Pushing Back the Birthdate of Paranormalis to April 14th, 2003

Hey everyone!

This time, I’ll take you with me on a journey to find the actual birthdate of our community, some 20 years ago. Let’s do some Internet archeology together, shall we?

I’ve always considered that our community came to life in 2004. On June 9th, 2004, to be exact. It’s the date of the oldest post on the site. The first message of the forum that would evolve into the Paranormalis we know today. It’s still available here as we speak.

You may click this link to see it. It’s our oldest post, which was created when the original forum software was installed on day 1.
Welcome

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Back in 2004, we were TTF, the Time Travel Forum. Here’s a snapshot of it. The post you see above dates from this era.
The Time Travel Forum - powered by vBulletin

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Apparently, this is where it all started. That makes sense, right? Then, comes the Chronovisor Project.

Working on the Chronovisor Project with @Cosmo has been quite a journey. Exploring old, dead websites, digging out gems and stuff we somehow forgot about over the years.

It’s no surprise that I’ve been exploring the previous iterations of Paranormalis, above anything else. At some point, Cosmo and I talked about something we had heard about a couple of times over the past 2 decades. “ttf.tk”, aka Time Travel Hotel.

I didn’t know much about Time Travel Hotel. I heard that it was an old, different version of TTF that existed around 2003-2004. Then it vanished, Time Travel Forum was created out of its ashes and the rest is history. Just another small, short-lived site that was now a distant memory, that only a few people remember. So naturally, we went digging there. I didn’t expect to find much. Boy was I surprised!

The first thing I did was attempt to assess how large ttf.tk / Time Travel Hotel was at its peak. From what I found, it had over 19,000 posts. 19K! That’s a lot! Wow!
The Time Travel Forum (http://www.TimeTravelForum.tk)

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This is an unexpected game-changer. Suddenly, it wasn’t just another small forum that vanished 19 years ago. It was a big, thriving site. Where I thought I’d find a tiny “proto time travel forum community”, I found a full-featured, fully-fledged community. Let alone one that existed prior to our usual, accepted foundation date of 2004-06-09.

As I was looking around, I started to see usernames that I knew, here and there. Gavin, Professor Opmmur, Enigmawriter, Jovial_Kitten, John, Frog186, HDRKID, etc. Sounds familiar?!?

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There was no doubt anymore. This spot is the birthplace of our community. I went ahead and explored as much of its content as possible. It was pretty limited, of course, because very little of it was indexed by the Archive.org program in 2003 and 2004. Still, I was able to explore and restore 54 threads.

Here they are:
TimeTravelForum.tk

Next and final step: When did it all start?

A good way to find out is to find the primary administrator and check its join date. The person who installed the forum software in the first place. Its account got created automatically at the forum’s creation, therefore, its join date is a reliable way to know the forum’s creation date. The admin I was looking for, here, was Gavin. This leads us to his member card:
The Time Travel Forum (http://www.TimeTravelForum.tk) -> portal creator

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Joined: 14-April 03

In case you’re wondering, here’s why Gavin is shown as Member #2. Since this forum was installed on a free forum hosting platform, Invision Free, account #1 is the Invision account. The actual person’s account, Gavin in this case, was created simultaneously and received member ID #2.

Now, back to 2003-04-14. This means April 14th, 2003 is the day our community was born. 14 months earlier than I thought.

In about a month and a half, on April 14th, Paranormalis will celebrate its 20th anniversary. Wow!

To be continued…

--Num7
 
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Einstein

Temporal Engineer
Messages
5,363
Have you ever noticed changes on the forum that might have been explained by the Mandella Effect??

Nothing that stands out in my mind. But last week I was browsing around on Zillow looking at a house I was interested in. In the kitchen there were two cooktops at opposite sides of the kitchen. I was intrigued by the abnormality. So I saved the link on my desktop. Went back the next day and there was only one cooktop.

I've got this backup theory that I am a Solipsist. The universe I exist in is only there when I go to see. But there must be a guy in the background whose job it is to make sure there is seamless continuity. I think he is drinking on the job. That would explain why I catch so many obvious fuckups.
 

Opmmur

Time Travel Professor
Messages
5,049
My issue is, I cannot find things that I know where the at earlier. Examples: my glasses, my keys, papers, my wallet, and a number of other things at just plain disappear. His happens once or twice a week. When I asked my wife, did you see these items, when it happens. She'll come and look and find it immediately, but I swear wasn't there earlier.

Professor Opmmur
 

Wind7

Moderator
Staff
Messages
8,432
Nothing that stands out in my mind. But last week I was browsing around on Zillow looking at a house I was interested in. In the kitchen there were two cooktops at opposite sides of the kitchen. I was intrigued by the abnormality. So I saved the link on my desktop. Went back the next day and there was only one cooktop.

I've got this backup theory that I am a Solipsist. The universe I exist in is only there when I go to see. But there must be a guy in the background whose job it is to make sure there is seamless continuity. I think he is drinking on the job. That would explain why I catch so many obvious fuckups.

Sorry...It's the medicinal Marijuana....I will try to do better next time. ;)

☮️
 

Wind7

Moderator
Staff
Messages
8,432
Have you ever noticed changes on the forum that might have been explained by the Mandella Effect??

I swear to it myself.

It happens to me at times when posting on The Random Thread.

I really try to never post the same things over and over (although, there are a few I do purposely such as "Phhhht!" Kitty)

I go and look and the posts I KNOW I made, are gone.
I admit life has caught up with me at times...But...Yeah....
 

Einstein

Temporal Engineer
Messages
5,363
I swear to it myself.

It happens to me at times when posting on The Random Thread.

I really try to never post the same things over and over (although, there are a few I do purposely such as "Phhhht!" Kitty)

I go and look and the posts I KNOW I made, are gone.
I admit life has caught up with me at times...But...Yeah....

My favorite theory for Mandela occurrences is that my brain lacks the fine focus necessary to keep me on the same timeline. As a result I get to experience a life of discontinuous realities just like in the TV show called Sliders.

However I have experienced the missing post phenomena myself. i don't jump to the Mandela effect as an answer though. I usually suspect Num7 as he has been known to delete offensive posts of mine.
 

Wind7

Moderator
Staff
Messages
8,432
My favorite theory for Mandela occurrences is that my brain lacks the fine focus necessary to keep me on the same timeline. As a result I get to experience a life of discontinuous realities just like in the TV show called Sliders.

However I have experienced the missing post phenomena myself. i don't jump to the Mandela effect as an answer though. I usually suspect Num7 as he has been known to delete offensive posts of mine.

You're not the only one,
that whole 1st paragraph describes me.......almost exactly, dude!

As for offensive stuff....Anyone's posts will disappear if they get reported...Even mine.
 

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