John Titor
Depending on who you ask, John Titor is an early, and very famous, internet troll. Or, just maybe, a time traveler.
A user joined a paranormal chat room in the October 14, 2000. He went by the name Time_Travel0. At the time, he claimed he had been drinking wine and spoke rather nonchalantly about being a time traveler. The others in the chat room had other odd stories, like claiming to have been reincarnated over 50 times, so most in the chat room did not challenge his story too hard. Time_Travel0 was quite candid about his history, or maybe I should say future.
He claimed to be a time traveler in Florida, and in fact went so far as to say he was staying with his parents and the 2-year-old version of himself while chatting. That would make John Titor born in 1998. As he claimed to be from the year 2036, that’d make him 38 years old at the time of this IRC chat.
He claimed to have been here about 3 months, and said he was visiting our time to collect an IBM 5110 that his grandfather had worked on. Someone actually asked him, why did he need that old computer? He answered back that it was a computer capable of reading Unix code, and that Unix had stopped working in 2036. Oddly enough, both of these pieces of trivia have some truth to them. Unix does indeed have a problem referred to as, “the 2038 problem”, which is maybe too technical to dive into on this podcast. And the computer he mentioned is unique in that it can emulate and debug mainframe code, as well as translate between several different programming languages. While he did briefly gloss over these 2 elements in the original chat, it’s interesting to me that he spent nearly no time on them. In the years that followed, it turns out he was correct about the capabilities of the 5100, although those facts were not commonly known or promoted at the time. Also worth noting that he called the computer a 5110 in the chat, but later switched it to 5100 when posting in alternate forums. He claimed that he was just making a quick stop in 2000, but he was actually on his way home after stopping in the year 1975.
He started presenting pictures of his time machine early. On this original chat, in fact, he’d already scanned and uploaded the photos to show off to just about anyone who asked.
People started jumping in nearly immediately, taking issue with the fact that John was visiting his own parents, interacting with a younger version of himself. Wouldn’t this throw off the space time continuum and make the world blow up? According to John, no, these issues are minor and simply introduce a new timeline into the future. Things may change on that new timeline, but the changes will be minor and not impact the timeline he returns to. This is his version of time travel.
He claimed to be a soldier in his time, and that his stop in 2000 wasn’t strictly by the books. However, he’d return to his own time just a few seconds after he left, and his superiors would be none the wiser. He’d just be aged an additional 3 months, which he thought no one would ever notice.
He dove a bit into the technical workings of time travel, comparing his knowledge to knowing how to change the oil in a car. If you operate the machine, you should know how it works, right? This is just a bit of his explanation:
TimeTravel_0 : Detecting gravity is the hard part. TimeTravel_0 : I will tell you a littlke story. TimeTravel_0 : When time travel was invented. TimeTravel_0 : They built prototypes that would go back in time for a split second and then return. TimeTravel_0 : They had sensors and cameras on them. TimeTravel_0 : ...and they never returned. G° : and forwards as well? how about a single jump forwards? TimeTravel_0 : It was later discovered that the machines were ending up about 15 miles away and 3000 fett in the air. TimeTravel_0 : feet G° : doh! TimeTravel_0 : The Earth was rotating away from them. wyrmkin_37 : synchroniaztion please TimeTravel_0 : A system had to be invented that would "hold" the machine to the Earth. TimeTravel_0 : Its called VGL. TimeTravel_0 : Its based on very sensative clocks and gravity sensors. TimeTravel_0 : It stops the time distortion machine if radical changes in gravity are detected. wyrmkin_37 : mechanical or electronic clocks TimeTravel_0 : You wouldn't want to end up inside a mountain or under water...would you?
He even cited older physists who have developed some theories on time travel, talked about discoveries at CERN that were applicable to the conversation, spoke of singularities and black holes. Whoever this TimeTravel_0 was did not come into this conversation to learn about others. From the beginning, he stood on his soapbox, prepared with scientific and technical backgrounds. No question stumped him. In a way, this made his chat more convincing. In another way, it seemed a little overprepared and rehearsed.
From early in the chat, he had fantastic stories about the future. A civil war, nuclear bombs dropping, a nation divided. He claimed that Russia helped “his side” of the civil war. He even encouraged IRC visitors to invest in hydrogen fuel cells. He then departs from his normal technical rhetoric, and almost gets philosophical.
TimeTravel_0 : I harbor a ccertain ammount of anger toward this time. Yareisa : why TimeTravel_0 : I see an entire population of people who are sleeping. TimeTravel_0 : I fell in love once and she passed away. TimeTravel_0 : I blame you for her death. Yareisa : why TimeTravel_0 : She died of brain cancer. TimeTravel_0 : You may find this interesting. TimeTravel_0 : WHen I was training for "time travel"... TimeTravel_0 : ...a great deal of what we did was pyscholgical training. TimeTravel_0 : In one of our exercises...we had to go back in time and convince "ourselves" to do something we regretted not doing in our own life. TimeTravel_0 : I told myself to get married before she died. TimeTravel_0 : SOmething I was unable to do. TimeTravel_0 : I hate you for that.
Not long after the admission that his girlfriend dies of radiation from a nuclear bombing, he left the IRC and, as far as I could tell, did not re-emerge for a couple weeks using the same username on the Time Travel Institute’s forums on November 2, 2000. In January 2001, he posted to the Art Bell forums and posted there until March of 2001. So in October, he said he’d been in our timeline for 3 months, then if he is to be believed, he stuck around another 5 months after that. So this John Titor was living with his parents and a smaller version of himself for 8 months. If his story is to be believed, there’s a 19 year old John Titor in Florida right now who may have memories of an older version of himself playing with him when he was younger. Weird, huh?
Outside of these forum posts, John Titor also seems to have prepared long written pieces for the website “Paranormal News Network”, or perhaps these were assembled from the Time Travel Institute’s forum posts. I had a hard time deciphering that as I was doing research into John Titor, as most of his posts hit on the same basic notes. He seemed to talk in a very detailed, technical fashion when it came to the time machine, however he also spoke very eloquently how about life was different in the future. From the family unit to smog and global warming, he touched on anything people asked about with different levels of certainty.
However, the most interesting part of this was the technical portion. While any half-decent fiction writer could probably come up with a convincing vision of the near-future, it takes a certain type of person to propose a time machine that is not totally outside the realm of possibility. He cited the most important elements for a functioning time machine:
- Singularity drive housing.
- Singularity magnetic field coil.
- Magnetic field generator / regulator.
- Electron mass injection manifold.
- Electron regulator.
- Electron condenser.
- Singularity ??? sensor.
- Singularity cooling housing.
- Singularity cooling pump.
- Singularity cooling supply.
- Gravity sensor. unit.
- Battery supply.
Maybe I’m giving him too much credit, but I think many people would be hard pressed to come up with convincing pieces to a time machine, or “cop-out” answers like, “i don’t know how it works, I just drive the thing”.
He even had photos of the unit. Now, this was in the year 2000. Computers, digital cameras, and internet connections were not what they are today, so by todays standards these are low-resolution, over compressed and bitmapped. But still convincing. The unit is large but portable, taking up the entire passenger side seat. It had the typical yellow and black industrial striping you see on many machines, and a unit connected through one of those curled extendable cords with a screen and several buttons. He has photos of this same unit seated in a couple different vehicles. He explained that he had to do that with each time jump as to not pick a car that would stand out too much. This kind of discounts his earlier explanation, and in fact his whole online presence, because if it was not important that he stay hidden, why did he care about a car that didn’t fit in?
It has a technical drawing, similar as to what you’d find in an instruction manual, with pieces of the machine cut away and arrows pointing to different parts. He supplied a logo from his time that looks like several circles inlaid, getting more compressed horizontally towards the center.
He also uploaded a cover image of the operating instructions for the time travel unit, and strange diagrams that were apparently taken from this manual. They pointed to various singularities, negative time fields, x-ray venting zones, mass offsets and event horizons.
He also supplied a photo of the machine on, curving light from a laser pointing unit, illuminated by the smoke of a nearby cigar. Critics point at this picture as being unconvincing because, although the laser is affected by the gravitational singularity, nothing else in the picture is.
The photos and diagrams are fascinating to me because they really show how dedicated John Titor was to his craft. He was really out to convince everyone to the legitimacy of his story. And whether you believe him or not, you have to wonder how many present-day internet trolls are this dedicated.
His final post was March 24, 2001, and I’d like to read a portion of it.
I will be leaving this worldline shortly and this will be my final post. There are only a handful of people who will know exactly when I will be leaving and I’m sure they will let you know when I’m gone.
In the last few days I have found your choice of topics quite interesting and from an objective viewpoint I think it collectively answers one of your own questions, “If time travel is real, where are all the time travelers?” In the past, I have stated that quite frankly, you all scare the Hell out of me and I’m sure other temporal drivers would feel the same. But now I have an expanded explanation with two examples.
A while ago (on one of the posts), I related an experience I had with my parents while we were driving down a highway. Every now and then, we would pass someone who was in obvious distress with their vehicle. I was amazed that so many people could pass them by without stopping to help. Their explanation was fear. The risk of helping someone was too great and with today’s technology, they probably had a cell phone anyway. If they didn’t, the walk to a gas station would be good for them and teach them a lesson for running out of gas.
The other example is the plight of the homeless. When you pass them as individuals on the street I see the way people selectively choose an alternate path to avoid them.
Those two examples best define why time travelers do not show themselves. In trying to help you, we put ourselves as great risk and there’s really no point to it. We know the nature of time dictates that traveling between “exact” worldlines is impossible. Therefore, the only results we will see will be the ones we stay to see. Since worldlines, outcomes and events are infinite, we have better things to do. When I arrive in the “new” 1998 worldline on my way home I could easily start all of this again and continue to go through the same conversations with all of the same people. However, I already know you won’t pay any attention or believe me because we’ve already been through it on this worldline. Besides, I think the walk to the gas station will do you some good.
I also want to thank Pamela for helping me with the email and everyone else who asked intelligent and insightful questions. I have learned a great deal.
My parting thought revolves around something J.C. has been harping on since day one. No, I do not have a secret agenda but I have been paying a great deal of attention to your worldline. My interaction with you was not a direct mission parameter but it was a secondary mission protocol based on standing orders given to all temporal drivers. That secondary objective is basically to gather as much information about a worldline based on a set of observable variables when we first arrive. Your worldline met those conditions. What amazes me is why no one here wonders why Y2K didn’t hit them at all?
Bring a gas can with you when the car dies on the side of the road.
And with that, John Titor vanished. He’d promised that his family would post on his behalf and supply video of his departure, however that never came to pass.
In the years that followed, basically all of his predictions were proven incorrect. A civil war did not begin in 2008 or end in 2015. Omaha is not the new national capitol. The Olympics are still going on and successful. In fact, with any of his more general predictions, I have a hard time coming up with one that was, indeed, fulfilled. These differences could be easily hand-waved away with the “different timelines” theory, however, if you’re eager to keep believing in this internet time traveler.
A private investigator researched this more in-depth in 2008, perhaps looking for a 10-year-old version of John Titor in our worldline. His search came up empty, however. He did discover a corporation named The John Titor Foundation in Kissimmee Florida, where an IP address also connection the person posting as John Titor. This foundation published a books called “John Titor: A Time Traveler’s Tale, which is now out of print.
The CEO of the John Titor Foundation is a man named Larry Haber, an entertainment lawyer in Florida. His brother John Rick Haber is a computer scientist. Between the two of them, they probably have the intelligence and performance art required to produce a long-standing internet mystery like this one. However, although this is a promising lead into the true identity of John Titor, isn’t it a lot more fun to pretend that John Titor is a real time traveler who interacted with us for a handful of months just as the internet was starting to change the way we communicate with each other?
To be clear, I don’t believe that John Titor is a real time traveler. I think the mystery and the interest here is the dedication he showed to his performance online, with a balance of technical details and philisophical insights. I find it fascinating that someone so intelligent would choose to do this of his own accord. Not just the internet postings, mind you, but also the photos, diagrams, instruction manuals and other proof that he supplied. This is the great mystery of John Titor and the reason his story has lasted this long, inspiring books and video games.
In the years since, people have popped up claiming to be John Titor and offering radio interviews. You can find these on YouTube, however none have been proven to be the original and I hope that none are. I hope that John Titor’s legacy is in those 5 months worth of IRC and forum posts, and I hope we never learn his true identity.
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