Introducing The Worlds Most Famous Time Traveler

John Titor is the most famous time traveler. He faxed Art Bell on the Coast to Coast AM radio show in 1999 and posted on bulletin boards in 2001 and 2001, claiming to be an American military time traveler from 2036. He alleged to be on a mission to retrieve an antique computer from 1975, an IBM 5100 computer. This computer would help resolve the Year 2038 Problem, a looming digital catastrophe similar to Y2K that occurred during his timeline.

Titor stated countless occurrences during his timeline, including nuclear disaster and collapsing governments. Private investigators have found no evidence this was a hoax perpetrated by one or more actors and many still believe John Titor was a famous time traveler who prevented numerous catastrophes.

The name “John Titor” was introduced in January 2001 on the Art Bell Post to Post forums. He retained the name until he stopped posting in March 2001. In his posts, Titor stated he was an American soldier from 2036, based in Tampa, Florida. He was assigned to a governmental time-travel project, and sent back to 1975 to retrieve an IBM 5100 computer, which he said was needed to debug various legacy computer programs in 2036. The IBM 5100 runs the APL and BASIC programming languages and has been found to have a built-in back door that had the ability to communicate with all operating systems.

Titor said he had been selected for this mission specifically, given that his paternal grandfather was directly involved with the assembly and programming of the 5100 in Palo Alto, Ca. In support of this, he described unpublicized features of the 5100, leading to assumptions that a computer scientist was behind the postings. Titor claimed to be on a stopover in the year 2000 for “personal reasons”, to collect pictures lost in the (future) civil war and to visit his family, of whom he spoke often.

Titor also said he had been, for a few months, trying to alert anyone that would listen about the threat of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease spread through beef products and about the possibility of Civil War within the United States. When questioned about them by an online subscriber, Titor also expressed an interest in mysteries such as UFOs, which he claimed remained unexplained in his time. Titor suggested that UFOs and extraterrestrials might be travelers from much further into the future than his own time, with superior time machines, a theory that partially aligns with the writings of Jacque Vallee and John Keel.

Although Titor was only active for a short period of time, many characters became involved in the story. Pamela Moore was a frequent contact with Titor on and off the message boards. She was one of the few who came to know him well, and she even received contact with the famous time traveler as recent as 2016.  Many speculate that Larry Haber and Morey Haber are two confidence men who originated and perpetuated the Titor story as a hoax. Even worse, lesser conmen like Dan Lee Stern Sr., who claimed to be John Titor 2, have been exposed for their attempted grift under the John Titor’s name.

Regardless of who or what he was, Titor impacted the lives of many people in the few short years he was active, and he sparked a long-lasting Internet mystery, one that is still talked about to this day.

0:00 – Introduction
1:27 – Origin
7:39 – The Forum
12:50 – The Cast
13:20 – Pamela Moore
16:00 – Joseph Matheny
17:20 – Larry Haber
18:02 – Morey Haber
18:22 – John Razimus
19:12 – John Titor 2
20:14 – The Last of John Titor