# John Titor: Brilliant Fraud Or An Ordinary Soldier From 2036? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 5, 2003, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066 "2003-12-05T01:59:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CheekyMonkey613](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e480ec/32.png) [@CheekyMonkey613](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CheekyMonkey613)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/1 "2003-12-05T01:59:40Z")
Has anyone heard about the soldier from 2036 who was able to come back in a time machine? Before you reject the idea, look at [this site](http://johntitor.strategicbrains.com) which says: > [@](#): > > A person going by the name of John Titor and claiming to be a soldier on a mission from 2036 presented a considerable amount of information on the Web beginning around November 2000 about his mission and time travel machine, his perspective on our society, how our society is going wrong, and how society as we know it will end in a very short but massive intercontinental nuclear war in 2015. He’s gone now, back to 2036 he said he was going in his last posting on March 24, 2001, and the threads he left across the Web are slowly evaporating. You can also look at [this site](http://www.johntitor.com/), where you can see pictures of his time machine, as well as read John’s posts (by date or topic), read his predictions, and more. I’m usually quite the skeptic, but this one’s got me going. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/2 "2003-12-05T02:12:39Z")
I’ll go out on a limb and call him a fraud. In order for a fully working time machine capable of allowing a human being to travel back in time ~33 years to be extant in 2036, we would almost certainly have some development in that direction now. Such a complex technology would take decades to develop to that level. Current theory does not preclude time travel, however, it is clear from the equations that such an enormous amount of energy would be required for even a fraction of a second travel by a subatomic particle that it would be nearly impossible to send a grown man back in time over thirty years. [Here](http://www.damanhur.org/time/html/energy_and_technology.htm) is some more information on this topic. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/3 "2003-12-05T02:15:53Z")
Ack! That’s not the page I wanted to link to; [this is](http://www.flash.net/~csmith0/time.htm). > [@](#): > > First, the main problem is one of energy. In the same way that a car needs gasoline, a time machine needs to have fabulous amounts of energy. One either has to harness the power of a star, or to find something called “exotic” matter (which falls up, rather than down) or find a source of negative energy. (Physicists once thought that negative energy was impossible. But tiny amounts of negative energy have been experimentally verified for something called the Casimir effect, i.e. the energy created by two parallel plates.) All of these are exceedingly difficult to obtain in large quantities, at least for several more centuries! ---
**Author:** ![CheekyMonkey613](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e480ec/32.png) [@CheekyMonkey613](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CheekyMonkey613)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/4 "2003-12-05T02:20:07Z")
But I must say… if this guy is a BS artist, then he takes the cake. He’s got a HELL of a lot of people fooled. I’m very intrigued.:eek: ---
**Author:** ![R-Con](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/858c86/32.png) [@R-Con](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R-Con)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/5 "2003-12-05T02:29:35Z")
ummm - he “sold” the car from 2036, and has a lot of predictions about his future history, all of which are conveniantly beyond the date of his return to “the future”? Why do all the predictions relate only to the cataclysmic civil wat/WWIII-type event? Why didnt he offer predictions for more commonplace event, like who will win the 2001 world series? And why, if anyone is really interested in establishing the veracity of his dubious claims, why dont they find the _now_ John Titor; he claimed to be born in 1998, so JT Jr. must be out and about…look for a birth certificate. Its a load of ass. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/6 "2003-12-05T02:35:55Z")
And his reason for time traveling was … wait for it… to get an old PC. Would you like a slice of credulous retard pie? It’s just _too_ delicious. > [@](#): > > JOHN TITOR AND THE IBM 5100 COMPUTER > The stated reason John was here in our time was to obtain an IBM computer built in 1975 called a 5100. The 5100 does exist and was manufactured and sold by IBM. It is historically remembered as one of the first portable computers ever mass-produced but it arrived before computers were marketed to the public and quickly passed away in the early eighties. > > John claimed he was related to one of the IBM engineers or programmers who worked on the 5100 and that’s why he was chosen for this mission. By putting the pieces of his posts together, it appears he journeyed to Rochester Minnesota in 1975 (where the 5100 was created and manufactured), met with his relative who worked on the computer, obtained a 5100 from him and had it altered in some way for use in 2036. > > John mentions that the 5100 had some sort of inbuilt ability to translate computer languages that was unknown or unpublished before 2036. The computer would then have been used back in his time to translate or fix broken computer systems. > > Based on his explanation, it would appear there must have been an easier way to solve this problem in 2036. If you can travel in time, why go back for a piece of old technology that we find useless? This may seem logical until you realize that even today, NASA scours the Internet looking for old computer parts to keep their systems running. > > What may be more interesting is the fact that John had a consistent reason he was willing to discuss for being here at all. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/7 "2003-12-05T02:39:22Z")
His “time machine” resembles real models as much as the designs for “flying machines” from the Victorian Age resemble real planes. His “microsingularities” contained with magnetic fields are laughable. He might as well have said it is powered by phlogiston. Why the interest in the Segway (“IT”, “Ginger”)? Why the obsession with Waco? Clearly a poseur embedded in 2000, unable to conceive of any historical extrapolation. Not even a mildly interesting fraud. American chrononauts teams are better trained than to risk rendering their worldline inaccessible through anachrononistic data bifurcation. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/8 "2003-12-05T02:44:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DrFidelius \* > \*\*American chrononauts teams are better trained than to risk rendering their worldline inaccessible through anachrononistic data bifurcation. \*\* This Conundrum. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/9 "2003-12-05T02:46:14Z")
Grrrrrr! This **is** Conundrum. Oh hell, nevermind. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/10 "2003-12-05T02:50:46Z")
> [@](#): > > ## \*Originally posted by astro \* \*\* quote: > > ## If you can travel in time, why go back for a piece of old technology that we find useless? This may seem logical until you realize that even today, NASA scours the Internet looking for old computer parts to keep their systems running. > > \*\* Is this part true in any way? IIRC at least one organisation has a lot of data collected from scientific missions to space that cannot be read because the equipment for doing so is not used any more and theirs has broken down. Is there not some sort of system in place to keep equipment replaced without having to run to EBay? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/11 "2003-12-05T04:06:21Z")
Not only is this ridiculous, it’s not even particularly well thought-out science fiction. Well, it’s not TERRIBLE, but the author makes the universal mistake of predicting that the future will for the most part be an extension of current trends and science fiction ideas. Frankly, the entire thing reads like a computer geek who’s reasonably creative, but not clever enough to really shake the dust off his boots. He’s still citing the Internet, UNIX, bitching about the 2000 election, and fashionable 2003 issues. In other words, it’s precisely the crap a computer geek would consider important in 2003, all rolled up in a rather cliched post-armageddon scenario copied from any number of B-list films. The fakery’s rather blatant. I have cited examples before in other threads, but if you read predictions and flights of fancy from 15, 20, 30 years ago, you will find authors - even really smart ones, like Carl Sagan - **had absolutely no idea what the future held.** Prognosticators of 1978 predicted the world of 2003 would be 1978 + the trends of the time; they didn’t predict the Internet or the collapse of the USSR or any of that. An accurate prediction of the world of 2037 would not sound like an extension of today’s hot issues. It would likely present us with a world full of issues and developments we would find completely surprising. My guess is that the lielihood of the people of 2037 even remembering what UNIX is is, well, about the same as the likelihood an average person off the street today being able to tell you what FORTRAN is. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/12 "2003-12-05T04:35:07Z")
Except, RickJay, you can’t predict the future either, and therefore it makes any prediction, especially one told in the confident way this guy does it, all the more plausible. He isn’t being utterly fantadtical, and he has an explanation for all the things you might pick at in his accounts. Not that I believe him, but it’s fascinating to see that, if you actually took the leap of assuming that he speaks the truth, then you can see that what he is saying is going to happen, could actually happen. There certainly is more unrest than there was in early 2001, there certainly are strong divisive factions in the US over GWB and his Presidential actions at the moment, that certainly could get worse (as much as we don’t really think it will). ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/13 "2003-12-05T04:51:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RickJay \* > My guess is that the lielihood of the people of 2037 even remembering what UNIX is is, well, about the same as the likelihood an average person off the street today being able to tell you what FORTRAN is. Most people off the street today couldn’t tell you what UNIX or FORTRAN are, yet both technologies continue to evolve after more than 30 years. Futurists back in the 1950s thought that by now no one would be using automobiles anymore. But, yeah, this dude is a real looney-toon. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/14 "2003-12-05T04:51:29Z")
I am stunned by the obvious, yearning vibe of those who desperately _want_ to believe in this con man and his mission. Everything about this scam is so patently absurd from the nonsensical, scientifically illiterate use of techno babble, to the absolutely incomprehensible idiocy of the reason for coming, it makes you want to throw up your hands that this idiot actually has a following and people wanting to take him, and his poorly buttressed, silly ass story, seriously. The “(It’s taking longer than we thought)” part of the SD headline, suddenly has a resonance I never perceived before. ---
**Author:** ![Swoop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b77776/32.png) [@Swoop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swoop)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/15 "2003-12-05T05:01:45Z")
[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?&threadid=222477](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?&threadid=222477) [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=222465](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=222465) ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/16 "2003-12-05T05:06:36Z")
Actually, unix and unix-type systems have been around and _will be_ around forever. There _is_ some concern that the [Year 2038 bug](http://www.gsp.com/2038/) is going to cause some problems on very old software, but going hardware hunting for a POS 5100? Yeeeeaaaah. :rolleyes: This thing is old. I read about it a while ago, and decided from this [page with much better pictures](http://www.anomalies.net/time_travel/john.html) that he _does_ have access to extremely advanced army-surplus equipment, and perhaps a typewriter font. And that’s it. I tried for a bit to find out what that thing really was; that cut-away drawing is quite professional IMHO, and looks like it fits up with whatever hardware he’s got his hands on. If you think it’s a time machine though, I’m willing to sell you the new improved model, just as soon as I take some unrelated photos of my scrap VCR parts and run it through [the Gimp](http://www.gimp.org/). 😛 ---
**Author:** ![KP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a9adbd/32.png) [@KP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KP)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/17 "2003-12-05T05:07:57Z")
You mean he’s …(gasp)… _Cecil Jr._? ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/18 "2003-12-05T05:20:17Z")
Sorry **Cheeky Monkey** but I only visited just 1 page of those sites. Maybe I’m getting older and grumpier and don’t want to take the time to research something that has absolutely no foundation in reality (past, present, or future). As far as people believing in him? Not surprising. Look at how many knowledgeable were associated with the Reverend Jim Jones and David Koresh. Many intelligent people lost money by investing in the schemes of John Keeley (sp??), Charles Ponzi, John Newman, the BRE-X corporation (fraudulent gold company from a few years ago). And what number are we up to in “end-of-the-world” predictions? Is the Rapture just around the corner? Also, the “Harmonic Convergence” occurred about 12 years ago. And this brought about what? Then again, we are now living in the Age of Aquarius and wow is this Utopia or what? And what about the Bible decoders? Have they come up with anything substantial yet? And **Rick Jay** I believe Carl Sagan around 1980 pretty much envisioned the Internet of today. (And I agree that it is VERY difficult to predict the future). :: Okay I’m stepping off the soapbox now :: ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/19 "2003-12-05T05:26:22Z")
Just 1 more soapbox rant - Remember the **Heaven’s Gate Cult**? A lot of intelligent people were associated with that. And they killed themselves in order to hitch a ride on the UFO that was following the Hale-Bopp comet !! Sure makes sense to me. I believe it was the Great American Philosopher **Yogi Berra** who said “90% of the time you can’t believe half those things”. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2003, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066/20 "2003-12-05T05:46:37Z")
From the site linked to in the OP: > [@](#): > > As you are probably aware, UNIX will have a timeout error in 2038 and many of the mainframe systems that ran a large part of the infrastructure were based on very old IBM computer code. The 5100 has the ability to easily translate between the old IBM code, APL, BASIC and (with a few tweaks in 1975) UNIX. This may seem insignificant but the fact that the 5100 is portable means I can easily take it back to 2036. I do expect they will create some sort of emulation system to use in multiple locations. This is nonsense. A 1975 portable computer that has the ability to translate between “old IBM code” (presumably COBOL or assembler), APL, BASIC, and UNIX? Does he even know the difference between an operating system and a language?[sup]\*[/sup] I suppose when he says UNIX he could be talking about one of the UNIX shell scripting languages but it’s laughable to think that you could add the ability to translate to that with “a few tweaks”. I know that this is General Questions and I don’t have a cite proving that he’s a fraud, but he _is_ a fraud. [sup]\*[/sup]Before anyone says it, I’m aware that the distinction can be blurred sometimes, especially in older computers. But when you’re talking about BASIC versus UNIX it’s apples and oranges. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-titor-brilliant-fraud-or-an-ordinary-soldier-from-2036/217066.md?page=2)