John Titor's story began around the year 2000. His first appearance on the internet was under the handle TimeTravel_0. His initial posts appeared on various time travel sites like the Time Travel Institute forum. Later, he posted on the Art Bell Forums under the name John Titor. Titor claimed to be a time traveler from the year 2036. He maintained that he had been sent back to 1975 on a military operation in order to procure an IBM 5100 computer. The computer was needed to debug programs in the future that were based around the UNIX system. On his journey back in time, Titor had decided to stop in the early 2000's in order to procure personal belongings that would later be lost in a civil and nuclear war.
Part of the basis for Titor's credibility was his knowledge of the IBM 5100's ability to emulate and debug mainframes. This knowledge had not been released to the public at the time, but was widely known within the computing industry. Many people thought that this information helped to establish Titor's credibility.
Titor made several claims about the future of the United States, most of which revolved around the outbreak of a civil war within the United States and the world war that came after.
The civil war, according to Titor, began as a series of small uprisings that eventually escalated into a larger and on-going conflict. The people of the United States, upset over the increase in control that the government had resorted to, rebelled, and eventually caused the U.S. to split into five different regions. Near the end of the civil war period, World War III erupts and most of the major U.S. cities are destroyed. This reunites the nation, and a new capitol is established in Omaha, Nebraska. Titor predicted the civil war would begin in 2004, but that few people would recognize it initially. He also stated that World War III would begin, and end, in 2015. Because of advances in technology, the United States was still habitable and returned to relative peace following World War III. While there had been some regression, the majority of society still functioned.
Titor's claims, while easily deniable after the fact, also included a loop hole in proving his credibility. According to Titor, the theory that many parallel universes exist is true, leaving the door open for the current universe to have a different path through the future than Titor's universe.
Titor's works can be found on several websites online. These sites, while not always supportive of Titor's claims, seek to document the information that he provided. Titor's story was also collected in a book, John Titor: A Time Traveler's Tale, which overviewed and discussed his writings. The book is no longer in print. Titor's story was also turned into a play, Time Traveler Zero Zero. There has also been discussion of adapting Titor's story into a screenplay, but no serious work on the project has begun.
