May 25, 2026 • 55 mins
From 1998 to 2001, a man claiming to be visiting our "world-line" on a mission from the year 2036 enthralled a corner of the nascent internet with his explanations of time travel, the world of the future, and the wars to come. While few of his "predictions" came true, his story remains haunting -- who was this enigmatic early forum poster? Why did he claim time ended in 2564? How did he know so much about early computers? And where, or when, did he go?
SOURCES
https://rileyraccoon.substack.com/p/time-travel-tales
https://vimeo.com/11661023
https://web.archive.org/web/20170622161305/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11945420/Who-was-John-Titor-the-time-traveller-who-came-from-2036-to-warn-us-of-a-nuclear-war.html
https://www.discoveryuk.com/mysteries/john-titor-the-internets-most-mysterious-time-traveller/
https://web.archive.org/web/20260102173511/https://www.postbulletin.com/rochester-magazine/john-titor-who-was-the-time-traveler-that-visited-rochester
https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/john-titor-time-traveler-predictions-story
https://johntitorresearch.wordpress.com/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Folks, it's a hug.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
I have seen when us to see the Welcome to Hoax,
a podcast about the lies we wish.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Were true and truths that sound like lies.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm the ghost of Danish Wartz.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
And I'm the evil twin of Luzzy Logan. Welcome to
the show, Dana. What do you know about time travel?
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I'm kind of a time travel nerd in terms of
like versions of time travel that exist in movies, like
is it the back to the future model where you
can affect the future or is it like a multiverse version?
So I do like the thought experiment of time travel.
I don't think it is real in any way that
(00:56):
makes sense. I'm sure it's like real on a physic level,
like something about particles, but I don't That's that's what
I think about time travel totally.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
So. The astrophysicist Stephen Hawking once posed a very like
astute question, which is, if time travel is possible, where
are all the time travelers?
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah, it's very funny. Well that's because there's different versions
of time travel exactly. You know, so, and I.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Don't know if you know this, but in two thousand
and nine, he hosted a party for time travelers huh,
and then but he didn't send out the invitations until
the next day, with the logic being that since no
one showed up, time travel is impossible. That's very that
is funny, And that was like I thought, like a
good little sort of gotcha experiment until just recently people
(01:40):
have been like, that experiment is now disproven because Stephen
Hawking is mentioned in the Epstein Files, and so people
are like, well, that's why none of the time travelers
showed up to his party is because time travelers don't
want to hang with Stephen Hawking.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I mean fair, I wouldn't want to hang out with
someone in the Epstein file. So that's that's very funny, isn't.
So someone really unobjectively cool needs to do that experiment,
like Jane Goodall, yeah, you know, like well you know.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, or like Steve Irwin back in the day.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah, yep, someone just like be everyone who would want
to hang out with him. Steve Arwin is a great
poll because like, you're problematic King, I wouldn't want to
hang out with Steve her one exactly.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
So this is the story of potentially a different time traveler.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Great.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
So in nineteen ninety eight, there's a radio host named
Art Bell and he hosts a talk show called Coast
to Coast AM.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I just want to interrupt. I feel like every episode
now we've been having a little Arthur cameleo. I hope
there's there's so many Arthurs.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
I listen back and I didn't even clock. In our
Anastasia episode, you mentioned someone named Arthur, and then you
went first Arthur of the episode, and I didn't even
like hear it when you said it in real life?
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Is there so many Art Bell?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I have a little new drinking game. Yeah, okay, So
radio host named Art Bell first Arthur first, an lastar
of this episode. He hosts Coast to Coast AM, and
he occasionally has a segment called Open Timelines, which is
if you're a time traveler, you can call in and
he gets a fax Ooh and it's pretty long. But Dana,
(03:16):
I'm going to have you read the whole thing. I'll
do if you would be so generous in an accent
or just no. I mean it's a fact, so there's
no voice.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I just if you want me to get into.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Character, no, please do whatever you want art.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I had to facts when I heard other time travelers
calling in from any time past the year twenty five
hundred AD. Please let me explain. Time travel was invented
in twenty thirty four offshoots of a certain successful fusion reactor.
Research allowed scientists at CERN to produce the world's first
contained singularity engine. The basic design involves rotating singularities inside
(03:56):
a magnetic field. By altering the speed and direction of rotation,
you can travel both forward and backward in time. Time
itself can be understood in terms of connected lines. When
you go back in time, you travel on your own
original timeline. When you turn your singularity engine off, a
(04:16):
new timeline is created due to the fact that you
and your time machine are now there. In other words,
a new universe is created. To get back to your
original line, you must travel a split second further back
and immediately throw the engine into forward without turning it off.
Some interesting outcomes of this are One, you meet yourself.
(04:39):
I have done it often, even taken a younger version
of myself along for a few rides before returning myself
to the new timeline and going back to mind. Two,
you can alter history in the new universe that you
have created. Most of the time, the changes are subtle.
Sometimes I'll notice car models that don't exist, or books
that come out late. The oldest one was a skyscraper
(05:02):
that wasn't built in a near favorite store of mine
in New York. Built in a near favorite store. I
think it's near a near our favorite store. Interestingly, when
you travel in time, you must compensate for the orbit
of the Earth. Since the time machine doesn't move, you
have to adjust the engines so you remain on the
planet when you turn it off. Unfortunately, it was also
(05:25):
discovered that anyone going forward in time from my twenty
thirty six hit a brick wall in the year two
five hundred and sixty four. Everyone who has ever been
there has reported that nothing exists. When the machine is
turned off, you find yourself surrounded by blackness and silence. Now,
most time travelers are trying to find out where the
(05:47):
line went bad by going into the past, creating a
new universe, and proceeding forward to see if the same
thing results. In twenty five sixty four, it appears the
line went bad around the year two thousand. I'm here
now in this time to test a few theories of
mine before going forward. Now for the future, you might
(06:08):
want to know about. One. Y to k is a disaster.
Many people die on the highways when they freeze to
death trying to get to warmer weather. Oh No. Two.
The government tries to keep power by instituting martial law,
but all of it collapses when their efforts to bring
the power back up fail. Three. A power facility in
(06:29):
Denver is able to restart itself, but is mobbed by
hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed. This convinces most
that maybe we shouldn't bring the old system back. Four.
A few years later, a communal government system is developed.
After the constitution takes a few twists, China retakes Taiwan
(06:49):
Israel when the largest battle of its life, and Russia
is covered in nuclear snow from their collapsed reactors. Art.
The reason I'm here now is because I believe a
nuclear weapon set off by Iraq in the Middle East
war with Israel might have something to do with the
damaged timeline. I will test that theory and get back
(07:10):
to you. Please pray we have discovered the reason why
there's no apparent future after twenty five sixty four, and
what year was this? What year is this? Art Bell
Radio show.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Happening nineteen ninety eight?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Okay, so Dana, just like, what do you think of that?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
It seems like a great sci fi premise?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
That was my response to, Like, what an incredible piece
of short fiction, What a great short fiction, What a
story I would love to read?
Speaker 1 (07:37):
What a well thought out a nerd psychological experiment?
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, and like what a cool like you know Arrival
is based on, like a short story. Yeah, like people
you know nowadays sort of write fiction from as a
blog or whatever. I'm like, this is like such a
cool piece of short fiction delivered in an unusual media.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Can we option this fact sent to art Bell in
nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Potentially it feels very.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Terminator, where it's like the future is gonna go wrong,
we have to send someone back to figure out where
and how it went wrong.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yes, Terminator at this point had come out, Yes, and
had absolutely been seen by whoever wrote that facts.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
But I'm saying, like I feel like I can smell
the Terminator ideation happening. It also reminds me of Titanic,
a twist and time Titanic something there was a via
the computer PIEC game where you have to go back
in time to the Titanic to stop World War two.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yes, which is an incredible just like piece of media
that we don't really have time to talk about right now,
but just look it up if you don't know what
it is. Yeah. So a few nights later, Art gets
another message, so he like, read that on the air.
He reads that on the air with a bit of commentary,
and a few nights later he gets another message that
(09:04):
I'm going to read just like a slightly condensed version
of because this one is like, Hey, I'm sending you
another message, and I didn't want it to get lost
in the shuffle, so I'm adding a gift. And I
tried to message you before, and here's my contact infoh
blah blah blah. So it says, dear mister Bell, I
(09:25):
sent a fact with this opening on July twenty ninth,
nineteen ninety eight. As I said, then, I am a
time traveler. I've been on this world line since April
of this year, and I plan to leave soon. Typically,
time travelers do not purposely affect the world lines they visit. However,
this mission is unusually long, and I've grown attached to
some of the people I've met there. Met here for
(09:48):
my own reasons, I have decided to help this worldline
by sharing information about the future with a few people
in the hope that it will help their future. I
am contacting you for the same reason. Unfortunate, there is
no historical reference to your program in my worldline. I
believe you can change your future by creating one. Now,
some of the information presented on your program may be
(10:11):
invaluable to upline researchers. I suggest you isolate the programs
that concentrate on military technology and new physics theories. Transcribe
these programs and put them someplace safe away from the box.
I recommend someplace in the Midwest. I also urge you
to reconsider your paranoia to the Russians. They are not
(10:32):
preparing for war with the average US citizen. They are
preparing for war with the US government. They will eventually
save this country and the lives of millions of Americans. Oh, now,
I realize my claims are a bit difficult to accept,
so I will send the following ones. I know you
have received this facts a few pages from the operations
manual of my time machine and a few colored photographs
(10:53):
of my vehicle. If you wish to contact me, I
will be happy to share with you the nature of time,
the physics of time travel, and some of the events
of your future. So he's basically restating what he said before,
promising to send along some information once he knows that
like they've maintained contact, and he's again sort of saying,
like some of the predictions he said before, But the
(11:14):
voice is a little bit different. It kind of sounds
like someone else is writing.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
It also kind of sounds like a like a Russian syop.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
A little bit. It It just it's weird, Like it's
less specific.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
It's not it's less funny. I guess it wasn't funny.
That quite as funny, but it's less specific. It's less
like matter of fact, less voicy.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Yeah, it's less voicy. And so already we have like
is this sent by the same person?
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, And of course if he had read the first
one on the air, there could be anyone pretending to
be that guy again. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
I mean, if you know how a fact works, kind
of easy to dupe a facts.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
It was arn't a political radio show?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Oh I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Well, that's why it's so interesting that it's anyone who
would be doing like a time travel segment feels like
they wouldn't be doing like serious analysis of war with Russia.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
No, it's it's more about like, ooh, what's going to
happen in the future.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yeah, So we're jumping ahead to November two thousand, Okay,
so this is five years before Lonely Girl fifteen, which
we talked about in a different episode. The Internet. I
don't know how to calculate how big the actual Internet is,
but in terms of people who are people who have
(12:34):
access to the Internet, it's roughly six percent of the
people who now have access to the Internet. So the
Internet is like really small, which I'm saying because I
had never ever heard of this story, but it was
a very big deal on the Internet, which was possible
because the Internet was really small.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
It was a very specific community of people.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
So you could be very famous on the Internet and
not be very famous because it was like the Internet
was still a niche thing.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, you know what I mean. Yes, it's like.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Being locally famous because the Internet was a very small town.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
It's like someone who was vine famous, yes, Like you're like, oh,
I was famous on vine and you're like, Okay, that
means nothing to me, but to a very specific group
of people it does mean something.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Yes, the people who are on the Internet in November
two thousand are creative nerds who are interested in research
and emerging technologies. And we are also not too far
after Y two k, which is gonna come up.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
But y two k, if it's November already, it already
didn't happen.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Right, But we're not too far away from it. This
is what I'm saying. Sure, still top of mind for
some people. There is a website called appropriately time Travel
Institute dark Ball Okay, which hosts forum for time travel enthusiasts.
This is back in the days of forums, where it
was like there was no centralized hub for the Internet.
If you wanted to talk about something, you had to
(13:59):
go find a four about that thing.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
The good old days.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Ye, people are posting their theories and discussing various problems
with time travel, like you talked about like different ways
that maybe time travel works, And they're talking about something
called the grandfather paradox.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Sure, which is like if you meet your grandfather and
affect him, then he won't have you, and so you
never existed, and so how could you go back in
time to affect your grandfather exactly?
Speaker 3 (14:24):
I mean the example they use is like, if you
kill him.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Oh, kill him, Yeah, I was being nice and you
would affect him, being like don't marry that lady.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, Like if you prevent your own birth, then you
can't go back in time to prevent your own birth.
And one user comments that, like, a way around this
paradox is exactly what you said, which is the multiple
world's idea, which is that just if you go back
in time and kill your grandfather, then you continue living
in a world where you are not born as a baby,
(14:54):
but you exist as an adult. But in the old
timeline that you left, your grandfather continues to live, but
you have now.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Like exited multiple timelines.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah, there's just now two timelines. And a user who
goes by time travel underscore zero. So time travel zero
comments and is like, Yep, that's exactly right. I'm from
twenty thirty six and that's how time travel works. And
time travel zero is going to comment here and on
the art bell forums just under six hundred times over
(15:25):
the next few months, and he's going to reveal his
name to be John Titor Tito R. Some people pronounce
it titter, some people pronounce it.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Teeter, tight, or some sumes right.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
I think tighter makes the most sense. Tighter is a
real American last name. But it's also speculated that like
this is just his like online username. It also like
could be short for time travel ore or terminator.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Again, his username is time travel zero, Like, yeah, he's
really not trying to be subtle about this.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Well no, he says I'm a time traveler from twenty
thirty six. Yeah, this is not yeah, and he doesn't
say I faxed art Bell. But people who remember those
factses are like, oh, these details match up. This is
the same person. It's speculated now that a few different
people might have been posting using this same like login information.
(16:19):
But I'm going to present the information that he reveals
in the order that makes sense to me. Yeah, not
in the order that he revealed it, Okay, because again,
he posted like over five hundred times and he mostly
just answered questions about time travel, so we don't really
have time to get into everything he posted. But I'm
(16:40):
gonna just I'm gonna just tell his story and the
order that makes sense to me. Great, So John says
that he was born in nineteen ninety eight, So I
mean he was like the persona was born in nineteen
ninety eight.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
But so if he was literally born in nineteen ninety eight,
then he is both two and thirty.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Eight sure, because he came back from the twenty thirties.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
He came back from twenty thirty six. He says that
the beginnings of time travel are going to be discovered
at Cerne, the big large hadron collider in Switzerland, in
about a year.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Seems like a likely place.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
It does seem like the likeliest place. His explanation of
everything is like very grounded.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Well, that's what I like about it. It's you know
what it is. It's very like Andy Weir, the Martian.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
It's exactly. I mean, it's like.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Andy is this Andy Wheer.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
If Andy Weher wasn't inspired by this guy, I will
eat my hat.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yeah, because it's like very grounded, very plausible.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
One hundred percent. He's just looking at the state of
science today and going like, all right, where might we
be by twenty thirty six. Yeah, and then he says
that the first time machine will be built in twenty
thirty four by Gee.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Also again it's like, Yeah, what.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Who builds big machines ge And he says that he
works essentially for like the time travel Navy Seal. Like
He's like, I'm in the military and we do like
time travel special ops.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Great, that would exist.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
He says that his time machine weighs five hundred pounds
and it is installed in a Chevy, so very back
to the future. Yeah, but I think it's more like
that it's stored in a Chevy to make it easy
to transport. I don't think that like turning on the
car and driving it is part of how you work it. Sure,
he explains how you use it, and he uses he
(18:28):
uses the word like micro singularities a lot. It goes
through Einstein rosen bridges, which is a very fancy way
of saying a wormhole.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
It's this thing where I'm like, I don't know what
he means by microsingularity, but it does sound scientific.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
All of his explanations sound very scientific. He can't really explain,
like how you actually build a time machine at His
explanation for why he can't explain is he's like, I'm
basically an airline pilot, and if you asked an airline,
I'm pilot. He could basically tell you how the airplane works.
But that's different for being like an airplane engineer.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
I get it. I use a refrigerator every day. I
couldn't build a refrigerator, right.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
But and he's like, you can drive a car without
knowing how to build a car. Yeah, where he's like,
I operate this time machine. I basically know how it works. No,
I can't explain every single detail to you. But he's
basically on these forums doing like an Ama.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
They everybody just loves his explanation of the universe of
like how time travel works and how it also sort
of solves other mysteries because people are like, oh, UFOs
are visitors from other worldlines where humans are more technologically
advanced and look different.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I mean, that's a great explanation. I really like this
sci fi from.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Its Yeah, and they're like, oh, and like Bigfoot or
Mermaids are like that's places where the veil between different
world lines is thin and we're just like glimpsing other worlds.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, why not.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
It's really hard for me to tell if anyone like
quote unquote believes this. I think that it's mostly just
like people having fun on the.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Internet, but knowing the Internet, there are some people who
believe it.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Yeah, but like no one's going out and like looking
for him or like trying to build their time machine.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
No one's verifying this. It's almost like, like you said,
with like the very small Internet group, it becomes it's
like an inside joke among this small group of techie people.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Yeah, he has pictures which they look like nothing like
it looks like it looks like junk from your garage.
It looks like the proton packs and Ghostbusters where it's
just like a metal box with like a tube coming
out of it, where I'm like, I'm sure there is
an engine in there, but it just looks like nothing.
He's happy to answer questions, but he's not trying to
convince anyone to believe him.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Great.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
He even says that in twenty thirty six, there are
people who don't believe in time travel. And one of
my favorite things is that he's like he has like
a very dry humor and he's kind of snippy, and
if someone tries to stump him on trivia, he's like, oh,
so you're from the future, So like, who wins the
baseball game next month? He's like do you remember shit
that happened thirty years ago? And at one point he
(21:24):
writes a pretty sick burn, which is, perhaps I should
let you all in on a little secret. No one
likes you in the future. Aha, This time period is
looked at as being full of lazy, self centered, civically
ignorant sheep. That's perhaps you should be less concerned about
me and more concerned about that.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
That's very funny. Oh my god. Imagine a time traveler
from like a really like actualized human civilization coming back
to our timeline. Is that the premise?
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I mean, that's kind of what Phil of the Future was.
That's true when they came back and they're like, why
do you guys have wars so weird?
Speaker 1 (22:01):
I like that show.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
It was fun. He says that his worldline is two
point five percent different from ours, yeah, and that the
longer he stays in ours, the more different it's going
to get. So it should have roughly the same like
thirty year history between where he's from and what we're
(22:23):
experiencing now. To me, it more makes sense to think
of it not as like a two point five percent difference,
but almost like as a two point five degree angle
where it's like again, like this is just what makes
sense to me that like in two thousand, things will
be exactly the same, but like in two thousand and one,
they'll be a little farther apart, in two thousand and two,
they'll be a little more farther apart in two thousand
(22:45):
and three, just because like wouldn't it all be like
ripple effects.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, you know what I mean. So it's for it's
a compounding change.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Yeah, just because like if one person isn't born, that'll
change things a little bit, but then when their kids
aren't born, that would change things more. And when their
kids aren't born, that would change things more.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
What I also find kind of interesting and why this
time travel explanation is very plausible because it's like even
if he can't, let's say he does remember who won
the baseball game in his timeline, he's like, oh, yeah,
in two thousand and this person one. But he's like,
but me being in this timeline has affected reality, so
somehow butterfly effect, I don't know, somehow the game was different.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah, And again and it's only thirty six years, so
like there are plenty of people who are still alive,
Like in both worldlines and in both time periods. Yeah,
so it's not conceivably he should be able to like
check on a lot of this studies, you know, he says,
and he does give plenty of information about what's not
(23:48):
what's going to happen, but like what happened in his worldline,
and therefore what is likely to happen in hours, Like
what is you know, I guess ninety seven point five
percent going to happen. So he says that from around
two thousand and four to around two thousand and eight,
America will have a massive civil war where there are
like Waco like events every month, and we are going
(24:10):
to break up into five countries. And then in twenty
fifteen there will be a third World war with Russia
that includes nuclear bombs and three million people will die.
And after that, humanity kind of goes back to a
more primitive agrarian society. That kind of sounds like what
the conservative homesteader movement wants. Like everybody's growing their own food,
(24:32):
there's not a lot of medicine, people live close to
their families, and I religious.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
I read yesteryear this bad situation.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
I mean, the way he makes it sound like people
really are a lot happier.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
You know, I.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Personally don't want to learn to use a gun, but
like I would live with my family on a farm.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
You know what I will say is having a baby.
If my family was closed, that would be a big help.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
You know. I don't hate that.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Yeah, but I do like going to the grocery store.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Like kind of the grocery store cost of food could
come down. I get I get the vision.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
You get the vision.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
I get the vision.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
I like air conditioning too much.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
I think maybe the heavy they have the internet in
the future, so I think.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
So even though it's like an agrarian, more growing community,
they still have Uh.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
I would have to check the but I just think
they're not like it's it's less like sprawling cities and
more like small community.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
You know what, that's great. I don't mind that as
long as I can, you know, I would. I would
prefer medicine and air conditioning ideally if I could, if
I could send a request to the future.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Well you've got ten more years.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I'll work on it.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
He also mentions that the human four of mad cow
disease is gonna be a big problem, uh, which it
could be because food safety is really getting underfunded, and
that because of the Civil War, we're going to cancel
the Olympics.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Okay, I'm gonna jump.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Ahead for a sec. Some of his so again, he
has over five hundred posts, so he makes a lot
of predictions. Some are very specific, some are very vague.
Some of his predictions, in the fullness of time, have
come true. He does make a reference to like there
not being nukes in Iraq and how that was a
(26:11):
rumor to stir up a war.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Which I want to be clear as someone who was
alive back then, uh huh, that people were talking about
that not being true.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Right, but not necessarily in two thousand, this is pre
nine eleven.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Oh all right, all right, right interesting.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
He mentions sort of like a Lincoln like president that
people who are looking for evidence are like.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Well, Obama was from Illinois.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Yeah, like really into Lincoln. But the vast majority of
his predictions did not come true in any significant way. Yeah,
And as you pointed out, his sort of like get
out of logic free card is that by simply visiting
our timeline he made it diverge from his timeline. Yeah,
(26:57):
but the hoax only lasts a few months, and it
is a hoax, and it ends in March two thousand
and one. Hand says shit about nine to eleven, like
there are vague things that people then point to and
they're like, yeah, that was him warning us about nine
to eleven. No, he does not drop. He needed to
drop like a hint. He needed to say, like Mariah Carey,
(27:19):
your album is not gonna do well because of York.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Like it doesn't even sound like he was being like mysterious.
He was saying explicit things.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
He was saying explicit things, and there was one thing
he needed to warn people about and he did it.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
But maybe nine to eleven didn't happen in his timeline,
I guess. But like, yeah, feels like he should have
warned us.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Feels like he really should have warned us about that. Also,
I just think it's interesting that he says the Third
World War starts in twenty fifteen, because twenty fifteen is
also the year that they go to and Back to
the Future two.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Yeah, there's no war in Back to the Future too,
It's just people like to use that year as a
round number.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Futury year. There are three d sharks though so many.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Okay, back to the story, so online again people don't
have nine to eleven is a reference point.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
So they're like, hey, if you're a time traveler, why
aren't you out there stopping Pearl Harbor. Oh? Yeah, And
he's like, well, first of all, that wouldn't stop Pearl Harbor.
It would create another universe where Pearl Harbor didn't happen.
But in the universe that I came from, Pearl Harbor
still would have happened.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
And second of all, you don't even know about all
the things that I did stop because they didn't happen.
So think about that. But actually I didn't come to
the past to do any of that. I came to
the past to pick up a computer.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
One specific computer, or just a computer.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
A specific computer. He came to the past to go
to Rochester, Minnesota in nineteen seventy five to get an
IBM fifty one hundred, which was one of the first
quote unquote portable computers.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Hmm.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
And it weighs fifty five pounds, so it's not the
most portable, but like, it doesn't take up a whole room,
like you could put it in one in a car,
you could, yeah, you could in a car, or like
you could have it at home and then you could
like move it to your office for some time, and
he actually already did it. So he explained that he
completed that mission and then he's just stopping by two
(29:23):
thousand to hang out with his family, which I think
is adorable. I love that. But also a different explanation
than the one he gave to Art Bell, Yeah, which
is that he's hanging out to try to figure out
where a community went wrong.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
But he did say that he had grown fond of
loved one of people in this timeline.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
You know, his explanation keeps changing.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
But his family could be the people he's grown fond of.
I'm just saying, I just if you're hanging out with
your family, you would want to know where things went
wrong because indeed because you want to save them.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
So he says that he completed his mission in nineteen
seventy five and now he's just hanging out with his
family in two thousand, and I guess his two year
old self he's like picking up photos and just like
joined with his parents, and there's like a night there's
like a good time travel window that's going to open
up in a few months. I guess, like the you
know wormholes have to be.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Good solar flares.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Yeah, and so he's just killing time answering questions on
the internet until then.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
You feel like that would be against the rules. But
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
I didn't make the time travel steal rule, have no idea.
So to explain why he needs this computer, I do
think it would be helpful to talk about Y TWK.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Okay, so Y two K was not a hoax. Yes,
I've heard about it. I was a child at the time,
so I didn't know anything happening. But I've heard this, and.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
It's again it is similarly like you don't even know
about the things that didn't happen because they didn't happen,
and it's a hoax that people think it was a hoax.
And this is a new segment on our show called
Lizzie does a very bad job explaining computer programming.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
I can't wait. I know nothing about computer programming, so
it's gonna sound like a good explanation to me. No,
it's not.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Okay, early computers like not early as in like designed
by Steve Jobs. I mean like early, early, early, early,
like a little bit after Alan Turing, really big, big
room sized computers. Maybe half.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
I don't have a room size.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Don't come at me, commenters. They saved they saved time.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
No, this is so nervous to talk about computers.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
They saved memory by only using the last two digits
of the year. Yeah, because this was a considerable amount
of their memory.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah, they're they're compute, they're new computers.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
So the nineteen in like nineteen fifty four or whatever
was implied or not accounted for, so the year two
thousand would be indistinguishable from the year nineteen hundred. And
people noticed this, or people realized that this would be
a problem as early as the eighties. Sure, because on
Wall Street there are bonds that pay out over fifty years.
(32:06):
So if you buy such a bond in the eighties
and then you go to compute how much money someone's
going to have in fifty years, the computer would be like, oh,
that will pay you in nineteen thirty after existing for
negative fifty years.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Yeah, it wouldn't work. That's very funny.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
It would just go all the like the wheel would
go all the way around, and it would never hit
the year two thousand. It would just go right back
to nineteen thirty.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Negative money, negative.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Money, or like time over Yeah, money over negative time.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
So as we get into the nineties, more and more
systems are upgrading to avoid what's called the Y two
K bug, which is really just a series of potential
issues that are being grouped under the same umbrella of
being called the Y two K bug. It's not like
a computer virus that you can download. It's a bug,
meaning just like a flaw in the system.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
But even though this has been known about since the eighties,
they're kind of dragging their feet because no one's paying
them to fix it, Like there's no profit in fixing it.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
And there's no it does. It's not like there's an overarching,
like big world group being like everyone fixed this now,
which is also like the global warming problem.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
The only person who finally does it is Clinton.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Clinton makes everyone do it.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Well, he kind of spearheads, He's like, we should probably.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Do this, yeah, correct, Yeah, you gotta have a leader.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
And then people finally notice, and so some people do
stock up on toilet paper, and like that's what gets
the news talking about it, and that's what creates sort
of the hysteria that ends up not mattering, which is
why people now laugh at the quote unquote like, can
you believe people thought the world was going to end?
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah, people like I guess thought, oh, the planes will
fall out of the sky because all the systems will
go black.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Right, But it's like Y two K is actually a
really good example of hardworking people behind the scenes stopping
the planes from out of the sky and stopping the
nukes from going off. Like we laugh at the people
who stocked up on toilet paper, but we should be
applauding the hard working people who did the very unnglamorous
work of going in and adding little twos and zeros
(34:12):
to all the lines of codes.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Yes, thank you for your foresight and your effort and
preventing disaster.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
And it's like time travel in which we don't get
the timeline where things could have gone wrong because people
work to make it better exactly.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
And you'd think this would be the end of this segment,
but it's actually not. Sorry now okay, But you're probably thinking, like,
why is displaying the correct date important? You know, if
my computer that I'm looking at right now says the
wrong date, like my oven and my microwave always say
(34:48):
the wrong time, it doesn't matter. They still work as
an oven in a microwave.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Number one, a lot of other programs run based on
the time and the year. Number two. If one part
of your computer collaps, is a lot of other parts
of your computer can collapse. Number three. A lot of
times computer programs are built on top of each other.
So if the time in the date were like one
of the first parts that were built, it could be
(35:13):
what's called legacy code, which is like load bearing. Fourth.
I don't know, okay, I barely understood halt and catch fire,
but some stuff actually did crash, like cash registers and stuff,
and credit cards didn't work. And I don't know, but
I know. I tried to look this up and it
said that Y j K was almost a really big deal.
(35:34):
So just trust me, you know, it is really important.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
What happened was the computers. If they said nineteen hundred,
they're like, oh, computers didn't exist in nineteen They did
it exist it they just shut down.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Okay, So keeping all that in mind, yes, John Tier
was sent back to nineteen seventy five to get a
specific computer to avert something that is real.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
That is called the twenty thirty eight problem.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Oh, the twenty thirty eight problem, which.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Is another Y two K, that's gonna happen in twenty
thirty eight.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Why what is weird about twenty thirty eight? Is it
some sort of route? Yeah, okay, I actually understand it now.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
It's that's why it was important to talk about Y
two K. Okay, that is why people on the internet
in November two thousand would have been vaguely familiar with
why Y two K was important and what John Tier
would have been talking about when he said I had
to go back to nineteen seventy five to get an
IBM fifty one hundred because it's my mission to avert
(36:32):
the twenty thirty eight problem.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
And that's because something about memory.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
The Unix system U NIXAH is a thirty two bit system.
We don't make thirty two bit systems anymore. We run
everything on a sixty four bit system. But it is
a foundational type of computer that a lot of our
computers in the world, not like personal computers, but like,
you know, big computers that run like you know, the
(36:59):
lights the commuting system.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Ye.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Big computing systems are built on top of these old
Unix systems. They were programmed in the seventies. They don't
count the dates, They just count how many seconds it's
been since like nineteen seventy and they are going to
run out of space in January twenty thirty eight, and
(37:21):
I don't know what's going to happen. And I think
it's possible that nobody knows what's going to happen. They
might crash, Okay, hope.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
So I guess everyone's just sort of assuming either the
world will end or will have better systems in place
by then, and no one's doing anything.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
We still have twelve years, so we just need to
upgrade them. Okay, we just need to upgrade them in
the next twelve years, okay, or run some code, add
a little hard disk or whatever. If we upgrade to
sixty four bit systems, then we have like a billion
years or whatever. Like this is not a problem we're
ever going to have again. But the twenty thirty eight
(37:57):
problem if they call it the epoch, because it's like
an epoch in the Unix epoch, but it is like
a real thing. And it's also like using an old
piece of equipment to sort of like like a good
piece of equipment is a good piece of equipment, Like
I remember when I know this is just like going
all kinds of crazy tangents and we're just talking about
(38:18):
tech and not hoaxes. But I think it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
I find it fascinating. I don't know about any of this.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Remember when the ocean Gate thing happened and there were
those pictures about how they were using like a cable no,
the uh an Xbox controller?
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Oh yeah?
Speaker 3 (38:35):
And then but then all these engineers were like, what
Xbox makes a good controller? Yeah, It's like a good
piece of equipment is a good piece of equipment. So basically,
John Tier is like, listen, IBM made the best computer
to run a Unix system on. So my mission was
to go back to nineteen seventy five to get this
(38:56):
computer to go debug the computer in twenty thirty sex.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
It's like just plausible enough to work.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Yeah, it's like, why would you think that our tech,
just because it's from the future, would be better. A
good piece of equipment is a good piece of equipment.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
But it's like, in this situation, you've invented a time machine,
but you can't invent something to debug the twenty thirty
eight problem. But maybe this is their.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Solution, right, But people are pointing that out on the forums.
They're like dude, going back to nineteen seventy five Minnesota
seems like a lot of work. Surely you could just
find like a used computer someplace and like refurbish it. Yeah,
And he's like, bruh, I'm in the military. If they
say go back in time, I go back in time.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
And when guy is like, here, I have a question again,
like with the snarkiness, there's some snarky guy online who's like,
I have a question, why don't you refurbish an old model?
And do people in the future still wipe their buttholes
with toilet paper? And he's like, well, I need to
go back in time because I need some specific upgrades
to this computer, and so I need to be with
(40:02):
one of the original programmers of it, who you know
will be in nineteen seventy five. And yeah, we still
wipe our buttholes with toilet paper in the future, and
in the future there's still people who are weirdly obsessed
with buttholes. Guy on the internet.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Guy on the Internet trying to be funny.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Yeah, he's like, what I need is a brand new
IBM fifty one hundred, and I need one of the
original IBM fifty one hundred programmers, one of whom is
my grandfather. Oh, no big deal, because I need him
to help me trick it out.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
This is a real coming of age novel. You really
should have written.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
This adds some plot, and what you losers on the
internet don't know but I do, is that there's something
special about the IBM fifty one hundred. The guys who
programmed the software did it in such a way that
it's almost like a universal translator. It can talk to
all the other IBM systems of that era. Like it.
(40:58):
It's compatible with all the other IBM systems of that era.
So once I get it back to my time, I'm
going to be able to plug it into like all
the computers that I need to plug it into, I
won't have to go around finding all these other different
compatible those dongles. Yeah, I'm not gonna have to let
Yeah exactly, I'm not going to need adapters.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
And IBM didn't tell anybody about this because they thought
that maybe, like their competition would use it for I
don't know, some purpose or whatever. Like only twenty people
ever knew that this computer could do that, and it's
the only computer they ever made that could do that.
But it has this like secret function. So that's why
(41:40):
I have to go all the way back to nineteen
seventy five to make sure that it's this exact model.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Great, I believe it, Dana, it's true.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
What it's true.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
What this guy's grandfather I that was a program around this.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Researchers who have looked into the John Tighter hoax cut
down some of the guys who worked at IBM, and
they were like, yeah, I don't know how he knew that,
but yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Ah, it's true.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
They were like, I don't know whoever was posting on
those forums. I don't know if they knew jackshit about
time travel, but they knew a lot about IBM.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
This guy's grandfather was an IBM programmer.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
He was an IBM programmer.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Yeah, I have no evidence to that, but I'm like, yeah,
I love I love this.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
Yes, yeah, he doesn't talk the way a computer programmer talks.
He doesn't talk some the way someone from the future
would talk, but he knew that piece of information.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
My theory is that his grandfather was an original IBM
programmer and that I'm just gonna go with that. Yep,
I guess not grandfather, right.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
It's only twenty five years. He's not actually from twenty
thirty six, Dad, He's in the year two thousand. Yeah,
in March two thousand and one. He's like, cool, I
gotta go back to my time. My final piece of
advice is keep a can of gasoline in your car
in case you run out of gas on the side
of the road, and be.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Well, that's actually good advice.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
And he lugs off, and that's basically the end of
the hoax. It becomes like an internet urban legend.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
I've never heard of this. That's the crazy I mean.
And it's not crazy because I'm not like into forums,
but this is like so delightful it makes me really happy.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
There is kind of more, but like the way that
you know, the more you dig into Lonely Girl fifteen,
the more delightful it gets. The more you dig into
this kind of the less delightful it gets. Like there
are people who have claimed over the years to be
John Tighter, but then when you look into them, they
all have like criminal records for really gross things.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Wait, have we ever actually figured out who John Tighter was?
Speaker 3 (43:43):
No, and we can't disprove that he was a time traveler,
So this has not been officially debunked. Most people after
two thousand and four really stopped believing, because, like, say
what you will about the state of America, we are
not five different countries.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
That we did not kno would yet deal with a
civil war.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
No, it's unclear to me how many people really like
believed believed. There are a few like likely suspects for
people who have contributed to John Tighter or have been
John Tighter.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Yeah, especially given that it was like the Internet and
their fact machines. I'm like that seems like the first
person who sent the facts wouldn't have been the same
person writing all these things or the second, you know, message.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
I'm gonna throw out like my take which is I
want to just wait ten years and see if he
comes forward in twenty thirty six. Ah yeah, like it's
not that long.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
We said a reminder, Yeah, if our calendars, if our
phone calendar still work.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
Yeah, So that's like kind of my takeaway. But so
now I want to just talk about it as like
an amazing piece of fiction performance art with the Internet
as its medium and Nirvana the band, the show, the movie,
because it's all about going back in time to get
a piece of technology to make your time travel machine work,
(45:13):
and it's so good.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
I Lizzie told me to watch this movie called Nirvana
the Band, The Show the movie. I was not familiar
at all with Nirvana the Band the Show, like the
Canadian comedy show. But I watched this movie with no explanation,
no like you don't need to know, no expectations, and
I was genuinely delightful and amazing. I enjoyed it a lot. Yeah,
(45:36):
so you should also watch it and don't look, don't
look anything up about it. Just go in blind. I
guess know that time travel happens, but you're like, how
did they There's some scenes where I'm like, how did
they make this?
Speaker 3 (45:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (45:46):
And it really is amazing that they did.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
It really is.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
So the real time travel is people using art to
creating art.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
I mean, it's just like, I feel like the two
things are so linked because it's like using a simple
medium to do things that people just hadn't thought of before.
Of like oh, yeah, you could just film things out
of order in a really interesting way, or like oh
you could just use a forum to like basically write
(46:18):
a novel, like a collaborative novel. Almost.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
That's how I feel I'm like the fact that someone
first sent a facts in to a radio show and
just assuming this is the same person or the same
group project, that this group project sent this facts into
the radio show and then was like answering hundreds of
questions on forums. I'm like, what a brilliant, comprehensive, cohesive
(46:41):
piece of fiction that I find delightful that is now
like free and secret and wonderful.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
And I think it's like so fun because it's like,
I think we've all had the experience of reading a
book set in an alternate world and wishing we could
ask the characters a question. And sometimes you can then
like ask the author a question of like how does
this work? And you know, like you know, Tolkien wrote
like all of those things.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
K rolling was there a Jewish student brother.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
But it's like what if someone did a whole book
basically that was just the questions, you know what I mean,
just being like, oh, I have an idea of how
time travel might work, instead of trying to come up
with like a plot and characters and this and that.
Now that those things are bad, I'm saying it very dismissively,
but like what if it was, like what if I
just pop on the Internet and I just let people
(47:33):
decide what they want to know and like just take
questions and let that be the plot and just see
where that takes us. And like like just crowdsourcing a
whole novel's worth of information and like letting that Like
that's such a cool project.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
And you know what else I love about it is
it's not like this guy who or girl whoever they
were wrote their sci fi novel or wrote their screenplay,
was like I need to find James Cameron and give
him my screenplay and I need to be famous and
make my Like this stayed anonymous. They weren't looking for glory.
They just were doing it for the love of the game.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
Yeah, someone did eventually like trademarket and then try to
sell merch but like it kind of was a flop.
People have made there's like a documentary, like a quote
unquote documentary that is very you can't watch it anywhere,
but like then you know, people have made YouTube videos.
It's it's inspired a lot of then other art and like, yeah,
(48:33):
I just think like the spirit of it is very cool,
and other people have been inspired by the spirit of it,
and some have made money, but most have not, and like,
I don't know, like John Tider, it's cool. People who
are into him are cool.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
John Tider cool.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
And if you're into him, I would also recommend checking
out the word work of John Boyce Bois. He makes these.
He's made these like incredible websites for I think like
ESPN or Sports Illustrators. He made this one called like
Football in the Future.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
I love that. Do you remember the Future upon the future?
Speaker 3 (49:07):
Doesn't I have a John Tighter esque quality to it.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
Yes, there's like an our key.
Speaker 3 (49:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
I love people being creative for the love of the game. Yeah,
John Tider cool.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
I'm Tighter cool.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
I hope we get to meet it. Hey, John Tider
ten years from now, ten years from now, please seek
out either Danish Worts or Lazy Logan ideally both and say.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Hi, Dana, what would you do with a time machine?
But not like correct mistakes in your life, but like
what period of time would you go to and who
would you talk to and walk around and like if
you were in the you know the meme that's like
boys with a time Machine. I'm gonna punch my dad.
Girls with a time machine. I'm giving Zoe Loft to
Sylvia Part Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
I mean, this is the really boring answer is I'm
working on a novel right now that's set in the
Tudor period, and so I'm like deep in research and
if I could just like go back and just like
walk around for like ten minutes, it would really just
be like, oh no, none of my research would be necessary.
This would just be great and the most immersive book.
I think I would love. Tutor Era. I mean, this
is a very girl answer. Tutor Era versalles Napoleon. I'm
(50:10):
a Napoleon girly. Yeah, what about you, Lizzie Logan.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
Yeah, I think i'd like want to.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
I wouldn't want to change anything because it would I'm
a rule follower and.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
You're not supposed to change things. Yes, that's like every
you're not supposed to change.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
No, I would just be an anthropologist. I would just
want to want to be like, what did we get right?
And what did we get wrong about what it was?
Speaker 3 (50:30):
Actually like, I'm going to give just like such a
boring answer, like I need to know who killed Kennedy?
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Yeah, but here's my question. If you had a time machine,
how would you figure out who killed Kennedy?
Speaker 3 (50:41):
I mean I'd hide up in the book depository and
I'd spy on Lee Harvey Oswald see what he was
up to. I guess that is good. Maybe i'd be
on the grassy.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
No, that's see, it's like it's actually hard to solve
some of these mysteries even with historical hindsight. I guess Lee,
because Lee Harvey Osweld, you know, he when at least
fired a shot was up there. I guess you could
go to the Grassynol.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
Yeah, I guess I'd be hanging out on the Grassynol.
I'd hang out on the grass Enol. It's not a
bad answer, John Tighter, meet me on the grass Enol.
John Tighter, come find me, Take me to the Grassynol
in your time machine. I have questions. Hello, hoax listeners,
it's Lizzie doing time travel from a different point in
(51:29):
time when I'm recording without Dana because I felt like
I cut off the story at a weird point and
didn't give the full perspective. So I'm just popping in
with a little mini note. So, okay, if you're interested,
you can go online and look up who is John
Titor And there are two or three really good suspects
(51:53):
with a lot of evidence backing them up, but none
of those people have come forward and said yes, it
was me. And then there are a couple of people
who have come forward and said yes it was me,
but none of those people have evidence. So that's why
I didn't really go into any of the suspects because
I just don't think that they're that interesting. And then
(52:14):
there are also some, like I said, some weird digressions
you can go down, like people who have tried to
copyright his various plans for how a time machine works.
But those people are all really creepy, and this is
like basically a PG rated episode, But those people went
to jail for not PG rated crimes, so I just
(52:36):
didn't want to include them. But yes, there's a little
bit more to the hoax, but I decided to pause
the story there just for the sake of keeping it
like a fun episode. But if you're so inclined, you
can keep doing research where John Tidor would want you
to do research, which is the Internet. I also wanted
to say that for me personally, the part that really
(52:58):
like stuck in my head about the mystery is like,
why does just nothing exist? After a certain point, like
that's what I want the novel to like be about,
Like that's that's like the Twilight Zone episode that I
would watch and freak out about. And various people who
have looked into this story have come up with different
(53:22):
theories about why he picked the year twenty five hundred
and sixty four and what that number could mean. But
my personal theory is that it's from the Chicago song
twenty five or six to four. I think that that's
why he picked it. There's also a there's also a
rabbit hole you can go down about this woman Pamela,
(53:43):
who sort of had like an online love affair with
John Titor and apparently has a secret song that she
can use to identify John Titor if he reveals himself.
But again, it felt a little creepy because I think
maybe this woman was catfished. I think she believes in
this person, and I don't think that this person is
(54:04):
a real time traveler. But anyway, I just wanted to
pop in and say that because we hear it hoax,
try to give you the full fake story of the
real deal of people who make things up. Okay, back
to the episode.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
Bye. If you're a fan of this podcast. Please follow
us on Instagram at Folks the Podcasts the podcast. We're
not sure where the future future of this podcast will be,
but we will continue to make it as long as
you continue to want it, so follow the Instagram account
to get all that information. Email us at Hoax podcast
(54:41):
at gmail dot com. Follow me on Instagram TikTok danishwarts
with three z's. I don't know exactly when this episode
is coming out, but please buy the book The Arcane Arts,
which may already be out. If you like magical romantic
love stories.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
It's good and it's not for kids.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
It's not for kids. It's sexy magic. No time travel,
but sexy magic. Anything you want to plug Lizzie.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
I need a job if anybody, yeah, hire Lizzie. It's
a little bit underemployed right now.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
Well, thank you, thank you very much for listening.
Speaker 3 (55:14):
Please holks responsibly.
Speaker 1 (55:16):
Bye.
Speaker 3 (55:26):
Hoax is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our hosts are
Danish Schortz and Lizzie Logan. Our executive producers are Matt
Frederick and Trevor Young, with supervising producer Rima L. K
Ali and producers Nomes Griffin and Jesse Funk Our theme
music was composed by Laine Montgomery. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
(55:48):
your podcasts. Thanks for listening.
You're listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Folks, it's a hug.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
I have seen when us to see the Welcome to Hoax,
a podcast about the lies we wish.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Were true and truths that sound like lies.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm the ghost of Danish Wartz.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
And I'm the evil twin of Luzzy Logan. Welcome to
the show, Dana. What do you know about time travel?
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I'm kind of a time travel nerd in terms of
like versions of time travel that exist in movies, like
is it the back to the future model where you
can affect the future or is it like a multiverse version?
So I do like the thought experiment of time travel.
I don't think it is real in any way that
(00:56):
makes sense. I'm sure it's like real on a physic level,
like something about particles, but I don't That's that's what
I think about time travel totally.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
So. The astrophysicist Stephen Hawking once posed a very like
astute question, which is, if time travel is possible, where
are all the time travelers?
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah, it's very funny. Well that's because there's different versions
of time travel exactly. You know, so, and I.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Don't know if you know this, but in two thousand
and nine, he hosted a party for time travelers huh,
and then but he didn't send out the invitations until
the next day, with the logic being that since no
one showed up, time travel is impossible. That's very that
is funny, And that was like I thought, like a
good little sort of gotcha experiment until just recently people
(01:40):
have been like, that experiment is now disproven because Stephen
Hawking is mentioned in the Epstein Files, and so people
are like, well, that's why none of the time travelers
showed up to his party is because time travelers don't
want to hang with Stephen Hawking.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I mean fair, I wouldn't want to hang out with
someone in the Epstein file. So that's that's very funny, isn't.
So someone really unobjectively cool needs to do that experiment,
like Jane Goodall, yeah, you know, like well you know.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, or like Steve Irwin back in the day.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah, yep, someone just like be everyone who would want
to hang out with him. Steve Arwin is a great
poll because like, you're problematic King, I wouldn't want to
hang out with Steve her one exactly.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
So this is the story of potentially a different time traveler.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Great.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
So in nineteen ninety eight, there's a radio host named
Art Bell and he hosts a talk show called Coast
to Coast AM.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I just want to interrupt. I feel like every episode
now we've been having a little Arthur cameleo. I hope
there's there's so many Arthurs.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
I listen back and I didn't even clock. In our
Anastasia episode, you mentioned someone named Arthur, and then you
went first Arthur of the episode, and I didn't even
like hear it when you said it in real life?
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Is there so many Art Bell?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I have a little new drinking game. Yeah, okay, So
radio host named Art Bell first Arthur first, an lastar
of this episode. He hosts Coast to Coast AM, and
he occasionally has a segment called Open Timelines, which is
if you're a time traveler, you can call in and
he gets a fax Ooh and it's pretty long. But Dana,
(03:16):
I'm going to have you read the whole thing. I'll
do if you would be so generous in an accent
or just no. I mean it's a fact, so there's
no voice.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I just if you want me to get into.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Character, no, please do whatever you want art.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I had to facts when I heard other time travelers
calling in from any time past the year twenty five
hundred AD. Please let me explain. Time travel was invented
in twenty thirty four offshoots of a certain successful fusion reactor.
Research allowed scientists at CERN to produce the world's first
contained singularity engine. The basic design involves rotating singularities inside
(03:56):
a magnetic field. By altering the speed and direction of rotation,
you can travel both forward and backward in time. Time
itself can be understood in terms of connected lines. When
you go back in time, you travel on your own
original timeline. When you turn your singularity engine off, a
(04:16):
new timeline is created due to the fact that you
and your time machine are now there. In other words,
a new universe is created. To get back to your
original line, you must travel a split second further back
and immediately throw the engine into forward without turning it off.
Some interesting outcomes of this are One, you meet yourself.
(04:39):
I have done it often, even taken a younger version
of myself along for a few rides before returning myself
to the new timeline and going back to mind. Two,
you can alter history in the new universe that you
have created. Most of the time, the changes are subtle.
Sometimes I'll notice car models that don't exist, or books
that come out late. The oldest one was a skyscraper
(05:02):
that wasn't built in a near favorite store of mine
in New York. Built in a near favorite store. I
think it's near a near our favorite store. Interestingly, when
you travel in time, you must compensate for the orbit
of the Earth. Since the time machine doesn't move, you
have to adjust the engines so you remain on the
planet when you turn it off. Unfortunately, it was also
(05:25):
discovered that anyone going forward in time from my twenty
thirty six hit a brick wall in the year two
five hundred and sixty four. Everyone who has ever been
there has reported that nothing exists. When the machine is
turned off, you find yourself surrounded by blackness and silence. Now,
most time travelers are trying to find out where the
(05:47):
line went bad by going into the past, creating a
new universe, and proceeding forward to see if the same
thing results. In twenty five sixty four, it appears the
line went bad around the year two thousand. I'm here
now in this time to test a few theories of
mine before going forward. Now for the future, you might
(06:08):
want to know about. One. Y to k is a disaster.
Many people die on the highways when they freeze to
death trying to get to warmer weather. Oh No. Two.
The government tries to keep power by instituting martial law,
but all of it collapses when their efforts to bring
the power back up fail. Three. A power facility in
(06:29):
Denver is able to restart itself, but is mobbed by
hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed. This convinces most
that maybe we shouldn't bring the old system back. Four.
A few years later, a communal government system is developed.
After the constitution takes a few twists, China retakes Taiwan
(06:49):
Israel when the largest battle of its life, and Russia
is covered in nuclear snow from their collapsed reactors. Art.
The reason I'm here now is because I believe a
nuclear weapon set off by Iraq in the Middle East
war with Israel might have something to do with the
damaged timeline. I will test that theory and get back
(07:10):
to you. Please pray we have discovered the reason why
there's no apparent future after twenty five sixty four, and
what year was this? What year is this? Art Bell
Radio show.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Happening nineteen ninety eight?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Okay, so Dana, just like, what do you think of that?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
It seems like a great sci fi premise?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
That was my response to, Like, what an incredible piece
of short fiction, What a great short fiction, What a
story I would love to read?
Speaker 1 (07:37):
What a well thought out a nerd psychological experiment?
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, and like what a cool like you know Arrival
is based on, like a short story. Yeah, like people
you know nowadays sort of write fiction from as a
blog or whatever. I'm like, this is like such a
cool piece of short fiction delivered in an unusual media.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Can we option this fact sent to art Bell in
nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Potentially it feels very.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Terminator, where it's like the future is gonna go wrong,
we have to send someone back to figure out where
and how it went wrong.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yes, Terminator at this point had come out, Yes, and
had absolutely been seen by whoever wrote that facts.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
But I'm saying, like I feel like I can smell
the Terminator ideation happening. It also reminds me of Titanic,
a twist and time Titanic something there was a via
the computer PIEC game where you have to go back
in time to the Titanic to stop World War two.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yes, which is an incredible just like piece of media
that we don't really have time to talk about right now,
but just look it up if you don't know what
it is. Yeah. So a few nights later, Art gets
another message, so he like, read that on the air.
He reads that on the air with a bit of commentary,
and a few nights later he gets another message that
(09:04):
I'm going to read just like a slightly condensed version
of because this one is like, Hey, I'm sending you
another message, and I didn't want it to get lost
in the shuffle, so I'm adding a gift. And I
tried to message you before, and here's my contact infoh
blah blah blah. So it says, dear mister Bell, I
(09:25):
sent a fact with this opening on July twenty ninth,
nineteen ninety eight. As I said, then, I am a
time traveler. I've been on this world line since April
of this year, and I plan to leave soon. Typically,
time travelers do not purposely affect the world lines they visit. However,
this mission is unusually long, and I've grown attached to
some of the people I've met there. Met here for
(09:48):
my own reasons, I have decided to help this worldline
by sharing information about the future with a few people
in the hope that it will help their future. I
am contacting you for the same reason. Unfortunate, there is
no historical reference to your program in my worldline. I
believe you can change your future by creating one. Now,
some of the information presented on your program may be
(10:11):
invaluable to upline researchers. I suggest you isolate the programs
that concentrate on military technology and new physics theories. Transcribe
these programs and put them someplace safe away from the box.
I recommend someplace in the Midwest. I also urge you
to reconsider your paranoia to the Russians. They are not
(10:32):
preparing for war with the average US citizen. They are
preparing for war with the US government. They will eventually
save this country and the lives of millions of Americans. Oh, now,
I realize my claims are a bit difficult to accept,
so I will send the following ones. I know you
have received this facts a few pages from the operations
manual of my time machine and a few colored photographs
(10:53):
of my vehicle. If you wish to contact me, I
will be happy to share with you the nature of time,
the physics of time travel, and some of the events
of your future. So he's basically restating what he said before,
promising to send along some information once he knows that
like they've maintained contact, and he's again sort of saying,
like some of the predictions he said before, But the
(11:14):
voice is a little bit different. It kind of sounds
like someone else is writing.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
It also kind of sounds like a like a Russian syop.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
A little bit. It It just it's weird, Like it's
less specific.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
It's not it's less funny. I guess it wasn't funny.
That quite as funny, but it's less specific. It's less
like matter of fact, less voicy.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Yeah, it's less voicy. And so already we have like
is this sent by the same person?
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, And of course if he had read the first
one on the air, there could be anyone pretending to
be that guy again. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
I mean, if you know how a fact works, kind
of easy to dupe a facts.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
It was arn't a political radio show?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Oh I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Well, that's why it's so interesting that it's anyone who
would be doing like a time travel segment feels like
they wouldn't be doing like serious analysis of war with Russia.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
No, it's it's more about like, ooh, what's going to
happen in the future.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yeah, So we're jumping ahead to November two thousand, Okay,
so this is five years before Lonely Girl fifteen, which
we talked about in a different episode. The Internet. I
don't know how to calculate how big the actual Internet is,
but in terms of people who are people who have
(12:34):
access to the Internet, it's roughly six percent of the
people who now have access to the Internet. So the
Internet is like really small, which I'm saying because I
had never ever heard of this story, but it was
a very big deal on the Internet, which was possible
because the Internet was really small.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
It was a very specific community of people.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
So you could be very famous on the Internet and
not be very famous because it was like the Internet
was still a niche thing.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, you know what I mean. Yes, it's like.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Being locally famous because the Internet was a very small town.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
It's like someone who was vine famous, yes, Like you're like, oh,
I was famous on vine and you're like, Okay, that
means nothing to me, but to a very specific group
of people it does mean something.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Yes, the people who are on the Internet in November
two thousand are creative nerds who are interested in research
and emerging technologies. And we are also not too far
after Y two k, which is gonna come up.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
But y two k, if it's November already, it already
didn't happen.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Right, But we're not too far away from it. This
is what I'm saying. Sure, still top of mind for
some people. There is a website called appropriately time Travel
Institute dark Ball Okay, which hosts forum for time travel enthusiasts.
This is back in the days of forums, where it
was like there was no centralized hub for the Internet.
If you wanted to talk about something, you had to
(13:59):
go find a four about that thing.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
The good old days.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Ye, people are posting their theories and discussing various problems
with time travel, like you talked about like different ways
that maybe time travel works, And they're talking about something
called the grandfather paradox.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Sure, which is like if you meet your grandfather and
affect him, then he won't have you, and so you
never existed, and so how could you go back in
time to affect your grandfather exactly?
Speaker 3 (14:24):
I mean the example they use is like, if you
kill him.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Oh, kill him, Yeah, I was being nice and you
would affect him, being like don't marry that lady.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, Like if you prevent your own birth, then you
can't go back in time to prevent your own birth.
And one user comments that, like, a way around this
paradox is exactly what you said, which is the multiple
world's idea, which is that just if you go back
in time and kill your grandfather, then you continue living
in a world where you are not born as a baby,
(14:54):
but you exist as an adult. But in the old
timeline that you left, your grandfather continues to live, but
you have now.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Like exited multiple timelines.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah, there's just now two timelines. And a user who
goes by time travel underscore zero. So time travel zero
comments and is like, Yep, that's exactly right. I'm from
twenty thirty six and that's how time travel works. And
time travel zero is going to comment here and on
the art bell forums just under six hundred times over
(15:25):
the next few months, and he's going to reveal his
name to be John Titor Tito R. Some people pronounce
it titter, some people pronounce it.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Teeter, tight, or some sumes right.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
I think tighter makes the most sense. Tighter is a
real American last name. But it's also speculated that like
this is just his like online username. It also like
could be short for time travel ore or terminator.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Again, his username is time travel zero, Like, yeah, he's
really not trying to be subtle about this.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Well no, he says I'm a time traveler from twenty
thirty six. Yeah, this is not yeah, and he doesn't
say I faxed art Bell. But people who remember those
factses are like, oh, these details match up. This is
the same person. It's speculated now that a few different
people might have been posting using this same like login information.
(16:19):
But I'm going to present the information that he reveals
in the order that makes sense to me. Yeah, not
in the order that he revealed it, Okay, because again,
he posted like over five hundred times and he mostly
just answered questions about time travel, so we don't really
have time to get into everything he posted. But I'm
(16:40):
gonna just I'm gonna just tell his story and the
order that makes sense to me. Great, So John says
that he was born in nineteen ninety eight, So I
mean he was like the persona was born in nineteen
ninety eight.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
But so if he was literally born in nineteen ninety eight,
then he is both two and thirty.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Eight sure, because he came back from the twenty thirties.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
He came back from twenty thirty six. He says that
the beginnings of time travel are going to be discovered
at Cerne, the big large hadron collider in Switzerland, in
about a year.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Seems like a likely place.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
It does seem like the likeliest place. His explanation of
everything is like very grounded.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Well, that's what I like about it. It's you know
what it is. It's very like Andy Weir, the Martian.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
It's exactly. I mean, it's like.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Andy is this Andy Wheer.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
If Andy Weher wasn't inspired by this guy, I will
eat my hat.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yeah, because it's like very grounded, very plausible.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
One hundred percent. He's just looking at the state of
science today and going like, all right, where might we
be by twenty thirty six. Yeah, and then he says
that the first time machine will be built in twenty
thirty four by Gee.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Also again it's like, Yeah, what.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Who builds big machines ge And he says that he
works essentially for like the time travel Navy Seal. Like
He's like, I'm in the military and we do like
time travel special ops.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Great, that would exist.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
He says that his time machine weighs five hundred pounds
and it is installed in a Chevy, so very back
to the future. Yeah, but I think it's more like
that it's stored in a Chevy to make it easy
to transport. I don't think that like turning on the
car and driving it is part of how you work it. Sure,
he explains how you use it, and he uses he
(18:28):
uses the word like micro singularities a lot. It goes
through Einstein rosen bridges, which is a very fancy way
of saying a wormhole.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
It's this thing where I'm like, I don't know what
he means by microsingularity, but it does sound scientific.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
All of his explanations sound very scientific. He can't really explain,
like how you actually build a time machine at His
explanation for why he can't explain is he's like, I'm
basically an airline pilot, and if you asked an airline,
I'm pilot. He could basically tell you how the airplane works.
But that's different for being like an airplane engineer.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
I get it. I use a refrigerator every day. I
couldn't build a refrigerator, right.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
But and he's like, you can drive a car without
knowing how to build a car. Yeah, where he's like,
I operate this time machine. I basically know how it works. No,
I can't explain every single detail to you. But he's
basically on these forums doing like an Ama.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
They everybody just loves his explanation of the universe of
like how time travel works and how it also sort
of solves other mysteries because people are like, oh, UFOs
are visitors from other worldlines where humans are more technologically
advanced and look different.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I mean, that's a great explanation. I really like this
sci fi from.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Its Yeah, and they're like, oh, and like Bigfoot or
Mermaids are like that's places where the veil between different
world lines is thin and we're just like glimpsing other worlds.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, why not.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
It's really hard for me to tell if anyone like
quote unquote believes this. I think that it's mostly just
like people having fun on the.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Internet, but knowing the Internet, there are some people who
believe it.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Yeah, but like no one's going out and like looking
for him or like trying to build their time machine.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
No one's verifying this. It's almost like, like you said,
with like the very small Internet group, it becomes it's
like an inside joke among this small group of techie people.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Yeah, he has pictures which they look like nothing like
it looks like it looks like junk from your garage.
It looks like the proton packs and Ghostbusters where it's
just like a metal box with like a tube coming
out of it, where I'm like, I'm sure there is
an engine in there, but it just looks like nothing.
He's happy to answer questions, but he's not trying to
convince anyone to believe him.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Great.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
He even says that in twenty thirty six, there are
people who don't believe in time travel. And one of
my favorite things is that he's like he has like
a very dry humor and he's kind of snippy, and
if someone tries to stump him on trivia, he's like, oh,
so you're from the future, So like, who wins the
baseball game next month? He's like do you remember shit
that happened thirty years ago? And at one point he
(21:24):
writes a pretty sick burn, which is, perhaps I should
let you all in on a little secret. No one
likes you in the future. Aha, This time period is
looked at as being full of lazy, self centered, civically
ignorant sheep. That's perhaps you should be less concerned about
me and more concerned about that.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
That's very funny. Oh my god. Imagine a time traveler
from like a really like actualized human civilization coming back
to our timeline. Is that the premise?
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I mean, that's kind of what Phil of the Future was.
That's true when they came back and they're like, why
do you guys have wars so weird?
Speaker 1 (22:01):
I like that show.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
It was fun. He says that his worldline is two
point five percent different from ours, yeah, and that the
longer he stays in ours, the more different it's going
to get. So it should have roughly the same like
thirty year history between where he's from and what we're
(22:23):
experiencing now. To me, it more makes sense to think
of it not as like a two point five percent difference,
but almost like as a two point five degree angle
where it's like again, like this is just what makes
sense to me that like in two thousand, things will
be exactly the same, but like in two thousand and one,
they'll be a little farther apart, in two thousand and two,
they'll be a little more farther apart in two thousand
(22:45):
and three, just because like wouldn't it all be like
ripple effects.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, you know what I mean. So it's for it's
a compounding change.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Yeah, just because like if one person isn't born, that'll
change things a little bit, but then when their kids
aren't born, that would change things more. And when their
kids aren't born, that would change things more.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
What I also find kind of interesting and why this
time travel explanation is very plausible because it's like even
if he can't, let's say he does remember who won
the baseball game in his timeline, he's like, oh, yeah,
in two thousand and this person one. But he's like,
but me being in this timeline has affected reality, so
somehow butterfly effect, I don't know, somehow the game was different.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah, And again and it's only thirty six years, so
like there are plenty of people who are still alive,
Like in both worldlines and in both time periods. Yeah,
so it's not conceivably he should be able to like
check on a lot of this studies, you know, he says,
and he does give plenty of information about what's not
(23:48):
what's going to happen, but like what happened in his worldline,
and therefore what is likely to happen in hours, Like
what is you know, I guess ninety seven point five
percent going to happen. So he says that from around
two thousand and four to around two thousand and eight,
America will have a massive civil war where there are
like Waco like events every month, and we are going
(24:10):
to break up into five countries. And then in twenty
fifteen there will be a third World war with Russia
that includes nuclear bombs and three million people will die.
And after that, humanity kind of goes back to a
more primitive agrarian society. That kind of sounds like what
the conservative homesteader movement wants. Like everybody's growing their own food,
(24:32):
there's not a lot of medicine, people live close to
their families, and I religious.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
I read yesteryear this bad situation.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
I mean, the way he makes it sound like people
really are a lot happier.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
You know, I.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Personally don't want to learn to use a gun, but
like I would live with my family on a farm.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
You know what I will say is having a baby.
If my family was closed, that would be a big help.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
You know. I don't hate that.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Yeah, but I do like going to the grocery store.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Like kind of the grocery store cost of food could
come down. I get I get the vision.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
You get the vision.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
I get the vision.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
I like air conditioning too much.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
I think maybe the heavy they have the internet in
the future, so I think.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
So even though it's like an agrarian, more growing community,
they still have Uh.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
I would have to check the but I just think
they're not like it's it's less like sprawling cities and
more like small community.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
You know what, that's great. I don't mind that as
long as I can, you know, I would. I would
prefer medicine and air conditioning ideally if I could, if
I could send a request to the future.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Well you've got ten more years.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I'll work on it.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
He also mentions that the human four of mad cow
disease is gonna be a big problem, uh, which it
could be because food safety is really getting underfunded, and
that because of the Civil War, we're going to cancel
the Olympics.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Okay, I'm gonna jump.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Ahead for a sec. Some of his so again, he
has over five hundred posts, so he makes a lot
of predictions. Some are very specific, some are very vague.
Some of his predictions, in the fullness of time, have
come true. He does make a reference to like there
not being nukes in Iraq and how that was a
(26:11):
rumor to stir up a war.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Which I want to be clear as someone who was
alive back then, uh huh, that people were talking about
that not being true.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Right, but not necessarily in two thousand, this is pre
nine eleven.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Oh all right, all right, right interesting.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
He mentions sort of like a Lincoln like president that
people who are looking for evidence are like.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Well, Obama was from Illinois.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Yeah, like really into Lincoln. But the vast majority of
his predictions did not come true in any significant way. Yeah,
And as you pointed out, his sort of like get
out of logic free card is that by simply visiting
our timeline he made it diverge from his timeline. Yeah,
(26:57):
but the hoax only lasts a few months, and it
is a hoax, and it ends in March two thousand
and one. Hand says shit about nine to eleven, like
there are vague things that people then point to and
they're like, yeah, that was him warning us about nine
to eleven. No, he does not drop. He needed to
drop like a hint. He needed to say, like Mariah Carey,
(27:19):
your album is not gonna do well because of York.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Like it doesn't even sound like he was being like mysterious.
He was saying explicit things.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
He was saying explicit things, and there was one thing
he needed to warn people about and he did it.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
But maybe nine to eleven didn't happen in his timeline,
I guess. But like, yeah, feels like he should have
warned us.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Feels like he really should have warned us about that. Also,
I just think it's interesting that he says the Third
World War starts in twenty fifteen, because twenty fifteen is
also the year that they go to and Back to
the Future two.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Yeah, there's no war in Back to the Future too,
It's just people like to use that year as a
round number.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Futury year. There are three d sharks though so many.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Okay, back to the story, so online again people don't
have nine to eleven is a reference point.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
So they're like, hey, if you're a time traveler, why
aren't you out there stopping Pearl Harbor. Oh? Yeah, And
he's like, well, first of all, that wouldn't stop Pearl Harbor.
It would create another universe where Pearl Harbor didn't happen.
But in the universe that I came from, Pearl Harbor
still would have happened.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
And second of all, you don't even know about all
the things that I did stop because they didn't happen.
So think about that. But actually I didn't come to
the past to do any of that. I came to
the past to pick up a computer.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
One specific computer, or just a computer.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
A specific computer. He came to the past to go
to Rochester, Minnesota in nineteen seventy five to get an
IBM fifty one hundred, which was one of the first
quote unquote portable computers.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Hmm.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
And it weighs fifty five pounds, so it's not the
most portable, but like, it doesn't take up a whole room,
like you could put it in one in a car,
you could, yeah, you could in a car, or like
you could have it at home and then you could
like move it to your office for some time, and
he actually already did it. So he explained that he
completed that mission and then he's just stopping by two
(29:23):
thousand to hang out with his family, which I think
is adorable. I love that. But also a different explanation
than the one he gave to Art Bell, Yeah, which
is that he's hanging out to try to figure out
where a community went wrong.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
But he did say that he had grown fond of
loved one of people in this timeline.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
You know, his explanation keeps changing.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
But his family could be the people he's grown fond of.
I'm just saying, I just if you're hanging out with
your family, you would want to know where things went
wrong because indeed because you want to save them.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
So he says that he completed his mission in nineteen
seventy five and now he's just hanging out with his
family in two thousand, and I guess his two year
old self he's like picking up photos and just like
joined with his parents, and there's like a night there's
like a good time travel window that's going to open
up in a few months. I guess, like the you
know wormholes have to be.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Good solar flares.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Yeah, and so he's just killing time answering questions on
the internet until then.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
You feel like that would be against the rules. But
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
I didn't make the time travel steal rule, have no idea.
So to explain why he needs this computer, I do
think it would be helpful to talk about Y TWK.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Okay, so Y two K was not a hoax. Yes,
I've heard about it. I was a child at the time,
so I didn't know anything happening. But I've heard this, and.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
It's again it is similarly like you don't even know
about the things that didn't happen because they didn't happen,
and it's a hoax that people think it was a hoax.
And this is a new segment on our show called
Lizzie does a very bad job explaining computer programming.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
I can't wait. I know nothing about computer programming, so
it's gonna sound like a good explanation to me. No,
it's not.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Okay, early computers like not early as in like designed
by Steve Jobs. I mean like early, early, early, early,
like a little bit after Alan Turing, really big, big
room sized computers. Maybe half.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
I don't have a room size.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Don't come at me, commenters. They saved they saved time.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
No, this is so nervous to talk about computers.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
They saved memory by only using the last two digits
of the year. Yeah, because this was a considerable amount
of their memory.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah, they're they're compute, they're new computers.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
So the nineteen in like nineteen fifty four or whatever
was implied or not accounted for, so the year two
thousand would be indistinguishable from the year nineteen hundred. And
people noticed this, or people realized that this would be
a problem as early as the eighties. Sure, because on
Wall Street there are bonds that pay out over fifty years.
(32:06):
So if you buy such a bond in the eighties
and then you go to compute how much money someone's
going to have in fifty years, the computer would be like, oh,
that will pay you in nineteen thirty after existing for
negative fifty years.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Yeah, it wouldn't work. That's very funny.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
It would just go all the like the wheel would
go all the way around, and it would never hit
the year two thousand. It would just go right back
to nineteen thirty.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Negative money, negative.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Money, or like time over Yeah, money over negative time.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
So as we get into the nineties, more and more
systems are upgrading to avoid what's called the Y two
K bug, which is really just a series of potential
issues that are being grouped under the same umbrella of
being called the Y two K bug. It's not like
a computer virus that you can download. It's a bug,
meaning just like a flaw in the system.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
But even though this has been known about since the eighties,
they're kind of dragging their feet because no one's paying
them to fix it, Like there's no profit in fixing it.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
And there's no it does. It's not like there's an overarching,
like big world group being like everyone fixed this now,
which is also like the global warming problem.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
The only person who finally does it is Clinton.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Clinton makes everyone do it.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Well, he kind of spearheads, He's like, we should probably.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Do this, yeah, correct, Yeah, you gotta have a leader.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
And then people finally notice, and so some people do
stock up on toilet paper, and like that's what gets
the news talking about it, and that's what creates sort
of the hysteria that ends up not mattering, which is
why people now laugh at the quote unquote like, can
you believe people thought the world was going to end?
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah, people like I guess thought, oh, the planes will
fall out of the sky because all the systems will
go black.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Right, But it's like Y two K is actually a
really good example of hardworking people behind the scenes stopping
the planes from out of the sky and stopping the
nukes from going off. Like we laugh at the people
who stocked up on toilet paper, but we should be
applauding the hard working people who did the very unnglamorous
work of going in and adding little twos and zeros
(34:12):
to all the lines of codes.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Yes, thank you for your foresight and your effort and
preventing disaster.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
And it's like time travel in which we don't get
the timeline where things could have gone wrong because people
work to make it better exactly.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
And you'd think this would be the end of this segment,
but it's actually not. Sorry now okay, But you're probably thinking, like,
why is displaying the correct date important? You know, if
my computer that I'm looking at right now says the
wrong date, like my oven and my microwave always say
(34:48):
the wrong time, it doesn't matter. They still work as
an oven in a microwave.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Number one, a lot of other programs run based on
the time and the year. Number two. If one part
of your computer collaps, is a lot of other parts
of your computer can collapse. Number three. A lot of
times computer programs are built on top of each other.
So if the time in the date were like one
of the first parts that were built, it could be
(35:13):
what's called legacy code, which is like load bearing. Fourth.
I don't know, okay, I barely understood halt and catch fire,
but some stuff actually did crash, like cash registers and stuff,
and credit cards didn't work. And I don't know, but
I know. I tried to look this up and it
said that Y j K was almost a really big deal.
(35:34):
So just trust me, you know, it is really important.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
What happened was the computers. If they said nineteen hundred,
they're like, oh, computers didn't exist in nineteen They did
it exist it they just shut down.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Okay, So keeping all that in mind, yes, John Tier
was sent back to nineteen seventy five to get a
specific computer to avert something that is real.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
That is called the twenty thirty eight problem.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Oh, the twenty thirty eight problem, which.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Is another Y two K, that's gonna happen in twenty
thirty eight.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Why what is weird about twenty thirty eight? Is it
some sort of route? Yeah, okay, I actually understand it now.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
It's that's why it was important to talk about Y
two K. Okay, that is why people on the internet
in November two thousand would have been vaguely familiar with
why Y two K was important and what John Tier
would have been talking about when he said I had
to go back to nineteen seventy five to get an
IBM fifty one hundred because it's my mission to avert
(36:32):
the twenty thirty eight problem.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
And that's because something about memory.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
The Unix system U NIXAH is a thirty two bit system.
We don't make thirty two bit systems anymore. We run
everything on a sixty four bit system. But it is
a foundational type of computer that a lot of our
computers in the world, not like personal computers, but like,
you know, big computers that run like you know, the
(36:59):
lights the commuting system.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Ye.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Big computing systems are built on top of these old
Unix systems. They were programmed in the seventies. They don't
count the dates, They just count how many seconds it's
been since like nineteen seventy and they are going to
run out of space in January twenty thirty eight, and
(37:21):
I don't know what's going to happen. And I think
it's possible that nobody knows what's going to happen. They
might crash, Okay, hope.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
So I guess everyone's just sort of assuming either the
world will end or will have better systems in place
by then, and no one's doing anything.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
We still have twelve years, so we just need to
upgrade them. Okay, we just need to upgrade them in
the next twelve years, okay, or run some code, add
a little hard disk or whatever. If we upgrade to
sixty four bit systems, then we have like a billion
years or whatever. Like this is not a problem we're
ever going to have again. But the twenty thirty eight
(37:57):
problem if they call it the epoch, because it's like
an epoch in the Unix epoch, but it is like
a real thing. And it's also like using an old
piece of equipment to sort of like like a good
piece of equipment is a good piece of equipment, Like
I remember when I know this is just like going
all kinds of crazy tangents and we're just talking about
(38:18):
tech and not hoaxes. But I think it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
I find it fascinating. I don't know about any of this.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Remember when the ocean Gate thing happened and there were
those pictures about how they were using like a cable no,
the uh an Xbox controller?
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Oh yeah?
Speaker 3 (38:35):
And then but then all these engineers were like, what
Xbox makes a good controller? Yeah, It's like a good
piece of equipment is a good piece of equipment. So basically,
John Tier is like, listen, IBM made the best computer
to run a Unix system on. So my mission was
to go back to nineteen seventy five to get this
(38:56):
computer to go debug the computer in twenty thirty sex.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
It's like just plausible enough to work.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Yeah, it's like, why would you think that our tech,
just because it's from the future, would be better. A
good piece of equipment is a good piece of equipment.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
But it's like, in this situation, you've invented a time machine,
but you can't invent something to debug the twenty thirty
eight problem. But maybe this is their.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Solution, right, But people are pointing that out on the forums.
They're like dude, going back to nineteen seventy five Minnesota
seems like a lot of work. Surely you could just
find like a used computer someplace and like refurbish it. Yeah,
And he's like, bruh, I'm in the military. If they
say go back in time, I go back in time.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
And when guy is like, here, I have a question again,
like with the snarkiness, there's some snarky guy online who's like,
I have a question, why don't you refurbish an old model?
And do people in the future still wipe their buttholes
with toilet paper? And he's like, well, I need to
go back in time because I need some specific upgrades
to this computer, and so I need to be with
(40:02):
one of the original programmers of it, who you know
will be in nineteen seventy five. And yeah, we still
wipe our buttholes with toilet paper in the future, and
in the future there's still people who are weirdly obsessed
with buttholes. Guy on the internet.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Guy on the Internet trying to be funny.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Yeah, he's like, what I need is a brand new
IBM fifty one hundred, and I need one of the
original IBM fifty one hundred programmers, one of whom is
my grandfather. Oh, no big deal, because I need him
to help me trick it out.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
This is a real coming of age novel. You really
should have written.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
This adds some plot, and what you losers on the
internet don't know but I do, is that there's something
special about the IBM fifty one hundred. The guys who
programmed the software did it in such a way that
it's almost like a universal translator. It can talk to
all the other IBM systems of that era. Like it.
(40:58):
It's compatible with all the other IBM systems of that era.
So once I get it back to my time, I'm
going to be able to plug it into like all
the computers that I need to plug it into, I
won't have to go around finding all these other different
compatible those dongles. Yeah, I'm not gonna have to let
Yeah exactly, I'm not going to need adapters.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
And IBM didn't tell anybody about this because they thought
that maybe, like their competition would use it for I
don't know, some purpose or whatever. Like only twenty people
ever knew that this computer could do that, and it's
the only computer they ever made that could do that.
But it has this like secret function. So that's why
(41:40):
I have to go all the way back to nineteen
seventy five to make sure that it's this exact model.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Great, I believe it, Dana, it's true.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
What it's true.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
What this guy's grandfather I that was a program around this.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Researchers who have looked into the John Tighter hoax cut
down some of the guys who worked at IBM, and
they were like, yeah, I don't know how he knew that,
but yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Ah, it's true.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
They were like, I don't know whoever was posting on
those forums. I don't know if they knew jackshit about
time travel, but they knew a lot about IBM.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
This guy's grandfather was an IBM programmer.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
He was an IBM programmer.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Yeah, I have no evidence to that, but I'm like, yeah,
I love I love this.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
Yes, yeah, he doesn't talk the way a computer programmer talks.
He doesn't talk some the way someone from the future
would talk, but he knew that piece of information.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
My theory is that his grandfather was an original IBM
programmer and that I'm just gonna go with that. Yep,
I guess not grandfather, right.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
It's only twenty five years. He's not actually from twenty
thirty six, Dad, He's in the year two thousand. Yeah,
in March two thousand and one. He's like, cool, I
gotta go back to my time. My final piece of
advice is keep a can of gasoline in your car
in case you run out of gas on the side
of the road, and be.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Well, that's actually good advice.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
And he lugs off, and that's basically the end of
the hoax. It becomes like an internet urban legend.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
I've never heard of this. That's the crazy I mean.
And it's not crazy because I'm not like into forums,
but this is like so delightful it makes me really happy.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
There is kind of more, but like the way that
you know, the more you dig into Lonely Girl fifteen,
the more delightful it gets. The more you dig into
this kind of the less delightful it gets. Like there
are people who have claimed over the years to be
John Tighter, but then when you look into them, they
all have like criminal records for really gross things.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Wait, have we ever actually figured out who John Tighter was?
Speaker 3 (43:43):
No, and we can't disprove that he was a time traveler,
So this has not been officially debunked. Most people after
two thousand and four really stopped believing, because, like, say
what you will about the state of America, we are
not five different countries.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
That we did not kno would yet deal with a
civil war.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
No, it's unclear to me how many people really like
believed believed. There are a few like likely suspects for
people who have contributed to John Tighter or have been
John Tighter.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Yeah, especially given that it was like the Internet and
their fact machines. I'm like that seems like the first
person who sent the facts wouldn't have been the same
person writing all these things or the second, you know, message.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
I'm gonna throw out like my take which is I
want to just wait ten years and see if he
comes forward in twenty thirty six. Ah yeah, like it's
not that long.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
We said a reminder, Yeah, if our calendars, if our
phone calendar still work.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
Yeah, So that's like kind of my takeaway. But so
now I want to just talk about it as like
an amazing piece of fiction performance art with the Internet
as its medium and Nirvana the band, the show, the movie,
because it's all about going back in time to get
a piece of technology to make your time travel machine work,
(45:13):
and it's so good.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
I Lizzie told me to watch this movie called Nirvana
the Band, The Show the movie. I was not familiar
at all with Nirvana the Band the Show, like the
Canadian comedy show. But I watched this movie with no explanation,
no like you don't need to know, no expectations, and
I was genuinely delightful and amazing. I enjoyed it a lot. Yeah,
(45:36):
so you should also watch it and don't look, don't
look anything up about it. Just go in blind. I
guess know that time travel happens, but you're like, how
did they There's some scenes where I'm like, how did
they make this?
Speaker 3 (45:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (45:46):
And it really is amazing that they did.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
It really is.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
So the real time travel is people using art to
creating art.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
I mean, it's just like, I feel like the two
things are so linked because it's like using a simple
medium to do things that people just hadn't thought of before.
Of like oh, yeah, you could just film things out
of order in a really interesting way, or like oh
you could just use a forum to like basically write
(46:18):
a novel, like a collaborative novel. Almost.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
That's how I feel I'm like the fact that someone
first sent a facts in to a radio show and
just assuming this is the same person or the same
group project, that this group project sent this facts into
the radio show and then was like answering hundreds of
questions on forums. I'm like, what a brilliant, comprehensive, cohesive
(46:41):
piece of fiction that I find delightful that is now
like free and secret and wonderful.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
And I think it's like so fun because it's like,
I think we've all had the experience of reading a
book set in an alternate world and wishing we could
ask the characters a question. And sometimes you can then
like ask the author a question of like how does
this work? And you know, like you know, Tolkien wrote
like all of those things.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
K rolling was there a Jewish student brother.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
But it's like what if someone did a whole book
basically that was just the questions, you know what I mean,
just being like, oh, I have an idea of how
time travel might work, instead of trying to come up
with like a plot and characters and this and that.
Now that those things are bad, I'm saying it very dismissively,
but like what if it was, like what if I
just pop on the Internet and I just let people
(47:33):
decide what they want to know and like just take
questions and let that be the plot and just see
where that takes us. And like like just crowdsourcing a
whole novel's worth of information and like letting that Like
that's such a cool project.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
And you know what else I love about it is
it's not like this guy who or girl whoever they
were wrote their sci fi novel or wrote their screenplay,
was like I need to find James Cameron and give
him my screenplay and I need to be famous and
make my Like this stayed anonymous. They weren't looking for glory.
They just were doing it for the love of the game.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
Yeah, someone did eventually like trademarket and then try to
sell merch but like it kind of was a flop.
People have made there's like a documentary, like a quote
unquote documentary that is very you can't watch it anywhere,
but like then you know, people have made YouTube videos.
It's it's inspired a lot of then other art and like, yeah,
(48:33):
I just think like the spirit of it is very cool,
and other people have been inspired by the spirit of it,
and some have made money, but most have not, and like,
I don't know, like John Tider, it's cool. People who
are into him are cool.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
John Tider cool.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
And if you're into him, I would also recommend checking
out the word work of John Boyce Bois. He makes these.
He's made these like incredible websites for I think like
ESPN or Sports Illustrators. He made this one called like
Football in the Future.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
I love that. Do you remember the Future upon the future?
Speaker 3 (49:07):
Doesn't I have a John Tighter esque quality to it.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
Yes, there's like an our key.
Speaker 3 (49:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
I love people being creative for the love of the game. Yeah,
John Tider cool.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
I'm Tighter cool.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
I hope we get to meet it. Hey, John Tider
ten years from now, ten years from now, please seek
out either Danish Worts or Lazy Logan ideally both and say.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Hi, Dana, what would you do with a time machine?
But not like correct mistakes in your life, but like
what period of time would you go to and who
would you talk to and walk around and like if
you were in the you know the meme that's like
boys with a time Machine. I'm gonna punch my dad.
Girls with a time machine. I'm giving Zoe Loft to
Sylvia Part Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
I mean, this is the really boring answer is I'm
working on a novel right now that's set in the
Tudor period, and so I'm like deep in research and
if I could just like go back and just like
walk around for like ten minutes, it would really just
be like, oh no, none of my research would be necessary.
This would just be great and the most immersive book.
I think I would love. Tutor Era. I mean, this
is a very girl answer. Tutor Era versalles Napoleon. I'm
(50:10):
a Napoleon girly. Yeah, what about you, Lizzie Logan.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
Yeah, I think i'd like want to.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
I wouldn't want to change anything because it would I'm
a rule follower and.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
You're not supposed to change things. Yes, that's like every
you're not supposed to change.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
No, I would just be an anthropologist. I would just
want to want to be like, what did we get right?
And what did we get wrong about what it was?
Speaker 3 (50:30):
Actually like, I'm going to give just like such a
boring answer, like I need to know who killed Kennedy?
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Yeah, but here's my question. If you had a time machine,
how would you figure out who killed Kennedy?
Speaker 3 (50:41):
I mean I'd hide up in the book depository and
I'd spy on Lee Harvey Oswald see what he was
up to. I guess that is good. Maybe i'd be
on the grassy.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
No, that's see, it's like it's actually hard to solve
some of these mysteries even with historical hindsight. I guess Lee,
because Lee Harvey Osweld, you know, he when at least
fired a shot was up there. I guess you could
go to the Grassynol.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
Yeah, I guess I'd be hanging out on the Grassynol.
I'd hang out on the grass Enol. It's not a
bad answer, John Tighter, meet me on the grass Enol.
John Tighter, come find me, Take me to the Grassynol
in your time machine. I have questions. Hello, hoax listeners,
it's Lizzie doing time travel from a different point in
(51:29):
time when I'm recording without Dana because I felt like
I cut off the story at a weird point and
didn't give the full perspective. So I'm just popping in
with a little mini note. So, okay, if you're interested,
you can go online and look up who is John
Titor And there are two or three really good suspects
(51:53):
with a lot of evidence backing them up, but none
of those people have come forward and said yes, it
was me. And then there are a couple of people
who have come forward and said yes it was me,
but none of those people have evidence. So that's why
I didn't really go into any of the suspects because
I just don't think that they're that interesting. And then
(52:14):
there are also some, like I said, some weird digressions
you can go down, like people who have tried to
copyright his various plans for how a time machine works.
But those people are all really creepy, and this is
like basically a PG rated episode, But those people went
to jail for not PG rated crimes, so I just
(52:36):
didn't want to include them. But yes, there's a little
bit more to the hoax, but I decided to pause
the story there just for the sake of keeping it
like a fun episode. But if you're so inclined, you
can keep doing research where John Tidor would want you
to do research, which is the Internet. I also wanted
to say that for me personally, the part that really
(52:58):
like stuck in my head about the mystery is like,
why does just nothing exist? After a certain point, like
that's what I want the novel to like be about,
Like that's that's like the Twilight Zone episode that I
would watch and freak out about. And various people who
have looked into this story have come up with different
(53:22):
theories about why he picked the year twenty five hundred
and sixty four and what that number could mean. But
my personal theory is that it's from the Chicago song
twenty five or six to four. I think that that's
why he picked it. There's also a there's also a
rabbit hole you can go down about this woman Pamela,
(53:43):
who sort of had like an online love affair with
John Titor and apparently has a secret song that she
can use to identify John Titor if he reveals himself.
But again, it felt a little creepy because I think
maybe this woman was catfished. I think she believes in
this person, and I don't think that this person is
(54:04):
a real time traveler. But anyway, I just wanted to
pop in and say that because we hear it hoax,
try to give you the full fake story of the
real deal of people who make things up. Okay, back
to the episode.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
Bye. If you're a fan of this podcast. Please follow
us on Instagram at Folks the Podcasts the podcast. We're
not sure where the future future of this podcast will be,
but we will continue to make it as long as
you continue to want it, so follow the Instagram account
to get all that information. Email us at Hoax podcast
(54:41):
at gmail dot com. Follow me on Instagram TikTok danishwarts
with three z's. I don't know exactly when this episode
is coming out, but please buy the book The Arcane Arts,
which may already be out. If you like magical romantic
love stories.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
It's good and it's not for kids.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
It's not for kids. It's sexy magic. No time travel,
but sexy magic. Anything you want to plug Lizzie.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
I need a job if anybody, yeah, hire Lizzie. It's
a little bit underemployed right now.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
Well, thank you, thank you very much for listening.
Speaker 3 (55:14):
Please holks responsibly.
Speaker 1 (55:16):
Bye.
Speaker 3 (55:26):
Hoax is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our hosts are
Danish Schortz and Lizzie Logan. Our executive producers are Matt
Frederick and Trevor Young, with supervising producer Rima L. K
Ali and producers Nomes Griffin and Jesse Funk Our theme
music was composed by Laine Montgomery. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
(55:48):
your podcasts. Thanks for listening.
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