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So, in the late 90's I went to a goth convention in New Orleans, where my wife met a time traveller named "Butterfly". I saw her talking to a weird looking guy
by rossdavidh 7y ago
So, in the late 90's I went to a goth convention in New Orleans, where my wife met a time traveller named "Butterfly". I saw her talking to a weird looking guy, and swung by to see if she needed help, but she had that "oh this is going to be a great story" look on her face and kind of shooed me away. Later, she told me he had claimed to be from the future. He made some predictions:
- there would be a war in Iraq, but it was not actually as big as the one that happened later
- after the Big War, there was a disease that forced everyone to live belowground
- he had a computer chip in his hand
- he had a son in the future named Gandalf
This all seemed pretty wacky, if harmless. My wife enjoyed relating it all in our Yahoo Groups email group. Then, in the next few years:
- the implanting of computer chips in pets became commonplace
- we started hearing about new viruses every few years
- we went to war in Iraq
- Lord of the Rings movies came out, which made it more likely someone would name their son "Gandalf"
So, I asked my wife, "what else did that guy say would happen?"
She said, "I don't remember it all now, but I put a really detailed list in my email to the Yahoo Group."
So, we look in the Yahoo Groups history, and...that month was missing from the history.
Oh, well. If he had said anything more significant than a global pandemic and WW3, I assume I would have remembered it.
- sova 7y agoGratitude for conveying this message, what an intriguing character, and an intriguing lack of logged data. May all have peace and stillness in heart and mind
- Frondo 7y agoWhat group and month? in case someone out there might have their own copy...
- rossdavidh 7y agoWell it was an Austin goth group, and somewhere around the year 2000, but more detail than that I cannot recall. Wait, does that mean _my_ memory has been wiped as well?! Oh, wait, no, I just have a poor memory. Sorry...
- sreekotay 7y agoI think GP meant what yahoo group in what month was missing that might have had the list? In case someone had that archived...
- pimlottc 7y agoFrom the OP's story, it sounds like his wife posted shortly after the original encounter.
- kfrzcode 7y agoSo, how can you be certain the specific month has been removed?
- tjalfi 7y agoOne of my classmates in an IT course was named Aragorn. I thought about asking him whether his parents chose the name but decided I didn’t want to know.
- aidenn0 7y agoMy sister has a friend named Arwen and her dad says she would have been named "Frodo" if she had been a boy. Dodged a bullet there.
- scarejunba 7y agoAmusing how books have to achieve a certain vintage before names from them become acceptable. I wonder if, in the year 3000, it will be acceptable to name a child Arwen and not have it thought of as weird. Or perhaps there needs to arise a cult around LoTR before that becomes acceptable. If Scientology enters the mainstream, perhaps children will be called Xenu completely normally. Maybe the name Jesus will be treated like the name Nimrod. Then again, there is powerful normalcy-bias here. A name is acceptable if it is very similar to established names and if there is variance it's rarely among the established power class. So perhaps we'll need a massive disruption. The Scientologists will have to kill a large number of people and subjugate us to have names no longer just be James and Jennifer. Or maybe we'll need a modern well-loved person to call their child Eliohann.
- PaulStatezny 7y ago> If Scientology enters the mainstream, perhaps children will be called Xenu completely normally. I thought scientologists wanted to keep Xenu under wraps? (Never mind that the cat was let out of the bag long ago :-)
- scarejunba 7y agoHaha, sadly not a Scientologist so I must admit ignorance.
- 7y ago
- MisterTea 7y ago> I went to a goth convention in New Orleans, ... I saw her talking to a weird looking guy, As someone who hung out at the Albion Batcave circa 2000, I'd like to know how you came to this conclusion.
- rossdavidh 7y agoHaha! Point taken. But, contextually, he was weird looking for that particular convention. Hair was kind of unkempt, beard a bit scraggly. Not homeless-looking or anything, but a bit more frazzled than the typical going-to-a-goth-convention person.
- eindiran 7y agoWeirdly, I met someone in Ojai, California in 2010 who also claimed to be a time traveler named "Butterfly". He was a weird looking dude who also claimed he had a computer chip in his hand. I only spoke with him for a moment but it was a very surreal conversation.
- rossdavidh 7y agoWell that would have been a little over a decade after I saw him, if it was the same guy. Of course, that would be according to _my_ personal timeline. Perhaps from his point of view it happened earlier...
- tetris11 7y agoWhat did he say, and did he look young?
- eindiran 7y agoHe needed a ride from Libbey Bowl (a big park in the center of town) to some other location in Ojai (which is a small enough town that giving a stranger a ride isn't completely weird). My buddy and I drove him to the place he wanted to be dropped off while he talked for a bit about being a time traveler. He was wearing a ton of different bracelets, and when we commented on that he gave us each a bracelet (in the same style as those yellow Livestrong bracelets people wore in the 2000s). Both bracelets were identical black bracelets with red symbols, that looked kind of like they were off of Led Zepplin IV. I'm not sure how old he was. I've never been very good at estimating people's ages, but I'd guess maybe in his 30s or 40s?
- Cyberdog 7y agoBut what predictions did he make which didn't even come close to coming true but you don't remember them as well because of that?
- ASalazarMX 7y agoHe also warned that his arrival might have changed the outcome. He covered his bases.
- droithomme 7y agoThat's very cool. Interestingly, some believe the Bible also predicted a war in Iraq (Babylon) over oil. I had a few email conversations with Titor back in the day. Cryptic responses, kind of useless. Didn't convince me he was a time traveler. Your wife's contact sounds more credible, such as it is.
- ASalazarMX 7y agoIt would be hilarious if the bible predicted a war over vegetable oil.
- russdill 7y agoThe only year in the past 140 years that there have been at least 5 babies with the given name Gandalf in the US is 1970. Iraq had been at war 12 of the 20 years between 1980 and 2000. Not exactly a genius level prediction. Implantable tracking chips in pets were invented in the mid 80's and have been a commercial thing since 1990. We've had "new" viruses every few years especially since international travel has been a thing. The vast majority of these are just new strains of existing well known viruses. With genetic analysis, we are of course much better at tracking and identifying these things. And certainly going underground in a confined space with a bunch of other humans is the exact opposite of what you'd want to do to avoid a widespread human contagion.
- rossdavidh 7y agoWait, are you saying this guy _wasn't_ a time traveler?
- tinus_hn 7y agoI presume you do know that the Lord of the Rings movies are derived from books that were already very famous in the 90s?