Okay, this is not topical news in any way. It happened in 1845.
But Chelsea, I need you to know about the disaster of May 2nd, 1845.
It is something that you've never heard of before.
I came across a Wikipedia article on it and it just needs to be shared.
Are you sure? How sure are you? 100%?
Well, let's go through it.
Cook's Royal Circus was in great Yarmouth and as part of a promotion,
it advertised that a clown named Arthur Nelson would sail up the River Burr
in a wash tub pulled by four geese on May 2nd, 1845.
The trick, first devised by Dickie Usher in 1809,
was achieved by having the tub attached to a rowboat by an underwater line.
A large crowd assembled in the vicinity from around 5pm to view the feat,
which started with the flood tide.
Several thousand people viewed the clown from the riverbanks
and at least 300 in a crowd four to five people deep on the southern footway of the bridge.
The crowd concentrated at the south eastern corner of the bridge,
though the bridge was far from full as the carriageway was still passable by carts.
At around 5.40pm, one of the I-bars in the southern suspension chain failed.
This was witnessed by members of the crowd,
but no action seems to have been taken to evacuate the bridge as a result.
The second I-bar in that portion of the chain took up the full load for around five minutes before it too failed.
The south side of the deck fell into the river,
through the north end remained suspended by the surviving chain,
though the north end remained suspended by the surviving chain,
and the majority of the crowd were tipped into the water,
which at this point was seven feet deep.
Children who formed the front spranks of the crowd were crushed against the parapet railing by those behind them.
One child was saved by being swept away by her mother holding onto her clothes with her teeth.
A horse and a cart was on the point of crossing when the collapse happened
and was saved from falling into the river by the horse backing up in a fright.
Boats arrived on the scene to rescue the victims,
the wounded and dead were taken to the nearby houses and pubs,
and the Union House Hotel supplied blankets for the wounded,
and Lake and Brewery made quantities of hot water available for hot baths to revive the survivors.
Some 75 bodies were recovered on that day,
though some remained trapped in the wreckage of the bridge.
One man was rescued alive some time later after being freed by the use of a crowbar.
In all, 79 people were killed in the disaster of whom 59 were children.
Holy shit.
Yeah.
Most of the dead were under 13 years of age and the youngest victim was two years old.
The news was conveyed by electric telegraph and was known in Norwich within five minutes of the accident.
Messages were passed by the means of to family members of those killed injured or missing.
So the Armistice Benching Bridge disaster of May 2nd, 1845,
which was a bridge collapse put upon by too many people wanting to see a clown pulled up a river by four geese in a barrel.
That the first like minute and a half to two minutes of your telling the story had a lot of weird words in it.
Put together. OK.
But no, I had in fact never heard of that before.
I just thought it would be a fun fact to top in there.
It's not long enough for a full episode.
I just the more you know.
And with that, we can start the episode.
Let's do it.
From the unexplained to the mundane.
Come join us on a journey to the fringe.
Hello and welcome to Journey to the Fringe, the podcast that answers the hypothesis.
Any old person could start a podcast.
We are your annual podcast host, Taylor and Chelsea, here today talking about time travel.
Well, not necessarily time travel, but one time traveler in specific.
That man, of course, being not quite coined properly as an asshole of the UFO community,
but an asshole of the fringe community.
And with that, I'm going to live it over to Chelsea to tell you about the story of John Teter.
Just asshole. Yeah, OK.
OK. So the year is 2000.
Well, kind of. We're going to jump around a bit.
A poster going by the screen name, slash names, time travel, underscored zero.
And John Teter on a variety of message boards begins with the forum at the Time Travel Institute, which was a website.
This person starts claiming that he was a soldier sent from the year 2036, which is the year a computer virus wiped the world.
Oh, figure this was being posted in the year 2000, fresh off our Y2K buzz.
If you remember that long ago, how long ago was that now? 22 years ago. Jesus.
Peter's mission was to head back to 1975 in order to obtain an IBM 5100 computer,
which had the necessary equipment to fight the future virus in the year 2036.
Peter makes his first post on a message board on November 2nd, 2000.
And you the year 2000, you ask why? Yes.
He made a brief stop in the year 2000 to visit his three year old self and to post on some message boards.
Of course. What else are you going to do with your vacation time when you're time traveling?
Time travel paradoxes. You should never meet yourself.
Yeah. Well, he kind of touches on. Well, of course he does because he's there visiting his three year old self, which is a super weird thing.
I wouldn't be like, oh, well, I'm here traveling past.
I guess I better stop in and say hi. Yeah. Go say hi to myself.
So over the next four months, Peter responds to every fucking question that other posters had for him and always with the disclaimer that the timelines can change and alternate realities do exist.
I mean, he was sent back to save the world. So hopefully this is true that timelines can change.
So from November 2nd, 2000 to March 24th, 2001, Peter regaled the Internet with his insight on the future and time traveling.
His last post offered a final piece of advice, quotes, bring a gas can with you when a car dies on the side of the road and he signed off forever, never to be heard from again.
Very mysterious. That's basically the gist of the basic goings on.
Now I'm going to go back for all of this before the year 2001 and he disappears before 2000 when he makes his first post on the message board at the Time Travel Institute. What a place to be messaging the Time Travel Institute.
I mean, you can't get more niche than that. There are a bunch of people talking about time travelers on a time travel without computers.
Yeah, that's a that's a very good point. I never actually thought about that.
Before all of this before John Teter's first post, we're going back to July 29th, 1988. See, I told you we jump around some the glory days of coast to coast am with Art Bell and he opens a timeline phone line during open lines to people who are genuine time travelers who have actually traveled in time, which Art Bell proclaims, quote,
My timeline, my line for time travelers is area code 70272712957027271295. Bear in mind that you must have arrived here and done your time traveling not mentally but through some type of actual
machine, which was the, you know, I'm fond of saying button pushing level lever pulling
instrument, fully instrumented time machine of some sort.
All right, to the phones, lest of the Rockies, you're on the air. Hi.
So, this is a pretty good episode I'd highly recommend it actually July 29 1998. First up Jameson who is calling from a vortex in the year 2035, a research student. He says it's all true the men in black visitors, what they say about the government.
Yeah, so that's how it starts out. It's followed up by a lineup of other people calling in from the future, or are currently time traveling. Have a listen. I'm not going to go through them all. It's pretty entertaining to listen to at the very least, and I'm going to play you a clip here.
Well, all right. That's it, we will continue to take time calls time traveler calls tonight at area code 7027271295 dear.
I had the facts when I heard other time travelers calling in from anytime past the year 2500 AD, please let me explain.
Time travel was invented in 2034 offshoots of certain successful fusion reactor research allowed scientists at CERN to produce the world's first contained singularity engine.
The basic design involves rotating singularities inside a magnetic field by altering the speed and direction of rotation, you can travel both forward and backward in time.
Time itself can be understood in terms of connected lines. When you go back in time, you travel on your original timeline. When you turn the singularity engine off a new timeline is created due to the fact that you and your time machine are now there.
In other words, a new universe is created. To get back to your original line, you must travel a split second farther back and immediately throw the engine into forward without turning it off.
Some interesting outcomes of this are one, you meet yourself. I have done it often, even taken a younger version of myself along for a few rides before returning myself to the new timeline and going back to mine.
Two, you can alter history in the new universe that you have just created. Most of the time the changes are subtle, sometimes I'll notice car models that don't exist or books that come out late.
The oldest one was a skyscraper that wasn't built in a near favorite store of mine in New York.
Interestingly, when you travel in time, you must compensate for the orbit of the earth. Since the time machine doesn't move, you have to adjust the engine so you remain on the planet when you turn it off.
Unfortunately, it was also discovered that anyone going forward in time from my 2036 hit a brick wall in the year 2564.
Everyone who has ever been there has reported that nothing exists. When the machine is turned off, you find yourself surrounded by blackness and silence.
Now, most time travelers are trying to find out where the line went bad by going into the past, creating a new universe and proceeding forward to see if the same thing results in 2564.
It appears the line went bad around the year 2000. I'm here now in this time to test a few theories of mine before going forward.
Now, for the future you might want to know about.
One, Y2K is a disaster. Many people die on the highways when they freeze to death trying to get to warmer weather.
Two, the government tries to keep power by instituting martial law, but all of it collapses when their efforts to bring the power back up fail.
Three, a power facility in Denver is able to restart itself, but is mobbed by hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed.
This convinces most that maybe we shouldn't bring the old system back up.
Four, a few years later, communal government system is developed after the Constitution takes a few twists.
China retakes Taiwan. Israel wins the largest battle for their life, and Russia is covered in nuclear snow from their collapsed reactors.
Alright, the reason I'm here now is because I believe a nuclear weapon set off by Iraq in the Middle East war with Israel might have something to do with the damaged timeline. I will test that theory and get back to you.
Please pray that we discover the reason why there is no apparent future after 2564.
So I couldn't resist. I thought that was quite a good fax. There you have it.
Man, I wouldn't want to be around for this Y2K thing.
Good thing we missed this.
That is the portion we're actually after in that like three hour episode.
Gotta love yourself in our bell clip. I really love that he sends in a fax.
There's all these callers in these episodes.
I really appreciate that time and day.
Yeah, there's all these callers in this episode, but he chooses to send in a fax.
Yeah, and that makes more sense with time travel in my mind too. It just seems more like the time travelers' mode of communication.
Really?
Yeah, just feels like it.
Do you think he would be familiar with fax as though being from the year 2036? I don't see him going away actually.
Yeah.
Completely. I mean we're not that far away from him.
Especially if you need time travel, because it's the best way to communicate for time travelers.
True.
Again, just through that feeling.
So yeah, this year is 1998. Doesn't actually sign his name in this or anything, but we know that this is who we will know as John Teeter, because what he says in his fax to Art Bell matches everything that he comes to proclaim in a future post.
Does he own the fax number too?
That was his only fax.
And I don't think Art Bell kept tabs on it.
I guess doxxing didn't exist at the time, but technically he doxxed that fax owner.
Oh yeah. Yeah, he does that a lot, Art Bell.
Anyhow, as far as anyone knows, there's nothing going on from this time that he sends a fax to Art Bell until November 2, 2000.
And that's when I told you about a time traveler underscore zero makes a post on the Time Travel Institute forums.
That's the word I was looking for forums.
He says, greetings.
I am a time traveler from the year 2036.
I am on my way home after getting an IBM 5100 computer system from the year 1975.
My time machine is a stationary mass temporal displacement unit manufactured by General Electric.
The unit is powered by two top spin dual positive singularities that produces standard offset Tipler.
The new soy, I would be happy to post a picture of the unit.
Then goes on, the basics for time travel start at CERN in about a year and end in 2034 with the first time machine built by GE.
Too bad we can't post pictures or I'd show it to you.
So he then starts answering the apparent onslaught of questions that, of course, people in the 2000s on a forum on time traveler are going to have.
Before I start with the Q&A, I'm going to lay out John's personal rules for interaction.
He says here, this is now a quotation from him, not me talking.
Following our personal rules, I try to keep unless, of course, they conflict with my secret agenda.
So he does have a secret agenda.
I look forward to discussing any discrepancies you may find personal rules for temporal disclosure.
Number one, I will not disclose any information that will cause someone to personally gain by its knowledge.
Number two, I will not disclose any detailed information that would allow someone to avoid death by probability.
Number three, I will not disclose any information that may compromise any future actions by individual people or threaten their family and well-being.
Yeah, I just need to talk about a few of his rules, particularly the third one.
I'm bothered by how he kind of explained that telling people the future will make them avoid it when Greek culture and history clearly shows us that telling people their future just makes them bring it upon themselves.
So like, do they not understand Greek mythology in the future?
Maybe, maybe not.
Or the idea of rectal causation?
I don't know what to comment on that.
Like, particularly with all of those, like there is a theory that timelines will correct themselves in a way and that should you inform them of that, they will balance themselves out to still end up in the same location.
I mean, that would make a lot of sense.
And to be honest, there's a lot of holes in his story, which, which we'll get to.
Personally, I find it quite hilarious.
I was snickering to myself a lot during the making of this.
Does he identify a movie that is his time travel style is most closely associated to?
No, but if I were to choose one, it'd be Back to the Future.
Okay, I would pick Dragon Ball Z.
Gerard will get that reference.
Okay, he'll never hear that.
So that's a shame.
Okay, here are some examples of some of the questions that he answered.
Please note, he answered a fuck ton of questions over a couple of years.
That is an actual unit of measurement.
I couldn't even.
Yeah, in the future that I got from John Titor.
I couldn't even read all, not to mention a lot of it was so lame, but I picked and chose as usual what I wanted to include here to give everyone a taste of John Titor based on my preference.
So let's start.
Let's start early.
November 2nd at 1 a.m. He posts, I saw the posting requesting the basic system for a gravity distortion system that will allow time travel.
Here they are.
Number one, magnetic housing units for a dual microsingularities.
Number two, electron injection manifold to alter mass and gravity of microsingularities.
Number three, cooling and x-ray venting system.
Number four, gravity sensors in brackets VGL system.
Number five, main clocks in brackets for cesium units and bracket, rebracket, closed brackets.
Number six, main computer units in brackets three.
So that's what you need.
Yeah, that's what you need.
You need computers?
Main computer units three.
I thought they were destroyed.
Okay, so let me just get to this now that you're bringing it up again.
Apparently, I didn't put this in.
I didn't think it would come up so much.
So there is a place where they're asking questions because he says a lot of people like to use typewriters in the future.
But he said people prefer to use typewriters just like now people prefer to use typewriters.
Some people use typewriters.
They still exist, but computers do also still exist in the future.
You know, I never did see a question where he answered.
It had to do with the fact that there is like a computer meltdown happening and he had to come back to retrieve a new computer part.
And he hadn't actually been back to the future to fix that unless he was here in the 70s.
He did fix it while he was there.
And then it was an even future version of John Titor had already fixed the problem, but he had to technically go back and do it to maintain
the doing of that event.
So there's a variety of things in which he didn't answer the question.
OK, November 4th, 2000.
He's on a roll on this one.
He's answering a lot of questions, which I found fascinating.
First question.
What does traveling in time look like?
The unit has a ramp up time after the destination coordinates are fed into the computers.
An audible alarm and a small light start a shot countdown, at which point you should be secured in a seat.
Probably need a seatbelt or something.
Gravity field generated by the unit overtakes you very quickly.
You feel a tug toward the unit, similar to rise and quickly in an elevator, and it continues to rise based on the power setting the unit is working under.
At 100 percent power, constant pull of gravity can be as high as two G's or more, depending on how close you are to the unit.
There are no serious side effects, but I try to avoid eating before a flight.
No bright flash of light is seen.
Outside, the vehicle appears to accelerate as the light is bent around it.
We have to wear sunglasses or close our eyes as this happens due to a short burst of ultraviolet radiation.
Personally, I think it looks like you're driving under a rainbow.
After that, it appears to fade to black and remains totally black until the unit is turned off.
You're advised to keep the windows closed as a great deal of heat builds up outside the car.
Oh, yeah, this is located in a car.
OK, that's why I said that.
Gravity fields also trap a small air pocket around the car that act as your only O2 supply unless you bring compressed air with you.
This pocket will only last for a short period, and a carbon sensor tells us when it's too dangerous.
C204 unit is accurate from 50 to 60 years a jump and travels at about 10 years an hour at 100 percent power.
You do hear a slight hum as the unit operates and when the power changes or the unit turns off, there is a great deal of electrical crackling noise from static electricity.
There is also in another post.
I kept reading all this stuff I didn't actually put into my notes.
There was another post where it says that when the time travel happens, it picks up some of the dirt from where you started and drops it where in time you end.
Huh?
Which just carries around piles of dirt.
Like you're specifically not supposed to do that on like passport or visa entry forms.
Yeah, you would think they would think about that, but not for time travel.
They can make time travel, but the rules seem fairly vague.
He does a lot of things in the Q&A.
I wish I could have put this all in here.
He talks about like if he murdered someone, there wouldn't necessarily be any ramification for him in the year he was time traveling to.
But when he got back to his time that he'd probably be tried for it.
So there's like really random questions that he answers like that.
Next question.
What are your memories of 2036?
Peter says I remember 2036 very clearly, probably because he was there like five minutes ago.
It is difficult to describe 2036 in detail without spending a great deal of time explaining why things are so different.
In 2036, I live in central Florida with my family, and I'm currently stationed at an army base in Tampa.
A world war in 2015 killed nearly three billion people.
People that survived grew closer together.
Life is centered on the family and then the community.
I cannot imagine living even a few hundred miles away from my parents.
Can't say I'm looking forward to that war.
No, not. I mean, 2015. It's close.
That's so soon.
Yeah, I know.
There is no large industrial complex creating masses of useless food and recreational items.
Food and livestock is grown and sold locally.
People spend much more time reading and talking together face to face.
Religion is taking seriously and everyone can multiple and divide in the heads.
That was literally taken from him word for word, so I'm not going to correct myself.
OK, so it really sounds like socialist communes at that point.
It does, doesn't it?
And there's another comment I was just going to make here.
He gets a lot of question. I didn't put it in.
He gets a lot of questions about if there is a God and if Jesus made an appearance, which is super unsettling.
That people would think that a human from like how much would it have been in the future at that point?
Thirty six years into the future would have those answers.
Pretty bizarre.
Well, I mean, he could technically go see Jesus, I think is something they would think.
Oh, yeah, he could.
Wouldn't speak his language.
Or didn't he use his vacation time for that?
I don't know. Doesn't speak the language.
True, true.
One thing that we always forget about when we're time traveling is there's very select time where we're actually going to be able to talk to people.
That is so true.
I never even thought about that.
And you know what?
How many of us would think about that if there if time travel came to be?
You really got like a 200 year window.
It's not much actually now that you're now that I think about it.
And like likely going forward, you maybe have 50 to 100 years.
Really?
I mean, I don't know that I'd want to go further back than that, because let's be honest, I like my modern day amenities.
I wouldn't know what to do without them.
I travel somewhere weird that doesn't have them quite like I have and I'm uncomfortable.
I'm going to be honest.
I like toilets.
I don't like holes in the ground.
Next question.
Will you show us more of the operations manuals for your time machine?
John says I will consider it, but I do not expect they are worth anything to most people except as curiosity.
Next question.
If you met yourself on another world line, what would happen?
John says it has always surprised me why the concept is so hard for people to imagine and accept.
Nothing would happen.
The universe would not end.
And there is no paradox problems that threaten existence.
Temporal space time is made up of every possible quantum state.
Everett Wheeler model is correct.
I have met and or seen myself twice on different world lines.
First was a training mission and the second is now I was born in 1998.
So the other me is too on this world line.
There is a saying where I come from every possible thing that can happen or will happen has already happened somewhere.
Now he's saying listen to thousand.
But now that we're in 2022 and 2036 ain't that far away.
Do we really think that physics is really going to prove that that is the correct theory?
Time travel works in that amount of time.
Something to think about.
Next question.
How is our world line different from this yours?
Restarters says John.
The fact that I'm here makes it different.
I've also noticed little things like news events that happen in different times.
Football games won by other teams.
Things like that.
I would guess the temporal divergence between this world line and my original is about one or two percent.
Of course, the longer I'm here, the larger that divergence becomes from my point of view.
I just need to comment on that one.
So he would be two years old in this world that he's traveling to.
Yet he knows the outcome of sporting events, which means me to believe that he has an alternative motive to time traveling, which was betting on games to make money.
And he will not, according to his ethical number of things he laid out, because give them out.
And that's because he doesn't actually know the winners of the games.
I'm just coming to the realization of why he has that rule now.
Oh, yeah.
There's the purpose of his trip.
Yeah. So next question.
What type of vehicle is in the picture you posted?
I like this.
John, it's a 1967 Chevrolet.
So this needs explanation.
The time is the time travel machine.
Yeah, that's the time travel machine.
The time machine he's referring to has been installed into the rear of a 1967 Chevrolet Corvette convertible.
And he actually changes vehicles a few times.
He answers a question about the vehicle, which the question is, is the car is the in brackets, car company truck better than the car company truck for time travel?
And John says the vehicle must have a strong suspension.
Huh. All of by the next question, how did you buy your truck?
How could you title it?
If you are only three years old at this point, how did you pay for it?
It's a good question.
This is a good question that this person is posting to him here.
John responds.
Don't worry.
Fortunately, these are things were taught at time travel school in how to get around in the sarcastic 20th century.
I said I didn't have any money from 2036.
I have plenty from here.
That's his answer.
There are pictures.
He post pictures.
I will post them to the socials.
Also needs mention.
One man reportedly tried to patent the technology Teeter was posting and cash in on the future discovery, which likely did not help this man's case during his trial for sexual assault in 2013.
That is just a good tidbit to have in here regarding the stuff that John Teeter was posting because he was.
I'm glad a patent role kind of got does come up.
Yeah.
And then he went to trial for sexual assault.
So there's that.
Okay.
Next question.
Does your machine allow you to control time travel?
Okay.
This is a stupid question.
Why did I put this in here?
John Teeter says, yes, it can be controlled.
However, the distortion unit has operational limits.
Imagine your path through time is through a cone farther away from the center of the cone.
The more differences you will see in the world line, the C2O4 begins to break away at about 60 years.
This means the level of confidence drops rapidly after 60 years of travel and the world line divergence increases.
Other words, if I wanted to go back 2000 years to meet Christ, there's a better than average chance I would end up on a world line where he was never born.
Ah, computer units and gravity sensors record your trip and you are quite easily able to return to your point of origin.
I'm aware that research is being done on faster units with more accurate clocks.
I imagine that they will be able to go back farther with a higher degree of divergence confidence.
So quick question then.
It's capped at 60 years.
How do they know there's a hard stop at 2564?
No idea.
Okay.
Pryal and error maybe?
At this point, he hasn't been the time traveling.
It didn't seem like because it was only what 2034 that they were able to start time traveling.
Yeah.
Is that what he said?
Yeah, it was something like that.
He said it on Art Bell.
It wasn't that or maybe I said it.
Art Bell, me, same thing.
It wasn't long before he actually time traveled.
So I'm not sure how they actually came up with that.
Okay.
Next question.
Are you drawn back to your world line of origin for any reason?
Is instability a problem for you?
Don answers.
I'm not sure what you mean by stable.
If you mean mentally, there are many things that bother me here.
But being with my parents right now is important to me.
Physically, the only thing really wrong is the number of colds I get.
Next question.
Are you able to return to your home?
John says yes.
He just said yes.
He didn't say John says yes.
Next question.
Is radiation a problem?
John answers.
I'm not sure what radiation you mean.
If you mean from the unit, it vents X-rays and gamma radiation out of the rear.
As long as you stay away from that, you should be okay.
I keep a radiation detector with me to check my environment and make sure the unit isn't leaking.
That does seem very troublesome.
He's still in the direct vicinity of X-rays and gamma rays.
So yeah, I probably wouldn't be doing it, but that's me.
Next question.
What does the light look like when you time travel?
I think we already went over this, but here it is again.
Light bending only lasts a second.
It is like driving under a tunnel and being in total black.
Next question.
Do people know where you are?
Can you communicate with your home?
John says no.
They do not know where I am and I cannot communicate with them.
Interesting idea though.
From their point of view, I will return almost exactly at the same moment I left.
From their point of view, I will have only aged more than expected.
In which I don't know how long he actually thinks he's been gone.
I mean, for me, maybe, well, no, he was gone like a year.
So I don't expect him to have aged a whole lot over a year.
Yeah, but his fashion had to change for the times.
Yeah, true.
So he said he doesn't come into gamma ray radiation, but he also said,
well, I guess the facts technically isn't connected to this necessarily.
But he said that you have to account for the fact that the Earth has moved.
So doesn't he technically have to move through space?
Yeah, and you also missed the part where he said that it vents x-rays and gamma rays out the rear of the car.
That is convenient.
That is still too close for comfort for me that it just shoots out the back of the car.
Next up, is there anything to add about what time travel looks like?
John says, well, the machine is on.
Everything is black.
When the machine is turned off, it is the reverse effect.
It appears you are driving out from a bridge.
To tell you the truth, I'm usually sleeping when the unit turns off.
But yes, it does appear that the world fades in from black.
So that's weird that that's the only thing he wanted to add about what time travel looks like.
Seems like a pretty pointless thing to talk about.
He sleeps.
Especially when he was talking about the rainbows before.
I just don't understand the differentiation between them.
And to be honest, it's probably the large amounts of x-rays and gamma rays he's taken in.
It might make someone sleepy.
Next question.
What's the largest technical problem when traveling in time?
John says the hard part of traveling through time is not the bending of gravity,
but the plotting of your course and holding to the basic position in your environment.
This is done through a system called VGL, in brackets, variable gravity lock.
In bracket.
Basically, the unit takes a reading from the local gravity and samples it during the trip quotations.
In pulses.
If the gravity is too far off, the unit stops or reverses itself to the last sample period where the readings were correct.
If there is some sort of failure, the unit shuts down and drops out to wherever you may be.
Okay.
Next question.
Are there any physical effects from machine?
John says the only real physical trace is a large chunk of-
Oh, I did put it in!
Is a large chunk of ground missing from the point of origin and a large pile of dirt at the destination.
The gravity field surrounds a small portion of the earth under you and takes it along for the ride.
There really is no way around that.
I mean, can you take off like slightly higher?
No.
Okay.
And you can't do it.
You can't do it from any other surface other than dirt.
That's time travel for you.
Didn't you know that?
In relation to a question about what people from the future think about people from the time period they were occupying in the past, which was the 2000 period, John says a very nice quote.
Perhaps I should let you all in on a little secret.
No one likes you in the future.
This time period is looked at as being full of lazy, self-centered, civically ignorant sheep.
Perhaps you should be less concerned about me and more concerned about that.
Learn basic sanitation.
Learn to shoot a clean gun.
Consider what you would bring with you if you had to leave your home in 10 minutes and never return.
That's his input on the people from 2000.
Didn't the people from 2000 though also have Y2K actually like mess them up pretty bad in his timeline?
So it can't really be said they were talking about us.
Yeah, exactly.
Because they're on a different timeline.
I just hate when people make broad assumptions about me and my timeline that they don't even know.
Yeah. So he's really just lashing out at the people in our timeline who are asking him questions.
When he doesn't know.
He doesn't know.
Yeah. That really just make a lot of sense.
Like the one that I really liked.
How did you buy your truck?
How could you be on the title if you were only three years old at this time?
And how did you pay for it?
And also he was from the past.
He was three years old.
There's also that.
So I also really like this post that he made from February 5th, 2001, where he says,
Would I be any more believable if I told you I had just stopped a horrible event and you won and you want to hear about it because it didn't happen?
I don't want the responsibility of being expected to know who lives and who dies.
I know it would change me for the worse.
Besides, how can you be sure my inaction now isn't a result of something I've already screwed up and I'm trying to fix it?
For example, in brackets, this is not preventing Hurl Harbor relates to Y2K.
Have you considered that I might have already accidentally screwed up your world?
He's saying to us in this time period.
So, yeah, there is speculation that Teeter did something in 1975 that prevented Y2K from happening.
And I'm just saying that just because I just mentioned Y2K and it's come up a few times.
So there is speculation that he did go back to 1975, stop that from happening and then came here.
But he never actually met.
I mean, other than him saying Y2K was a big thing.
The reason he went and I'm going to talk about that in a second here.
The reason he went back from 2036 to 1975 was to stop a thing from happening in 2036, not Y2K.
I will talk about it more.
That's not all I'm going to give you.
So these are his initial posts, like in the first few days.
Really, I didn't wander out really far outside of the first few days because that gave us more than enough to get a good idea of what he was about.
I think. Did he? Did he give you a good idea?
I mean, I got a feel for the guy now.
OK, good. The name John Teeter was not used until January 2001 after the time travel underscore zero began posting in all of these forums.
It wasn't until the Art Bell BBS forums, which required a name or pseudonym for every account.
And John Teeter, that's where that came from.
And naturally, that's where you're going to go to is the Art Bell forums.
Now, I've read you a few posts.
I'm just going to summarize the whole experience of what he posted.
I might be jumping around a lot, but I'm just it makes sense in my head.
Obviously, I'm not going to read you every single post ever because there is a lot more than you would ever expect.
He wasn't like a man, a few words and very mysterious.
Like there is a lot out there and some of it is very questionable.
In Teeter's post, he claimed to be an American soldier from the year 2036 based in Tampa, Florida.
He does actually post a picture of the logo of his military unit online.
Here it is. I'm literally not showing any of you.
I'm just going to point. I'm pointing at a future post on Journey to the Fringe social media's here.
You're having a little bit of time travel yourself.
He was assigned to a government 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.
Possible reference to the UNIX year 2038 problem.
Briefly, this is a time formatting bug in computer systems with representing times after 03, 14, 07 UTC on 19 January 2038.
Basically, why 2K? If you want more info than that, there's a ton of stuff out there.
If you'd like, it's way over my head and not the focus of this episode.
And also it doesn't impact any of our computers these days.
This is just old school computer shit. Oh, it is.
Yeah, our time formatting these days is more than just like three digits.
OK, don't be freaked out then. It only affects people in John Teeter's timeline.
So back to what I was talking about. The IBM 5100 runs the APL and basic programming languages.
Actually, Taylor just said that Peter said he had been selecting for his mission,
specifically given that his paternal grandfather was directly involved with the assembly and programming of the 5100.
In support of this, he described unpublicized features of the 5100,
leading to assumptions that a computer scientist was behind the postings or that he was for real.
Teeter claimed to be on a stopover near 2000 per personal reasons to collect pictures lost in the future civil war
and to visit his family, whom he posted about often. And I've also said like five times now.
Teeter also said he had been for a few months trying to alert anyone that would listen about the threat of
Krutzfeldt-Jacob disease spread through beef products.
Mad cow disease is a huge thing in the future and also about the possibility of civil war within the US.
One question about them by the Internet, Teeter expressed an interest in mysteries such as UFOs,
which were still unexplained in this time. Never did mention Tom DeLong, though, or to the stars media.
He does, however, suggest that UFOs and ETs might be travelers from much further into the future than his own time
with superior machines. So I mean that that was just no knowledge at all for him to add in there.
Now let's talk predictions. This is one of my favorite parts of this episode.
Teeter liked to say, yes, timeframes can change, but he also said that changes were minimal,
completely contradicting the other things he said.
So obviously there's a huge following of people comparing Teeter's predictions to historical events we're living through since 2001.
The most immediate, well, past event from where we are in the future was the Civil War in the United States having to do with order and rights.
He described it as beginning in 2005 with civil unrest surrounding the presidential election of that year.
This war was to erupt and be at everyone's doorsteps by 2008.
Now, as a result of the war, the United States would split into five regions based on various factors and differing military objectives.
The Civil War would end in 2015 with a brief but intense World War III.
While we were not on this timeline, he still did have World War I and II on his timeline.
So at least the past events we all share.
Chelsea, just sorry. World War I didn't happen in this timeline, remember?
Oh, right. I forgot about that. World War II then, at least.
Teeter refers to this World War III exchange as end date. Washington, D.C. and Jacksonville, Florida, of all places, were hit during this exchange.
Jacksonville, Florida, like that place that was just hit by the hurricane.
Oh, yeah, it was. After the war, Omaha, Nebraska would be the new U.S. Capitol.
Like that would ever happen. Nice try, John Teeter. You almost had us.
Teeter was vague as to the exact motivations and causes that led up to this war of the worlds for the third time.
At one point, he kind of alluded to border clashes and overpopulation.
Teeter claimed that as a 13 year old in 2011, he joined the Fighting Diamondbacks, a shotgun infantry unit in Florida for at least four years.
Sounds about right for Florida.
In other posts, he describes having hid from the war.
Teeter also directly contradicts himself by saying that the Everett. Oh, I already said that.
Basically, he's saying the Everett Wheeler model of quantum physics, better known of the many worlds interpretation was correct.
And basically that there's an infinite amount of universes with all possibilities being played out.
One I do like, but according to Teeter, this caused a new time stream to form because of his time travel.
This makes his predictions non falsifiable since believers can say that the events were averted by Teeter's postings.
If it gets him the F off the hook, because by going to the past and stopping to interact,
it had created a new world line that sets his timeline on a new path, preserving the old one.
Here are some of my personal favorite predictions, so to say.
November 6, 2000 answer. No, the ice caps are not melting any faster than they are now.
2036 must reverse somehow.
November 7, 2000. Yes, there is a post office. Also November 7, 2000.
There is a civil war in the United States that starts in 2005.
The conflict flares up and down for 10 years.
In 2015, Russia launches a nuclear strike against the major cities in the United States,
which is the other side of the civil war from my perspective, China and Europe.
The United States counterattacks. The US cities are destroyed along with the A.F.E.
which is the American Federal Empire. Oh my God. Thus we in the country, one,
the European Union and China were also destroyed.
Russia is now our largest trading partner and the capital of the US moved to Omaha, Nebraska.
There's that. Next one. I like how I disperse this into these predictions.
Next prediction. Pads are more common in the future and flashy colors are less common.
Dress is more functional and we dress up whenever we get a chance.
Okay, so it's the 1950s again. Yeah.
Next prediction. I don't know what you mean by VR.
Next prediction. We don't know what's on Mars yet.
Next prediction. We're not on the moon yet either.
A great deal of technical effort is going into cleaning the planet up.
Next question. Yes, paper money is still widely used.
Next prediction. There is another Pope, but I do not know his name.
Oh, and here's another good one. Do companies like in brackets, popular software and internet names still exist?
John says no, but at least GE still exists. I said that, not John.
He says no. Which I think GE is about to go under more or less.
Like they don't make anything anymore.
Okay, so what do you think of the Teeter story so far? Is he selling you?
Am I selling you on him? Am I doing my job?
Yeah, actually, I am very interested in buying his large stake in Omaha, Nebraska's property that I'm sure he bought prior to telling everybody that would be the new capital of the US.
Okay, so that's where you're sitting on it right now. Let me give you some more information.
And if I'm doing my job correctly, we will all be full John Teeter followers by the end of this episode.
If not, then we won't be, but I'm also not being paid for this. So let us continue.
More information for you. An Italian television program named Voyager, a confini della canoscenza.
That was perfect Italian. Aired the results of an investigation on John Teeter on May 19, 2008.
Luckily, the rest of this is in English that I have to read.
Private investigator Mike Lynch found no registry evidence, past or present, of any individual named John Teeter.
He did, however, identify the John Teeter Foundation, a for-profit company formed on September 16, 2003, with no office or address other than a rented post office in Kissimmee, Florida.
An IP address connected with Teeter also geolocated to Kissimmee.
Yes, there is also a claim that Teeter or whoever he was, was posting under 88 different aliases to make him look like he knew what he was talking about.
But some also being a little bit skeptical of him and what he was saying, just so that there is like enough of people being like, okay, yeah, you're you're look at this.
You're you're actually a time traveler and other people being like, no way, you're not a time traveler.
And just so it made him like look like, you know what I mean.
Okay. And and more than likely also asking some of his questions.
Exactly. And making it so that it looked like he knew what he was talking about, like questions that he knew that he could answer.
In 2009, a reporter by the name John Houston of the Hoax Hunter website named Larry Haber, a Florida entertainment lawyer, as the CEO of the foundation, Lynch,
included that Larry Haber and his brother, Richard, a computer scientist were very likely the men behind John Teeter, whom they actually introduced in 1998, accompanied by different predictions, including chaos due to the Y2K bug.
John Houston also reported that John Teeter is a trademark registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Teeter trademark is now classified as abandoned.
Then there was an Italian TV show that I just talked about, but I think I thought was a different one when I made these notes.
But let's just pretend that we're still talking about this.
And it circled back around. Man, the Italians love this guy. Exactly.
They go after Teeter, as I already said, and all trails led to an entertainment lawyer living in Florida, which had to do with this Teeter foundation and the IP dress being linked to Kissimmee, Florida.
He claimed to simply represent Teeter and his family.
And I think I remember him coming up on Coast to Coast AM.
He was on the episode that John Teeter was on. Right.
Yes. Okay. I was his parents were on it too.
Okay. Really? Yeah. You can actually contact him here.
Everybody get a pen. This might be old information.
It probably is. Here it is.
Law Offices of Lawrence H. Haber, PA Larry Haber. PO Box 470171-747-0171. Phone number 407-566-0181. Fax for everyone that loves faxes. 407-566-0182. Larry Haber at AOL.com.
So yeah, that's John Teeter. Definitely didn't age well as much as we like a good time travel story.
People still show up on Coast to Coast AM to talk about this guy for some reason. And that's it.
Okay. And I'm also learning just from jumping around his website a while. Do you know we wrote a book?
Yeah. There's a lot of stuff you can buy on that website.
Well, no, it's on Amazon. Oh, yeah. Apparently it's not in print anymore.
Yeah. So it's worth like a lot of money.
John Teeter, A Time Traveler's Tale. Paperback written December 1, 2003.
There's also The Secrets of Time Travel by John Teeter and a book called Who Authored John Teeter Legend by Mike Sauv.
Yeah. So I don't know who would get the profits of this, to be honest.
Maybe the lawyer, maybe the person who is John Teeter that's actually still in this timeline.
Assume they put it in an interest bearing trust account to be held until 2036.
At least. That's my story.
Well, that's John Teeter's story that I'm telling you.
Okay. And since we are ahead of the curve on this timeline,
I do think our official position as Journey to the Fringe should be, in fact,
to invest in Omaha real estate as soon as possible before it actually gets taken up.
Yeah. I think that's a reasonable position.
I think it is too. Yeah. I probably won't do it personally.
I mean, if I ever get around to it, I got the time I might, but that is at least our position.
We're probably not going to do it.
It's funny he didn't mention hell. Is that when I'd be all over?
I buy a plot of land in hell. Yeah. Huh.
Well, I mean, John Teeter is an interesting character.
He, if you're ever looking for a fun time, he did go on coast to coast AM later on in his career as well.
And man, is his website just riddled with cannot be found pages.
So I don't think he's doing much anymore or ever really.
No, he's gone. But it's a fun story. Yeah.
And if you do, in fact, run into a John Teeter teenager, actually, what would he be?
He would be like 20. He would be an adult. It would be. Yeah.
He's younger than us. Yeah. Yeah.
So if you happen to be current timeline John Teeter and listening to this, please send us a message.
Or maybe we can book you in as a guest on this show.
Love to have you talk about it, see if there's anything that's still going on with this.
Chelsea, anything to add? That is a good episode. Thank you.
That's I've said everything that I have been.
OK, well, that will conclude this episode, at least for this point in time, pun intended.
Thank you all for listening and we will see you next week.
Thank you for listening to Journey to the Fringe.
If you have liked what you have listened to, please like, share, subscribe or follow,
depending on what venue you are listening to us through.
Also, please, if possible, leave a five star review as that really helps us in the algorithms.
Should you wish to interact with us, please check us out on your social media of choice.
I bet you we are there.
And if you really want to communicate with us and give us ideas for new episodes
or tell us that we're wrong and terrible, either way, please send us an email at
journeytothefringe.gmail.com.
For now, I'll see you in the next episode.