John Titor - Wikipedia
Jump to content
Search
Search
Donate
Create account
Log in
Personal tools
Donate
Create account
Log in
John Titor
26 languages
العربية<br>Azərbaycanca<br>Català<br>Čeština<br>Deutsch<br>Español<br>فارسی<br>Suomi<br>Français<br>Հայերեն<br>Bahasa Indonesia<br>Italiano<br>日本語<br>한국어<br>Nederlands<br>Norsk bokmål<br>Polski<br>Português<br>Română<br>Русский<br>Српски / srpski<br>Svenska<br>Türkçe<br>Українська<br>Tiếng Việt<br>中文
Edit links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fictional time traveler
Titor's purported military insignia<br>John Titor and TimeTravel_0 are pseudonyms used in communications and on Internet forums between 1998 and 2001 by an individual claiming to be an American military time traveler from the year 2036. The communications appeared most prominently on the Time Travel Institute, an Internet forum dedicated to discussing time travel and fringe science since 1998.[1][2][3] His posts discussed various aspects of time travel and described future calamitous events, including a global nuclear war that he predicted would take place in 2015.
The story fascinated Internet communities, but the increasing inaccuracy of the predictions and other inconsistencies led many to view it with skepticism and try to discover who created it. A 2009 investigation suggested that the affair was a hoax started by Larry Haber, a Florida entertainment lawyer, or one of his brothers, John Rick Haber or Morey Haber, both of whom have careers in computers and information technology. However, the Habers and other suspects have denied these reports, and no one has publicly claimed to be the originator of the Titor posts.[4][5]
Titor's posts<br>[edit]
Faxes to Art Bell<br>[edit]
The earliest known communications attributed to the Titor persona were two faxes sent to Art Bell, the host of the paranormal-focused radio show Coast to Coast AM. The first fax, dated July 29, 1998, described the invention of time travel in 2034 as a byproduct of CERN research, claiming the technology produced "a contained singularity engine" with rotating singularities controlled by magnetic fields.[6] The fax predicted widespread devastation from the Y2K disaster and the collapse of the United States government. It also described an impenetrable temporal barrier at the year 2564, beyond which "nothing exists." A second fax followed shortly after, in which the sender promised to provide pages from "the operations manual of my time machine" and photographs of the vehicle.[7] The second fax also urged Bell to reconsider his views on Russia, claiming they would "eventually save this country and the lives of millions of Americans."
IRC Chats<br>[edit]
Before appearing on the Time Travel Institute forums, the individual using the name TimeTravel_0 participated in an IRC conversation on October 14, 2000, with several participants including users known as Yareisa, G°, and wyrmkin_37. In this conversation, TimeTravel_0 claimed to be 38 years old, from Florida, and based at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. He stated he had been sent back to 1975 to retrieve an IBM 5110 computer, mentioning this model specifically four times during the chat. [8]
He predicted civil war in the United States and nuclear conflict involving Russia and China — claims that would later be repeated and elaborated upon in his forum posts.<br>Beginning with his November 2, 2000 posts on the Time Travel Institute forums, TimeTravel_0 shifted to referring to the IBM 5100 instead, making no public acknowledgment of the discrepancy. The IBM 5100 was released in 1975, while the IBM 5110 was its successor released in 1978. TimeTravel_0 also sent correspondent Pamela Moore a physical piece of an IBM 5110 label with an Orlando postmark, consistent with his initial IRC claim.<br>[9]
Forum posts<br>[edit]
John Titor's military insignia appeared on the Time Travel Institute forums on November 2, 2000, under the username TimeTravel_0.[1] The name "John Titor" was not used on these posts. The forum, which had been established in 1998 as a community for discussing time travel theory and related fringe topics,[3] already had an active membership who engaged critically with the claims. The first post appeared in an existing thread titled "Time Travel Paradoxes," started by a forum member named Paul, who had been discussing theoretical approaches to the grandfather paradox.[10] TimeTravel_0 responded that "the basics for time travel start at CERN in about a year and end in 2034 with the first 'time machine' built by GE."[1]
The posts discussed time travel in general, the first being a "six parts" description of the components required for a working time machine, followed by responses to questions from other forum members about how such a machine might work. These early posts tended to be short. A second thread was started in January 2001 due to shortcomings of the forum software used at the time,[2] and a third thread, "Parallel Universe," emerged in December 2000 as the discussion expanded beyond the original topic.[11] Forum members...