Scientists searching the Internet for evidence of timetravelers

This raises some questions I believe? Why would science believe that the Internet could be the place to be for timetravelers to emerge from hiding .They say they want to know if time travel would alter the future, but if that's so a timetraveler would never reveal itself I would think?

Time travel has captured the public imagination for much of the past century, but little has been done to actually search for time travelers.
Here, three implementations of Internet searches for time travelers are described , all seeking a prescient mention of information not previously available.
The first search covered prescient content placed on the Internet, highlighted by a comprehensive search for specific terms in tweets on Twitter.
The second search examined prescient inquiries submitted to a search engine, highlighted by a comprehensive search for specific search terms submitted to a popular astronomy web site.
The third search involved a request for a direct Internet communication, either by email or tweet, predating to the time of the inquiry.
Given practical verifiability concerns, only time travelers from the future were investigated. No time travelers were discovered. Although these negative results do not disprove time travel, given the great reach of the Internet, this search is perhaps the most comprehensive to date

Time travel according to Stephen Hawking we should fly with speed of light so if it's human timetravelers they are searching for then they had to travel nearly to the speed of light in the past to finally stop in our time period I would think?

Now thinking about that I received a message from the past today, and the one who sent me that message was me myself and I. I emailed myself is that not the same?

Types of Time Travelers Time travelers can be classified as either from the past or from the future. Further subdivisions might distinguish between time travelers who want to advertise their presence, hide their presence, and those who are indifferent. We do not consider such distinctions as determinative for search methods employed here, however, as even time travelers who want to advertise their presence may do so ineffectively , those who want to hide their presence might make a revealing mistake, and those indifferent might or might not leave traceable Internet content.

Well maybe science should bring out a message here on ATS? and ask if there are timetravelers here who can respond if timetravel alters the future?

Department of Physics, Michigan Technological University, Houghton

So if in any chance some time traveler read this please respond Captain kirk out...

I don't think you can travel backwards in time. It's already happened and no longer exists. This is probably why we haven't met anyone from the future.

Now, you could freeze yourself or go near the speed of light to travel into the future...

reply to post by MystikMushroom


That's why I think they aim for past human time travelers , maybe stuck within our time period?

Anyone living within driving distance of a divider between timezones has more than likely time traveled numerous times. And yes, that does count. Hell, if you do it on New Year's eve, it makes an entire year's worth of difference.

I'm a time traveler. I am always traveling through time. Part of me is stuck in the past though, I do not feel we need all this technology because I personally saw we survived just fine without it.

reply to post by 0bserver1


Great thread idea, and bookmarking for further reading and watching. I, of course, am a time traveler, as my fellow time travelers well know. We meet for pizza at the regular place on Tuesday evenings, and I know for a fact that some of you will be there next week. Noobies treat!

Someone should link them the John Titor threads.

It would be hard for a person to travel through time. Someone in the future may possibly find how to send signals through time to interact with people's brains. They could influence people to do certain things and correct the problems that occur easily by having someone in our future monitor what happens and transmit back to them information.

It would be much more feasible to use this system from another planet though. Aliens could get us to do things and stop by once every couple of thousand years and pick up all the gold and technology they wanted invented for them. Remotely influenced biological beings. Sounds interesting. I can't even get my kids to do anything I want them to do.

reply to post by Aleister


Science will be happy with so much timetravelers around and it doesn't affect the future at all

rickymouse
It would be hard for a person to travel through time. Someone in the future may possibly find how to send signals through time to interact with people's brains. They could influence people to do certain things and correct the problems that occur easily by having someone in our future monitor what happens and transmit back to them information.

Like time traveling HAARP..

Whatever happened to the guy who was building the time machine with laser arrays?
It was serious work. I wanna say he was with Cal Tech or MIT.

Anyways, he theorized that once he turned his machine on that he would immediately begin receiving messages from his future self. The idea was that sending particles through a closed (lasers) loop in space time at the speedof light, would have them wink out of the present and arrive in the past, but he would never be able to go back past the point that the machine was first turned on.

Initially it would just be particles, but pretty soon he would start receiving coded info.

Huge deal if it worked. But the story just sorta disappeared.

reply to post by JayinAR


I remember that guy. I wonder if it actually worked and that's why we haven't heard anything more about it.

There's a good movie called "Primer" where two guys make a time machine that looks like a box. It gets really complicated, but if anyone is into time travel -- it's about as realistic as it gets!

Yet they won't even look a the study of UFO's.

Seems like much more to study....Unless?

MystikMushroom
I don't think you can travel backwards in time. It's already happened and no longer exists. This is probably why we haven't met anyone from the future.

Now, you could freeze yourself or go near the speed of light to travel into the future...

I think you're right on this one. Don't remember whether it's general or special relativity that limits this but it makes the most sense (been a while since I read them.) Simply accelerating to a percentage of light speed will bring you home to a future advanced from your current (shipboard) time.

Also I believe that many of us (myself included) have experienced sideways jumps across alternate timelines. A search on ATS on multiverse topics shows a lot of folks believe this but it's impossible to prove.

The third search involved a request for a direct Internet communication, either by email or tweet, predating to the time of the inquiry.

reply to post by 0bserver1


Just out of curiosity, how is a Michigan tech institute searching emails? Are they buddy buddy with the NSA or is there something I'm missing? Or will Google, Yahoo and the likes just giving them the emails?

Maybe they sent a message to theirselves in the future, and told them to reply on the internet?

2nd.

A few years ago on one of Hawking's documentaries he held a 'time traveler party.'

Open to any and all time travelers.

Since it happened in the time travelers' past, and no one showed up . . . I guess they can't actually do it--backwards, at least.

(Or, of course, they CAN do it but they didn't want to 'out' themselves -- at least that would be the conspiracy theorist's point of view )

reply to post by 0bserver1


Is the NSA and the CIA part of this project? That could explain why all the surveillance. Maybe they are searching for someone special. SETI was in search of mister Spock in the sky, maybe this one is in search of Doctor Who amongst the people.

This is all rather fun, but, I don't think it takes into account the Observability of the Universe.
Basically, once something is observed, it stays observed, unchangeable, and indestructible as observed.

Thus, one could go "back in time", and save Lincoln, save Kennedy, save the dinosaurs, save Hiroshima, and alter events from your point of origin frame of reference to all sorts of varying degrees, but change absolutely nothing at the point of origin frame of reference.

This is because the "alteration" of events in the "past" is in actuality creating an alternate bubble of dimensionality to an already observed event.
One could then revisit that moment in space time at its 'original' observation over and over without ever concern for altering point of origin events as any changes affected create alternate bubbles off the existing already observed one.

In this respect, anyone and everyone alive today could go time traveling, if we had the technology, and basically create and live in their own private universes at any point in time, even just seconds apart from each other, without ever a concern for overlapping interactions, or destruction/alteration of the originating frame of reference.

In short, we'll see no evidence for time travellers unless an original primary root observation event was the result of, or had time travellers in attendance such they could be detected.

Since we are aware this method has been used to attempt to detect time travellers then the time travellers themselves in their 101 training for time travel will of been taught to avoid this bait. Time travel is probably impossible and if they did exist it be close to impossible to identify them.