• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Exeter Woman Claims Time Travel; Solicits Companion (2015 Hoax)

ramonmercado

ramonmercado

CyberPunk
Joined
Aug 19, 2003
Messages
58,207
Location
Eblana
Any takers?

Exeter woman claims to have built time machine in her garage and is searching Gumtree for a travel companion

A woman from a village near Exeter has claimed to have built a fully-functioning time machine in her garage – and is now looking for a partner to share the journey with.

In an ad posted on classifieds website Gumtree.com, the Exminster creator of the time machine is seeking a companion to join her in the first human transportation on the device.

The ad poster states she has successfully made mice "disappear" in the machine, but is unsure if the animals went back or forward in time.

She is seeking a "male or female who is open minded with a good sense of humour" to accompany her on the journey through time.

Although the poster did not supply images of the time machine, it appears it needs a lot of open space to function properly. For this reason, the inventor will prefer applicants who can transport the machine in their car.

She is happy to split fuel costs with them. ...

exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/Exeter-woman-claims-built-time-machine-garage/story-26699707-detail/story.html

exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/Exeter-woman-claims-built-time-machine-garage/story-26699707-detail/story.html#ixzz3dDuVzhZn

Links are dead. No archived version found. See later post for related story at the same time.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
And let's hope she has solved the relative position in space issue or else she'll find herself floating about in space at some point in our past or future with some mice whose blood has boiled and whose lungs have likely exploded.
 
I do hope she handles her time machine with care. For all she knows those mice have have been propelled 1000s of years into the past. Shes best to move back a few days in time rather than years - just to be on the safe side.

I personally would love to travel back to payday, draw some money out and then jump back into the future.
 
Heckler20 said:
And let's hope she has solved the relative position in space issue or else she'll find herself floating about in space at some point in our past or future with some mice whose blood has boiled and whose lungs have likely exploded.
Click to expand...
The essence of relativity theory is that there is no absolute way of determing position in space; your position can only be given relative to something else. So on Earth we determine our position relative to the Earth. And it seems possible to me that, if we time travel, our position relative to Earth would remain the same. I speculate that somehow the Earth's gravitational field locks us in place.

The earth's gravitational field is the strongest one we feel. The sun and moon also exert small forces here (they cause the tides), as do the planets and the distant stars, but these fields are microscopic compared to that of the Earth.

So if you don't lock your time-traveller's position to the Earth, what would you lock it to, and why? The choice is too wide! That's why I go for the simplest option.

Of course, it may not be the simplest option if we tried to travel back or forward to a time where the Earth does not exist, but perhaps there's some technical reason why that would be impossible, even if 'ordinary' time travel does prove possible.

There must be the start of a couple of SF stories there, but I'll leave it someone else to try - just give rynner a credit if you get published! :cool:
 
It would depend on the method of time travel. If you're in a sense moving through a time tunnel, it might be possible to anchor both ends to the Earth. Though considering how space and time are connected, it might be difficult to move in one without moving in the other.
 
graylien said:
I wonder if these experiments could be somehow connected to another story linked to on that page:

Devon Woman wakes up to find 107 Gnomes in front of her House.
Click to expand...

First question to ask: Did Time Machine Woman make circa 107 mice disappear?

If 'Yes': Don't answer the ad!
 
Last edited:
Xanatic* said:
I wonder how she knows the mice were moved in time, rather than just blinking out of existence. I take it safety is not guaranteed.
Click to expand...

You've got me thinking of the 'Crazy Eddie drive' from The Mote in Gods Eye, which did in fact safely transport people to another location, just unfortunately for them, it was in the outer layers of a nearby star.
 
Lets all hope that we dont awake one morning to panic on the streets about a black hole that appeared over night near her address :eek::eek::eek:

Ive have enough nightmares as it is about that bloody cern accelerator too.
 
This woman has probably invented a machine that just makes things disappear.
I'm not sure I'd want to test it on humans until it can be established that the mice can be brought back unharmed.
Perhaps it's the best mouse trap ever invented.
 
Why did she test it on mice first? Why not test it on something that doesn't move of its own volition, so that if it went into the future she'd know when she caught up with it?

EDIT Why am I talking as though a woman has actually invented a time machine?
 
PeteByrdie said:
Why did she test it on mice first? Why not test it on something that doesn't move of its own volition, so that if it went into the future she'd know when she caught up with it?

EDIT Why am I talking as though a woman has actually invented a time machine?
Click to expand...
Yes.
If I was testing it, I'd use a robot.
 
Testing things on mice is traditional.
 
I'm a bit amused by the idea that she has invented a machine that can move you through time, but needs someone with a car to help move it around. Though I suppose that is the sort of absurdities life does come up with. Also for all we know those mice might not have survived the trip but died of radiation poisoning from a wormhole or similar.
 
Without too much difficulty I was able to extract from Gumtree her name, a map with a resolvable address which then gave me her full name, and then a back-search within company registers gave me her business partners name and their two companies' trading names. I shan't 'out' her, here, because she might not want that (plus, I may be wrong....but I do think I'm right).

If anyone else wants to try following the same clues that I did, here is a key resultant conclusion
Teeshirts...that's an idea!!

And if you can't be bothered, maybe I will post the full details.

But I very much think it is not a literal time machine...I could make a related guess as to what kind of machine it is, but you already know, 'cause you just read the spoiler, you impatient personage that you are.
 
The mice act as guinea pigs, with humans playing the part of sovereign hogs. Any actual guinea pigs involved in the experiment are used as substitute lab rats, whilst any controls are remote.

But seriously: guinea pigs have many physical attributes in common with primates (lung allergic reponse, relatively-similar pathways for disease progression, common metabolic factors. Also easier to dissect, post mortem, than mice)
 
Last edited:
Note that my previous online detective work did accurately identify her company name (Big Shiny Ideas Ltd), and her own full name, which is listed for directors' registration purposes as being Mrs Anna Rose Sligo, and a listed home address. She and her business partner appear to have links to a merchandising, marketing and related-services company http://theprinthutt.com/

Whilst I think we all know for almost-certain how this is going to conclude, there is inevitably a tiny part of me, at my Fortean core, that still mulders the distant possibility there could be something more to this than just a toe-curling forced-viral publicity stuntlette. Please Anna...more than a teeshirt would be so, so good......
 
Looks like we'll have to be content with going into the future at a rate of 1 second per second, as usual!

(I'm a bit concerned about what happens when the clock stops, however...)
 
Since I live in Exeter I replied to the Gumtree advert, offering my services as a companion, but sadly she didn't reply and has now apparently chosen someone else to accompany her. She's going to be live-streaming the event at a local pub tomorrow from 9.00pm; I'm planning to go along and see what happens, which I will of course report back - assuming that Devon doesn't get obliterated by a rotating super-massive black hole at 9.05...
I just wish I knew where she was actually staging it so I could go along and witness it first-hand. She said in the original advert that it would be a beach, but in this part of the world that doesn't narrow it down much. I'm guessing it's some sort of promotional gimmick, but quite an original one if so.
 
Sadly I have to report my profound disappointment. I was hoping to find myself in a world where Hitler was assassinated in 1933 and we now had colonies on Mars and the moons of Jupiter, or at least something resembling Fallout 3, but instead all we got was 51 seconds of chaotic video shot on a GoPro in someone's barn, involving some coloured lights, came-free-with-the-editing-software video effects and a "time machine" that was clearly an old caravan. The website is now claiming that they need to "rescue footage from the cameras which were damaged due to electromagnetic interference" during the "event", and that more video will be posted in a few days. The live streaming at the local pub was, in a wonderful twist of irony, advertised at the wrong time, and the chat channel on the website is inevitably being trolled into incoherence.
As far as I can tell it looks like "Anna" and her friends were attempting to produce some sort of sci-fi performance piece, but that their ambition far exceeded their ability. I can only assume that the world-wide attention that they attracted was a surprise to them. Even Fox News in the US picked up the story.
If it was supposed to be promoting something then I have no idea what that might be. It certainly wasn't doing anything to promote the pub, because the place (a god-awful Walkabout "sports bar") was almost empty and the few people who were there, including the staff, weren't at all interested.

If anyone still cares, the website with the video is at http://www.myrealtimemachine.com
 
That Media Hutt website seems to mostly consist of placeholder text and completely blank pages. I'm rather doubtful of their claim of creating "multi-platform media solutions" when they can't even sort their own website out.
 
graylien said:
That Media Hutt website seems to mostly consist of placeholder text and completely blank pages. I'm rather doubtful of their claim of creating "multi-platform media solutions" when they can't even sort their own website out.
Click to expand...

Yup, and the photos are stock. That picture of the impressive-looking studio is one of the first results on Shutterstock when you search for "photo studio". My own Google-fu mirrors that of Ermintrude; Rob Hutt and Anna Slingo run a small t-shirt printing business in Exmouth indoor market, but it seems that Anna is the newcomer to the business - new girlfriend? - and harbours ambitions to branch out into video production and "social media management". I assume it was that side of the business that the stunt was intended to promote.

Oh well, at least they tried to do something entertaining, even if they failed dismally. The pity is that there are plenty of very creative people here in Exeter that could have helped them to produce something a lot more convincing. I know a small local theatre company, several prop and costume builders, a video producer and a 3D graphics artist that would have loved to get involved with a stunt like this. Heck, I'd even give it a go myself.
 
Just watched it, it's shit, it's shit and now we know it. They didn't even put very much effort into the video - most disappointing!
 
...And because we all know it's shit, any kind of career they might have had as video makers is a bit rocky.
Or is crap PR good PR? :confused:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top