John Titor

Titor's purported military insignia

John TitorandTimeTravel_0are pseudonyms used on internet forums between 2000 and 2001 by an individual claiming to be an American militarytime travelerfrom the year 2036.His posts discussed various aspects of time travel, and described future calamitous events, including a globalnuclear war.The uniform inaccuracy of their predictions and inconsistencies in their explanations has led many to view the story with skepticism. A 2009 investigation suggested that the entire affair was a hoax created by Larry Haber, a Florida entertainment lawyer, and his brother John Rick Haber, a computer scientist.These claims have never been verified.

Titor's posts

The first posts using John Titor's military symbol appeared on theTime Travel Instituteforums on November 2, 2000, under the usernameTimeTravel_0(The name "John Titor" was not used at that time.) The posts discussed time travel in general, the first one being the "six parts" description of the components required for a working time machine and responses to questions from other posters about how such a machine might work. These early posts tended to be short. A second thread was also made due to shortcomings of the forum software used at the time.

The name "John Titor" was first introduced in January 2001, when TimeTravel_0 began posting at theArt BellPost-2-PostBBSForums,which required a name orpseudonymfor every account. The final Titor post was made in late March 2001.

Later, around 2003, various websites compiled Titor's posts, re-arranging them into narratives. Not all of these sites refer to the original dates that the messages were posted on the forums.

IBM 5100computer

In his online postings, Titor claimed to be an American soldier from the year 2036, based inTampa, Florida.He said that he was assigned to a governmental time-travel project, and that as part of the project he was sent back to 1975 to retrieve anIBM 5100computer, which was needed todebugvariouslegacycomputer programs that existed in 2036 – a possible reference to theUNIXyear 2038 problem.The IBM 5100 runs theAPLandBASICprogramming languages.

Titor said that he had been selected for this mission because his paternal grandfather was directly involved in the original assembly and programming of the 5100. He attempted to provide proof of this by describing unpublicized features of the 5100, which led some people to believe that a computer scientist must have been behind the postings.

Titor said that he was on astopoverin the year 2000 for "personal reasons":to collect pictures lost in the (future)civil war,and to visit his family, of whom he spoke often.

Titor also said that for several months he had been trying to warn anyone who would listen about the potential threat ofCreutzfeldt–Jakob diseasespread throughbeefproducts, and about the possibility of an upcoming civil war within the United States.

When questioned about the topic, Titor also expressed interest in mysteries such asUFOs,which he said remained unexplained in his time. Titor suggested that UFOs andextraterrestrialsmight be time travelers with superior time machines, from much further into the future than his own time.

Time machine

Titor described his time machine on several occasions. In one early post, he described it as a "stationary mass, temporal displacement unit powered by two top-spin, dual positive singularities", and producing a "standard off-setTiplersinusoid ".

The earliest post was more explicit, detailing the components of the machine:

• Twomagnetichousing units for the dual micro singularities
• An electron injectionmanifold,to alter mass andgravityof the microsingularities
• A cooling andX-rayventing system
• Gravitysensors,or a variable gravity lock
• Four maincesium clocks
• Three main computer units

According to the posts, the device was installed in the rear of a 1966Chevrolet Corvetteconvertible.Later posts mentioned a 1987 truck withfour-wheel drive.

Predictions

Although he frequently invoked themany-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics,whereby events from his timeline may differ from our own, Titor also said that the differences would be minimal. As such, some have interpreted his descriptions of his timeline as predictions, and have compared them with actual historical events that have occurred since Titor's final post in 2001.

The most immediate of Titor's predictions foretold a civil war in the United States having to do with "order and rights". The war as Titor described it would begin in 2005withcivil unrestsurrounding thepresidential election of the previous year.According to Titor, this civil conflict, which he described as "having aWacotype event every month that steadily gets worse ",would be "pretty much at everyone's doorstep" and erupt into war by 2008. As a result, the United States would split into fiveregionsbased on a variety of factors, including differingmilitary objectives.

According to Titor, this civil war would end in 2015 with a brief but intenseWorld War III,which Titor referred to as "N Day". He specifiedWashington, D.C.andJacksonville, Floridaas cities that would be hit in the exchange, and said that after the war,Omaha,Nebraskawould be the new U.S. Capitol. Titor did not detail the exact causes of this World War III scenario, but in one post he said that the hostilities were led by "border clashes andoverpopulation".He also pointed to the contemporaryArab-Israeli conflictnot as a cause of the war, but as amilestonethat precedes it.

Titor said that in 2011, when he was 13 years old, he joined aFlorida-based shotguninfantryunit called the Fighting Diamondbacks for at least four years. In other posts, he described himself as hiding from the war.

Titor also said that the "Everett–Wheeler model of quantum physics", better known as themany-worlds interpretation,was correct. According to him, this meant that his time travel had caused the formation of a newtimestream,and that in this new (current) timestream, the events that Titor had described would occur somewhat differently than they had in his home timestream. This made his predictions non-falsifiable.

Criticism and discussion

The New Republicdescribed Titor as the most famous of several internet forum posters who claimed to be time travelers.

An Italian television program,Voyager – Ai confini della conoscenza,aired the results of an investigation of John Titor on May 19, 2008. Private investigator Mike Lynch found no registry evidence, past or present, of any individual named John Titor. He did, however, identify the John Titor Foundation, which was a for-profit company formed on September 16, 2003, and had no office or address other than a rented post box inKissimmee, Florida.AnIP addressconnected with Titor alsogeolocatedto Kissimmee.

In 2009, a report by John Hughston of the Hoax Hunter website pointed to Larry Haber, a Florida entertainment lawyer, as the CEO of the foundation.Lynch concluded that Larry Haber and his brother Richard, a computer scientist, were very likely the men behind John Titor, whom they actually introduced in 1998, accompanied by different predictions, including chaos due to theY2K "bug".John Hughston also reported that John Titor is a trademark registered with theUnited States Patent and Trademark Office;the Titor trademark is now classified as "Abandoned".

In 2018, multimedia artistJoseph Matheny,creator of the alternate reality gameOng's Hat,said that he worked as a consultant for the unnamed individuals responsible for the legend. John Titor "is a story that was created as a literary experiment by people who were observing what I was doing with Ong's Hat and these people wanted to do something like that. I was a consultant on the project, [but] it wasn't my project."

In popular culture

• In 2003, the John Titor Foundation published a book,John Titor: A Time Traveler's Tale(ISBN1-59196-436-9), discussing his claims; the book is now out of print.
• The 2009 visual novelSteins;Gate,which was adapted into an anime in 2011, heavily features time travel and has John Titor as a major part of the plot.
• In 2009, a docudrama was created about John Titor calledTimetravel_0directed by Scott Norwood.
• Titor was referred to in the shonen supernatural horror mangaMagical Girl Apocalypse.
• Japanese rock bandSōtaisei Riron's third studio album, TOWN AGE, featured a song, John Q, which references John Titor.
• In an issue ofThe Unbeatable Squirrel Girl,John Titor is listed in theDeadpool's Guide to Super Villainscard set as an alias ofKang the Conqueror.
• In the video gameReverse: 1999,John Titor is a senior computer engineer from IBM claiming to be a time traveler who speaks inHexadecimalcode and was also behind the development of IBM 5100.

External links

• John Titor's first thread on Time Travel Institute
• John Titor's second thread on Time Travel Institute
• John Titor's third thread on Time Travel Institute
• John Titor IRC logs
• John Titor's images
• John Titor Fax 1
• John Titor Fax 2
• Overview of John Titor information on Time Travel Institute