Anyone can be anybody from the other side of a screen: a Nigerian prince pleading for money; a lonely housewife "catfishing" a romantic interest; or a 14-year-old girl posing as just about anyone. From the "bonsai kitten" scandal of 2000 to the Lonelygirl15 "vlogs," the internet has proved itself to be fertile ground for hoax-makers, scam artists, and digital charlatans.

One legendary hoax captivated fans of the supernatural and the paranormal like few others. November 2, 2000 saw the first online post by the individual who would come to be known as "John Titor." Titor claimed to be a man from the future, sent to the past to retrieve... a portable computer. Though shrouded by forum avatars, his specific instructions on what he was here to accomplish, and what society would look like in his version of the future, kicked off a frenzy of investigation, speculation, and deception that has lasted for nearly two decades.

Some people believed "John Titor" completely. Others became obsessed with errors and inconsistencies, digital detectives trying to uncover the truth behind the story. Before it was over, Titor would make his way to an animation studio in Japan, a wrestling ring in Pennsylvania, and a prison cell in Oregon.

This is his story, as told by the people who fell deep into it.

In 1998, Art Bell, host of the late-night, paranormal-themed radio show Coast to Coast AM, which attracted eccentrics from all over the country pushing tales of alien abduction, freaky physics, and more. During one of his "Open Time Lines" segments, in which anyone could dial in with their own stories, Bell read a letter from a man claiming to be from the future -- which naturally came in by fax.

John Titor, in a fax to Art Bell, read on Coast to Coast on July 29, 1998 (condensed):

The unknown time traveler described a Y2K disaster that would leave people frozen to death, a government instituting martial law, a power facility in Denver destroyed by a mob, and a communal government system sprouting out of the chaos. Naturally, he sent an immediate follow-up fax, which Bell also read on air.

John Titor, in a fax to Art Bell, read on Coast to Coast in July 1998 (condensed):

John Razimus, researcher and "hoax hunter": I was a huge Art Bell fan in the '90s. He would have the time-traveler [Open Lines] night, [where anyone could phone in with stories], and I actually heard the very first incarnation of John Titor live when Art read the faxes in 1998. I didn't have internet access for the next few years, so I missed the rest of it.

Two years later, a user dubbed "Time_Traveler_0" left a message similar to the Coast to Coast faxes in the Time Travel Institute forums, then known as a safe space for people interested in chronal navigation, and a logical destination for an actual time traveler to make contact.

"Time_Traveler_0," in a message on the Time Travel Institute forums on November 2, 2000:

In January 2001, Time_Traveler_0 -- now going by the name "John Titor" --  made his first post on the Art Bell forums, the online counterpart to Coast to Coast. It was an exact duplicate of the November 2 post from the Time Travel Institute forums. He eventually migrated permanently to the Art Bell forums, where he would post regularly until March of 2001.

John Titor, in an Art Bell forum post from January 28, 2001:

The time traveler became a permanent fixture of the radio show, though while multiple defenders and associated figures would call in to chat with Bell, Titor himself would never appear. There was a reason for that.

Joseph Matheny, multimedia artist: I'm going to be picky with what I say to you over what I've said in the past. [John Titor] is a story that was created as a literary experiment by people who were observing what I was doing with Ong's Hat [a pioneering early alternate reality game] and these people wanted to do something like that. I was a consultant on the project, [but] it wasn't my project.

Richard O'Connor, Coast to Coast listener: There was always the sense that Art was fully aware of the con. This made the gullibility of the callers even better. John Titor, probably to lesser than most of the other "time travelers," didn't seem to have a strong enough grasp of history (or the present, for that matter) to concoct particularly compelling stories -- but Art had this fine skill of constructing drama from the little they said and pulling out just enough bits to make it fun.

John Titor, in an Art Bell forum post from February 2, 2001:

Joseph Matheny: This was pure art, in the sense that we could build a story, build a character that didn't have books, movies, and media attached. The people involved were very into folklore, and we were talking about the internet being the modern vehicle of folklore.

Here's a caveat: We don't know if Matheny is telling the truth about the origins of John Titor. His timeline matches up, but until his collaborators come forward, there's no way of knowing.

Joseph Matheny: I thought everybody would get this was a wink wink, nudge nudge, but when they didn't I went to the other people involved and said, "Let's come out and tell the truth." Nobody would.

John Razimus: If you have a compelling story and you remain anonymous, the internet will magnify it.

Joseph Matheny: We knew at some point this was going to get out from underneath us and we were going to have to let it go.

As with many alleged time travelers from the future, John Titor came with a load of predictions about the world to come. Civil war, technological catastrophe and an outbreak of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal degenerative brain disorder similar to mad cow, were all prophesied in his posts.

John Titor, from a February 2005 interview in Hustler:

John Razimus: It all started with Y2K. The whole purpose was to prevent the huge Y2K disaster. John Titor apologists will say thanks to John Titor there wasn't a disaster.

Oliver Williams, John Titor archivist on The Moore Show on April 5, 2012: The speculation is that John did something in 1975 which stopped Y2K for us.

John Titor, in an Art Bell forum post from February 5, 2001 (condensed):

Joseph Matheny: [We thought], "Let's pick some things that might actually happen." Militias were in the news a lot: Oklahoma City, Waco, Ruby Ridge, all that stuff was going on, there were congressional hearings, et cetera, so that whole civil war thing was a big subject.

John Titor, in an Art Bell forum post from February 1, 2001:

Titor's predictions were met with a healthy mix of skepticism and excitement on the Art Bell forums, with dozens of other readers asking hundreds of follow-up questions.

Charlotte Boren, in an Art Bell forum post from February 6, 2001: Please list the price of gold for the last 20 of your years and I can tell you the condition of the stock market in the future. Will it still be fairly lawful for me to own and use handguns when are beginning your time travel adventures? Is it possible for you to bump into yourself when you are time travelling? Saw a Jean Claude Van Dam [sic] movie about that once. I think it was called Time Cop. Whatever you do, don’t shake hands with yourself, if you do meet. You melt.

Mike Kolesik, in an Art Bell forum post from January 29, 2001: Ho hum... ANOTHER time traveler. Well, time to run him thru the BS o’meter.

John Titor, in an Art Bell forum post from January 30, 2001:

Traveling through time is tricky business. Titor claimed that the technology, based on the far-out, cosmological work of mathematical physicist Frank Tipler, would be figured out after a breakthrough at the CERN particle accelerator, and by his era it was commonplace. Titor's machine was manufactured by General Electric and installed in a 1967 Chevy Corvette.

John Titor, in an Art Bell forum post from January 30, 2001:

Physicist Frank Tipler, in an interview with Omni magazine from October 1994: I don't think [I'm a crackpot]. But no crackpot thinks he is, right? An astronomer once published a list of the rules for determining a crackpot. Well, if you read Darwin's Origin of the Species, you'll find he was a crackpot by some of the criteria. I'm very conservative scientifically. I'm just changing the boundary conditions in cosmology from the beginning of time to the end of time. I accept all known physical laws, and just change the point of view.

Emmanuel Kant claimed the three fundamental problems of metaphysics are: Does God exist?; Do we have free will?; and Is there life after death? I turn those questions of metaphysics into problems of physics, and solve them, answering yes, yes, yes. The history of science is typically about turning insoluble problems of metaphysics into problems of physics and solving them. Like one of Kant's problems: Has the universe existed forever, or only a finite time? Kant thought this was fundamentally insoluble too, and had a purported proof of this. But in this century, we've turned this supposedly insoluble metaphysical problem into one of physics and solved it, to find the universe is 10 to 20 billion years old. I'm just taking the next step. My reductionist belief is that a problem that can be solved can be solved by physics. And only by physics.

John Titor, in an Anomalies.net forum post from January 29, 2001:

The complex diagrams for Titor's time machine have baffled investigators -- they're obviously made by somebody with a knowledge of electronics, but they have no understandable function. That didn't stop a man named Marlin Pohlman from trying to patent it in 2004.

Marlin Pohlman, programmer, writing on the Godlike Productions forum in November 6, 2006: I have a degree in Physics and Engineering and back engineered this based on John Titor’s post... I work for a large software company have no profit motive. I just want one and don’t have the means to build it.

Marlin Pohlman is currently spending six years in prison for drugging and raping four women. According to police, he mixed a cocktail of LSD, ecstasy, and nitrous oxide into spring-loaded syringes and injected his victims in their necks before having his way with them.

Marlin Pohlman, during his 2013 trial (via The Oregonian):  [I patented the time machine because] I had to do something while I was going through chemo [for Hodgkin's lymphoma about 2002]. I had nothing better to do. ... I think I made a mathematical error.

Pohlman pled guilty in 2013 and was sentenced to 75 months in prison.

Titor's purpose in traveling back to the past was apparently to retrieve an IBM 5100, one of the first portable computers. The 5100 hit the market in 1975 weighing in at 55 pounds and sporting an internal 5-inch CRT monitor.

Oliver Williams, John Titor archivist on The Moore Show on April 5, 2012: He claimed to be part of a military group whose job it was to go back to the year 1975 and get a small personal computer -- it was actually one of the first portable computers made, and it was in Rochester, Minnesota.

Charles Moltrup, in an Art Bell forum post from January 31, 2001: Why would you want a IBM 5100 I can find them at auctions for next to nothing, i think they were the first 286 CPU’s. Why didn’t you stop in this year first and by [sic] one.Well I have a good question for you in 2036 do you still use toliet [sic] paper to wipe your ass.

John Titor, in an Art Bell forum post from February 1, 2001 (condensed):

Oliver Williams, John Titor archivist on The Moore Show on April 5, 2012: I guess there was some special trick or technical issue inside this computer that allowed it to talk BASIC, APL and some system language.

Joseph Matheny: The 5100 in the story... I started my career as an IT person, and two of the people involved were older IT people. I didn't come up with it, but when I saw it proposed I thought "that is so funny, we have to do that."

Oliver Williams, John Titor archivist on The Moore Show on April 5, 2012: Some IBM engineers came forward and said "I don't know if that guy was a time traveler or not, but everything he said about that machine is true," and maybe only 20 people knew about [the computer's true functions].

John Titor, in an Art Bell forum post from February 2, 2001:

Of all the people who communicated with John Titor, no one came closer than Pamela Moore. She engaged in multiple chat conversations with the time traveler throughout the early 2000s.

Pamela Moore, John Titor contact, to Titor scholar Mike Sauve in January 2017: Everyone thinks I started out asking John too many detailed questions when he came in 2000. But the truth was I had a detailed dream of a time traveler in 1998.

Before Titor disappeared in March 2001, he shared with her a "secret song" that she could use to identify any impostors. The identification of this song has been an obsession with researchers.

Pamela Moore, in an email to John Razimus in April 2009: I honestly think only John himself knew it. Perhaps whoever he was he never told anyone else. He told me in a chat not an email. If John ever decides to come forth I will have the info to confirm it was the same John who posted as John Titor.

John Razimus: Pamela Moore is an individual that immediately believed in it, started private messaging John Titor on the Art Bell forums, and all we know proof-wise is that [John Titor's lawyers] mailed her a copy of the John Titor book, and they signed it.

Pamela Moore, in an email to John Razimus in April 2009: I really don't know who sent me the book. At the end was a song written, but it was not the secret song. It was not signed by anyone.

John Razimus: I think they were giving her that book as a thank you for perpetuating the story. I think it's an unfortunate situation where they played with someone's mind and they took it too far.

Pamela Moore to John Titor scholar Mike Sauve in January 2017: The latest package I received had several things in it. A letter from Kay [John Titor's mother]. A letter from John. An album with a record inside and a CD with some songs on it but I’m keeping what was on it secret because I am not really sure why he sent those to me.  I more than likely will find out later. I received it in September of 2016.

Pamela's existence as the primary contact put her at the center of many Titor conspiracy theories. The quest for the "secret song" became as important as John's identity.

"Samstwitch," in a Paranormalis.com forum post from November 27, 2011: Pam is sweet and kind. Normally I do not speak of her out of respect. No one gives her any privacy. People keep forcing her into threads, which is hard to keep silent over. She's a very brave girl who has endured way too much. I don't know her in person, but I feel compelled to do my part in protecting her on whatever level, because of my participation in discussing John Titor. Some people will never get it.

Joseph Matheny: Pam, I think, is a true believer. I really do. I know she was talking to somebody. There were people who were having conversations as John Titor and we don't know who they were. They were coming out of the woodwork, they were not affiliated with us at all.

Pamela Moore to John Titor scholar Mike Sauve in January 2017: He then went on to explain how I was communicating with more than one John. That other Johns may arrive and they need the posts to stay up as long as possible.

Matheny believes his group stopped the Titor experiment before the Art Bell posts.

Joseph Matheny: None of us were paying attention or curating this after a point. Sometime in 2000 is when we stopped doing it.

It's impossible to know who was behind the later messages from the time traveler. Titor's only communications with the outside world were through text and internet postings. But shortly after the first batch of posts hit the Art Bell forum, a new name popped up.

Larry Haber, attorney for the John Titor Foundation in an interview with  Fade to Black Radio on January 3, 2014: When I get asked the question "is it real," my answer is always the same: I don't know. I don't question whether or not -- I do the work that I'm hired to do.

Titor himself never spoke to the public. All communications after the faxes and message board posts were handled by Haber.

Larry Haber in an interview with Fade to Black Radio on January 4, 2014: I specialized in entertainment law, and a friend from law school referred me over to Kay, and that's how it started.

Pamela Moore to Titor scholar Mike Sauve in January 2017: I thought he was just contracted for legal things in the entertainment area. I don't really know if he is representing anyone real or not.

John Razimus: I think they were fans of Art Bell, they created one of the first internet hoaxes, and it blew out of proportion. Perhaps they have some book rights, movie rights they've been sitting on?

Joseph Matheny: Larry Haber -- I don't know who he is. None of us do. He's not nor has he ever been involved with the group I was in. He's an entertainment attorney. He's somebody who jumped on the bandwagon.

Larry Haber in an interview with Fade to Black Radio on January 4, 2014: I know that Kay is working on a film. I haven't been involved.

Joseph Matheny: I saw some people that were clearly using the story as an effort to make money, which I am not cool with.

John Razimus: It was a trailer to be sold to Hollywood. They wanted to cash in. But there's a Japanese anime that has John Titor as a character, they haven't done anything against that -- every day, if they do have those rights they're losing them by not contesting other people using them.

Joseph Matheny: There have been a couple of indie films. There's a Japanese anime that I liked. I was at my girlfriend's house in Hollywood, we were just really into watching sci-fi together, finding things and watching them together, she found a DVD set of Steins;Gate.  When they started talking about John Titor I fell out of my chair laughing.

Robert Newsome, publisher of the professional wrestling fanzine, The Atomic Elbow: In 2013, professional wrestling federation CHIKARA started making overt references to their corporate ownership, the Titor Conglomerate. At the same time, there was an ongoing story about a wrestler named Archibald Peck who got punched so hard it sent him back in time. It eventually led to CHIKARA shutting down for a year and essentially re-setting. It's really hard to explain, but it was a lot of fun.

The only commercial product directly linked to the story is a book. The Titor Foundation published John Titor -- A Time Traveler's Tale, a compilation the posts, into a print-on-demand volume in 2003. A new copy now sells for over $600 on Amazon.

With Matheny's original group out of the picture, anybody could claim to be John Titor. And they did.

Richard O'Connor, Coast to Coast listener: You can tell a time traveler because they'll have an odd accent, different syntax and completely new slang. [John Titor wrote] like a '90s college kid. Anyway, that's my recollection.

John Titor, in an Art Bell forum post from February 2, 2001:  

Joseph Matheny: I got really harshly attacked by some of the true-believer people. People were going to my LinkedIn page and calling the people that I worked for. It was pretty heinous harassment, so I just backed off the whole thing.

Today, the most believable case pins the modern adventures of Titor on Larry Haber and his brothers Morey, Arthur, and John Richard, who conspired to create a fictional time traveler and then just couldn't let the story die.

John Razimus, in a 2016 video: I found a PO Box registered to John R. Haber, but I think Richard is just a fall guy, recruited to keep the heat off of Morey. Arthur Haber emailed me one day after I posted the video comparing Morey's handwriting to John Titor's.

Larry Haber, in an interview with Where Is John Titor? on May 20, 2010: My son is not John Titor. My brother is not John Titor. There's no John Haber in my family.

Pamela Moore, in a 2009 interview with John Razimus: Larry said he doesn't have a brother named John.

Larry Haber in an interview with Fade to Black Radio on January 4, 2014: The big reveal was my youngest brother Morey, who got tagged because he works for a big computer security company. That of course makes the conspiracy even bigger, because he's working on some high level stuff.

John Razimus: I stopped researching when I got these emails from Arthur Haber in 2011. That's the end of it. When I got those emails it proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that Morey -- or multiple Habers -- made it for fun.

None of the Haber brothers responded to Thrillist's request for comment.

Joseph Matheny: I guess what I didn't count on is that there's people who have a religious like fervor around this subject, and when you question the veracity of this religion, you've made yourself fair game.

John Titor was never photographed or met in person. His physical attributes remain unknown. We don't know what his voice sounds like. And Titor himself claimed that he hailed from a divergent timeline to our own. That meant that other Titors could be floating around our universe.

John Titor, from a February 2005 interview in Hustler:

Pamela Moore, in an Above Top Secret forum post from August 4, 2009: You would not believe how many people write to me and tell me they are John. Everyone seems to want to be John or they will post on a forum and say they were John.

John Titor, in an Art Bell forum post from January 30, 2001:

Time travel logic opened the floodgates for Titor impersonators, who appeared on conspiracy radio shows doing interviews. One of those impersonators took the name "John Titor II" to differentiate himself from the original Titor.

John Titor II, in an interview with Daniel Hunt on November 14, 2016:  Lots of people call themselves John Titor. I'm the only one that ever gets photographed, goes on television, or has written a book.

Pamela Moore, to Titor scholar Mike Sauve in January 2017: I have to say he does seem a little different than the John I spoke to. But I honestly don’t know what that means.

The identity of this second public Titor is believed to be Dana Lee Stern Sr, a man with a notable criminal record, a pile of aliases, and who claims his own son injected Windex into his brother's brain as a child to give him cancer.

Michael Vara, on from a May 10, 2017 broadcast of his radio show Late Night in the Midlands: I've seen the payment slips from Amazon with your real name. I did the background check. I'm telling you now -- you're not John Titor.

Jason Quitt, writer and dimensional-energy healer, in a post on his website TheCrystalSun.com: Bob Mitchell and myself signed a contract representing himself as Lieutenant Colonel John Titor II, for a book about his "true life story." The contract stated: "John Titor agrees to provide his life story to the 'Authors' in as honest and open fashion as possible in order to tell his true story." In December 2016, John Titor’s true identity (Dana Lee Stern Sr.) was exposed via YouTube. When his true identity was confirmed as Dana Lee Stern Sr., he was blacklisted from popular media and book sales dropped to nothing. Due to Dana’s misrepresentation and fraud, the book contract and book sales were dissolved. Contracts must be signed by your LEGAL GIVEN NAME.

John Titor II, in a post on his blog: John Titor II is more than a pseudonym, I lived that life. Jason Quitt becoming aware of the legal name I used decided he now had legal grounds no to pay me at all... My attorneys are collecting documentation and preparing a lawsuit.

Jason Quitt, in a post on his website TheCrystalSun.com: Dana turned to harassment and threats against us, unless we paid him a total extortion amount of $30,000 USD. There was no basis for any monies to be paid by us since there were negligible profits from the book he referenced. This has been ongoing since December, 2016. We have retained counsel and are currently in contact with the FBI concerning his numerous violations of US Federal law.

Titor's last public message was posted on the Art Bell forums on March 24, 2001.

John Titor, in an Art Bell forum post from March 24, 2001 (condensed):

Joseph Matheny: We achieved what we said we wanted to achieve. We wanted to take that legend and write it on the new sphere like graffiti.

Since then, Titor's legend has spread and mutated all over the internet. A recent 4Chan thread even speculated that John Titor's real identity was... Donald Trump.

Larry Haber, in an interview with Fade to Black Radio on January 4, 2014: I've been told all along that he was going to be back again sometime in the next few years, so I would expect something to be happening. I'm expecting him to come back in some form or fashion.

Joseph Matheny: If anybody has decided to believe the John Titor legend, pay attention to anybody who is trying to sell you anything. Books, DVDs, or a belief system attached to this as leverage. Give it a real hard thought before you do any of that. Because John Titor would not approve.

Leah Jakaitis, Coast to Coast listener: The magic of the John Titor story, and really the magic of mid-'90s Art Bell's Coast to Coast AM, was the ambiguity of the guests and stories: they were funneled through the radio. Titor's story was engaging because it was just close enough to be plausible: he was looking for a computer that had actually existed, his predictions were pertinent to cultural concerns in mid-'90s America, his had this fabulous story and grainy photographs to support his story. and then -- lo and behold -- he disappeared! Which is about as satisfying an end to a guest as you could have.

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