Why was the John Titor 'hoax' so compelling...?

J

JOHNCOLE

Temporal Novice
Why was the John Titor \'hoax\' so compelling...?

Last question of the evening:

Why was the John Titor 'hoax' so compelling and much better than all of the others...? We've all read the nut jobs about and their wonderful stories of chronohistorians and 700 year windows etc. Dean Koontz, take note. But before i end this little session with another chapter of 'Lightening', why was the Titor one different...?

Why did it 'haunt' us as someone wrote; why did it stand out from the others...?

Providing it was a hoax, of course...

John.
 
Re: Why was the John Titor \'hoax\' so compelling...

Good question.

Or rather, a basic question.
Which is why it is so odd that so few people ever ask it.

Personally, I never found it compelling or even mildly interesting.
And before I go any further, I should tell you that, while I am a very healthy skeptic, I also happen to believe that ANYTHING is possible (based on my own observations and experiences). Only the human mind is limited - well, up to a point. -;) Which is why I find a time machine a highly unattractive - and redundant - contraption.

But, if you ask me, THAT - i.e. a machine - is the only reason why this figure ever attracted as much attention as it did.

The general reaction was unbelievably pathetic, back in the day... (Or even now, for that matter.)

I mean, here you had adults, many of which self-proclaimed "skeptics" (who would jump at the throat of anyone who'd dare suggest homeopathy, for example - ask Brian Josephson, without going any further), - and yet, they were seemingly unable to even think of a sequence of "plain", sensible questions, nothing to do with machinery (which, I am sure, he/she had rehearsed reasonably well) that would've blown his/her cover in minutes.
Like... "Where does your surname come from? Can you tell us about its etymology? How about its ethnic origins, your family history?" (You don't have to give out any "sensitive", confidential information to answer those questions.)

Supposedly "he" claimed that it was his real name. So... has anyone tried to identify this family? IS there a family of that name in the US?

Finally, let's ask ourselves this simple question:

Would the same people have lavished the same (relatively respectful) attention on this person, had "he" claimed to be a time traveler WITHOUT a machine?

What do you think? ;-)

Anyone?


P.S. By the way, I believe somebody mentioned Hawking as being a possible candidate for the "mastermind" of this petty charade... and "sense of humour" was mentioned even.

I do hope (for his sake) that he is not.

Whoever it was, their words certainly didn't exhibit any sense of humour. Rather, they betrayed an insidious - quite possibly sociopathic - mind. He/she was either babbling (irresponsibility) - or perhaps attempting (however pathetically ineffectual their attempt may have been) to plant a seed of a self-fulfilling prophecy of a bloody "civil war", among other things.

Not a very attractive couple of alternatives, is it?
 
Re: Why was the John Titor \'hoax\' so compelling...

MrsWho,

Supposedly "he" claimed that it was his real name. So... has anyone tried to identify this family? IS there a family of that name in the US?
Click to expand...

Actually he didn't claim that "Titor" was his real name. He was asked, late in the game, if "John Titor" was a real name and he said that it was. Of course it was a real name - it just wasn't his real name.

Titor never refered to himself as "Titor" here. From 2-NOV-2000 until March 2001 he was just "TimeTravel_0" here. He didn't take on the personna of "John Titor" until February 10th, 2001 - about a month before he stopped posting. That was on Post-2-Post. By that time he'd been TTO for a little over four months.

He was directly asked about the name "John Titor" and he explained that he made up the name in order to be able to register on Bell's site. Keith Rowland, Bell's SysAdmin, would not allow anonymous log on and to register you had to use a first name, last name and a "real" email account, meaning the Yahoo and like free email accounts were banned from registering. Keith also verified the account by bouncing an email back to it. Boomer chose to use an AOL account and the name John "Titor". He explained that "Titor" was a contraction of "Time Traveler".

Finally, let's ask ourselves this simple question:

Would the same people have lavished the same (relatively respectful) attention on this person, had "he" claimed to be a time traveler WITHOUT a machine?

What do you think? ;-)
Click to expand...

Probably not. Though the story had huge holes in it it was, and frankly still is, the best effort at TT story writing that's come down our road since late 2000. He at least took some time to plan his story, build some history, government structure, good guys and bad guys, background, etc.

Having a physics "theory", schematics, photos, etc. gave us a lot of talking points and him an advantage over the other wanna-be TT's. Those were good efforts even if the story really didn't make a lick of sense.

But without the props the story very likely would have not made it as far as it did. As it was, Pamela and I had to prop it up throughout the remainder of 2001 and 2002 because interest quickly faded. We yacked the story up. I did it because I had a site to run.

P.S. By the way, I believe somebody mentioned Hawking as being a possible candidate for the "mastermind" of this petty charade... and "sense of humour" was mentioned even.

I do hope (for his sake) that he is not.
Click to expand...

Not a chance in hell. Boomer wrote a fairly interesting story. But he lifted the entire war story from Alas, Babylon and his knowledge of physics was at the lower division introductory college physics level - if that.
 
Re: Why was the John Titor \'hoax\' so compelling...

But without the props the story very likely would have not made it as far as it did. As it was, Pamela and I had to prop it up throughout the remainder of 2001 and 2002 because interest quickly faded. We yacked the story up. I did it because I had a site to run.
Click to expand...

I should probably expand on that statement.

By the end of Titor's posting most of the conversation had drifted from this site to Post-2-Post because Titor was spending most of his time there and not here. Most of the people posting by this time were members at only Post-2-Post. A few of us were members of both sites.

A very short time after Titor stopped posting - a matter of only days - Art Bell and Premiere Radio shut down Post-2-Post without any notice. One night it was there with hundreds of people online and a few hours later, at 0600 hrs, Poof. Art pulled the plug.

This left us with no site, no notice and no way to contact the other posters. Pamela had saved a copy of the "I am from 2036" thread. We both had copies of the original thread "Time Travel Paradoxes" which had become corrupt.

Several of us became involved with Anomalies Network and opened a time travel forum there to continue our discussion. But it took us a very long time to get everyone run down, notified about the new site and that we had all of the Titot threads intact on the forum. People had lost a lot of interest.

That's why I yacked it up. We had a new TT forum and we needed to keep interest up not only for the sake of the forum but to give ourselves time to find all of the old hands from P2P.

Had we not done that this conversation would be less than moot - it wouldn't even exist. As unique as Titor's story was it was in cadiac arrest by July of 2001 in need of CPR. We provided it.

Just to shunt the "Art Bell Conspiracy" theorists...

No, Art didn't shut down Post-2-Post as a part of a "guvmit" cover-up. It was money.

As I said, he had hundreds of people online all night, every night. Many of them were a pain in the ass. Keith and Mary Rowland had to spend a lot of time "administering" the site, settling squabbles, bouncing trolls and flamers, etc.

Art & Premiere had a better idea. Close the forum. Wait. Re-open the forum on a pay-to-play basis. You pay annual membership fees. Now you have the possibility of having hundreds of people online who are just as much a pain in the ass as before but they're paying Art be a pain.

You want to post? Pay-to-play.

You want to see a copy of that old John Titor thread? Pay-to-play.

No conspiracy - it was about the money.
 
Re: Why was the John Titor \'hoax\' so compelling...

Oh I mean, the poster even says assuming it is a hoax. Hoax=fiction, wrong section.

Unless of course the moderators of the forum believe titor was real, that would explain why the mods don't move threads about titor to the fan fiction section.

I could understand discussion around dual black holes or tipler cylinders in this section but not about some fan fiction.
 
Re: Why was the John Titor \'hoax\' so compelling...?

Well, I would not say that the threads were so "compelling". Not everyone keeps up with what is happening in science on a day to day basis. Sure some books are read, and some stuff looked at, but usually in those books explained not on a class-room basis written by scientists, it is general thought processes about how the Universe is made or what is considered to be "known" as far as it is understood. I had to catch up, so others were there on the thread "I am from 2036" already bringing up "uncertainty" and everything else. The main story is actually an old story about how the future will turn out and what some people believe will happen. Heck even Congress and other people think that it could happen. It has been going on -- as much as I explained it back then on the thread - and I was busy taking college courses and working full time -- for the last (if you begin about in your early 20's) for the last 40-50 years - or ever since WWII. Usually it does involve the premis of the popular belief about both political parties in the Country. (In the present day - there is no pig farm at Columbia University - but why have a known dictator - the President of Iran -- even begin to give a speech there - that is giving him creedence - at least to me) and of course there is no pig farm in Tehran. The world leaders seem to "posture" all the time and then it is known as politics - or we don't like this - and we don't like that - while all the time the same thing is coming out from this Country (the USA) that we (the Government usually) don't like this and we don't like that and -- you are not going to do that - and you are not going to do that --- coming from all sides.

The main scoop is that even this Government states that anything could happen including a Nuclear War if other foreign Countries do not want to get along. It has been a kind of constant like what I said - for the last 40 - 50 years. You read a book, then it starts you thinking about the subject matter - then you should at least attempt to define what is true about it and what is false about the subject the book is conveying. I mean Nibiru has been around since the '70's along with the fairly popular -- ET running around and all of that info about "Greys" and anything else. Usually it is woven into discussions about "Outer Space Weapons" first bought up in the '70's and having Bases on the Moon. "All your bases belong to us." type of interaction. Titor essentially did the same thing but on a forum and not in a book, although the thread did make it to a book later, it was not bought up first in a book like the other subjects. Name it - Vampires - Science Fiction - that is a little more closer to Home then some other real Science Fiction Stories - like Issac Aminoz (spelling) use to write.

Actually in a sense the time-travelling story was encased by 'politics' and actually the story was more 'politics' disguised as time-travelling for and if it could be real some day.

Then other things were mentioned usually if those ideas are not mentioned "who may know about them?"
Assumptions are made which is easy to do and imagination takes over sometimes. Without the "experimentation" needed to verify any science, then all of that ends up in the (at least to me) in the science-fiction catagory of stories. It usually is not unfortunately explained any better and in the end like some recent books -- it is not text-books from college, the human factor is bought into the mix of the stories even with time-travelling books. Even Frank Tipler did that in his books and it also is a way that scientists bring up again that old word throughout all of it "politics".

Some people are turned-off about politics and some people are turned-on about politics. I did not know that people were a "light-bulb" which is just another saying about how much the brain is used with real thought processes going on. The lack of real communications is still a problem as even bought up to me from other people not really knowing what I was talking about - and they had to think about what it was I was talking about.

Actually I am a little absent-minded at times and have been all my life. So in the thread when I bought up the Russian Power Plant - which meant Chernobyl (spelling) - I actually did not at the time remember the name of it - as that was back in 1986 - and I was studying something else at the time. I would have remembered it later but at the time of the thread - the postings were seemingly coming fast back then. The JT postings were about the future and how people understood it from their own point of view -- at the time. Usually that is different because most people do not actually have all of the real story about what is going on - and may never have -- even if those people in Congress do know more (and that is usually not what I base on an assumption) but even if they do - it is hard to believe that they know -- all the story. Most people assume that someone should know all the story - and all that can be equated to -- is God, the Angels, and Spirits called in - by another subject -- called the Bible. Then there are the stubborn people and the opinionated people and the bias people and everyone inbetween and those on the outer rim of the story who never were there at the time the story was being posted about.

"Feelings" usually enter into the story at some point and some people go by "Feelings" more than by any type of "intellectual" thinking all the time. But the real point of any such story or stories is that humans have been doing this type of thinking for the entire history of thinking by humans on this Planet.

At one point again mentioned in another book "You Either Lead, Follow, or Get Out of The Way". And then all of it has to be cleaned-up at the end, and it never ends anyway, it is just being "cleaned" along the way. Now some other thinking lately has bought up "clean" nuclear weapons as it that is something legitimate to bring up - the only clean Nuclear Weapon is "None". But all along the way - there is New Technology coming up, and if foreign Countries are going to pass around the N-idea as if it made their day -then since that time that JT posted - this New Technology could be far worse - or still the process of thinking has to include - the ability to 'clean' it up if something ever does happen.

"Posturing" seems to also be another subject that may never go away - as much as 'image' is some idea usually bought up at first as a fad - that may never go away. Hey, I am going to look as I look. And right now I have on my Astronomical T-Shirt and I do "glow" in the Dark.

"Compelling" is looking up in the sky at night on a clear night away from city lights because usually at first - you will either tire of it very soon -- which is that "Feeling" again or be in Awe at some point while viewing up. If you stick with it for awhile, there is no Internet Picture that can convey those 'feelings" you may have - looking up to the dark sky above, and after awhile, a person may even relax more than be usually "paranoid" to begin with in the first place -- or scared - or something else -- due to all those stories about ET or Spacealiens or anything else like Niburi on this Planet.

The main premis of all of this - is that people should be 'ready' in case something does happen - and usually that has been weather phenonomen usually and only that usually in the Past. The imagination continues on - but real facts usually may end up different than currently known -- for most people. It does not pay to place a bet on something as discussed as concrete with some subjects for it has been known that those subjects are usually 'abstract' and the concrete thoughts only come about after the experiments prove it out and then it usually is discussed for many years after that like in the case of Einstein's Theories.

The future is not so much 'compelling' as it is coming along whether anyone wanted this spacetime to 'stop' or not. It is 'life' and without having 'life' then there would be no Humans to discuss all these stories about anything then.
 
Re: Why was the John Titor \'hoax\' so compelling...?

The JT story is about as compelling as this photo taken this last week or weekend, from another person with me cropping the original image and cutting out most of the sky. It sure is usually an UO- unindentified object or UH - unindentfied Human.

http://dimensionalcitizen.tripod.com/Img-016CutSky.html

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread307607/pg1

Assuming it is some type of ballon or similiar, it sure is large and perhaps with the psychic connection some people want to make to as what the future will bring or to any photo, none of which I have as any psychic connection, it is probably going to be discussed when someone else brings up something to which most people can not identify either as to the future as to any UFO or is that UO.

What is Germany building now, and egads, what the heck is all of it (as to story or to any such other story)?

Something not readily known, that is what it begins with.
/ttiforum/images/graemlins/yum.gif
 
Re: Why was the John Titor \'hoax\' so compelling...?

The JT Story is about as compelling as getting all this Country's income tax from your so-called medical meatheads (mari-whatever it is) from all your Past, Present, and Current anti-social policies regarding your Ed Brown's personality Drug-Dealers.
 
Re: Why was the John Titor \'hoax\' so compelling...

Would the same people have lavished the same (relatively respectful) attention on this person, had "he" claimed to be a time traveler WITHOUT a machine?

What do you think? ;-)

Anyone?
Click to expand...


The reason why it was so compelling because his theory could not be ruled out. The theory of black holes and rotating singularities is only a theory so far. But he claimed CERN would in the future come out with amazing practical discovery of black holes. That can never be ruled out until we see the results of this billion dollar experiments


http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/31434
 
Re: Why was the John Titor \'hoax\' so compelling...?

About as compelling as the future is with other threads and stories (or theories) about all of everything.

stealth ET in the shadows which can only mean that if this person thinks or does not know that he is thinking ET is in his (her) backyard then humans can never see "stealth" ET or his spaceships so some psychic connection has to be made and in these pictures (now only starting on Page 3 and the originals taken down) that no one seem to have this psychic connection just by viewing his pictures of his backyard and wheat field in this "Field of Dreams" until page 6 when someone added the image of ET into his backyard picture, in which case this thread ought to be a sort of Classic in the UFO thread field about Aliens and UFOs:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread298891/pg1

Sometimes humans need some humor about it all.

And now there is a scientist coming up with a new theory that there is two dimensions of time and 4 spatial dimensions of space so some of these equations seem to work better:

Itzhak Bars

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/10/10/scitime110.xml

I guess that some of us (maybe me) are just not having these psychic connections so far or do not understand these new theories yet.

(?????)
/ttiforum/images/graemlins/confused.gif

/ttiforum/images/graemlins/yum.gif
 
Re: Why was the John Titor \'hoax\' so compelling...?

The JT Story is about as compelling as the News the other day. On that News were all the Candidates given at some website that could (if Registered in all fifty States) run for the Presidency. But they also stated that a person must make 265,000 dollars a year if an Individual to Run for the Presidency. Say What? I thought the President only makes $250,000 a year (?)............

Must be all the Perks!
(?)(can't really be to run this Country - or world)(?)

Let's all make like an Ostrich and bury our faces in the dirt.
/ttiforum/images/graemlins/cry.gif
 
Re: Why was the John Titor \'hoax\' so compelling...?

TimeNot_0,

The requirement to run for President are found in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the US Constitution:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States
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You have to be 35 yrs old, a native born US citizen and a US resident for 14 years. The only exception would be if you are over 253 years old former British Subject living in one of the original 13 British Colonies for 14 years prior to 1789. To my knowledge there are no 253 year old people living here that fit that description. But if you were such a person you would also be eligible to run for President.

That's it. There's no minumum wage requirement.
 
Re: Why was the John Titor \'hoax\' so compelling...?

35 eh? then i have 9 more years till i rule the world! muahahahaha! /ttiforum/images/graemlins/devil.gif
 
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