Time Travel

Time, we obsess about it. We try to save it. We try not to waste it. We always seem to be giving it, taking it, running out of it. The clock is our master and it torments us by slowing to a crawl in some moments and then flying by in others. Time, we always, always want more of it. And we dream of being able to control it. We dream of machines that would let us skip through time as easily as we move through space in our cars and trains and airplanes. What if time travel was possible? Would you believe it?

True. Weird. Stuff. Imagine they've built a time machine and you've got a ticket. Where you headed? Into the past or into the future? Maybe you'd love to witness history with your own eyes. So you head to the Ford Theater on April 14, 1865. Who cares about the play Our American Cousin? You can't take your eyes off the 16th President of the United States.

Man, look how tall Lincoln is. At 6'4", he towers over the average man of his day who tops out at a mere 5'6". Look at him sitting there in his box, solemnly nodding that majestic, craggy head at acquaintances and strangers alike. But of course, you know something the great man does not. Something only one other in the theater that night knows.

You watch as John Wilkes Booth appears in the shadows behind the President. And though you are prepared, the sound of the shot ringing out, the flash of the pistol firing, you find yourself as shocked and panicked as any of the long-dead theater patrons seated all around you. Or maybe you're headed for the future, that gleaming dreamscape of flying cars and moon colonies and robot housekeepers.

Traveling to the future, that's for the bold. For starters, what to wear? Do you roll into the year 4085 and Lululemon, hoping that the whole athleisure vibe that Star Trek perfected turns out to be exactly what the people of the future are rocking? Can you breathe the air? Understand the language? Do people even still look like people?

Or have we evolved in some unforeseen way? You know, like maybe sprouting gills like Kevin Costner in Waterworld. You can see there's a lot more to time travel than the physics, and the physics are pretty daunting, but not impossible. At least that's what NASA says. To be specific, NASA says time travel is theoretically possible.

And the first theory you're going to have to chew through in your theoretical time trip is Einstein's theory of relativity, which basically states that time and motion are relative to each other and that nothing, absolutely nothing, can travel faster than the speed of light. And light travels at 186,000 miles per second. These are words I can say with complete confidence, and yet also with a complete lack of any real comprehension, because it's all just so enormous, right?

But the thing to take away is that time travel is possible. You just need to start thinking of space and time as not two separate things, but as one thing, spacetime. And then you need to figure out how to manipulate spacetime, how to curve it. Once that's done and you've made spacetime into a circle, now you can build a time machine.

Scientists say that the math involved in that is actually pretty simple, but I think they must mean pretty simple for physicists. The real problem is making that simple math real and physical and practical. Sci-fi books and movies do dearly love a wormhole, but we don't know how to make one or how to travel through one.

Also, more critically, we're not even certain they actually exist. Wormholes are 100% theoretical. That's not a deal killer, though, because it wasn't all that long ago that black holes were 100% theoretical. Then in 1964, astronomers detected some promising evidence to back up the theory, and by 1971, it was official.

The Milky Way, our galaxy, had its first legit black hole. NASA suspects that our galaxy could have as many as a billion black holes. Does that give you the willies? And did you know that Earth has a neighbor that's a black hole? It's called the unicorn, and it's only 1,500 light years away. Or maybe that should be, oh, because the black hole is a really cool thing to consider until you're what it's gobbling up.

Back to time travel, though, and how it is possible once you curb space time, that is, and built a machine. Now that that's done, you have a very serious challenge to conquer, one that never seems to be an issue in sci-fi movies or TV shows. And here it is. It's not enough to simply move through time. You need to solve another problem, and I think it might be the harder one.

Like the Realtors say, location, location, location. What are we talking about? Well, the Earth is always moving. It zooms around the sun at an orbital speed of 68,350 miles per hour. In one single day, the Earth travels about 1.6 million miles. And while that's happening, the Earth is also spinning on its axis. Now, while that spin is constant, the speed depends on your latitude.

Man, are we ever in the weeds, right? But if you're going to be a time traveler, you have to wrap your head around all of this. You set your time machine up on the equator, and the spin is about 1,037 miles per hour. You set your time machine up at the North or South Pole, and the spin is dramatically slower. This whole spin equator situation is the reason why, like, Kennedy Space Center is in Florida and not Billings, Montana.

Florida is closer to the equator, and that extra zippy equatorial spin gives rockets a little speed boost and helps them escape the pull of Earth's gravity, get the heck into space. I'm sorry. All you wanted was to go see dinosaurs or watch D.B. Cooper bail out of that plane or spy on your parents' first kiss. And here I am ruining all of that with a bunch of bewildering math.

But listen, if you want to travel back in time to pet a pack of cephalosaurs, and you don't want to end up embedded in a mountain or a mile underwater, this bewildering math is the thing you must get right. Let's say it can be done, though. A high-powered computer could probably chew that math right up and spit out the correct coordinates and send you on your way.

And a pretty good handful of humans claim they've done just that. Time travelers walking amongst us. If you're thinking time travelers for real here now, what kind of top secret black ops pentagon program we talking about? Don't worry, you won't need a security clearance to find a time traveler. You just need to download Tick Tock.

Now, some of these time travelers are less credible than others, like this one. Hello, I'm a time traveler from the year 2122, and I'm here to tell you that life will not get easier. Behind me is the closet that I use to time travel. I will use it in this video to time travel into the future. After this video is done, please do not ask me any questions about how I time travel and where I travel to.

I will use this closet to travel into the future. Goodbye. Folks, I'm from right freaking now, and I can tell you that life will not get easier. Girl, make an effort to be at least a little bit more dramatic. And then there's this one whose message from the future basically sounds like everyone's cranky dad circa last night.

This man says he's from year 3036. Listen to what he says. Here's free as you're ever going to get right now. These are considered the last days of freedom. Your kids won't even see it. So soak it up, because as simple minded as your time period is. Yeah, it's pretty good. You just don't know it. Oh, I do like this one a whole lot, though, in part because this time traveler not only gets specific promises the arrival of dragons, which I am very much here for.

I mean, don't you want to see a dragon? The time traveler has warned us again. Now, just like in my previous video, I have found more dates that he has posted to social media to warn humanity. So make sure to save this video so we can keep track of these dates and find out if he was right. So we've got November 19th, where the Antarctic Treaty is revoked, releasing info on what humans are actually capable of.

Next, we have November 20th. New species is discovered in the mountains of Mexico, which we consider a dragon. Oh, on top of that, they're extremely aggressive. Brilliant. On November 14th, a large amount of energy is actually released from the sun, which collides with Earth, causing 10 people receiving mysterious powers.

Next up on December 10th, Joe Biden is actually removed from office due to health issues. And finally, on April 28th, Amsterdam is hit by a meteor, with it destroying most of the city. So send this to literally anyone you know, because in the very near future, we're getting dragons, superpowers and a big meteor. And I always love a good celebrity coming back from the grave prediction like this one from the year 2858.

There's a time traveler from the year 2858, and he has some crazy predictions for the year 2023. So make sure you favorite this video so you can come back easily to see if any of these are true. The first one is in six days. He says that on March 30th, the passenger plane is going to crash. But in reality, it's going to be going through a wormhole for six years.

So I guess we can't verify that one until 2029. Next is on June 2nd. He claims that six people are going to get superpowers due to the energy from the sun. And honestly, I would love to be one of the six. Next is on June 16th. He says that a famous celebrity is going to come back from the dead and show everybody how he faked his death.

There is speculation about who that might be. And some people are thinking that it's either going to be Juice WRLD or Michael Jackson. But what do you think? Next is on September 22nd. That's when he claims that Area 51 would have made its first cenotaph because they're currently working on merging different creatures.

I don't know how accurate this time traveler is, but holy moly, thanks for the heads up on a bear the size of a school bus. A time traveler from 2671 has warned us. Now, yes, a time traveler has posted on TikTok several dates which humanity need to look out for. And none of these events were good, so make sure to save this video so we can look back to see if he was right.

The first comes on 8th of December 2022. A large meteor, but not extinction level, will hit Earth, bringing with it an alien species and unknown materials. That sounds like it's straight out of the plot of A Quiet Place. Just 12 days later, on the 30th of December, there will be a 9.8 magnitude earthquake which will open a hole in the Mariana Trench.

This large earthquake will apparently release the largest species humanity has ever witnessed. And 2023 is not looking much better. Because this is the year we apparently find massive species of already known animals. Such as a 3 foot spider and an 18 foot bear. And you can always pull up YouTube and watch the documentary Confessions of a Time Traveler.

Here's a little review. If you haven't checked out this documentary, you need to go. It's on YouTube, I believe. It's about a little longer than half an hour. Anyway, this guy apparently was caught shoplifting. That's how the whole thing started. And when he was caught by the police, he said, well, you know, where I'm from, we don't have to worry about that.

Food and clothing are free in the marketplace. So somebody ends up doing a whole interview with this man. He tells us that he has to wear a mask because in the future the air quality is so terrible that you cannot go outside without wearing a mask or a respirator. That there's no more large animals like elephants and lions and all that is gone.

The zoos, they consist of cats and dogs. Those are considered exotic in the future. There is a chip that's implanted in your hand that has all your information. This guy, he didn't have any social security number. They couldn't find a birth record anywhere. When they did blood work on him for DNA ancestry, no one was related to him whatsoever.

When they did an x-ray of his hand, there was indeed a chip in there. He said that our era is actually known as the idiot era. I don't blame him. But that if we knew what we were doing with our cell phones, we wouldn't touch them. Cell phones are actually banned. The average lifespan for a woman is 50 years old and for a man is 40.

That in 2060s, all of this will start happening. Within the 2060s, 2080s. In 2080s, no one grows hair anymore because of all the radiation that has been around. You live in these things called pods that essentially replace houses. Religion is completely banned. You cannot practice religion. And if you do, then you're sent to live underground in tunnels underneath of these pods or whatever.

Anyway, this thing is wild. You've got to go check this out. So basically, according to this last time traveler, in less than 60 years, we'll all be bald and living in pods or tunnels. But definitely bald. One thing I have a hard time arguing with is that this is the idiot era. Because that kind of fits. Now, there are two very intriguing time traveler stories that do make you go.

Hmm. One is the tale of Sergei Ponomarenko. And the other is the tale of Andrew Carlssin. Sergei appeared in Kiev, Ukraine in 2006. Dressed in dated clothing, carrying an old fashioned camera. And proffering a set of Soviet-issued identification papers from the 1950s that indicated the year of his birth was 1932. Yet Sergei claimed to be only 25 years old and looked it.

This math is easy. A person born in 1932 would be 74 years old in 2006. Yet here was this very obviously young man. Adding to the intrigue, Sergei also produced the Soviet passport. It had been issued in the 1950s. And sure enough, there was 25-year-old Sergei staring out from the document's stern black and white photo.

And how do we know all of this? Because an apparently disoriented Sergei Ponomarenko stopped a uniformed Kiev police officer and asked for help. And then his story got even weirder. Police questioned him thoroughly. But Sergei seemed as confused as they were. He described how he'd been wandering Kiev with his camera. You know, in the 50s, taking photos.

Just enjoying the afternoon. The afternoon that Sergei claimed to be enjoying in 1958. And then suddenly, he found himself rocketed 48 years into the future. Police were like, That's Ukrainian for, what the hell? And then they took a closer look at the camera. It was super vintage. A model that had not been manufactured since the 1970s.

They couldn't even process the film inside it. Until they found an expert who specialized in antique cameras. You ready for some more weirdness? The photos taken by Sergei's camera were images of Kiev. Kiev in the 1950s. There were also photos of Sergei with a woman, also dressed in old-fashioned clothing. And most shocking and unsettling of all, an image of what looked very much like a UFO.

What? Pointing to the photograph of the UFO, Sergei told police that this was the last thing he remembered seeing. Before finding himself standing on a street 48 years in the future. What an intriguing plot twist, right? Running a search on the name, Kiev police found a report on a Sergei Ponomarenko who'd gone missing in 1958.

Included in that report was the name of a girlfriend who police were able to locate alive and well in 2006. This woman was in her 70s. And sure enough, she also happened to be the woman in the mysterious photographs. She told police that she did know Sergei. That he had vanished in 1958 for two years. She claimed that he reappeared and all seemed fine until he disappeared again in the 1970s.

She said she hadn't seen him since. Though she described to them an odd photo she'd received from Sergei. This was a picture of a much, much older Sergei. Allegedly taken in the year 2050. And what appeared to be a much larger version of the city of Kiev. All sounds pretty legit, doesn't it? Pretty compelling, especially if you want to believe.

There were wild stories circulating online about Sergei. Stories of his walking into the police station. Captured on security video and everything. There he was. Quaint attire and all. And then poof. Gone. No evidence of his ever having left the police station. Good stuff, yeah? It was great fun while it lasted. And then a YouTuber named Joe Scott debunked the whole story.

That photo from the year 2050? Scott proved that the futuristic skyscrapers in the image had been digitally cloned. And it also appeared that the Empire State Building had made its way to Kiev in 2050. And the UFO? Scott believed it was a screen grab from a popular Ukrainian TV show called Aliens. What a bummer. We just can't have anything nice, can we?

Lying liars gonna lie. Now our second notorious time traveler did the thing that any of us might daydream about. He journeyed back in time to make a killing in the stock market. In April 2003, the Guardian newspaper in the UK ran a bizarre and puzzling story about a man being investigated by the FBI for insider trading.

That man's name was Andrew Carlssin. And he claimed that he hailed from the year 2256. His story was that he came back in time with $800. And in just two weeks, Carlssin managed to turn his $800 into $350 million. And this is exactly the sort of thing that gets the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission, law enforcement, and a whole bunch of finance bros who could not believe the extraordinary run this dude was having.

And it was extraordinary. But also reckless. Because there's no way that kind of churn goes unnoticed. A spokesperson for the SEC said this about the alleged time traveler. We don't believe this guy's story. He's either a lunatic or a pathological liar. Every trade he made capitalized on unexpected business developments, which simply can't be pure luck.

The only way he could pull it off is with illegal inside information. He's going to sit in a jail cell on Rikers Island until he agrees to give up his sources. It took Carlssin 126 consecutive high-risk trades to amass his fortune. But the money did him little good once he was in custody. And then some very weird things happened.

Law enforcement could find no evidence pointing to the existence of Andrew Carlssin prior to his abrupt appearance on the scene in 2002. None. And this is a very contemporary story, not some tale from the 18th century. It's hard to even exist in our modern digitized world without leaving a trail. There was no trail for Andrew Carlssin.

He tried to negotiate his freedom. Having confessed to being a time traveler, Carlssin promised to reveal both a cure for AIDS and the location of the world's most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden. He was willing to do just about anything to be allowed to return to his time machine and his rightful home in the future.

The one thing he would not agree to disclosing the location of the time machine. He feared, he said, what calamities might go down if the technology fell into the wrong hands. And he also acknowledged his own stupidity. His plan, he said, had been to lose a little here and there. So it didn't look too perfect. I just got caught up in the moment.

So relatable. Why is Andrew Carlssin not sitting in a federal prison cell today for the crime of insider trading? The story goes that he made bail and then he disappeared, which is exactly what you or I would do if we had a real time machine waiting to take us back to the future. This is the part where what you believe will reveal something profound about the way you think.

Do you believe that Andrew Carlssin was telling the truth, that he really did travel back in time from the year 2256? That he got caught up in greed and excitement and just could not stop himself from making one winning trade after another? And that his disappearance is all but proof that he was exactly what he claimed to be?

Or do you believe that the entire story is a silly little fairy tale created to sell tabloids and drive clicks online? When contacted for further comment, officials at the Securities and Exchange Commission denied every aspect of the Carlssin case. A spokesperson declared that Andrew Carlssin's tale was pure fantasy that belonged in the same file as Elvis Shrine found on Mars.

Which is exactly what you'd expect from any government agency trying to kill a story by making it into a joke. Something governments learned in their dealings with UFO sightings and UFO experiencers. Roll your eyes. Make them look crazy. Undermine any credibility and bury the story as fast and as deep as you can. I don't know what's up with Andrew Carlssin. Feels too good to be true.

But what really sways me in the direction of it's all make-believe is what an absolute donkey the man was. Either he was a legit time traveler who made the mistake of thinking that people in the early 2000s were far too stupid to catch on to what he was doing. Or he figured that he'd grab the cash and be gone before he got caught.

Or he was a chucklehead with both a talent for math and access to a time machine. What a terrifying combination that would be if it were real. But what if, against all known and unknown odds, it is real? That's the thing about time travel. It is possible, even if unlikely. And do you think there's any way we could ever really make sense of a person journeying to us from the future?

What proof could they ever offer that we would accept without question? And looking at Andrew Carlssin, aren't you just a little bit depressed that the people of the future don't have better street smarts? Like I said, what a donkey. But it's fun to imagine, and who knows, maybe there are real time travelers on TikTok.

Why not? You can find pretty much everything else there. I just love what it says about humans that we dream of these things. Our lives are so brief and fragile and weighted with emotion and hope and the fear of our own mortality. Why wouldn't we crave the chance to revisit the past? So many of us dwell on it, unable to truly accept that our past is unchangeable.

Why wouldn't we yearn to peek at the future? It's forever bearing down on us and forever unknowable. We're very small creatures gifted with vast imaginations, plunked into this gorgeous reality that we really don't understand. Not even a little bit. To quote that great mythical candy maker, Willy Wonka. We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams.

Don't be embarrassed for wanting to believe. Don't ever let anyone make you feel foolish or stupid for wanting to believe. You know who else wanted to believe? The brilliant theoretical physicist, Dr. Stephen Hawking. On June 28th, 2009, Stephen Hawking threw a party. There were yummy nibbles and lots and lots of champagne and banners strung throughout the room that read, Welcome time travelers.

Hawking sent the invitations complete with the necessary coordinates after the party had occurred. He even published the invitation on his series, Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking. He theorized that only a person from the future would be able to come. That was the plan. But no one came. Hawking was bummed. He loved parties and he loved champagne and he loved experiments.

And he believed that time travel was possible. But Stephen Hawking opted to look on the bright side, which is always difficult when one throws a party and absolutely no one shows up. Just because he was one of the greatest brainiacs who ever lived doesn't mean he didn't have feelings that could be hurt. Hawking said that it was probably for the best that no party goers from the future crashed on his couch that night.

He worried that warping space time to accomplish a trip through time would generate a bolt of radiation so massive that it could destroy space time itself. And that would be a far bigger bummer for the entire universe than having to drink all that champagne by yourself. Next time on True Weird Stuff. Unsuspecting human beings inject it with paralyzing drugs, dosed with loads of LSD, zapped over and over with electroshock, made comatose for weeks on end, tormented with hour after hour of audio messaging, pumped into blacked out helmets strapped to their heads.

It's not a horror movie. It really happened for years. And you know who paid for all of it? You did. See you next time on True Weird Stuff. And if you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, hit the plus button in the top right corner. Now it helps an independent podcast like ours to get discovered. And we really appreciate it if you subscribe, rate and review True Weird Stuff.

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