User:Stuart.Jamieson/Time travel urban legends

Origins and structure
the myth of time-travel, based for the most part on the belief that it might be possible to locally reverse the flow of time and travel 'backward',actually represents the death of the myth of progress The term “urban legend,” as used by folklorists, has appeared in print since at least 1968. Jan Harold Brunvand, professor of English at the University of Utah, introduced the term to the general public in a series of popular books published beginning in 1981. Brunvand used his collection of legends, The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings (1981) to make two points: first, that legends and folklore do not occur exclusively in so-called primitive or traditional societies, and second, that one could learn much about urban and modern culture by studying such tales. Within the medium of urban legends, there are several categories of legend sharing similar themes or plot elements; one of these categories is that of Fringe Science of which Time Travel Urban Legends are considered an element. It is suggested that the existence of Albert Einstein's Special theory of relativity which allows for time travel, mean that Time Travel legends should be separated from myths that are based on fantasy speculation.

In Ancient times concepts of time, tended to be in two schools of thought - either time was a line running from present to past, or time was a circle that would repeat after a certain period had elapsed. Neither school of thought saw time as reversible and folk tales and myths involved travelling forward in time; for example, in Hindu mythology, the Mahabharata mentions the legend of the King Revaita, who travels to heaven to meet the creator Brahma and is shocked to learn that many ages have passed when he returns to Earth. Another one of the earliest known legends to involve traveling forwards in time to a distant future was the Japanese tale of "Urashima Tarō", first described in the Nihongi (720). It was about a young fisherman named Urashima Taro who visits an undersea palace and stays there for three days. After returning home to his village, he finds himself three hundred years in the future, where he is long forgotten, his house in ruins, and his family long dead. Another very old example of this type of legend can be found in the Talmud with the story of Honi HaM'agel who went to sleep for 70 years and woke up to a world where his grandchildren were grandparents and where all his friends and family were deceased.

By the mid 19th century, works such as "Missing One's Coach: An Anachronism", written for the Dublin Literary Magazine by an anonymous author in 1838, show the first fictional time travel stories about travelling backwards in time. It was not long before folklore also picked up on such themes and legends about time travel began to appear. In 1901 the first a claim of time travel appeared, two female academics, Charlotte Anne Moberly (1846–1937) and Eleanor Jourdain (1863–1924) visiting Versailles in 1901, claimed to have experienced a time slip where they saw Marie Antoinette as well as other people of the same period. They published their claim pseudonymously in 1911 and it soon became established as a modern legend. The Legend has subsequently been referred to as the Moberly-Jourdain incident or the Ghosts of Petit Trianon or Versailles.

The structure of Urban Legends vary from case to case, but common motifs often re-occur. Within those on time travel, there are legends about individuals who either openly or pseudonymously report to have time travelled themselves examples include Moberly and Jourdain, The bulletin board user who identified himself as John Titor, and former Philadelphia Phillies catcher Darren Daulton. There are also legends about anachronistic items and people, such as Out-of-place artifacts and the individuals at the re-opening of South Fork Bridge in Gold Bridge, British Columbia, or the premiere of Charlie Chaplin movie The Circus (film). A third motif is that of the conspiracy, such as that of the Philadelphia Experiment in which the legend claims the U.S Navy managed to move the U.S.S. Eldridge through time, and has attempted to cover up the evidence of this fact since.

Propagation
For some cases the origin of the legend has been clearly identified, for others there is not enough evidence to prove exactly how the legend originated but folklorists and researchers have suggested the most likely explanations. The work of Folklorist Chris Aubeck, shows that the case of hit and run victim Rudolph Fentz  which started being popularly reported in the 1970's,  actually began life as a fictional short story in the 1950's. More recently, the legend of time travelling stockbroker Andrew Carlssin, began life as a fictional news report in the Weekly World News satirical newspaper. Both of these stories expanded out from their fictional origins and became repeated as fact.

By contrast, the legend that relates a mobile phone user at the premier of Chaplin movie "the Circus", cannot be proven false - researchers have explanations that demonstrate the shape and operation of period Hearing Aids and Ear trumpets would be consistent with the appearance of a mobile phone. However there is too little material (being limited to one short piece of film) to prove that a particular device is the one being used. When asked to comment on the video as proof for Time Travel, Astrophysicist Charles Liu commented that people of the present try to fit what they see to patterns they know, and that it is no surprise they see what they think is a cell phone in 1928. Speaking generally about people's beliefs in fringe science but specifically using the example of crop circles, the folklorist Rodney Dale said "We can explain ways of making crop circles but this does not prove they were made this way. People love to believe the unbelievable(...)" and the same applies to time travel. Another similar case is that of the re-opening of South Fork Bridge Legend (shown on the left.) When this image was first seen, it was interpreted as a proof of a time traveller wearing modern sunglasses, printed T-Shirt and holding a modern compact camera. However the image is one that shows our perceptions of the past aren't always what we interpret them to be, The sunglasses first appeared in the 1920's, the camera can be explained as a Kodak folding camera which became available even earlier, and the "t-Shirt turns out to be a sweatshirt with a sewn on design which was common at the time. In fact the man only appears unusual because his attire is casual compared to the formal wear of his fellow onlookers.