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Judgement Day
The Times & Life of John Titor
By Tim Ventura & Oliver, March 20th, 2007

Appearing in the media like an apparition, the mysterious newsgroup poster “John Titor” told a
story of time-travel from a post-nuclear future that captivated the late-night airwaves and
inspired deep introspection into the role of materialism & conflict in today’s world. We interview
the webmaster of johntitor.com for his perspectives on what Titor said - and what may come.

AAG: Let's start out with the John Titor backstory -- in this case, it's a pretty expansive tale, and
I'm going to start out recommending that our audience visit your site online at johntitor.com, but
I'm wondering if you could quickly bring us up to speed with a brief overview of the notable
elements of this remarkable tale?

Oliver: Thanks for the link reference but don't take my word for any of this. A Google search for
images, blogs and even news will bring up thousands of sites with John Titor information. There's
even a pay-per-click video now for the devoted.

In November of 2000, John Titor started posting on a forum that he was a time traveler from the
year 2036 who had traveled to our time while completing a military mission. The mission involved
going back to the year 1975 and getting one of the first portable computers manufactured by IBM.
According to John, the computer was unique and they needed it in the future to decode or
communicate with much older computer systems that were effected by Y2K. Obviously, two
questions come up. Why would someone with a time machine need outdated technology? Isn't
this fiction since Y2K didn't happen?

Two interesting points may answer the first question. John gave very detailed information about
the computer he was after that was apparently only known by a handful of IBM engineers. After
reading John's posts, an actual IBM engineer came forward and backed up what John had said. In
addition, NASA scours eBay today looking for computer parts to keep the space shuttle flying. The
idea of needing outdated computers to keep expensive systems running is with us now.

On the second subject of Y2K, John said that time travel was actually the passing between infinite
universes and it was possible to choose the different times between them. John was surprised and
disturbed by the fact Y2K didn't happen for us. I believe that may have been the reason he was
posting in the first place.

AAG: Now in terms of background, you're a lot like myself: you first heard about the John Titor
story and treated it with a bit of skepticism, but like me the story haunted you enough that you
created the official John Titor website as a repository for all of the information & related news

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pertaining to the story. Can you tell us about your initial reactions to the Titor story -- how you first
heard about it, your initial opinions, and how they changed over time to lead you to create the
website?

Oliver: John posted online for a period of five months between November 2000 and March 2001.
He announced he was leaving, said good bye and left the Internet. I discovered the posts later in
2001 when a friend sent me a few links. After staying up all night reading, I was amazed and
continued to follow the posts. One of the statements John made was that his time machine was
powered by two mini-black holes that were manufactured in a particle accelerator called CERN in
Geneva Switzerland. He made the statement in his posts that CERN would announce their
expectations to create mini-black holes in the fall of 2001. Amazingly, that's exactly what
happened six months after he left. That feeling of "oh my gosh" stuck with me. I think its the main
reason people keep following the posts.

As time went on, more and more of what John said about our future began to unfold and there
were more "oh my gosh" moments. You would read the posts and forget them until you saw
something in the news that reminded you that a time traveler spoke about it a year ago. That's
what prompted me to collect the actual words John wrote online and put them into one spot that
was easier to read.

AAG: The John Titor story really does seem to haunt people, doesn't it? I've shown it to a number
of well-respected scientists, and while they tend to agree that his technical description of the
time-travel device is at least plausible, they all tend to dismiss the story as either being a hoax,
political-art, or just a publicity stunt by a physics student. Nonetheless, many of them continue to
follow the story regularly and chat about it with their colleagues because the story haunts them.
Have you seen similar reactions from people that your acquaintances?

Oliver: The physics of the posts take more criticism than anything else. However, it is interesting
to see that John Cramer, a professor of physics from Washington state, wrote many things about
mini black holes and alternate universes after John wrote them that could have been pulled right
from the posts. In addition, professor Cramer is now looking for funding to build a working time
machine model based on real science. I also saw recently that a patent has been taken out for a
process based on John's description of how his time machine worked. Maybe there's good
financial reasoning behind denying John's physics and debunking the posts?

Yes, the story is haunting. John seemed like a real person who believed what he was saying and it
flew in the face of what we expect a time traveler to be. He was very polite but harbored anger
and resentment toward us for our political inaction and ignorance. He was angered when people
asked questions for their own personal gain but happy to discuss future technology, philosophy,
religion and self reliance. It's disturbing to read something you want to believe that has so many
negative aspects to it. To stay sane, you have to find a reason to discount it.

AAG: Now it seems that the best way to provide validation for the Titor story comes from
matching up historical facts with the original claims over a period of time. Titor himself was vague
about a lot of historical details, but nonetheless made a insinuations about the future, and even a

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few outright predictions. Can you outline a few of them for us, and tell us how they're holding up
in the 5 years since this story first appeared?

Oliver: I'm not sure I agree that validation of time travel should be based on the accuracy of
future events. Imagine you have a time machine. At four in the afternoon, you're standing on a
street corner in the rain. Your friend drives past you and has a car accident. You decide to use your
time machine and go back twenty-four hours to warn him. You call your friend and tell him it will
rain tomorrow and that he'll have a car accident at four. Predicting rain isn't seen as a big deal and
your friend decides not to go driving thus avoiding the accident. Now your prediction is false. Is
that proof you didn't travel in time? Aren't situations like this the reason we want a time machine?

As far as John is concerned, yes, he did make a series of statements which could be considered
predictions. Some he was very right about while others are more questionable or confusing. John
talked about not finding WMDs in Iraq before the war started, trouble with the space shuttle,
advances with viruses in treating cancer, the spread of Internet based entertainment and wireless
technology, the arrival and danger of mad cow disease in the US, civil war in the United States,
and many others.

AAG: Well before the presidential election in 2000, Titor had raised some questions about how
the public would feel if the results of the election were disputed. He also insinuated that civil war
would begin to erupt in 2005, and that a full-out shooting-war would exist in the USA by 2008. Can
you tell us about these civil unrest predictions, leading up to his claim of nuclear war in 2015?
Also, would it be fair to say that he gained a boost in popularity after the disputed 2000 election?

Oliver: John did strike a cord with people by discussing the election and civil war in the United
States but I don't think I'm able to get in John's head and explain what we meant. He may have
been trying to warn us not to go driving at four o'clock. On the other hand, it is interesting to note
that John's posts about civil war seem remarkably accurate when you replace the words United
States with Iraq.

AAG: On a personal note, I had a healthy skepticism about the Titor story until 2003, when I was
literally stunned to see an issue of Scientific American on the news-stand talking about the new
CERN particle-collider being able to generate charge-based micro-singularities (black holes) when
it goes online in 2007. Is the science all coming together on-schedule to make Titor's prediction of
a time-travel device plausible?

Oliver: It does appear look that way or, as some have speculated, the person who wrote the
posts not only worked on the IBM computer in 1975 but also works at CERN. It caught my
attention a few weeks ago to see that an unknown "explosion" at CERN has set them back a little. I
wonder if the system is already working and creating mini black holes?

AAG: You mentioned some stunning new information to me on the phone: that Art Bell, the host
of Coast to Coast AM, had received two faxes from John Titor in 1998 talking about both the Twin
Towers being destroyed in New York City as well as Newt Gingrich running for president. Since Fox

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News was talking about Gingrich for President in 2008 on today's news, I thought it would be a
good time to ask a bit more about this stunning new information. What can you tell us?

Oliver: When I first heard about the faxes, I didn't pay too much attention to it because it wasn't
part of the original posts he left in 2000 - 2001. Then I heard the audio with Art and I do believe
this was John. Art read the faxes on the air. John told Art he remembered a New York in the future
with a missing sky-scrapper as well as a future where Newt Gingrich was president. I'm not sure
how likely it is for Mr. Gingrich to be president but it does sound like a cryptic warning about 911.
It's also interesting to note that John said he had to go back to 1998 from 2001 before going home
to 2036. So was the John who sent the faxes to Art the same John we met or another John on his
way to 2000?

AAG: You'd mentioned to me earlier that the Titor story might not be as easy to validate as we
first might guess, since his claim of time-travel using the "Many Worlds" interpretation of Quantum
Mechanics means that the timeline he claims to originate in is technically in a similar but parallel
dimension to our own. This means that there are implicit minor differences between his own
historical reality and ours. As I recall, you'd mentioned the 2004 Olympic Games as being one of
these - can you tell us a bit more about these differences?

Oliver: Yes, this is true. Many people point to the 2004 Olympics as proof John was not a time
traveler. This is interesting considering John said Y2K happened for him and not for us in his very
first posts. When you read what he said, he stated flatly that our future would be different that the
future he lived. Maybe some people need something they consider definitive in order to disregard
something else that frightens them.

AAG: Titor claimed that he was able to use a "gravity-lock" in his time-travel unit to prevent
massive timeline-divergence during travel - to keep him close to timelines at least similar to his
own, and prevent him from ending up someplace like a timeline where the dinosaurs still existed.
Here's the problem, though: none of the scientists that I've shown his story to have the first clue
about how this gravity-lock unit is supposed to work. Can you tell us a bit about this gravity-lock
device, and whether you've found any validation for the idea from the scientific community?

Oliver: My impression of the gravity-lock is something that measured changes in gravity as his
time machine was activated. The Earth would have been a major gravity source that would have
been easily picked up by the system. John said the time machine could alter the gravity field it was
creating in order to "hold" the Earth in place. I have seen articles in the past year or so describing
gravity sensors scientists plan to use on satellites so the technology does exist.

AAG: I've wondered if it's possible that the gravity-lock technology might have been a hoax by
the time-machine's designers to make people like Titor feel safe using the machine? After all, once
he leaves their timeline he's gone forever anyways -- they'd be depending on some other Titor to
show up with their IBM 5100, and with an infinite number of universes, odds are another Titor
eventually would. Any thoughts on this possiblity?

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Oliver: That's an interesting idea. I've always wondered if John was a real time traveler and also
a liar.

AAG: Let's talk about the overall public response to the Titor story. As the webmaster for the
official online archive, you get the brunt of public feedback & opinion on this tale, and you've
mentioned having received death-threats and all sorts of negative public response about this
story. Can you tell us a bit about this?

Oliver: For some reason, the posts seem to really anger some people. Some are angry because
they believe the posts are corrupting people and making them believe in time travel. Others are
angry because they think time travel is real and we're not supposed to know what John was
telling us. What ever the reason, I've been getting threats by email ever since we started the site.
Usually they're in all caps and telling me what they would do if they ever found me but there have
been others that were more serious and more threatening.

AAG: Do you think that this negativity coming from the public might be a sort of dark admission
that we agree with his assessments about our future? In other words, could this be an emotional
reaction to the realization that the way we're running our society might very well lead to the
events he's predicted?

Oliver: I absolutely agree but John also told us we don't have to surrender to a predefined
future.

AAG: Now one online skeptic - a fellow calling himself 'Mr. Dark' - claims that since civil war
didn't break out in 2005 the Titor story has been proven to be a hoax. However, didn't Titor himself
state that civil unrest would begin "as having a Waco type event every month that steadily gets
worse". Given the massive riots in France last winter, a rising insurgency in Iraq, and steadily
increasing tensions along the Mexican border, is it fair to say that maybe it's still too early to tell
whether these events have begun?

Oliver: The statement about Waco has been another one of those issues people center around
as proving the posts false. I always thought "Waco" events referred to government intervention on
private citizens that caused the death of the citizens. Maybe we didn't really understand what
John meant by that. I'm beginning to wonder if Waco events doesn't mean the increasing
frequency of children dying violently for pointless reasons.

AAG: In your opinion, what's the bellweather event that really tells us whether the Titor story
accurately predicts our future? Is it this notion of a real civil-war breaking out in 2008, having it
engulf the entire USA by 2012, or his predicted nuclear attacks by 2015? In your eyes, what's the
point of no return telling us that we're following Titors predicted timeline?

Oliver: That's an interesting question. In my opinion, we're already off the Titor time-line but
John seemed more concerned about that than he did having a nuclear or civil war. I think the real

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proof of John's statements will be found in the technology. I'm watching CERN very closely to see
if mini black holes can really be captured the way John said.

AAG: Thus far, we've talked a lot about timelines, events, and even technology, but I should
mention that the majority of the Titor story is actually about our culture, and not only how it
compares to what he claims exists in the United States of 2036, but also about how they view our
culture of today in a historical sense. Some people have described his views as "libertarian", but to
most of us his opinions seem both vaguely familiar and yet completely alien. What are your
thoughts on the cultural differences that he describes between these two worlds?

Oliver: It's true. Many people have tried to categorize John's political views so they could create
a profile on what kind of person they think typed the posts. In my opinion, it's very difficult to do
that considering the wide range of views he had. His descriptions of society seemed a lot like
communisism at the same time he was chastising us for our lack of religion. I think it's very
possible that catastrophic events in the future could create a society with people like John. I also
think that's another element that makes the posts so haunting.

AAG: You know, most time-travel claims talk about future catastrophes and offer advice on how
to avoid them, but a large part of Titor's story seems to involve the notion that the only way his
world can be born is for ours to die. In a sense, it almost creates a wall between our two worlds -
an invisible barrier of catastrophe that changes our culture into something that we simply can't
imagine today. Titor talked about the people of the future not really liking our culture today. Can
you elaborate a bit on that?

Oliver: As a time traveler, John was probably in a unique situation he was unprepared for.
Imagine being able to travel back in time and seeing the everyday activities of the German people
as the Nazi's were taking over or getting to know someone who was about to board the Titanic.
John seemed angry, paranoid, concerned and frustrated about the questions he was asked and the
world he found in the year 2000. He even said outright that he blamed us for many of the terrible
things he was forced to deal with as an adult.

AAG: Now your role as the Titor webmaster really involves archiving the original Titor story, but
in the past couple of years others have begun adding to the original story itself -- mostly notably a
group claiming to be Titor's family in our timeline, who appear in the media through their attorney,
Larry Haber. What can you tell us about this recent twist to the story? Have they added any
notable new information or pictures, and more importantly, have they made any contradictions to
the original story that might cast doubt on their authenticity?

Oliver: Larry Haber is a real attorney who lives in Florida and claims to represent the family of
John Titor in the year 2007. According to Larry, the family moved to the Midwest, wrote a book for
sale on Amazon, and deals with Larry on other media development. The family remains hidden due
to the fact that young John in our time is only nine years old. The mother of John Titor released a
document a few years ago that is supposed to prove John had something to do with changing the
IBM computer in 1975. I also believe they were able to prove who they were to a group of people

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that spoke to John online and had information backing up their claims. There is a short film from
Larry's office for sale that can be downloaded from the Internet. It is interesting and adds a twist
to everything else going on.

AAG: Speaking of the Titor family, one of John's final postings talked about having them film his
departure from the year 2001 to provide a bit more evidence for the authenticity of his story. If
nothing else, it would be neat to see the time-travel device at work -- have you heard whether
they were able to capture his departure on film, and if so, do they have plans to release it?

Oliver: John stated he would allow his departure to be videotaped and put up on the Internet.
Larry Haber claims to know nothing about it. Either the video was not made or never uploaded.
The video up now is not of John's departure.

AAG: I've heard rumblings about a movie deal in the works to produce a feature-film on the John
Titor story. Are either you or the Titor family involved with his, and have you heard any details
about it?

Oliver: I've heard the same thing but I don't have anymore information. I've had some success at
contacting the actor who plays John Titor in the short film. His name is Michael Hartson. He's a
real actor in Hollywood who's been in real movies. I hope to ask him a few questions in the next
few weeks.

AAG: Let's close with a question about your own future --how do you see your role as webmaster
of the John Titor website progressing over time? Will there ever be a time when you shut the
website down, or will it remain online indefinitely as a morality tale about the times we live in?
Also, what are your own future plans over the course of the next few years?

Oliver: I'll keep the site up as long as I can. Just when you think the posts don't have any life in
them, something happens in the news that sparks the whole thing all over again. I've always
wondered if John was a real time traveler but told us just enough to manipulate us. Maybe John
knew someone like me would do exactly what I'm doing. On the other hand, what if John knew
there would be no war in our future and wanted to change that? If he gave out just enough
information, someone might be able to build a bomb with a mini black hole.

Oliver is the archival webmaster of the official John Titor website – a collection of postings, links, and
information reference by Titor during the 2000 – 2001 timeframe. While Oliver prefers to remain semi-
anonymous, you may contact him via email at JTEditor@johntitor.com.

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