[00:00:00] If anyone out there wants to become a famous time traveler like I did, I would recommend not doing it.
[00:00:06] I come to you today from another time. A familiar time. A time you and I experienced in different ways.
[00:00:26] But it was unmistakably real.
[00:00:30] I come from the past.
[00:00:33] No matter when you're listening, I've already recorded this program to be released at a future time of my choosing.
[00:00:43] It would be impossible to return from the future to schedule this show and I'll explain why in a moment.
[00:00:48] But that hasn't stopped scammers from pretending to be time travelers from the future
[00:00:53] and cashing in on people's willingness to believe those fairy tales.
[00:00:58] Today we're talking about time travel scams that are likely to have a bright future ahead of them.
[00:01:04] We know we can change the speed that time passes, although only slightly.
[00:01:12] Einstein taught us that, but passing time and time travel are different.
[00:01:24] We've all come from a past, so it's clear that the journey forward is relatively simple.
[00:01:29] It's theoretically possible to go into the future, but from a practical standpoint, don't bet the rent on actually doing it.
[00:01:39] One theory involves the curve of space-time and whether one could walk in a circle around the curve and return to where you began.
[00:01:48] I'm leaving that theory to the Science Podcastries.
[00:01:55] Another thought is that you'd have to know and control the position of every particle in the universe and be able to manipulate them.
[00:02:04] Since we can't know anything about those future particles, we're powerless.
[00:02:13] The same idea is why going backwards is not an option.
[00:02:17] Nor could we change the future by changing the past.
[00:02:21] We just can't know or manipulate all those particles.
[00:02:24] When it comes to time travel, we're screwed, but scammers aren't.
[00:02:30] Let's begin with John Titer, whereas he was known on some online bulletin boards as Time Traveler underscore zero.
[00:02:38] He used both pseudonyms and claimed to be from 2036.
[00:02:42] He first surfaced in 2000 and continued to post online through 2001.
[00:02:48] He predicted horrible catastrophes in the near future, including a nuclear war.
[00:02:54] He said there would be a civil war and a brief but terrible World War III around 2015.
[00:03:01] Titer said he was part of a government time travel program.
[00:03:05] He was sent back in time to acquire an IBM 5100 computer, which was needed to debug legacy programs from his time.
[00:03:13] There are all kinds of reasons this should have set off warning bells.
[00:03:17] Programs from 1975 wouldn't likely run on processors built in 2000.
[00:03:22] Plus it says that society in 2036 must have had pretty crappy IT people
[00:03:27] who couldn't realize that they needed to update their code to contemporary languages.
[00:03:32] Still, there were suckers willing to buy the tail.
[00:03:35] So who was John Titer or Time Traveler underscore zero?
[00:03:40] No one knows for sure, or at least they haven't told but they know.
[00:03:44] Perhaps in 2036 we'll find out if the wars don't get us first.
[00:03:50] But what if a real Time Traveler showed up?
[00:03:53] No, no, no, no!
[00:03:59] How would we know for sure if they're telling the truth?
[00:04:02] For that we turn to Bill Nye, the science guy who comments on Titer's shenanigans.
[00:04:07] There is a very reasonable theory that you could build a time machine in which you go faster or close to the speed of light.
[00:04:14] Of course that would kill you because you'd be accelerated in these very small radii and at very high speeds and you'd fly apart.
[00:04:21] But that aside, you can only go back in time to when the machine was built.
[00:04:26] It's just a complication.
[00:04:29] The other thing is when people make these extraordinary claims, there's generally a way to prove them false, to prove them wrong.
[00:04:38] And this guy took the trouble to only go to 2036, see if he can tell you who won the Super Bowl.
[00:04:44] And the other big thing, I always ask those guys, why isn't he rich?
[00:04:48] Couldn't he have invested in certain stocks? Couldn't he have seen certain eventualities?
[00:04:55] Outcomes with the stock market, with certain manufacturers, be it the Tesla Automobile Corporation for example,
[00:05:03] or the Department of Defense in the United States coming up with some fabulous new invention.
[00:05:09] He wouldn't even have invested in certain farmland in the right part of the world to be especially productive.
[00:05:14] And so on and so on.
[00:05:16] So I really encourage you to look into these guys' claims.
[00:05:20] Now, in what we call skepticism or skeptical thought, and you also, it's a very popular phrase right now,
[00:05:28] critical thinking skill.
[00:05:32] We evaluate claims.
[00:05:34] We look to see if a claim is true or false.
[00:05:38] You look at a specific thing this guy says that happens in the future and see if it really happens.
[00:05:47] In general, when people make those claims, I'm 60 years old.
[00:05:50] 60 years old now, I've been through a lot of claims of the end of the world.
[00:05:56] A lot of people who said they're from the future.
[00:05:58] It's really easy to meet people who say they're from the past.
[00:06:02] That they were in some extraordinary war in ancient Greece,
[00:06:07] or that they were a man, no woman who believed or seemed to believe
[00:06:12] that she was killed in a car wreck in the 1920s
[00:06:16] and she used to be this beautiful woman who dressed in flapper clothes
[00:06:20] of that era, very distinctive style of dress.
[00:06:24] And she really believes that until you start asking her questions about who was president,
[00:06:28] how much money did she have in the bank, what was the price of a gallon of gas,
[00:06:32] and so on. They don't really know these things are easily researched.
[00:06:35] So I think if you look into this guy's claims, each claim, you'll be able to debunk them.
[00:06:42] We can all have a good laugh about Titer.
[00:06:45] That is unless you believed his BS and made financial bets on the truth of his statements.
[00:06:50] Titer appeared on the factually challenged Art Bell radio show,
[00:06:54] but he wouldn't be the only one to make time travel claims on Bell's airwaves.
[00:06:59] In 1996, The New York Times reported on Mike Markham from St. Joseph, Missouri.
[00:07:05] Markham said he was building a time machine that employed 168 electromagnets.
[00:07:11] Later that year, he disappeared leaving the St. Joseph News Press to report
[00:07:16] that he'd been evicted from his apartment for transporting a cat a block away.
[00:07:21] Markham resurfaced later saying quote,
[00:07:24] The cat deal just ain't true.
[00:07:27] He added that he plans to test the time machine soon
[00:07:30] once he solves the sticky problem of controlling wind and where it sends him.
[00:07:35] He told the newspaper that right now this would only make a good garbage disposal.
[00:07:41] I had tipped to the news press for not letting facts get in the way of a good story.
[00:07:46] Next you need to hear about Apex TV.
[00:07:50] Apex is a YouTube channel that characterizes itself as quote,
[00:07:54] a group of inclusive open-minded individuals seeking to share the stories that don't get told.
[00:08:01] We want to build a community for people to feel safe about telling their stories
[00:08:05] without being judged and without pushing our own thoughts.
[00:08:09] We feel there's too much judging in today's world,
[00:08:12] so we want to let people tell their stories and let the public decide for themselves.
[00:08:17] End quote.
[00:08:19] Apex TV claims to have more than one million followers.
[00:08:23] It's a rich environment for time travelers, travelers like Gerald Gardner.
[00:08:28] What name Gerald Gardner?
[00:08:32] And I am a story to tell you.
[00:08:36] Now that's the original audio I captured from a video of what appeared to be a very old man.
[00:08:42] And that's after I cleaned it up. It's not listenable.
[00:08:46] So I transcribed the text and put it through a computer voice so you could hear it more clearly.
[00:08:51] I moved up the ranks, and ten years later, in the year 1988,
[00:08:56] I was selected as the best candidate for an experimental technology.
[00:09:01] They had not tested it before on a human being and I was to be the first one.
[00:09:05] I began training, doing a series of tests,
[00:09:08] and soon came the date of the final test to send a human being to the future and back successfully.
[00:09:14] If they could do this, they would have great power over society,
[00:09:18] and they knew that they must perfect this technology before any other country does.
[00:09:23] In 1998 it was determined that I was to be sent to the year 2300.
[00:09:29] I was to be paid on gross sum of 2.3 million pounds
[00:09:33] I accepted this as it is more money than I could ever imagine before,
[00:09:37] and I knew it could help my family greatly.
[00:09:40] I'm telling you or details that I have not even disclosed even to my closest family members.
[00:09:46] And what I'm telling you is true.
[00:09:49] I understand people who don't believe what I'm telling you,
[00:09:52] but I can assure you that what I'm telling you is true.
[00:09:55] When a con artist tells you you can trust them because their story is true,
[00:09:59] you know it's time to step away, no, run away.
[00:10:03] But Gardner had more to share, starting with his awakening in the future
[00:10:07] to the vision of cities floating in the sky, able to move wherever they wanted.
[00:10:12] There was essentially no government.
[00:10:14] Each city was independently operated.
[00:10:17] There were no officials.
[00:10:19] The cities were governed by a computer.
[00:10:22] I asked many questions about this computer and I asked if they could malfunction.
[00:10:28] They told me that there was no chance of any malfunction.
[00:10:32] This computer was much larger and much more advanced
[00:10:35] earning could possibly be and in the future.
[00:10:38] The computer set guidelines.
[00:10:40] If these guidelines were broken,
[00:10:42] they would be escorted to the computer that governed the city.
[00:10:45] If deemed guilty,
[00:10:47] they would be sent temporarily to a camp
[00:10:49] in which they would fulfill basic community functions.
[00:10:52] If the violation of the civil guidelines were deemed as severe,
[00:10:56] they would be escorted to a meeting with main computer
[00:10:59] which would give them one more chance.
[00:11:01] If the computer deemed them to not be redeemable,
[00:11:04] their consciousness would be uploaded to a computer
[00:11:07] in which they would live out their lives.
[00:11:10] After spending three years in the future,
[00:11:12] it was time for him to go back home
[00:11:14] and back to his original time.
[00:11:17] I would have stayed longer if I could,
[00:11:19] but I got sent back and I reported my findings to the British government.
[00:11:23] I wish I could go back, but I can't.
[00:11:26] Sorry to everyone that I lied to.
[00:11:29] I've reached a place in my life where you deserve to know the truth.
[00:11:33] Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!
[00:11:37] Apex TV knew a good thing when it saw it,
[00:11:40] and that brings us to Noah.
[00:11:42] Noah the time traveler made frequent appearances on Apex.
[00:11:46] He appeared with a pixelated face and a voice changer.
[00:11:49] He made several predictions including one that Donald Trump would be elected for a second term.
[00:11:54] Discuss among yourselves whether that was true or not.
[00:11:58] Noah said extraterrestrials would visit Earth in 2028,
[00:12:02] and that Yolanda Rene King, the granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr.,
[00:12:07] will become President of the United States.
[00:12:10] She is supposedly elected at the age of 21.
[00:12:13] He mentions nothing of the constitutional amendment
[00:12:16] that would be needed for that to happen.
[00:12:18] On his next to last video, Noah unmasked his face
[00:12:22] and promised that his next video he disclosed his true identity.
[00:12:26] If it's to be believed, his name is Dennis Bell.
[00:12:31] Early on in my life I always wanted to be famous,
[00:12:35] and when the Noah character took off,
[00:12:37] it was a chance for me to actually become famous.
[00:12:40] Even when my face was blurred, I still felt that I was important,
[00:12:44] and this is the first time in my life that I've actually felt like this, that I fit in.
[00:12:49] And it's hard for me to end this, but I want to start a new chapter in my life.
[00:12:55] For anybody who believed I was a real time traveler, I'm sorry.
[00:12:59] I honestly meant to never hurt anyone.
[00:13:02] What started out as a social experiment became something part of my life.
[00:13:06] This is a chapter of my life that I want to close.
[00:13:10] I'm sorry for wasting anybody's time.
[00:13:12] At the very least, I hope that some of you got some entertainment out of me being a time traveler.
[00:13:18] So basically, Apex TV started to realize that I wasn't telling the truth,
[00:13:23] and I started to get angry because they were taking away my only chance to become famous.
[00:13:28] And more than anyone, I want to apologize to Apex TV.
[00:13:32] It was never my intention to manipulate you, but I just wanted to become famous.
[00:13:37] But the guy wasn't done yet.
[00:13:39] But what was really weird about my predictions is that some of them were actually becoming true.
[00:13:45] And if time travel doesn't get released in 2028, I wouldn't even be surprised.
[00:13:50] I know this may seem cocky, but for some reason my predictions have actually become true.
[00:13:56] I began to have visions in my dreams, and that's what led me to make these predictions.
[00:14:01] I recently had a dream that the existence of aliens will be released to the public in the next few years.
[00:14:07] And if this actually happens, I'm documenting it here with this video so you can actually see.
[00:14:12] He did leave us with some words of advice.
[00:14:15] If anyone out there wants to become a famous time traveler like I did, I would recommend not doing it.
[00:14:21] Even though it was fun for a little bit, there's a lot of people out there trying to find out who I really was.
[00:14:26] There's a lot of crazy people out there and I don't recommend faking being a time traveler.
[00:14:31] So now that you guys know the truth, I hope that you can forgive me, and I'll see you guys next time.
[00:14:36] Next time, instead of a time traveler, perhaps he'll revisit us as a space traveler from a distant galaxy.
[00:14:43] Greetings, everythings. Take me to a mirror.
[00:14:47] To wrap things up, I have the story of a Swedish man who in 2006 said he'd been accidentally transported to 2046
[00:14:58] when attempting to fix the sink in his kitchen.
[00:15:01] In the future, he met a man who was himself at about 70 years old.
[00:15:05] They made a short video of him together, smiling and hugging and showing the tattoo they had on their right arms.
[00:15:12] The public had a good laugh at the scam which was pulled off by a life insurance company.
[00:15:38] Thanks for listening.
[00:16:12] I'm going to wrap up and let's explore the inexplicable.