(Cover picture on Pixabay)
Many of us first encountered the concept of Time Travel with the famous Delorean automobile that Doc Brown turned into a time-traveling device and together with Marty McFly traveled "Back To the Future".
Science fiction is often using the topic of time travel and we have witnessed some astonishing films and series and read quite a lot of amazing novels regarding this topic.
From H.G Wells that popularized time travel in the 19th century, and Doctor Who (the six-decade long-standing British TV-Series), to the Terminator franchise and the "12 Monkeys" movie, time travel has always been a fascinating topic.
Theoretically, time travel is possible, since Albert Einstein concluded that with the Theory of Relativity. However, it is based on the hypothesis wormholes exist, something that we can't verify.
What we know today is that time travel to the future exists. It is not certain though if time travel to the past is or will ever be possible.
Iconic scientist Steven Hawking was so certain that time travel to the past will become reality in the future that decided to invite time-travelers to a party at the University of Cambridge in 2009. We are not sure of the result but probably no time traveler accepted the invitation, since Hawkins was the only one that attended.
However, we can't be sure about some occurrences that were captured by camera throughout the years and while they don't prove time travelers are real, still they leave way too many questions and possibilities open.
Let's charge our flux capacitor and examine three cases of possible time-travelers having already visited us in our timeline!
The Time Traveller Hipster!
This photo was taken during a bridge re-opening in Canada, in 1940. It is a real photograph that belongs to the "Bralorne Pioneer Museum" and researchers have validated this by visiting the museum and presented their findings on this YouTube video.
The image is black and white and it is just a crowd of people attending the event of the reopening of a bridge.
However, if we look carefully, there is one person that stands out from the rest.
Who is this guy? Everything about him is quite odd.
He is wearing modern sunglasses, he has a different haircut for that era, and his clothes seem to be out of place and time! He is wearing a t-shirt with the letter "M", which is an unrecognizable brand name, a cardigan, and possibly a hoodie.
He seems completely out of place and he is also holding a device in his hands that is probably a camera.
This is the case of the person the internet labeled "The Time Traveler Hippie" and his looks and clothes has left everyone puzzled. Can this man be a time traveler as the internet thinks or simply a guy that just looks too "cool" for his era?
Woman on Cell Phone, in 1938!
This one is caught on tape and it is very interesting to watch:
Looks like the shift is over and the employees are happily exiting the office or factory building going back home.
Wait though, what is this woman holding? It certainly looks like a mobile communications device!
It certainly looks like she is holding a device resembling a cell phone and talking with someone! Mobile telephony was available in the '90s so this film from the 30s certainly raises questions.
Any such device seems to be out of time and place, and this video has sparked a heated debate online for more than a decade.
Could this be someone holding a wireless telecommunication device in the 30s and could this be a time-traveler from the future? What do you think?
John Titor - A Legendary Time Traveller
John Titor was not captured on camera but was a forum and bulletin board writer in the 2000s who managed to create a captivating mystery.
Reality or not the story John Titor unfolded with each of his publications had a huge effect on internet users around the world and even led to an investigation in the US for the whereabouts of John Titor.
Moreover, the story of the time traveler John Titor was the main influence behind one of the most wonderful and successful anime series of all time: "The Steins;Gate".
The story begins with Titor claiming he was a time traveler from the year 2036 that traveled back in time to obtain a certain model of an IBM computer.
He also presented a dystopic scenario for the future, as in his time the world was ravaged by a nuclear war, disorder and corruption.
Sounds absurd already but this is where the story gets interesting.
The computer model that Titor was looking for was a 1975 IBM 5100.
This model according to Titor possessed certain capabilities that were suppressed by IBM under the fear that competition would be able to use them to their advantage.
We need the system to “debug” various legacy computer programs in 2036. UNIX has a problem in 2038.
-John Titor
Not wanting to get technical, Titor basically explained that this IBM model was the only one able to debug "legacy computer programs".
The technology of the future was hanging by his mission to bring this model back to the future, as there was none to be found in his timeline.
Wikipedia explains that this is a possible reference to the UNIX year 2038 problem or Y2k38, which is similar to the Y2K bug, but in the year 2038.
This information was actually valid and also confidential.
This IBM model could support both BASIC and APL programming languages.
Bob Dubke, one of the designers of the IBM 5100 model explained that this fact was hidden “because of worries about how [IBM’s] competition might use it.” (Source: ComputerMystery).
John Titor wasn't someone that was randomly saying stuff to make an impression. This raised interest in this character even more since he was explaining technical issues that almost nobody but only a few tech experts at that time understood and knew.
If he was not a time traveler from 2036, then he was probably someone having a real interest in computers since very early, and perhaps someone involved with the programming and creation of such models, like the IBM 5100.
But it wasn't just that. In a series of posts, John Titor was giving information about everything someone might ask.
First of all, he said he didn't want anyone to believe him, but he was going to explain everything, probably in a futile attempt for our future not to become like his own.
Come to think of it, if there was the slightest chance someone living a dystopian nightmare, with a nuclear war having ravaged his world, and with a chance to visit the past, before everything collapsed, wouldn't he had that duty, to at least try and warn?
And one way to do it would be by catching the attention of the most intelligent people working in the technology field. He did exactly that.
And how would anyone explain himself in his position? When you try to force something, it just won't work. He knew that probably nobody was going to believe him, and this was a futile attempt had to be made, thus he started like this:
"Perhaps it would be better if you just considered me a fraud."
It is reverse psychology and it works way more than often, but frankly, I don't expect someone who has all this information this person had with him, to begin like that in case he was a fraud.
John Titor's Time Machine
I don't know many having all this time in the world to try and create this kind of designs and begin a yearly campaign on the internet.
I will leave links below for further research as this story requires at least 10-20 pages to explain everything.
Titor stopped posting on forums in March 2001 but the mystery kept growing especially after Steins;Gate was released and the popularity it enjoyed between anime fans.
I think it deserves a place in the top time traveler mysteries since it was probably the most complete story ever told, and contained information that was so strange, unreal, and convincing at the same time.
If this was a hoax, it was a remarkable one, and if it was all real then John Titor possibly saved our timeline from the worse.
Find more about John Titor on these links:
Conclusion
Are these time travelers real or just a figment of our imagination?
The internet is no strange place for mystery. There are plenty of videos and images with various candidates as time travelers. Most though, come out of the imagination of mystery enthusiasts, and perhaps some narrators will take it to a great extent to convince with deceptive methods.
Pictures and some videos from very old days usually have bad resolution and leave a lot to the imagination of the viewer.
Usually, this is the case with the time travelers that appear online, however, the mysteries will continue to baffle the internet. Moreover, the scientific community is still divided and always leaves a window open for time travel to be possible.
As Professor Hawking explains:
Maybe one day someone living in the future will find the information and use a wormhole time machine to come back to my party, proving that time travel will, one day, be possible.
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I think time traveling is possible