Mystic Fish's Titor Post Catalogs

[Darby]

Back in 2002 a web owner known only as Mystic Fish did a great job of cataloging all of Titor's posts on the "I am from 2036" thread on Post-2-Post and here on the "Time Travel Paradoxes" thread. His site disappeared many years ago but I saved the catalogs.

He placed his work in the public domain and allows anyone to copy and distribute them. I've used it dozens of times as a quick and dirty way to search for old posts, see the jist of them and the date they were made. I could then go to the specific post(s) on the original threads and see the entire post in full context.

Here they are for your use. If you copy and distribute them all that I ask is that you let everyone know that Mystic Fish did the grunt work and offer him your gratitude.

1. Catalog 1
THIS WORK IS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND MAY BE COPIED AND UTILIZED BY ALL

2. Catalog 2
THIS WORK IS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND MAY BE COPIED AND UTILIZED BY ALL

3. Catalog 3
THIS WORK IS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND MAY BE COPIED AND UTILIZED BY ALL

4. Time Travel Paradoxes Catalog Part 1
THIS WORK IS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND MAY BE COPIED AND UTILIZED BY ALL

5. Time Travel Paraxoxes Part 2
THIS WORK IS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND MAY BE COPIED AND UTILIZED BY ALL

 

[Blair]

Nice thank you Darby 0/

 

[ruthless]

What site did you get them from?

 

[Darby]

What site did you get them from?

I got it from www.mysticfish.com ten years ago. The site is long gone. I don't think it lasted more than a year or 18 months. It was just one of those things, back then, that I thought would disappear but might be useful in the future so I downloaded it and put it in my Titor archive.

 

[Darby]

Nice thank you Darby 0/

You're welcome.

 

[servantx]

Thank you so much Darby for the re-posts. It saved us lots of time in the searches. In your memory, did John Titor mentioned anything about Sept 11 before it happens back in 2001?

 

[Darby]

Thank you so much Darby for the re-posts. It saved us lots of time in the searches. In your memory, did John Titor mentioned anything about Sept 11 before it happens back in 2001?

You're welcome my friend.

Now I'm going to run the risk of sounding cruel in answering, "Did John Titor mention anything about Sept. 11th...?", but here's goes. Why do you 'spose that I posted all of Titor's posts here on the forum?

 

[Skarpz]

That's not cruel at all.

 

[servantx]

You're welcome my friend.

Now I'm going to run the risk of sounding cruel in answering, "Did John Titor mention anything about Sept. 11th...?", but here's goes. Why do you 'spose that I posted all of Titor's posts here on the forum?

Hi Darby,

No it is not harsh as i see where your thoughts come from. I asked that because I cannot find it in the catalog, and John Titor became famous overnight back in the 2000s because many claimed that he mentioned something about terrorist attack in the west. Also I asked what is in your memory rather than what is left on the board. I personally witnessed posts of others or my own posts changes in a single browser page reload. Some might edit posts but others might not. I just humblely ask you if you have any memory of John ever mention terrorist attack or any hint of Sept 11. Try not to refer to past post in server or hard drive, but in memory as you saw it in the past.

 

[Darby]

John Titor became famous overnight back in the 2000s because many claimed that he mentioned something about terrorist attack in the west.

Actually, John Titor didn't exactly "become famous overnight." His postings started here but his three threads were just, well, three threads among many others. Even when he started posting on Post-2-Post the topic wasn't all that popular. On that forum his thread was one amoung hundreds, most of which concerned the most recent guest on Art Bell's show. Once he stopped posting and Art Bell shut down Post-2-Post the topic of John Titor mostly concerned this site and Anomalies.net. At the height of his popularity here and on Anomalies there were maybe 18 people regularly posting on the topic.

He only "became famous overnight" during a single night in August of 2003. The newly formed John Titor Foundation, LLC had one of their staff, who used the handle JTFan, spam the Internet on hundreds of forums (of every type, not just alt-sci sites) with a plug for The Book. That was almost 2 1/2 years after he stoopped posting. It was only then that the topic became semi-viral, and only for a year or so. After that it died out and again was basically a topic here and on Anomalies (and frankly, during a prolonged period during 2003, only on Anomalies. TTI was pretty much a ghost town where a half dozen people were doing no more than trading silly personal messages in posts instead of PM or email). In 2008 the topic picked up again in Italy (and spilled over to here and Anomalies) when RAI aired a segment about Titor.

Oh, sure. He mentioned terrosism. Mentioning terrorism after 1968 is pretty much a given. What you're asking is did he mention 9-11. No. Not even a hint. Could he have alluded to a terrorist attack on the WTC even though he was not a time traveler? Absolutely. Go for it all. It's not as though it was not a scenario on the front burners of a host of counter-terrorism units in the US and beyond. The WTC had already had a deadly bombing attack in 1993 that was designed to bring the towers down. It was a failed attempt but not abandoned by the terrorists. But he didn't mention it at all.

 

[daver]

There was no mention of 9-11, and a totally incorrect prediction about the Olympics. And I am sure many more.

Even in a parallel wordline with a 2% divergence, there would be more accuracy than that.

Probably time to put the whole Titor subject to bed really.
I would love to believe, as you all would- but, there is no proof at all-only massive omissions and major descrepancies.


There are simply 2 things I would personally like answered.
1. WHY?
To impress someone?
To make money from the story in film rights, merchandise- or perhaps gain more audience for a radio show?
Or, simply- just enjoy winding people up?
I am certain it has to be one of the three.

2. The other thing I would like to personally pin down is the equipment photographed. I am sure I read it was some sort of Gas spectral Analyser used by British Oxygen?

I cannot seem to find any reference to the manufacturer, a friend of mine works for BOC- perhaps I can ask him to look in to it if required?

Dave R

PS: I love the way he cunningly and evasively replied to a question asking if John Titor was his real name?
He replied with something like "Titor Is a real name"
He didn't say "Titor is MY real name"
Obvious to one and all that it is the shortened TIme TravellOR.
Even if it is mis-spelt to an English man anyway.

 

[Troll]

My question to you Darbster is has anyone more convincing come along as a time traveler?

 

[Skarpz]

How do we know foe sure if he is a time traveler? Did all of his predictions come true?

 

[Darby]

There are simply 2 things I would personally like answered.
1. WHY?
To impress someone?
To make money from the story in film rights, merchandise- or perhaps gain more audience for a radio show?
Or, simply- just enjoy winding people up?
I am certain it has to be one of the three.

2. The other thing I would like to personally pin down is the equipment photographed. I am sure I read it was some sort of Gas spectral Analyser used by British Oxygen?

1. Why? Go with your second idea there. As I've posted many times you have to put the thing into perspective. In 2001 the Internet was very new to most people. It was dial-up, 56k modems, pay-per-hour online time and relatively few people had access to the Web. The Blair Witch Project had been released in 1999 - a cheap, low budget, almost student indie quality horror flick that made a bundle and a great majority of the pre release buzz for the film was made on BBS forums. And then along came Titor who ended up being backed by the John Titor Foundation, LLC (JTF) which was (and is) run by an entertainment industry attorney, Larry Haber, who specializes in packaging movie deals. And not just any entertainment industry attorney. This one was a top floor executive suite former Disney and Universal Studios lawyer. It was the movie. It never quite got off the ground but not every movie idea does get off the ground. I assume that the JTF ultimately realized that there really wasn't a story in the posts that could be made into an interesting, unique and entertaining film. But it does appear to have been an experiment using the then new social medium, the Internet, to set up a story, promote it, stimulate buzz for the story and then come out with The Movie, The Book, The Graphic Novel(s), T-Shirts, Coffee Cups...

The movie and graphic novels never got off the ground. The Book was a cheaply published regurgitation of our posts with a bit of narrative by Momma Kay Titor and The Other Attorney. It may have been right about there that they realized that there wasn't much substance behind the posts to make a movie. The Book is boring as a story and going to the posts themselves (on the Internet) held a lot more information, not to mention not deliberately altered as they were in The Book. On top of that a poster on Anomalies.net who used the handle Buzzmaker flatly stated that The Book was not written my Momma Kay Titor or The Other Attorney. It was written by in-house staff at VISI Corp's. studio. VISI Corp and Larry Haber shared the same building in Celebration, FL Haber was also Chief Legal Counsel for VISI Corp. There are plenty of posts about VISI Corp but the short version is that it was an advertising agency with a sound studio, video production studio and graphic arts studio on site in the same building that housed the JTF (Haber's office). No problem for them to have designed every prop used in the Titor Saga - they make movie magic every day. As for Buzzmaker, his assertion that he was present when The Book was being written and that he worked on Titor projects for the JTF was completely verified both by his email address (the same one used by everyone at the JTF) and by email contact with Haber when he started receiving hate mail fom several Pro-Titor and Anti-Titor Internet fruitbats generated by members of Anomalies.net and this site.

The Other Attorney - a long story but the short version is that, as the story goes, Momma Kay Titor fled to Nebraska with Johnny and met an attorney there and asked him to help write the Titor Saga to presere the history. But the MIB's would be after her so she needed to remain anonymous. The Other Attorney decides to contact yet another attorney to act as a stand-off from Nebraska to help preserve anonymity for Momma Kay. So, of all the attorney's in the world he just happens to contact Larry Haber in Celebration, FL - hadn't seen him in 25 years, not since law school - to be the second attorney. And of all the cities he could have lived in it was Celebration, FL where their community BBS was designed by MOP (owner of this site) who had a hotlink on the the Celebration forum connecting to this site...the very site where John Titor first posted. Talk about coincidences. Momma Kay had to pick a friend of Larry Haber's, official First Person of Celebration, FL I doubt that you'll find among even the True Believers as much as a handful of people who believe that there is actually another attorney involved here. It's just Haber. BTW: No, MOP is not a conspirator in this.

The JTF also had a store on Amazon to sell the book, mugs, T-shirts, etc. They probably made some money there, most likely because Larry Haber is directly involved with every phase of the Titor Saga - it's a Haber family affair. The JTF certainly did not make enough money to pay his normal attorney's fees more so when you consider that he's not just the attorney, he's the general manager of the JTF.

2. Mass Spectrometer: Back in 2002-2004 we had two posters who said they were mining technology engineers and that the photos and especially the schematic of the gadget looked very similar to 1960's vintage gas spectrometers used in the mining indistry. One said that it looked very similar to a British Oxygen model that he had used. It was a modular unit that could be set up to detect several gasses including radioactive gasses. He pointed out the different components in the schematic and the PC board slots that could all be swapped out to reconfigure the unit. However neither of them nor any of us could find a photo on the Web of the actual BOC (or similar) spectrometer. The engineer who said that it looked like the BOC model added that the same units were also used in the 1960's in large military and civilian fall-out shelters in order to take interior and exterior air samples following a nuclear attack. As he pointed out, something that we already were aware of, the Victoreen CD V-715 rad counter in the photos was not something that one would stake their life on when sampling the air for radiation. The unit detects gamma radiation. Not so good after a couple of days when the gamma emitters have pretty much decayed and alpha, beta and neutron emission is the problem. The Victoreen does not detect alpha, beta and neutron emissions.

The two posters made their posts many months apart. Were they what they said they were? It's the Internet. Who knows.

 

[daver]

Thanks Darby, that was most illuminating. I have a further question being from England, and not understanding the Intellectual rights situation in the USA.

How can it be that someone can start an organisation, call it a foundation and then assume the commercial rights (copyright) to some posts made by an anonymous person (Mr. Titor) in Bulletin boards or forums?

Surely, that info. is simply in the public domain!?!

If that stands, then surely if I stopped posting here, then someone could steal my right, to my own posts.

No doubt, the answer lies in the the lack of opposition to these rights claims.

But, you couldn't claim to have any rights if you disappear and do not contest them. Whether it be to the alleged future or simply just stay down the pub!

In the UK, I know personally of many cases where someone has registered the Trade Mark to a name they have very little rights to have. But, being the FIRST to do so, are hardly ever and probably never challenged, as it would be far too costly an exercise to contemplate through the courts!

On a final note:
Those schematics you mention, they do look extremely dated- similar to some electronics manuals made by Pye or Marconi communications way back, even as far as the late 50's (possibly earlier), up to the early 70's.
I still have some of them in the loft from my days as a Comm's engineer.

Thanks again for your info.
Dave R

 

[Darby]

How can it be that someone can start an organisation, call it a foundation and then assume the commercial rights (copyright) to some posts made by an anonymous person (Mr. Titor) in Bulletin boards or forums?

Starting the JTF and asserting the copyright was pretty straight forward. If we assume that Larry Haber knows his true client and that his client wrote the fictional story, designed the schematics, etc. under the nom de plume John Titor and TimeTravel_0 then he can assert the copyright.

Did the majority of us assume that our posts were in the public domain? Those that I've communicated with since The Book came out agree that they are. But as Buzzmaker explained in one of his posts The Book is a derivative work. As original posters our handles were not used in The Book when our posts were referenced. Our posts were either summerized or seriously edited such that it wasn't absolute plagerism. Interestingly, and I forgot to post it in the pervious post, when Buzzmaker was explaining his observations he stated that the "extra" schematics included in an early edition of The Book were created by the same persons who created The Book - right there at VISI Corp.

Even if there was a copyright issue, challenging a copyright violation is usually unsuccessful for the average individual or small business because of the legal costs involved. It's hugely expensive and can take years to settle. "Winning" the battle is followed by losing the war. Securing the right only to go bankrupt is at best a pyrric victory.

I think everyone was on the same page as you regards the era from whence the schematics came. But it appears that the original design was either never on the Internet or burried beyond the then early web crawlers' abilities to find them and get them into search engine databases. We looked long and hard and didn't find anything close enough to what was posted to have an "Ah-ha!" moment.

Many people were amazed at the quality of the schematics and gadget and assumed that an Internet hoaxer would never be able to accomplish the task thus it had to be the real deal. That is probably true for the average wannabe time traveler who barely manages to string five words together to form a semi-comprehensible sentence. But if you have access to a movie studio and the trained staff it would be a piece of cake - a task that a movie studio accomplished daily. Expensive? That's relative. If your plan is to make a movie, even a cheap B movie, several hundred dollars to pay someone to do the prop work is a pittance compared to the cost of making the movie. The gadget (his time machine) appeared to be a fiberglass clam shell electronics enclosure with a deck inside, a couple of idiot lights, an On-Off switch, a model railroad cab controller with a 10-keypad, a 1960's era Victoreen CD V-715 surplus rad counter, some black and yellow caution tape and a few "danger" stickers. It could be fabricated for $100-150.

 

[Einstein]

Darby

This is the first I've heard of VISI Corp. I would like to read more about them. Could you reference some of the posts that refer to them?

 

[daver]

It's raining here AGAIN in the UK, and as I can't do the planned outside work I thought I'd have had a better look at the Titor photo's and schematics. Here are just a few thoughts from me, having been a Radio engineer for my sins.
I refer to the photo's here (if there are better one's please do let me know)

The Story of John Titor


Figure 7: described as a detailed Schematic, is not a schematic at all, just a reference layout drawing. To my eyes at least, There appears to be certainly 4 tubes/valves that are of the International Octal (IO) type. These were commonly in use up to the late 50's, even though they may still be in use in some vintage radio gear or repro projects. Common types are the 6V6 and 6N7 types. The one's in the photos are the type with Top cap connections.
Look them up in any old Ham Radio/ARRL manual from the 40's or 50's and you will commonly see them.

There is also what looks like a tube in Horizontal position near the front of the picture. That reminds me very much of the mounting used very much for old Magic Eye tuning indicator tubes like this

Magic Eye

There are three square things with coils wrapped on them. These are almost certainly Ferro magnetic cores of the type made in the UK and Europe by Mullard or Philips. For example: They were used as high frequency transformers in step up voltage inverters and often simply as an inductors. Quite simply these are inductors, or coils if you prefer. Ferroxcube was a common make. HP and others made them in the USA, or used them in their equipment anyway.

The clylindrical cans look like large value Capacitors, usually used for smoothing power supply noise, and de-coupling (essentially shorting to ground/earth) any Alternating currents or stray signals in the asscociated circuit- this aids stability.

There are various other little things which could be a number of things, but, this does look like a plug-in unit taken from a larger piece of equipment.

I would say one thing, the tubes look a little odd, the scale is not quite right- suggesting they have been elongated a little by the Technical drawing person.

Figure 8: This looks like almost any equipment box that is often made for the military. Below is a picture of a very similar box I own, which houses a Bird Termaline Radio Frequency Wattmeter. Favoured very much by most militaries in the USA and Europe.
The Bird unit:


As you can clearly see, it wouldn't take much work at all to paint that military grey case a darker colour and include a false instrument panel with a few bulbs, black and yellow warning tape, panel meters and switches etc.

Going back to figure 5: number 11 looks just like a modified symbol for a couple of simple domestic Hot Water immersion heaters with an unknown dark symbol to the left which is reminiscent of a automotive interior lamp symbol.
Symbol 10 looks just like 2 tanks for liquid. Symbol 13 looks like a symbol for a car battery or lorry battery with 2 positive terminals shown shorted?.
This is damn strange, and non-sensical, as any Tech Drawer wouldn't bother to include this as it would be obvious, far too obvious.
Symbol 1/2- reminds me somewhat of the symbol for a Klystron, which is old technology, usually used to provide a signal at Microwave frequencies.
Take a look here
Klystron - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
They are very similar to Magnetrons- which are the high power oscillator units to produce energy for cooking in microwave ovens.

My personal conclusion is that they are fakes. They were either made by someone non- technical (most likely) or by someone who was indeed quite technical, but did the job to a probably fairly low budget of a few hundred dollars or less.

Just my thoughts,

Dave R

PS: all this reminded me of something, something I had used way back- then it came back to me- it was this unit
I wish I still had the full operating and service manual to show you all.
HP 8551A
is the unit- which incidentally does have a klystron in it! It seems they were first maufactured in 1965 for those interested.
We used to call it "The washing machine " when I used one back in the 70's and early 80's. The manual for this HP unit is very similar in feel to those Titor ones!

 

[Darby]

Darby

This is the first I've heard of VISI Corp. I would like to read more about them. Could you reference some of the posts that refer to them?

You did you try the search engine here, yes?

Use VISI as your search criteria. It was discussed here and on Anomalies at length.

 

[Darby]

Dave,

The large, somewhat t-shaped in the foreground of the layout appears to be a clystron /magnetron of some sort. We found several photos on Google Images that are very similar. Dr. Robert Brown, a physicist at Duke University, was the first to point that out. I have a thread somewhere here where he responded to several of my inquiries and gave permission for me to re-post them on the forum (with the caveat that he dowes not want to be hounded by emails from "the crowd". He really is both a university professor with classes to teach. )