FlightlessDuck
Y kant Donald fly?
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2006
- Messages
- 21,804
Have any of you heard of the time traveler John Titor? Personally, I think this may have been an early attempt at a viral marketing campaign in an attempt to start buzz for a movie that never happened (although there was a documentary, or perhaps more fairly called a "docudrama", released in 2009). Or just a hoax.
The story fascinates me, because the hoax was really done quite well, and had quite a few people going for a number of months.
A little background...
Staring in July 1998 and through March of 2001, a man going by the name TimeTravel_0 and then John Titor started communicating on various message boards, such as Art Bell's Post-to-Post board and anomalies.net claiming to be a man from 2036 sent back in to time 1975 to get a IBM 5100 computer (why is never fully explained).
This man stopped in 1998 for personal reasons (that was the year, he says, he was born) and started communicating with people in the UFO/conspiracy/time travel subculture. His first communication was to Art Bell (host of a radio show in the 90's) via FAX, in which he indicated that Y2K was going to be a very large disaster.
In October 2000, he started posting on online bulletin boards, this time about a civil war that was to break out between 2004 and 2005. He predicted things like a accident between a space shuttle and a space station, the end of the Olympic games, nuclear war in 2015, etc.
"John" left in 2001. But communication continued through his "mother" and a lawyer named Larry Haber. A book was released in 2003 or 2004 (I'm not sure which), with all of John's posts online and annotations by his "mother". This Larry Haber was connected to the "John Titor Foundation" (which published the book). He is actaully a well known entertainment (!!) lawyer in the Orlando area.
A man named Oliver Williams ran a website devoted to the Titor phenomenon and tried to explain how many of the predictions could be reinterpreted to represent things that did happen.
The last that was heard from "John" was from a video was posted on YouTube by Larry Haber in November 2009 with more claims (indicating "multiple" time travelers from different time lines named John Titor).
Nothing official has been heard since then. To this day, there is a small group of people who still believe John was a real time traveler, even know none of his predictions came true.
The current thought among those that investigated the John Titor story is that Larry Haber, or his brother Richard, or perhaps another yet known Haber relative was responsible for this hoax. This Oliver Williams person has been linked to the Habers as well (actually, many suspect "Oliver Williams" doesn't exist). Personally, I think one of Larry Haber's entertainment clients was behind it.
Thoughts?
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor (wiki link), http://anomalies.net/object/titororiginalpost.html (most of his original posts),
http://communities.anomalies.net/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/246827#Post246827 (best yet explanation of the hoax)
The story fascinates me, because the hoax was really done quite well, and had quite a few people going for a number of months.
A little background...
Staring in July 1998 and through March of 2001, a man going by the name TimeTravel_0 and then John Titor started communicating on various message boards, such as Art Bell's Post-to-Post board and anomalies.net claiming to be a man from 2036 sent back in to time 1975 to get a IBM 5100 computer (why is never fully explained).
This man stopped in 1998 for personal reasons (that was the year, he says, he was born) and started communicating with people in the UFO/conspiracy/time travel subculture. His first communication was to Art Bell (host of a radio show in the 90's) via FAX, in which he indicated that Y2K was going to be a very large disaster.
In October 2000, he started posting on online bulletin boards, this time about a civil war that was to break out between 2004 and 2005. He predicted things like a accident between a space shuttle and a space station, the end of the Olympic games, nuclear war in 2015, etc.
"John" left in 2001. But communication continued through his "mother" and a lawyer named Larry Haber. A book was released in 2003 or 2004 (I'm not sure which), with all of John's posts online and annotations by his "mother". This Larry Haber was connected to the "John Titor Foundation" (which published the book). He is actaully a well known entertainment (!!) lawyer in the Orlando area.
A man named Oliver Williams ran a website devoted to the Titor phenomenon and tried to explain how many of the predictions could be reinterpreted to represent things that did happen.
The last that was heard from "John" was from a video was posted on YouTube by Larry Haber in November 2009 with more claims (indicating "multiple" time travelers from different time lines named John Titor).
Nothing official has been heard since then. To this day, there is a small group of people who still believe John was a real time traveler, even know none of his predictions came true.
The current thought among those that investigated the John Titor story is that Larry Haber, or his brother Richard, or perhaps another yet known Haber relative was responsible for this hoax. This Oliver Williams person has been linked to the Habers as well (actually, many suspect "Oliver Williams" doesn't exist). Personally, I think one of Larry Haber's entertainment clients was behind it.
Thoughts?
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor (wiki link), http://anomalies.net/object/titororiginalpost.html (most of his original posts),
http://communities.anomalies.net/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/246827#Post246827 (best yet explanation of the hoax)
