Trime Traveler John Titor

As an online writer, you have lots of opportunities offline writers don't have: you are a composer of content, who can work with words to get his message through, but also with pictures, illustrations, audio, video and all sorts of interactive tools... This changes the way of telling a story; why is it then that a lot of the online writers still are writing online as they were doing offline?

One of the - not so many - genuine online and interactive stories, meant and designed for the worldwide web, is that of John Titor, the time traveler...

The March 2005 issue of Hustler Magazine had an interview with the time traveler: "Appearing  on the Internet, a mysterious individual named John Titor claimed to be a time-traveler from the year 2036. During numerous online discussions in forums and chat rooms from November 2000 to March 2001, he discussed the future, the mechanics of time travel and his feelings about our society. Meanwhile, the cyberspace interloper dropped hints of impending revolution, civil war and nuclear destruction. Amazingly, he has yet to be proven a hoax, and some of his predictions have already come to pass. Whether truly from a distant tomorrow or a science-fiction phony, John Titor offers a thought-provoking forecast."

The John Titor Times is a website dedicated to the phenomenon. Here it is said that, although there is some debate over the exact date it started, in November 2000 a person who called himself Timetravel_0 and later John Titor, started posting on a public forum that he was a time traveler from the year 2036. He posted pictures of his time machine and operations manual, essays on the physics of time travel and his thoughts about our time. In his posts John Titor was entertaining, but sometimes also frightening and - as an angry young man - furiously debating.

In March 2001, he told his audience he was leaving our time and returning to 2036. There was never heard of him again. However, speculation and investigation about the true identity of John Titor and why he came to visit us continue to this day. As a matter of fact, it was in the Guestbook of this other online and interactive story (or game) about This Man Who Is Visiting Us In Our Dreams, that I found John Titor mentioned - in November 2009!

"Although it may be easy to dismiss all this as science fiction," the John Titor Times says, "most people who read his posts agree that there is something very haunting about John Titor and what he said. In addition, and open to more debate, he also made a series of predictions and comments that eerily seem to be coming true."

The "editor" of the John Titor Times states that he, unfortunately, never spoke directly to John Titor, "but but there are many out there who have and continue to wonder about their experience." -  On this site, you will not only find the John Titor posts, but also links to other sites about him, downloads and speculative information attributed to him after he left.

According to the editor, you have to keep two things in mind: first, John appeard to answer nearly every question that was asked of him over the 4-month period he was online; and second, all these posts were written before 911, the Discovery accident and the Second Gulf War. "Many people believe John may have known of these events and dropped clues without actually referring to them. It's also widely agreed that he made several predictions about future physics discoveries that have materialized as he stated."

After a World War in our future, John Titor claimed to have used a military time machine to travel from the year 2036. His story spans from 1975 where his mission was to obtain a computer system needed in his future. For mysterious reasons and instead of going home, he came forward to visit with his family and young self in 1998. From November 2000 to March 2001, he spoke directly to numerous people on forums and in chat rooms. Did he accurately predict, for instance, the reasons behind the Gulf War or the mad cow disease?

John Titor - A Time Traveler’s Tale was compiled by John’s mother in our time. The book contains 9 pages of black and white photographs of John's time machine and the operations manual that came with it.

John's mother, in our time, declared that John began posting online "with my husband’s computer and email address. After about a week, he started using alternate names and Internet routes for his activity. We expressed concern about our security but he assured us we were safe. He said that not only would no one believe him but also the technology to locate him would not be used or could be defeated for a short period. He also had an unusual amount of trust with the people he spoke with online."

Citing John Titor:

"You do not rewrite history. I can only affect what happens here just as easily as you can. Why do people in this time period worry so much about time travelers destroying their world line when they have no problem doing it themselves every day?"

"Imagine you live in the year 1900 and a "time traveler" attempts to explain how a jet engine works. Even though the invention of the airplane is only a decade in the future, he would have to find some frame of reference to explain the basics of flight. Then, he would have to outline the mechanics of how the engine works. As amazing as it would sound, the jet would be invented about thirty years later."