scariest hoax yet - hoax or not, this needs dissemination

Therefore I am offering it in the spirit of "things that make you go hmmm"... I have used one perspective of the strange tale of John Titor from one web page, ratatak.com. There are many other sites dealing with Titor, but I found this most concise account on ratatak. Please read:

<<Every so often I like to lurk in little-known newsgroups or web sites concerning the paranormal. You know, the "I was probed by aliens" type stuff. Obviously, like most paranormal stuff, most of it is complete an utter crap and I just read them to laugh at the Trekkies and escapists just ACHING for some asteroid, spirit or alien to come and change the fact that they have to go work in an office every day, but this REALLY caught my attention. Read on...

On November 2nd 2000, a fellow going by the name of John Titor started posting pictures of his time machine on various forums around the net. He claimed to be a time traveller from the year 2036 - I actually read some of his posts back then and, yeah I thought he was a nut case too so I ignored them.

However, as the posts progressed it became apparent that John wasn't your average nut job - in fact he was quite an enigmatic and articulate character with a story to tell that had a terrifying and uncanny ring of truth about it.

According to John Titor, he was from the year 2036 and was born in 1998. Remember that all his posts were from BEFORE 911 and the subsequent War on Terrorism. From his 2036 perspective, earth's history looked like this:

2004/5: Isolated pockets of civil unrest in America following the government's implication of The Patriot Act - people being detained without due process and curtailment of basic civil liberty all in the name of "National Security" causes the odd local riot/rebellion. These incidents become more frequent and organised and escalate to such a degree that, in 2008, people realise that their idillic society no longer exists and civil war breaks out in America and the UK.

2015: WW3. Russia launches a full scale nuclear strike against America and it's allies as a last resort in a desparate attempt to put an end to the US government's beligerent foreign policy. Ironically, the strike is not aimed at America's domestic rebels but at the extreme right wing government in power at the time (the one after next US election presumably).

Whilst the West becomes unstable and US support for Israel starts to waver, other Middle Eastern countries sieze upon the opportunity to invade Israel who, out of sheer desparation, defends herself by also using nuclear weapons.

At the same time China decides to take advantage of world intstablity and expand IT'S territory.

To summarise, World War 3 is short but oh so efficient - wiping out some 3 billion people. The US constitution is scrapped and the country is eventually divided into 5 provinces with the main emphasis being food and farming. There is little or no centralised government, welfare system or healthcare. However, in John's world everyone works hard for the community and slackers are scorned, ridiculed and ultimately starve to death.

Here are a few of John's quotes/answers to various issues put to him during the short time he posted in these forums:

QUESTION:Does the current relationship between Arabs and Jews have anything to do with the coming war?

ANSWER: Real disruptions in world events begin with the destabilization of the West as a result of degrading US foreign policy and consistency. This becomes apparent around 2004 as civil unrest develops near the next presidential election. The Jewish population in Israel is not prepared for a true offensive war. They are prepared for the ultimate defense. Wavering western support for Israel is what gives Israel's neighbors the confidence to attack. The last resort for a defensive Israel and its offensive Arab neighbors is to use weapons of mass destruction. In the grand scheme of things, the war in the Middle East is a part of what's to come, not the cause.

QUESTION: Is there anything we can do to prepare for the war you are describing?

ANSWER:
1. Do not eat or use products from any animal that is fed and eats parts of its own dead.
2. Do not kiss or have intimate relations with anyone you do not know.
3. Learn basic sanitation and water purification.
4. Be comfortable around firearms. Learn to shoot and clean a gun.
5. Get a good first aid kit and learn to use it.
6. Find 5 people within 100 miles that you trust with your life and stay in contact with them.
7. Get a copy of the US Constitution and read it.
8. Eat less.
9. Get a bicycle and two sets of spare tires. Ride it 10 miles a week.
10. Consider what you would bring with you if you had to leave your home in 10 min. and never return.

QUESTION: If you're telling the truth, the last thing you should be doing is talking about the war and the government.

ANSWER: Have you considered that your society might be better off if half of you were dead?

For full analysis of John's posts during this time go to: http://www.johntitor.com/ I guarantee it to be a riveting read!>>

and yes it is a hoax, here is the tread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=111&topic_id=14542

It may be a hoax. But you offered some comedic posts on a DU thread as your proof of it's "hoaxhood"? I am happy to read about the hoax being blown wide open and revealed, but that thread is not the silver bullet that dispels it.

survivalist stuff.

why didn't he warn us?

Sounds like any self-named prophet to me...extrapolate from current events.

compared to the shit he was naming off. Possibly a minor incident in his mind. Who knows? Not defending the story.
Though it may take on some importance in another year if the start of civil unrest predicted to begin in small increments around this time next year (after the "election") is seen to begin.
For myself, I just tuck it away as "interesting".

In other words, he really couldn't say anything specific if he were telling the truth because that would signifigantly alter the reality he would be returning to. By telling us anything specific, he could very well be changing his 'future' into something unrecognisable.

Fun reading, at any rate. Very imaginitive.

Sure, in happier days a time machine wouldn't be required and he wouldn't have to warn us again, the space/time continium would make a sudden ear-splitting TWANG and everything's spiffy! :7

but the changes would by their very nature be uncontrollable. What he returned to could as easily be worse than it was when he left.

Were I a time traveler, I would NOT take that chance.

Time travel has always interested me.

Today was tomorrow yesterday.

Merry xmas...

It should actually be called "Time & Space Travel"- since the Earth, Solar System, and Galaxy are all moving and spinning along through the universe- So, in order to go back in time, you need to also get yourself to the exact point in space that Earth occupied on the day that you're trying to go back to...and therein lies the problem- there is no fixed point of reference to use in order to find out where that spot is...Suppose you're in a row-boat on a foggy day in the middle of the ocean, no compass. no GPS. no stars. no sun. you row for about a half an hour, then decide you want to row back to the point you started from- how do you find that point?
that's the same kind of problem you have with trying to find out where the Earth was 20 years ago.

an agreed-upon origin point, such as the center of the universe. With a known origin and trajectory, one can calculate the precise position of any particle in any system. The Uncertainty Principle would apply, however. I have no idea how one would get around that.

If we knew the exact starting conditions of the moment of Creation, we could in theory accurately predict the future of every particle in the universe. We can't do that, so for us, it's not possible, because the act of observation would change the result.

There is (or will be) an experiment underway- in the UK, I think- the aim of which is to cause a particle to collide with itself in an accelerator.

Yes. They want to collide a subatomic particle with itself.

I guess I shouldn't say its impossible, because I obviously do not know for sure. But think about this:

If you could travel back in time and change something that has an effect upon the future, the present could never really exist in a solid state. That is to say that at any given time it would be subject to change (by someone fucking with the past) and thus would never "exist" in a stable way. Unless, of course, you are willing to buy the idea of different dimensions or "timelines", which is the only way I can see it as possible, IMO.

As he describes it, the present would be that fluid, if it were normal practise to send people back- say, as tourists.

However, the problem you're describing still would not happen, because the entire past, and everything that event affects, would be changed, including how you remember it.

And that's the key part. Our perception of the 'present' wouldn't change, only our memories of the events affected by the changes made in the past. Those memories would, by necessity, jibe with our 'current' perception of reality.

Douglas Adams described it best when one of his characters- I think it's Reg from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency- said something to the effect of the space/time continuum being very muchlike a piece of badly-laid wallpaper. Push down a bubble in one spot, and another one pops up somewhere else.

Basically, were time travel possible, we would never know our pasts had been changed, because the moment the past was changed, we would remember all the events along the 'new' timeline. Our 'present' would remain consistent with the past and we would never know the difference.

Or Hank will kick your ass!

What am I supposed to do with 2 sets of spare tyres? and 10 miles a week? What the hell is THAT going to accomplish? John Titor might think that's a lot of distance, but it ain't shit. If yo have to leave you home and never return, and all you have to do it with is a bicycle, you'd better be ready for 100 miles a day.

A lot more to it than the bike riding advice, which I admit can be scoffed at. But the meat of the story is not in the little bit I posted. Indeed, the whole story will make you think twice, even if you end up scoffing, it will make you wonder.

and this is science fiction

n/t

:D

This morning there was a knock at my door. When I answered the door I
found a well groomed, nicely dressed couple. The man spoke first: "Hi!
I'm John, and this is Mary."

Mary: "Hi! We're here to invite you to come kiss Hank's ass with us."

Me: "Pardon me?! What are you talking about? Who's Hank, and why would I
want to kiss his ass?"

John: "If you kiss Hank's ass, he'll give you a million dollars; and if
you don't, he'll kick the shit out of you."

Me: "What? Is this some sort of bizarre mob shake-down?"

John: "Hank is a billionaire philanthropist. Hank built this town. Hank
owns this town. He can do what ever he wants, and what he wants is to
give you a million dollars, but he can't until you kiss his ass."

Me: "That doesn't make any sense. Why..."

Mary: "Who are you to question Hank's gift? Don't you want a million
dollars? Isn't it worth a little kiss on the ass?"

Me: "Well maybe, if it's legit, but..."

John: "Then come kiss Hank's ass with us."

Me: "Do you kiss Hank's ass often?"

Mary: "Oh yes, all the time..."

Me: "And has he given you a million dollars?"

John: "Well no, you don't actually get the money until you leave town."

Me: "So why don't you just leave town now?"

Mary: "You can't leave until Hank tells you to, or you don't get the money,
and he kicks the shit out of you."

Me: "Do you know anyone who kissed Hank's ass, left town, and got the
million dollars?"

John: "My mother kissed Hank's ass for years. She left town last year,
and I'm sure she got the money."

Me: "Haven't you talked to her since then?"

John: "Of course not, Hank doesn't allow it."

Me: "So what makes you think he'll actually give you the money if you've
never talked to anyone who got the money?"

Mary: "Well, he gives you a little bit before you leave. Maybe you'll
get a raise; maybe you'll win a small lotto; maybe you'll just find a
twenty dollar bill on the street."

Me: "What's that got to do with Hank?

John: "Hank has certain connections.'"

Me: "I'm sorry, but this sounds like some sort of bizarre con game."

John: "But it's a million dollars, can you really take the chance? And
remember, if you don't kiss Hank's ass he'll kick the shit of you."

Me: "Maybe if I could see Hank, talk to him, get the details straight
from him..."

Mary: "No one sees Hank, no one talks to Hank."

Me: "Then how do you kiss his ass?"

John: "Sometimes we just blow him a kiss, and think of his ass. Other
times we kiss Karl's ass, and he passes it on."

Me: "Who's Karl?"

Mary: "A friend of ours. He's the one who taught us all about kissing Hank's
ass. All we had to do was take him out to dinner a few times."

Me: "And you just took his word for it when he said there was a Hank, that
Hank wanted you to kiss his ass, and that Hank would reward you?"

John: "Oh no! Karl's got a letter Hank sent him years ago explaining the
whole thing. Here's a copy; see for yourself."

John handed me a photocopy of a handwritten memo on "From the desk of Karl"
letterhead. There were eleven items listed:

1 Kiss Hank's ass and he'll give you a million dollars when you leave
town.
2 Use alcohol in moderation.
3 Kick the shit out of people who aren't like you.
4 Eat right.
5 Hank dictated this list himself.
6 The moon is made of green cheese.
7 Everything Hank says is right.
8 Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.
9 Don't drink.
10 Eat your wieners on buns, no condiments.
11 Kiss Hank's ass or he'll kick the shit out of you.

Me: "This would appear to be written on Karl's letterhead."

Mary: "Hank didn't have any paper."

Me: "I have a hunch that if we checked we'd find this is Karl's
handwriting."

John: "Of course, Hank dictated it."

Me: "I thought you said no one gets to see Hank?"

Mary: "Not now, but years ago he would talk to some people."

Me: "I thought you said he was a philanthropist. What sort of
philanthropist kicks the shit out of people just because they're
different?"

Mary: "It's what Hank wants, and Hank's always right."

Me: "How do you figure that?"

Mary: "Item 7 says Everything Hanks says is right.' That's good enough
for me!"

Me: "Maybe your friend Karl just made the whole thing up."

John: "No way! Item 5 says 'Hank dictated this list himself.' Besides,
item 2 says 'Use alcohol in moderation,' item 4 says 'Eat right,' and
item 8 says 'Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.' Everyone
knows those things are right, so the rest must be true, too."

Me: "But #9 says 'Don't Drink,' which doesn't quite go with #2. And #6
says 'The moon is made of green cheese,' which is just plain wrong."

John: "There's no contradiction between 9 and 2; 9 just clarifies 2. As
to 6, you've never been to the moon, so you can't say for sure."

Me: "Scientists have pretty firmly established that the moon is made of
rock..."

Mary: "But they don't know if the rock came from the Earth, or from out
of space, so it could just as easily be green cheese."

Me: "I'm not really an expert, but I think the theory that the Moon came
from the Earth has been discounted. Besides, not knowing where the rock
came from doesn't make it cheese."

John: "Aha! You just admitted that scientists make mistakes, but we know
Hank is always right!"

Me: "We do?"

Mary: "Of course we do, Item 5 says so."

Me: "You're saying Hank's always right because the list says so, the
list is right because Hank dictated it, and we know that Hank dictated
it because the list says so. That's circular logic, no different than
saying 'Hank's right because he says he's right.'"

John: "Now you're getting it! It's so rewarding to see someone come around
to Hank's way of thinking."

Me: "But...oh, never mind. What's the deal with wieners?"

Mary blushes. John says: "Wieners, in buns, no condiments. It's Hank's
way. Anything else is wrong."

Me: "What if I don't have a bun?"

John: "No bun, no wiener. A wiener without a bun is wrong."

Me: "No relish? No Mustard?"

Mary looks positively stricken. John shouts: "There's no need for such
language! Condiments of any kind are wrong!"

Me: "So a big pile of sauerkraut with some wieners chopped up in it would be
out of the question?"

Mary sticks her fingers in her ears: "I am not listening to this. La la la,
la la, la la la."

John: "That's disgusting. Only some sort of evil deviant would eat that..."

Me: "It's good! I eat it all the time."

Mary faints. John catches her: "Well, if I'd known you where one of
those I wouldn't have wasted my time. When Hank kicks the shit out of
you I'll be there, counting my money and laughing. I'll kiss Hank's ass
for you, you bunless cut-wienered kraut-eater."

With this, John dragged Mary to their waiting car, and sped off.

That's the first I I have heard of that.

the Patriot Act did not exist prior to 9/11/01, and if he posted this prior to that date for everyone to see, then how did he know about the Patriot Act?

He's an enemy combatant who fights right wing goverments, right?

He wouldn't be able to travel time after WW3 let alone take a shit without losing teeth and hair.

He's a professor at UCONN. I saw a very interesting show about him on the Learning Channel recently.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/wonderquest/2001-06-20-time-travel.htm

Three billion people dead in 2015, right, and somehow the resources become available in 20 years to build time machines.

His story reads like a bad episode of "Star Trek." They have the infrastructure for a national internet but not national telephone service? Puh-leeze.

I am excited to know that in the future we will be wearing hats more often.

the english language would strongly resemble something in between slang and newspeak. electricity would be sparse and life would be similar to the middle ages. someone buy this dumbass a copy of the movie 'threads'

I'm usually not bothered by books or movies, but that really freaked me out. I suggest everyone here watch it.

it's called VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol. It's a known used technology as we speak. Once the current bugs are worked out, and they finally implement IPv6, I imagine that it could be the standard.

...except for the whole nuclear holocaust scenario in 2015. If the scenario the "time traveler" described happened, I doubt in the following 20 years things would return back to normal. In fact odds are the groups that control technology following nuclear holocaust will be the ones in power, and I seriously doubt CISCO will still be in business to re-build the hardware of the Internet.

I think we can safely assume re-forming the IEEE group is not going to be high up on the list of priorities in a post-nuclear United States.

the groups 'controlling' technology were wiped out when the bombs hit the cities. Besides, if a lot of people with know-how get together during such a crisis and decide to work together to set up a network of some kind, do you really think they're going to form a corporation to get it done?

One thing I'd like to know is if he ever mentioned unemployed tech workers being some of the ones that set up all this. That would point directly to our situation now, with our tech jobs going overseas.

That said, I think you need to read some more of his specifics; he answers every question you just asked if youread through it some.

For example, "their" internet is better than "our" internet; theirs uses portable servers and (I think) functions wirelessly. Such devices could still be used if phone service went pffft.

As for his time machine, he never really says how it works, only that it's a simple device, one of those "DUH" moments in science. He also states that one of the reasons this wasn't invented before was because scientists weren't really willing to think out of the box regarding time travel during our time, but that during his, development of the same became seriously necessary.

He also claims that the bombs that were used (it wasn't WW3, it was, according to him, international blowback for the actions of the "American Federal Empire") wiped out major cities here, but there are areas that weren't devastated by them. Once people began (will begin? wioll haven be? wtf?) leaving the cities for rural areas (the ones left in the cities were the ones who Couldn't Leave Their Jobs, you know, the Important People we all wish would get theirs), the cities were bombed, and "we" were (will be?) the ones left over.

From his point of view (and I'm writing now on the assumption that everything he's saying is true, please, bear with me), what we're living right now is the beginning of the revolution. It's interesting that he mentions CJD as being a serious concern in the time he comes from, as that's about how much time needs to pass before symptoms of 'mad cow' become evident in humans. Given what I know about the situation at present- and it's apparently much wirse than we're being told about, folks, and this is from a pretty much unimpeachable source- CJD will become The Next Epidemic.

According to John, the civil war will be on everyone's doorstep and in everyone's homes by 2008. We'll have one president after that who wants to fix the situation but can't, and the president in office when the bombs drop will be concerned only with retaining his power base. Then the bombs will drop but, according to John, "we" will win, as the greedy corporate fatcats and such won't leave the cities and will be "removed" from our country and our society. In that respect, he considers that the "people" won the civil war.

That's just one thing that pops out on first read. Another thing he responded to was where in the US was 'safe'. Basically, nowhere is safe, according to him, but if you want to figure out where to go when things get real bad, he said "take a look at a county-by-county precinct map from your last election.

I don't really believe any of it, but there are a lot of interesting coincidences- like the computer he's supposedly here for, which can translate among three computer languages. Well, as it turn out, such a computer really does exist, it was built in the 1970s (by IBM, I think), and it had a completely undocumented ability to translate between the very same three languages John needs to translate to. Also, the guys who designed this computer back then apparently were under orders from their higher-ups to not reveal that special capability, as it would undermine sales of the company's more expensive newer models (at the time) that could not perform those translations.

I hope I got all that correct. It's one small fact that really makes me go hmmmmmm.

There are flaws in this guy's logic. There is no certainty of the future. The human mind makes too many gut decisions and hesitates frequently. Therefore making time travel impossible. You choose your own fate i believe. Someone bring this guy back to Greystone.

a Google search for postings in his name on usenet produced 3 pages.

Including a "final warning" dated November 23, 2003, then 2 weeks later, a series of postings in his name by what seems like a perfectly ordinary (if somewhat paranoid) guy posting from an address at JohnTitor.com

I deeply suspect that this was some college stunt pulled by one or several bored, geeky students who wanted to stir up a little internet excitement.

I also read through Titor's "predictions." I honestly didn't see anything in there that I haven't heard come out of the mouths of hundreds of less educated people has rampant speculation. Dress it up and state it authoritatively and apparently anyone will suck it up. :shrug:

Really folks, time travel in twenty years? Space-time, past, present and future are all relative to one's proximity to an event horizon. If you want to travel into a state of past for an event horizon that is present, you have first to overcome entropy in a very specific, very controlled way.

We're not really all that close. And if the Freepers rule the world or start a war, we're not going to be.

how long did it take us to put a man on the moon?

We don't know what scientific developments might happen in the next twenty years. There's an experiment in the works (no, I can't remember right now where I read this) to collide a particle in an accelerator... with itself.

I'm starting to think time travel, in concept, may be closer than we can imagine.

since I was about five years old, and whose favorite s-f stories are time travel, I have to say that John Titor's story reads a great deal like someone who has read two, maybe three time travel stories and is now writing his own. Badly done and not believable.

it is intended to sway or prepare some of those people who are easily convinced, but would never read something like the communist manifesto. you are "supposed" to look past the silly time travel stuff, and realize that life on earth is not going to be what we probably had envisioned just a few years ago, in the future. things WILL go backwards at some point. technology cannot fix everything.

i would bet the person/persons who did this little number are very much in line with the opinions of many here, but had to wrap them in a bullshit story to get the point across. the idea was, hopefully, while people grill him on the technical details of time travel, he drops enough general info to make you get a little introspective and re-align your thinking of what the future will be, and hopefully keep that train of thought once you get over silly notions as time travel as it is described by john. i'll buy that time travel, of some sort is possible, but will have a hard time being convinced you could ever "go back".

and that's why it's not possible.
In order to go "back in time", you would also have to get yourself physically to that exact point in space that the Earth occupied at the exact date that you want to go back to, seeing as the earth, the solar system, and the Milky Way galaxy are all moving thru space. and since there is no fixed reference point in the universe to navigate by, it is pretty much impossible to find that point in space that the Earth occupied on any particular date. Ergo: time travel is an impossibility for that reason alone.

IF he's telling the truth- which I heartily doubt, but what the hey, it's fun to discuss- he would never reveal the 'how' of time travel. Doing so would unpredictably alter his own future.... not exactly the best idea in the world.

In every time travel story I've read, there's always some sort of strict prohibition on signifigant alteration of the past, especially WRT telling people the 'how' of time travel.

He goes on to say, however, that the people who 'sent' him here picked a worldline (John's word) with a 2%-3% variance from their actual recorded history. To hear him tell it, there are an infinite number of worldlines which together compose the sum total of every possible event from the moment of Creation to whatever present you care to name. Some worldlines are 10% different from ours; in one, Khan conquered the world and his empire ruled for the next 500 years, for example. Others are so wildly different from ours that it's silly to compare the two.

I think if there ever were time travel, very, very few people would be allowed to do it unless they were exceedingly important, or knew someoneimportant enough to go back in time. John, for example, claims he was chosen specifically because he had personal connections with one of the developers of the (I think it was this model) IBM 5100 personal computer. While all those developers were/will be dead in his 'present', someone in his family was directly involved in the development of it. See one of my other posts on this thread for why they need this device.

Hey- at least, if he really is telling the truth, we have some sort of guidebook for what's to come.

i guess he thinks hes the guy that goes to 1984 to save sarah connor. oh boy.

Why should we be careful about anything? Life is finite anyway. If things got as bad as described...death might be a welcome relief. Why be afraid?

I know because he made some good predictions, everyone is tempted to think he is correct, but let's review the science


he claims he can create two black holes in a device about the size of a pickup truck... but yet, he traveled back in time to 1975 to get computer knowledge because there are problems with UNIX

so let me get this straight... right now... 2003... the most advanced electromagnetic equipment is about the size of a stadium. We can't generate near enough power it would take to theoritically generate black holes...

but yet, in 32 years we develop such technology? and we can't figure out some dopey UNIX programming problem? Does the field of quantum physics go through some golden age of advancement while computer technology goes backwards?

This titor stuff is entertaining, but please people, don't be idiots. :D

Im already set up for it..Got my location all staked out.. I knew some one would crack the time barrior sooner or later..It was just amater of what else..Time..