Thinking of Aliens: What if They're Really From a Different Time Zone?

From 2000 to 2001, the world of conspiracy-theorizing was rocked when a man using the name of John Titor came forward, claiming to be a time-traveler from the future, specifically from 2036. Such was the fascination with Titor’s story, conspiracy researchers took deep notice of what he had to say, to the point that what began as an interesting series of claims quickly became a veritable phenomenon. But, was Titor all that he claimed to be? Was his story of being a member of the U.S. military true? Was he really a man from the future? Or, was the whole thing a strange hoax? Before we get to the matter of answering those questions, let’s first take a look at the history of time-travel in both reality and fiction.

Within the specific genre of science-fiction, fantastic tales of time-travel to the far-flung future or to the distant past are hardly rarities. Take, for example, H.G. Wells’ epic novel of 1895: The Time Machine. The book tells the story of a brilliant, London, England-based scientist, inventor and adventurer who journeys to the year A.D. 802,701 where, to his complete and utter dismay, he finds that the Human Race (in the form that we understand it, at least) no longer exists. In its place are the Eloi and the Morlocks. The former are relatively human-looking beings (albeit of smaller stature), yet they utterly lack vitality, imagination, and any desire to learn or advance. The Morlocks, meanwhile, are fearsome, savage and nightmarish beasts who dwell in darkened underground lairs and who use the Eloi as we use cattle: namely, as a source of food. In the 1968 movie, Planet of the Apes, Charlton Heston’s character, Taylor, a NASA astronaut, arrives on a nightmarish world run by a ruthless race of talking apes. Only at the film’s climax, as he stumbles upon the broken remains of the Statue of Liberty, does Taylor realize with horror that he has not set foot on some far-off planet, after all. Rather, he is home, 2,000 years in the future and after a worldwide nuclear holocaust has destroyed human civilization and given rise to the world of the apes.

Then there is The Philadelphia Experiment: an entertaining Hollywood film allegedly based on real events, and which tells the story of two sailors – David Herdeg and Jim Parker – who are propelled through time from 1943 to the Nevada Desert, circa 1984. And we should not omit the BBC show, The Flipside of Dominick Hide, in which the main character travels through time from A.D. 2130 to London, England in 1980. Ostensibly there to observe the transportation systems of the past, Hide subsequently finds himself on a quest to locate one of his distant ancestors. Let’s not forget Michael J. Fox’s character, Marty McFly, who in the 1985 Hollywood comedy blockbuster, Back to the Future, travels through time to 1955, where he almost makes out with his then-teenaged mom, comes perilously close to wiping out his own existence as a result of his time-traveling antics, and single-handedly invents rock ‘n’ roll. And, there was Déjà vu, with Denzel Washington, a 2006 movie which told the story of U.S. Government agents trying to solve a terrorist attack by using secret time-travel technology to look into the past. And who can forget 12 Monkeys, starring Bruce Willis? In other words, at least as far as mega-bucks movies and literary classics are concerned, the theme of time-travel is a spectacularly successful one. Tales of fictional time-traveling heroes and strange futures aside, what of the real world? And what if the aliens are really time travelers? Let's look at some of the relevant data.

Just about everyone has heard of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), but what about Unidentified Future Objects? Alien encounters have been reported not just for years or decades, but for centuries. Millennia, even.  If there is one thing that the aliens are keen to tell us and have us believe, it’s that they originate on other worlds. But, are they being truthful with us? In the 1950s, the extraterrestrials claimed they came from nearby planets, such as Mars and Venus. When, however, our science and technology demonstrated that life could not exist in the harsh environments of those worlds, the aliens suddenly moved the goal-posts. They came up with a new scenario: they were from faraway galaxies and not the local neighborhood, after all. Should we be suspicious of their claims? Yes, we should. There is a far more intriguing theory for who or what is behind the UFO phenomenon.  

Consider the words of the late UFO researcher/writer Mac Tonnies. Before his death in 2009, Tonnies shared his views with me on why he suspected the “aliens” were deceiving us about their origins and agenda. Tonnies told me, with respect to alien abductions: “I regard the alleged ‘hybridization program’ with skepticism. How sure are we that these interlopers are extraterrestrial? It seems more sensible to assume that the so-called aliens are human, at least in some respects. Indeed, descriptions of intercourse with aliens fly in the face of exobiological thought. It would be most advantageous to have us believe we’re dealing with omnipotent extraterrestrials rather than a fallible sister species.” Tonnies also suggested that fallible sister species was...one of the future. 

Time travel is not theoretically possible, for if it was they’d already be here telling us about it,” British physicist Professor Stephen Hawking famously said. And even if time-travel did one day become a possibility, it would be beset by major problems, claimed Hawking: “Suppose it were possible to go off in a rocket ship, and come back before you set off. What would stop you blowing up the rocket on its launch pad, or otherwise preventing you from setting out in the first place? There are other versions of this paradox, like going back and killing your parents before you were born.” Not everyone agrees with Hawking. One possible way of traveling through time is via what are known in physics as wormholes, a term coined in 1957 by theoretical physicist John Wheeler. The wormhole is basically a shortcut through both space and time; and although firm evidence for the existence of these so-called “time-tunnels” has not yet been firmly proven, they do not fall outside of the boundaries presented in Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

Then, there is the matter of the sinister Men in Black. They are perceived by UFO researchers as human-looking alien creatures or government agents, whose secret role it is to silence UFO witnesses, something that history has shown they are very good at. Maybe, though, the MIB are not the bad guys, after all. Perhaps they are “time-cops,” working to ensure that UFO witnesses don’t get too close to the truth – namely, the time-travel angle. After all, just about everything about the MIB is out of time. They almost always wear 1950s-era black suits. Their mode of transport – old-time Cadillac cars – is out of time, too. They have even asked witnesses, on more than a few occasions: “What time is it?”

Maybe, they’re actually asking what year they’re in. Or even which century. Perhaps, in the distant future, little is known of our time. Perhaps we destroyed ourselves and, as a consequence, the people of the future are tasked with repairing the planet and doing their utmost to save what is left of our species. Possibly, they have limited knowledge of our culture and even our fashions, apart from what they know from the pages of aging, crumbling old magazines from the 1950s. So, they adopt the attire they assume will allow them to blend in with the people of the 21st century, when, in reality, it’s the exact opposite. The MIB stand out like a sore thumb. Or, like a man out of time.

There is a possibility that time-travel can occur at random. Examples will be discussed. One of the most famous examples of what some researchers think may have been a definitive Time-Slip involved two women: Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain, who, it has been suggested, traveled through time while visiting the gardens of the Petit Trianon at Versailles, France. It was August 10, 1901 when the pair paid a trip to the Palace of Versailles. While walking through the grounds, both Moberly and Jourdain were overcome by distinctly oppressive feelings of gloom and uneasiness. They later claimed to have met with a wide variety of individuals, all garbed in 18th Century clothing, and who they came to believe had been members of the court of none other than Marie Antoinette. More controversially, the pair said they saw a figure they thought may very well have been Marie Antoinette herself. In light of this, we must consider that what the people of the future have achieved via science and technology can, on occasion, occur naturally. 

One of those who revealed his thoughts on this particular scenario was Lieutenant- Colonel Philip Corso, co-author with William Birnes of the best-selling UFO-themed book: The Day after Roswell, which was published in 1997. The unusual bodies found within the wreckage of the craft, Corso claimed, were genetically-created beings, but they were not the actual creators of the UFO itself. Right up until the time of his death in 1998, Corso speculated on the distinct possibility that the U.S. Government might still have no real idea of who constructed the craft, or who genetically engineered the bodies found aboard. Notably, Corso gave much consideration to the idea that the Roswell UFO was a form of time machine, possibly even one designed and built by the denizens of the Earth of a distant future, rather than by the people of a faraway solar-system. A detailed study of Corso’s claims will be included. Also in relation to UFOs and time travel: Formerly of the U.S. Air Force, and one of the key military players in the famous UFO encounter at Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England in December 1980, Sergeant Jim Penniston – in 1994 – underwent hypnotic regression, as part of an attempt to try and recall deeply buried data relative to what occurred to him during one of Britain’s closest encounters. Very interestingly, and while under hypnosis, Penniston stated that our presumed aliens are, in reality, visitors from a far-flung future.