U. S. Copyright Office: http://www.copyright.gov/records/
Search for “John Titor Foundation”, under the “Books, Music, etc” and then “Author” tabs
You can then start putting together some background information. Lawrence Haber, Esq. is the attorney and general manager for the John Titor Foundation. He was also the Chief Counsel for VISI Corp (and may still be) when the Foundation came into existence. He’s also been an attorney for both Disney and Universal Studios.
A few of us who were posting with Titor/TTO are still “working” on this online mystery novel.
There are a few folks who have gone truly off the reservation and believe the story in all of its details. The problem is that, as was pointed out above, Titor has already missed on several “predictions” that are central to the story: Waco-like incidents starting last fall and culminating on weekly occurances over the next 26 months (we haven’t seen any Waco incidents so far); mass civil disturbances starting last Fall during the election season; Western Civilization collapsing due to instability during 2005 (but we do have 14 weeks left).
He also predicted that there would be no more Olympics (following the 2004 Summer Games) until at least 2040. Two years ago I said that the 2006 Winter Games were coming first. No one objected until a few days ago – now that there is only three months left before the games in Italy. Some are saying that he didn’t mean the Winter Olympics.
The problem with that position is that he said that Western Civilization collapses in 2005. Somehow I can’t see the Mother of Western Civilization (Italy) holding the 2006 Winter Olympics while Rome burns. Nero, last I knew, died a couple of miillennia ago. ;-)
Jason,
Just a follow up:
The story didn’t really start on 2-NOV-2000 with Titor’s first post on the TTI site. It started the week that Art Bell first decided to “retire” in 1998. “Titor” faxed him an early version of the story that day. Bell wasn’t there and the guest host didn’t see it.
The week that Bell came out of retirement Titor faxed him again. He laid out, in the fax, an early version of the story. Remember – this is 1998. In this early version Y2K is a worldwide disaster just as Gary North was predicting during his guest spots on Art Bell’s Coast-2-Coast AM show. Art then discovered the earlier fax and read both on the air.
When Titor reappeared about 28 months later (in November 2000) he obviously had to change the Y2K portion. In the 2000-2001 version he intimates that he (and his grandfather) were responsible for saving the world from Y2K. He never actually comes right out and says it. He just lays it between the lines by asking, “What disaster was everyone planning for and which never occured?”
Here’s the transcript of Art Bell reading the fax:
FAX ONE:
Dear Art ,
I had to fax when I heard other time travelers calling in from any time past
the year 2500 AD.
please let me explain….
Time travel was invented in 2034
off shoots of certain successful fusion reactor research allowed scientists at CERN to produce the worlds first contained singularity engine.
The basic design involves rotating singularities inside a magnetic feild.
By altering the speed and direction
of rotation you can travel both forward and backward in time.
time itself can be understood in terms of connected lines. When you go back in time you travel on your original time line when you turn the singularity engine off a new time line is created due to the fact that you and your time machine are now there.
In other words a new universe is created. To get back to your original line you must travel a split second farther back and immediately throw the engine into forward without turning it off.
some interesting outcomes of this are:
you meet yourself I have done it often
even taken a younger version of myself along for a few rides before returning myself to the new timeline and going back to mine.
You can alter history in the new universe
that you have just created. Most of the time the changes are subtle. the oldest one was a sky scraper that don’t exist in New York .
Interestingly when you travel in time you must compensate for the orbit of the Earth since the time machine doesn’t move you have to adjust the engine so you remain on the planet when you turn it off.
Now for the future you might want to know about..Y2K is a disaster . Many people die on the highways when they freeze to death trying to get to warmer weather. The gov. tries to keep power by instituting marshall law but all of it collapses when their efforts to bring the power back up fail.
A few years later communial government system is developed after the constitution takes a few twists.
China retakes Tiawan
Isreal wins the largest battle for their life.
and Russia is covered in Nuclear snow
from their collapsed reactors.
“Alright I wanted to read you something as I received it.
its from a time traveler.”Art Bell says.
FAX TWO:
Dear Mr. Bell I am glad you ‘re back. I faxed this information to you the day before you left the air. I wanted to make sure it was n’t lost in the shuffle so I am sending a gift.
If you’ve already seen this please accept my apologies if you choose to make this public please do not publish the fax number.
I had to fax when I heard the other time traveler calling in from the recent time past infact the year 2500 Ad.
Let me explain…
Mr. Bell I sent a fax with this opening on July 29 1998.
As I said then I am a time traveler. I have been on this world line since April of this year and I plan to leave soon. Typically time travelers do not purposely affect the world lines they visit..however this mission is unusually long and I’ve grown attatched to some of the people I have met here. (isn’t that the stockholm syndrome or something? – Art says)
Anyway for my own reasons I have decided to help this world line by sharing information about the future with a few poeople in the hope that it will help their future. I am contacting you for the same reason. Unfortunately there is no historical reference to your program in my worldline .
I beleive you can change your future by creating one now.
Some of the information presented on your program maybe invaluable to upline researchers . I suggest you isolate the programs that concentrate on military technology and new physics theories. Transcribe these programs and put them someplace safe away from the box. I recommend someplace in the mid west. (away from the box what does he mean?-art says) I also urge you to reconsider your paranoia to the Russians (I am not paranoid about the Russians)They are not preparing for war with the average US citizen . They are preparing for war with the US government. They will eventually save this country and the lives of
million of Americans.
I realize my claims are a bit difficult to accept so I will send the following once I know you have recieved this fax.
A few pages from the operations manual of my time machine. And a few colored photographs of my vehicle.( alright so you know I got it send them along.-art says)
If you wish to contact me I will be happy to share with you the nature of time , the physics of time travel and some of the events of your future.(God I hadn’t read this earlier..) Please send a return package to (and he gives the number..)
Just a slight correction:
FAX TWO was submitted in 2001 by Titor. The two faxe were read on seperate occassions by Bell upon his return from Retirement #1 and Retirement #2.
It had been almost two years since I’d read the faxes and after I posted them…I actually re-read them (Yow!). Memory is refreshed. Fax One (1998), Fax Two (2001).
I too had never heard of John Titor and find this story very interesting. I plan to look into it more deeply now. I found this site with the help of Kim Komando’s site of the day email. Sorry for the late post but thought I would add my 2 cents.
Darby says:
Titor has already missed on several “predictions” that are central to the story: Waco-like incidents starting last fall and culminating on weekly occurances over the next 26 months (we haven’t seen any Waco incidents so far); mass civil disturbances starting last Fall during the election season; Western Civilization collapsing due to instability during 2005 (but we do have 14 weeks left).
He also predicted that there would be no more Olympics (following the 2004 Summer Games) until at least 2040. Two years ago I said that the 2006 Winter Games were coming first. No one objected until a few days ago – now that there is only three months left before the games in Italy. Some are saying that he didn’t mean the Winter Olympics.
If I were to play devil’s advocate and consider John Titor and his story to be true the predictions that have not come true could all be based on quantum physics. John comes back in time but by doing so the act of coming back causes changes to his past that he cannot control, a changing reality or even a parallel time to his original past. There could be an infinite number of these and he just happens to hit ours. Hollywood has played this up many a time (ie. Star Trek Next Generation, Timecop, Terminator, Time Tunnel, etc.).
I know that Hollywood isn’t very sound when dealing with this stuff and I am not saying that I believe this but it all could be plausible……….in John Titor’s world.
Something I don’t think anyone mentioned is the concept that one would hope that if we humans found a way to travel back in time we would highly limit contact, the old buttefly effect chaos theory, now whether John Titor is from the future or not, now people who care are going to do things either to prove or disprove him and end up changing the future, which should in fact change his original statements, and thus cause an unending paradox. So because they have discovered a more accurate time-keeper, and he still advocated the less impressive one, this should in fact prove he is not in fact from the future. This is assuming that when he returns to the future with his IBM5100 it was the same future he left to come back here, and not a different one because of his statements. (Back to the Future 2 I believe portrays this.)
Or he simply knew a lot of history and knew what we of this time know, and did not disclose anything we didn’t already know, but if this is true, why would he bother talking to us anyway…. I think I don’t believe him.
Traveling forward in time is easy (relatively speaking), it’s traveling backwards that is the problem.
All one has to do to travel forward in time is to get a spaceship that can approach the speed of light.
Easy right ; )
Einstein’s relativity takes over the hard part. Everyone learns in physics that one of the problems with travelling close to the speed of light is that time seems to slow down from the point of view of the earth and that time speeds up from the point of view of the spacecraft. If people on earth could see a clock in your ship, it would appear to slow down, and if you could see a clock on earth, it would seem to speed up.
By simply traveling as close as you can to the speed of light, you’re time will pass slower than Earth’s time. Simply figure out what year you want to end up in and travel a distance such that the ammount of time it takes for you to get to one point and back will have allowed you to arrive back at earth at your desired point into the “future”.
Relatively speaking, of course.
Like I said, easy!
I think I believe John Titor.
In the news, it is said that a huge meteorite is going to hit the Earth in about 30 years time. Maybe he is a escapee from the year 2036.
Who is John Titor?
ME DAMMIT ME!!!!1!11!
I LIVE! MWUHAHAHAHAH!!!
I am currently living in colombia and working part time as a drug lord selling “little lollies” to children.
PS another viewponit lick my balls
PPS no dont i know you will
I’ve also heard about the meteorite, sad thing is no-one seems to be too bothered by it.
not too sure if i believe Titor though.
There is only one way to travel through time.
Forward…slowly.
This may be a small point, but on the message board….at one point Titor says…In my time there are no income taxes….then later on in the same message board he states…There is still an “IRS” and people pay their taxes…huh? which is it? don’t get me wrong, I would love to believe but..here’s the link, look it up for yourself. http://www.anomalies.net/time_traveler/Iamfrom2036.html also in another post, he talks to someone about how his father introduced him to the music of “Blue Oyster Cult” and he even makes mention of a song that he likes called “When the War Comes” this is a song off of the album “Club Ninja” a not so well known work of the band’s, and the lyrics of the song deal with a post-apocalyptic theme. very similar to Titor’s whole thing. This struck me as very odd…I picture some science fiction lover sitting there dreaming this whole thing up in his Mom’s Florida basement while she screams at him to cut his hair and get a good job. I mean you come back in freaking time, and your lame-ass dad makes you listen to one of the worst albums ever made? all I can think of, is that Titor is a weirdo like me, who actually LIKED that piece of crap album, and dreamed up this whole scenario because he needed to stir things up to get attention. He’s smart to be sure…but some things he (or they) say, just doesn’t sound right to me. Sounds too much like something I, or my friends would say….as opposed to someone from 2036…..but hey…whatever…one time I saw a UFO, and can’t prove to this day what the hell it was….maybe it was an alien spacecraft? maybe it wasn’t and I’ll NEVER KNOW one way or the other (it was in the news btw, and seen in 3 states simultaneously, and by the friend sitting right next to me, so I’m not making it up……… as an unrelated footnote, on the song “When the War Comes” there is a part where a voice says, “blah, blah, blah.I can’t remember exactly now…..then “All Hail the Revolution!!” that voice is none other than Howard Stern….who has a cousin or something in Blue Oyster Cult….but anyway….why can’t we find this guy? or group? (not Blue Oyster Cult, no one is looking for them, I mean Titor) why hasn’t someone pursued the Fax # that Art Bell had? or looked into the alleged insurance warning document for clues? eh? eh? lol…….
Florida basement
lol
Yeh I think I met a guy like this in a history class once. The guy seemed kinda nuts, so i just kept on listening. Over the course of the semester, he divulged information on all sorts of supposed top secret projects (including the Philidelphia and Mantauk). He also described how he had been part of certain top secret operations involving time travel and psionic abilities. Boy this guy was a load of fun during the smoke break. Apparently the face on mars isn’t a face at all, but a complex of pyramids entombing a human being from thousands of years ago. I wish that I had gotten this guy’s email address.
This sort of thing really makes me wonder though.
Least he’s having fun.
Humour him. ;) It’s obviously he’s not telling the truth.
Fax sent 1998: “Most changes are subtle, the oldest one was a sky scraper in New York that don’t exist no more.”
Anyone care to explain? The corrulation between this and the twin towers is pretty accurate don’t you think?
Watch this also and give me an explanation!..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZxj6bZVLE0&feature=related
Enter your reply text here. OK
//////////////////////////////////////////squelch #11 January 6th, 2006 6:36 pm
anyway…. I think I don’t believe him.//////////////////////////////////////////
If anyone is serious about this subject, be careful when a salesman knocks on your door.
This man is great at selling books. (for the fantasy section).
I listened, and proving is not hard. This is not genuine. In todays world, we would send our best from NASA for time travel and the dude would have solid knowledge of the current encyclipedia, or at least basic fundamental knowledge that would be noticed very quickly amoung others. If it were me I would contact the White House and let the President know.
This is silly and now I’ve wasted my time. I do love the Terminater.
If he can travel through time then why the hell doesn’t he come back to this time and show his face instead of faxing. His attempt at a hoax is rather pathetic.
Do you?
Interesting.
Think about the answer to your own question.
Do you really believe that?
Interesting.
Think about the answer to your own question.
Ok………I watched in slow mo………………..the pixels when the “saucer” entered in, don’t match the surrounding pixels in the rest of the video. It’s a fraud!