John Titor's military insignia

John Titor is the name used on several bulletin boards during 2000 and 2001 of a poster claiming to be a time traveler from the year 2036. In these posts he made numerous predictions (a number of them vague, some quite specific[1]) about events in the near future, starting with events in 2004. He described a drastically changed future in which the United States had broken into five smaller regions, the environment and infrastructure had been devastated by a nuclear attack, and most other world powers had been destroyed. Image File history File links Titor_insignia. ... Image File history File links Titor_insignia. ... BBS redirects here. ... Time travel is a concept that has long fascinated humanity—whether it is Merlin experiencing time backwards, or religious traditions like Mohammeds trip to Jerusalem and ascent to heaven, returning before a glass knocked over had spilt its contents. ...

Titor's posts sparked an intense debate on the Internet, with some people dismissing the claims, and others defending them. In the time since Titor left the forums, the predictions for events that were supposed to occur by now have all failed to occur. Nevertheless, the Titor postings still have their supporters, who are quick to explain away these predictive failings.

To date, the story has been retold on numerous web sites, in a book, and in a play. He has also been discussed occasionally on the radio show Coast to Coast AM.^[1] In this respect, the Titor story may be unique in terms of broad appeal from an originally limited medium, an Internet discussion board. Coast to Coast AM is a late-night syndicated radio talk show in the United States which deals with a variety of topics, but most frequently ones that relate either to the paranormal, or to alleged conspiracies. ...

Titor's posts

The first post appeared on the Time Travel Institute forums on November 2, 2000, under the name TimeTravel_0. At the time, the posts had nothing to do with future events, and the name "John Titor" was not being used. The posts had to do with time travel in general, the first one being the "six parts" description of what a time machine would need to have to work (see below) and responses to questions about how such a machine would work. Early messages tended to be short. is the 306th day of the year (307th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ...

Soon after, TimeTravel_0 claimed to be a time traveler from the future and began making various descriptions of his time. As time went on he answered questions posted in the forum, and started to reveal a more complex picture of the future. Although most of his posts concerned the state of the world in the future, Titor also responded to questions both in the forums and in IRC,^[2] and sometimes posted images purporting to be the time travel device, or its manual. He also sometimes talked about more current events, for instance, in an early post he stated that "The breakthrough that will allow for [time travel] technology will occur within a year or so [2001] when CERN brings their larger facility online".^[3] Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of instant communication over the Internet. ... CERN logo The European Organization for Nuclear Research (French: ), commonly known as CERN (see Naming), pronounced (or in French), is the worlds largest particle physics laboratory, situated just northwest of Geneva on the border between France and Switzerland. ...

The name "John Titor" was not introduced until January 2001 when TimeTravel_0 began posting at the Art Bell BBS Forums (which required a name, real or not, to sign up for an account). The Titor posts ended in late March 2001. Eventually, a number of the threads became corrupted, but Titor's posts had been saved on peoples' hard drives and were copied to Anomalies.net along with new discussions of the science behind Titor's time travelling as well as his predictions.^[4] Around 2003, various websites reproduced Titor's posts, re-arranging them into narratives. Not all refer to the original dates posted.^[5]

On numerous occasions Titor posted comments that appeared to be tongue-in-cheek.^{[citation needed]} For instance, when asked why his images were of such low quality, he replied that he was not a photographer. When asked if "Titor" was his real name, he replied that it was "a real name".^{[citation needed]}

Outline

In his alleged online postings, Titor claimed to be an American soldier from the year 2036, based in Tampa in Hillsborough County, Florida who was assigned to a governmental time travel project. He had been sent back to 1975 to retrieve an IBM 5100 computer which he said was needed to "debug" various legacy computer programs in 2036; a reference to the UNIX 2038 timeout error. The 5100 runs the APL, and BASIC programming languages. Titor had been selected for this mission specifically due to the fact his paternal grandfather was directly involved with the building and programming of the 5100. Tampa redirects here. ... Hillsborough County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. ... This article is about the U.S. State of Florida. ... The IBM 5100 Portable Computer The IBM 5100 Portable Computer was a desktop computer introduced in September 1975, six years before the IBM PC. It was the evolution of a prototype called the SCAMP (Special Computer APL Machine Portable) that IBM demonstrated in 1973. ... Debugging is a methodical process of finding and reducing the number of bugs, or defects, in a computer program or a piece of electronic hardware thus making it behave as expected. ... Filiation of Unix and Unix-like systems Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX®, sometimes also written as or ® with small caps) is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy. ... Example showing how the date would reset. ... APL (for A Programming Language) is an array programming language based on a notation invented in 1957 by Kenneth E. Iverson while at Harvard University. ... This article is about the programming language. ...

Titor claimed to be on a stopover in the year 2000 for "personal reasons," to collect pictures lost in the civil war, and was visiting his family; Titor spoke of his family often. Titor also said he had been, for a few months, trying to alert anyone that would listen about the threat of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease spread through beef products, and about the possibility of civil war in the United States. Titor also had expressed an interest in unexplained mysteries when questioned about it by an online poster, such as UFOs (which in his time were still as yet unexplained). Titor suggested that UFOs and alien visitors may well be time travelers from much further into the future than his own time, and with much more accurate time machines than his own. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a very rare and incurable degenerative neurological disorder (brain disease) that is ultimately fatal. ... UFO can mean: Unidentified flying object United Future Organization, a Japanese-Brazilian electronic jazz band UFO, the rock band that previously featured Michael Schenker UFO, the Gerry Anderson TV series United Farmers of Ontario, a political party that formed the government in Ontario from 1919 to 1923 U.F.O...

Time machine

Titor described the time machine on several occasions. In an early post, he described it as a "stationary mass, temporal displacement unit powered by two top-spin, dual positive singularities", producing a "standard off-set Tipler sinusoid". The earliest post was more explicit, saying it contained:

• Two magnetic housing units for the dual micro singularities
• An electron injection manifold to alter mass and gravity micro singularities
• A cooling and X-ray venting system
• Gravity sensors, or a variable gravity lock
• Four main caesium clocks
• Three main computer units

According to the posts, the device was installed in the rear of a 1967 Chevrolet Corvette convertible, and later moved to a 1987 four-wheel drive truck. On a sphere, the sum of the angles of a triangle is not equal to 180° (see spherical trigonometry). ... A gravitational singularity (sometimes spacetime singularity) is, approximately, a place where quantities which are used to measure the gravitational field become infinite. ... In the NATO phonetic alphabet, X-ray represents the letter X. An X-ray picture (radiograph) taken by Röntgen An X-ray is a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength approximately in the range of 5 pm to 10 nanometers (corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 PHz... General Name, Symbol, Number caesium, Cs, 55 Chemical series alkali metals Group, Period, Block 1, 6, s Appearance silvery gold Standard atomic weight 132. ... The Chevrolet Corvette is a sports car that has been manufactured by Chevrolet since 1953. ...

Further, Titor claimed that the "Everett-Wheeler model of quantum physics" was correct. This model, better known as the many-worlds interpretation, posits that every possible outcome of a quantum decision actually occurs in a separate "universe". Titor stated that this was the reason the grandfather paradox would not occur; following the logic of the argument, Titor would be killing someone else's grandfather in another timeline, not his own. The many-worlds interpretation or MWI (also known as relative state formulation, theory of the universal wavefunction, many-universes interpretation, Oxford interpretation or many worlds), is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that claims to resolve all the paradoxes of quantum theory by allowing every possible outcome to every event to... The grandfather paradox is a paradox of time travel, first described by the science fiction writer René Barjavel in his 1943 book Le Voyageur Imprudent (The Imprudent Traveller).[1] The paradox is this: Suppose a man traveled back in time and killed his biological grandfather before the latter met the...

...The grandfather paradox is impossible. In fact, all paradox is impossible. The Everett-Wheeler-Graham or multiple world theory is correct. All possible quantum states, events, possibilities and outcomes are real, eventual and occurring. The chances of everything happening someplace at sometime in the superverse is 100%.^[6] The many-worlds interpretation or MWI (also known as relative state formulation, theory of the universal wavefunction, many-universes interpretation, Oxford interpretation or many worlds), is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that claims to resolve all the paradoxes of quantum theory by allowing every possible outcome to every event to... Probability densities for the electron at different quantum numbers (l) In quantum mechanics, the quantum state of a system is a set of numbers that fully describe a quantum system. ...

Predictions

The most immediate of Titor's predictions was of an upcoming civil war in the United States having to do with "order and rights".^[7] He described it as beginning in 2004^[8] with civil unrest surrounding the presidential election. This civil conflict that he characterizes as "having a Waco type event every month that steadily gets worse"^[9] will be "pretty much at everyone's doorstep"^[10] erupts by 2008. This article is about the definition of the specific type of war. ... Civil disorder is a broad term that is typically used by law enforcement to describe one or more forms of disturbance. ... The United States presidential election of 2004 was held on Election Day, Tuesday, November 2, 2004. ... Combatants ATF, FBI, U.S. Army Branch Davidians Commanders Assault: Phil Chojnacki Siege: Many David Koresh† Strength Assault: 75 ATF agents Siege: Hundreds of federal agents and soldiers 50+ men, 75+ women and children Casualties 4 dead, 21 wounded in assault 6 dead and 3+ wounded in assault, 79 dead...

Titor claimed that as a 13-year old, in 2011, he fought with the "Fighting Diamondbacks", a shotgun infantry unit of Florida, for at least four years. However, in other posts he describes himself as hiding from the war. As a result of the war the United States splits into five regions based on various factors and differing military objectives. This civil war, according to Titor, will then end in 2015 with a brief, but intense, World War III: A nuclear holocaust is often associated with World War III For other uses, see World War III (disambiguation). ...

In 2015, Russia launches a nuclear strike against the major cities in the United States (which is the "other side" of the civil war from my perspective), China and Europe. The United States counter attacks. The US cities are destroyed along with the AFE (American Federal Empire)...thus we (in the country) won. The European Union and China were also destroyed.^[11] For other uses, see Europe (disambiguation). ...

Titor refers to the exchange as "N Day". Washington, D.C. and Jacksonville are specifically mentioned as being hit. After the war, Omaha, Nebraska is the nation's new capital city. For other uses, see Washington, D.C. (disambiguation). ... Jacksonville redirects here. ... Omaha redirects here. ...

Titor is vague as to the exact motivations and causes for World War III. At one point he characterized hostilities as being led by "border clashes and overpopulation"^[12] but also points to the present conflict between Arabs and Jews as a harbinger of World War III: For other uses, see Arab (disambiguation). ...

Real disruptions in world events begin with the destabilization of the West as a result of degrading US foreign policy and consistency. ... The Jewish population in Israel is not prepared for a true offensive war. They are prepared for the ultimate defense. Wavering western support for Israel is what gives Israel's neighbors the confidence to attack. The last resort for a defensive Israel and its offensive Arab neighbors is to use weapons of mass destruction. In the grand scheme of things, the war in the Middle East is a part of what's to come, not the cause.^[13] Occident redirects here. ... For the Xzibit album, see Weapons of Mass Destruction (album). ... A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ...

Examination of the claims

Predictive failures

The posts were met with skepticism when they were being posted, but it was impossible to prove beforehand that they would not happen. Titor claimed the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics was correct, effectively meaning that his travel was from a parallel universe and things could occur differently than he had predicted. This makes his claims unfalsifiable. The predictions have failed to come true in this time line. Falsifiability (or refutability or testability) is the logical possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation or a physical experiment. ...

One of Titor's earliest claims was that CERN would discover the basis for time travel some time around 2001. This event did not occur. An article about miniature black holes being created by CERN (a recurring theme, also ascribed to Fermilab and Brookhaven at various times^[14]) was taken by some to be evidence of this claim, but these events did not occur either. Civil war did not break out after the 2004 presidential elections. Although Titor claimed that the 2004 Summer Olympics would be the last to be held, the successful 2006 Winter Olympics debunked this claim. Aerial view of the Fermilab site. ... ≠ Aerial view of Brookhaven National Laboratory. ... The ceremony for the lighting of the flame is arranged as a pagan pageant, with priestesses dancing. ... The 2006 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XX Olympic Winter Games, were celebrated in Turin, Italy from February 10, 2006, through February 26, 2006. ...

Problems with the technology

The image of the laser pointer's beam being "bent" has the obvious problem that objects around the beam are not bent. For instance, the framing of the window visible in the background should be distorted if there was a large gravity gradient in the area, but it is not. Some have speculated the "beam" is an optical fiber.^[15] A keychain laser pointer. ... Optical fibers An optical fiber (or fibre) is a glass or plastic fiber designed to guide light along its length. ...

Titor claimed that he was sent back to obtain an IBM 5100 because it could translate several types of computer code. According to IBM engineer Bob Dubke, Titor's statements regarding the IBM 5100's little-known ability to emulate and debug mainframe systems were correct.^[16] Supporters state that this information was not publicly available in 2000 or 2001 when Titor made his declaration.^[17] and Titor himself stated that this feature was "discovered (or at least known after testing)" as late as 2036.^[18] According to TItor's website, the feature, flexable microcode, was much better implemented in a CPU, that allowed Microcode and instruction sets to change after the execution of every instruction.^[19] In fact, a WISC machine could do everything a 5100 could do, as well as emulate more modern CPUs, Instruction by Instruction. The IBM 5100 Portable Computer The IBM 5100 Portable Computer was a desktop computer introduced in September 1975, six years before the IBM PC. It was the evolution of a prototype called the SCAMP (Special Computer APL Machine Portable) that IBM demonstrated in 1973. ... This article is about emulation in computer science. ...

However, this capabilities of emulation and was actually widely known in acedemia, and the industry, and commented on in depth in numerous publications, both about the 5100 and programmable microcode in general.^[20] References to this fact were also available on the Internet as early as 1999. This is a fairly obscure bit of trivia, however, which suggests whoever was making the posts was familiar with the machine, or had an interest in retrocomputing.^[21] The Apple II is one of the most collected computers in the world, and is popular amongst hobbyists. ...

"Apparently, APL was a difficult task for IBM to accomplish with an interpreter in the 5100, so instead they wrote an emulation program so that the S/360 mainframe version of APL could be run instead -- The 5100 is like a desktop IBM S/360 mainframe computer which only runs APL." [2]

Problems with the story

An examination of the claims also suggests several problems with the story. For instance, in some posts Titor claims that money is widely used and people still have credit cards despite his statement that centralized banking no longer exists. In another post he speculated that today's dollar would be usable in his time, but this would be after the reorganization of the federal government according to his own history, potentially making the currency worthless.^[22] This article is about the payment system. ... The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States. ... After the first Gulf War the Iraqi government issued a new currency. ...

Numerous commenters have pointed out the broad similarities between the Titor story and Pat Frank's classic post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, Alas, Babylon.^[23] Alas, Babylon takes place in a small town in Florida just before and after a nuclear war, and describes the struggle to survive as a family in the aftermath. Pat Frank (May 5, 1907 – October 12, 1964) is the pen name of the American novelist Harry Hart Frank. ... Alas, Babylon is a novel by Pat Frank published in 1959. ...

In other media

• In 2003, the John Titor Foundation published a book, John Titor: A Time Traveler's Tale, discussing his claims (ISBN 1-59196-436-9).

References

Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 74th day of the year (75th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see The Sunday Times (disambiguation). ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 177th day of the year (178th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 74th day of the year (75th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 74th day of the year (75th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 74th day of the year (75th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 329th day of the year (330th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 74th day of the year (75th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

The external links in this article may not follow Wikipedia's content policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links.

• www.johntitor.eu - European web site - english forum and original John Titor's forum posts and messages
• www.timetravelinstitute.com - International forum
• www.onlinejournal.com - International politics situation
• The original forum posts
• Interviews with Oliver Williams
• John Titor, Fake Time Traveller - Argues that the prediction of an American Civil War in 2004 has been proven to be false.
• John Titor: a Time Traveller From The Year 2036? BBC
• Obsessed & Scientific - Documentary about time travel and John Titor
• Pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and the last page of backup pages made on April 13, 2001 by a WebCrawler. Retrieved May 20, 2007.
• Original early pictures from John Titor (copied by original thread posters.) (Asked to be cleaned up when at Art Bell BBS forum by members there.) Retrieved January 4, 2008.
• Original Thread by TimeTravel_0 (John Titor) January 26, 2001. Retrieve at any time, link shown May 20, 2007.
• Dr. Robert Brown Replies to Darby RE.Titor September 10, 2003 12:42AM Retrieve any time except when forum changes, link shown December 11, 2007.