I dont know if any of you are aware of the John Titor Forum incident in November 2000 where he claimed to be a time traveler from the year 2036? But i was wondering what were peoples views on him?


http://www.johntitor.com/ You can read all about him there and choose for yourselves.

Fake. There has been numerous threads on this.

sorry im new LOL

Yes, he's been done to death, actually. Use the 'search' function on Titor and it will bring up quite a few threads.

You'll also run into several threads started by the hilarious 2055 in your hunt, sort of a Titor wanabee.....although he publicly outed himself after he got tired of trying to convince himself.

I'm going to move this to a more appropriate section.

Thanks alot hahahaha i will do that thanks!

Hello everyone,

I believe in time travel. And if you believe in time travel then you have to believe that we are being visited now. But Mr. Titor's claim I doubt. After all, even if you believe in time travel no one really knows to what extend you could interact with the past. And, if it were happening, what would be the rules for interacting with the past--maybe none--maybe there would be rogue travelers that go by no rules. I have not read a lot of his claims, but some of what I read there is absolutely nothing that anyone could have done about it. So, what is he trying to do - prove he is a time traveler?

If you stay up to date with current events, have some knowledge of history and have an above average understanding of human nature you can foresee the effect if you know the cause. For example, if I tell you there is going to be an earthquake in Los Angeles on July 16th at 9:31 pacific time and it happens----that is truly amazing-- but, if I tell you that the financial markets in the United States will be at their lowest at the end of 2008 and many people will be affected by this this isn't prophecy or someone from the future giving the forecast, it is logical deduction of the facts at hand, that could happen, at what ever scale - bad to severe-

I wish it were true he was a time traveler. I would eat my words. But, I think not.
Just my opinion.

seax

The idea of john Titor reminds me of the 'Doctor' (Doctor Who). He caim from the future to help, but, he is stupid and less cool and less actiony.

hmmm how is it if that man is telling the truth??? i dont really take sides
but what if?

What if monkeys flew? What if I won the lottery? We can what if all day long. It doesn't get us anywhere.

This is the first I've heard of him, but he's lying. It is obvious he's just trying to get attention.

Talk is cheap, I want action. If he presents tangible evidence (technology from the future, a precise prediction which comes true) I'll believe him, but at this point there's no proof either way so it's best to just follow Occam's Razor... what's more likely? A time traveler came from the future and told everyone of his existence, possibly endangering the existence of his family and friends in the future, or a man with a mental disorder decided to share his delusions on the internet?

The guy was a genius. The story was preposterous but it held together.

This is almost as remarkable a feat in our time as a time machine of the future.

I agree with you cladking to keep going for so long and not get bord is amazing in itself! LOL

Or it was an elaborate hoax, which is what it was confirmed to be.

His thing was absolutely BS.

My favorite part would be..

In my 2012, I was 14 years old spending most of my time living, running and hiding in the woods and rivers of central Florida. The civil war was in its 7th year and the world war was three years away. Yes, there are unusual events in 2012 but they do not cause the world to end. Unfortunately, I have decided not to discuss events that you or I can do anything about. It is important that they be a surprise. Perhaps you are familiar with the story of the Red Sea and the Egyptians?

Which means there was a civil war in the US last year?

im not trying to put a dampener on everyone's day on this John-Titor-was-a-fraud business, but if he really was a time traveller, his coming back in time may have changed (his) history so that that civil war never happened.
this is the problem with historical events.... they can only be definitively said to have happened once they have happened. but u can't definitively say something has been prevented from happening coz of the unknown element.......

a simple example : if i want to drive from Dublin to Cork, I can't be definitley sure I will get there, but if I get there, I can definitley say i am there..

To prove or disprove time travel, u need better proof than recorded history, coz current events change all the time, altering what "might" be regarded as history..

Min x

Sadly, though, that particular possibility:

a) is indistinguishable from its rather more likely counterpart, i.e. that it was a funny joke, and
b) doesn't tally with his idea that he was careful not to alter this timeline too much

Nothing he predicted has yet come to pass, he's missed a few rather important events that've happened in the last seven years, and the only thing he did seem to have going for him (i.e. his obscure knowledge about that IBM computer from 1975) wasn't unknown, but rather was actually published in several places.

Of course the nature of this sort of claim is that he may have altered the timeline sufficiently that none of his predictions would be valid any more, but that's rather convenient, wouldn't you say? Hardly evidence in his favour. Also he himself claimed that it was not so, since he was careful not to later the timeline in any appreciable way!

I do think you are just making excuses though. Have you seen on the website where they take his vague foretellings and link them to events and proudly wear them as proof? You can't have it both ways.

u're both right, of course. i'm just playing devils advocate here... jeez I dont even believe that u could travel in time. but someone has to argue the other side of the coin.
if i'm understanding right in what i've been told, there's nothing in physics, real or theoretical that says time travel can't happen, but just that it requires technology and co operation and funding and insight that we dont have just as yet.... so.... if its physically / theoretically possible but can't be done, who can really say what would happen if and when it were done ? Did Wilbur and Orville predict the sonic barrier when he first flew ? If a person could travel in time, would the travelling in time alter the 'present' that his ancestors knew ? We can discuss it theoretically till we're blue in the face, but who really knows ?

Fer me, Titor makes a holy show of hisself by choosing to tell the world about it through a website forum !!! there must be 100 better ways to tell folks about something as important as time travel..

btw i thought i heard every Irish joke going, but i don't know which one u mean !!

Minny xx

A clever hoax - by invoking the multiple timeline idea he could explain away all the predictions he made which didn't come true (they happened in his timeline but not ours) without falsifying his story. But, of course, by making his account unfalsifiable he also made it impossible to prove he was he who said he was either - an interesting paradox should there ever be a genuine time traveller!

Quite - which is why any claim must be discussed on its own merits only, since it would be impossible to find a fully satisfactory theoretical reason why it is or is not possible.

And this one quite clearly falls down on its own merits, as it were!

I do think it's quite good SF though - I did enjoy reading the website when I first saw it. Quite imaginative and not very badly done, at least!


Well, yeah, would a time traveler really join a message board to do his thing? Well, maybe there are possible reasons, but it's all a bit 'convenient', isn't it.


Irish joke? Must have missed that!

what if you say what if? and do something that will fill your curiosity.....
hehe

actually i dont believe Titor like i dont believe monkeys do fly, but what if?

why do people talk about time travel and dont believe on what they are talking???

Umm not to get all nerdy and anal or anything but the Doc is an alien being known as a time lord, his super advanced tardis not only could traverse time but space as well.

==

John Titor is a liar most definately.

regardless of its truth i found the posts he made thouroughly entertaining and i found it interesting at the very least as a thought experiment, did make me think about things.
also if u adhere to the many worlds/worldlines theory then there is a reality where he is actually a time traveller and also one where he is just some pretty clever guy with a lot of time on his hands.
i tend to think it was just an interesting experiment but it kept me entertained for a bit and made me think. also reminded me of the conversations with god books for sum reason.

If they did, I would make them my minions.
fly my pretties!


Yeah, did you miss it?

hmm..wonder is theirs any little kids with that names right now haha

The problem with that is that if his time-travel did in fact prevent the civil war, then the "original" Titor wouldn't have known about the/a civil war, because he himself prevented it.

Original Titor (the child) runs around in the forests after the war.
Time-travel Titor goes back in time (to before the war) and prevents it from happening somehow.
So when Original Titor is born, there was never a civil war, so he could not have ran around in the forest thinking about the war, because it didn't happen.

aaargh my brain hurts.

Ahhh but...

Titor subscribes to the 'many worlds' possibility of time travel, and so would contend that we are in a different 'time stream' to his own. That's why he claims not to be too bothered about ruining the future, since it's not his future he's ruining. All he's not supposed to do is ruin the big things or the surprises, for reasons unelaborated.


Mine too... think how he felt having to think all this up!

at what point does the present become the past and the future become the present ? who decides what is the past and what is the present and what is the future ?

to Shakespeare, we are in the future and he is in the present, but to Chaucer, Shakespeare is in the future along with us. To us they're both in the past.

Most people seem to think that the past is set because its happened and the future is changable, because it hasn't happened yet. "i'll decide what to do tomorrow, my life is up to me and what I want to do, i'll do" ........ but if the past, present and future all rely on the perspective of a person experiencing them, what exactly is the 'past' 'present' and 'future' and could any of them be changed at all ?

I don't think so, but wonder what u all think ?

Min xx

well i remember in a book i read about him when he visitied in early 90's or late 80's.
don't quite remember seeing that i was what... in grade four? LOL.
so that's not his first time contacting the 'past' people.
whether he's telling the truth or not, i don't think it would matter that much since he's from a different 'worldline'.

Well I've followed the Titor case myself some years now and still have not concluded if I believe it was real or a hoax. I have not seen any evidence towards either, no people have come forth and said they were behind it nor have anyone been verified to be behind it by anyone else to my knowledge. I know a book was sold retelling the story, and I know an amateur movie was made about it, but I don't think either of these were linked to the person behind the Titor story, at least I've not seen any evidence towards that.

At least one thing is for sure, whoever was behind it had great scientifical knowledge and if it was a hoax it was quite an elaborate one, I particularly found the manual for the time machine itself interesting as this shows that whomever made it had more knowledge than most people in regards of physics etc.

I did consider it perhaps was a group of people involved in making up the story, for some future commercial purpose such as a movie etc but that never happened, except for the amateur movie mentioned above which was to all my knowledge only inspired by the event and had nothing to do with the person(s) behind the story itself.

If it was a hoax I wonder what purpose it had as he did disappear exactly on the time he had said long time before, and never came back to get more "fame" etc after that, nor have their been any other obvious reason for making such an elaborate hoax if that is what it was. A lot of time and effort must have been put into it, making all that manual, photos, coming up with the whole story and keep going on for such a long period of time etc.

I must admit I found it a bit funny/peculiar that his time machine was actually a car just like in the Back to the Future movies

And yes he made a lot of predictions that so far did not come true but we still got some years left to see about the rest of them, and also have to take in consideration both the possibility that the timeline was changed, and also that he possibly came from a parallel timeline/universe more different to this one than what he thought. Also, he did admit he was working for the governments, so if he was real, he could have come up with some things that were not true on purpose for various reasons. Of course he could have done that even if he wasn't working for the government but still real as well.

What I DO know however is that time travel IS possible as I've done it myself, and the way I did it confirms his multiple timelines/parallel universes claim, so I also know that part is real. And because of this, and the fact I have not seen any evidence that he was a hoax, I'm open for the possibility that he was for real, but as stated that is something I do not know nor really have made any opinion about.

When it comes to my own time travel experiences I think I've written about them here before so I'm not gonna get into that now, besides that's not what this current thread is about anyway and even if it was I'm too tired to write more at this moment =)

-EA