Inert Ramblings

After receiving the Dimensional Warp Generator and teleportation dropoff emails, I was intrigued enough to check out the alleged delivery point on Monday, July 28, 2003. The location was only ten minutes from work and I figured, why not? At worst, no one would show up and I’d sit there alone for ten minutes. At best, I’d get a good laugh and snap some fun photos! Little did I know that there would be some characters there who were taking the whole thing so seriously!

Update (08/29/2003): Wired reported on the Dimensional Warp Generator and linked to me. Turns out that the time traveler’s family is concerned about him…

I rolled onto Cummings Ave. around 2:58 PM and found an older Toyota parked at the end of the street occupied by two men in sport coats. Both of them were on mobile phones and there was an open notebook computer stuffed between the dashboard and the windshield. The minute I turned onto the street and made eye contact, they left. As I continued down Cummings Ave. and turned onto Village St. I saw a flash of white out of the corner of my eye. There was a random guy hiding in the woods, also on a mobile phone, just across the street from the intersection of Cummings Ave. and Village St. When he saw me he turned around and scurried off into the woods out of sight.

I turned around and parked on Cummings Ave., facing Village St. and Winn St. From there I could see the alleged drop point where the Dimensional Warp Generator was supposed to magically appear at 3:00 PM. In my rear view, I saw and Audi of some sort parked about a block behind me and a random domestic parked behind it. A minute ticked by, and a rather burly man wearing white gloves emerged at the end of Cummings Ave., wandered around aimlessly for a while, then disappeared again out of sight. Just before 3:00 PM, I caught a glimpse of the guy in the woods and he instantly disappeared again.

A minivan then rolled up Cummings Ave. from the end of the street and, as it appeared, the domestic fled. The minivan parked next to the Audi, and a heated conversation ensued. I couldn’t hear anything but the guy in the minivan got out, there were waving hands and, eventually, the Audi left. I can only assume there was an argument going on because there was lots of rather aggressive waving and pointing.

Shortly thereafter, the guy in the minivan rolled up beside me, drove by very slowly, gave me a stare, then parked at an angle blocking me in. He just sat there for a few minutes, staring intently at the alleged drop point. After 3:00 PM came and went, he rolled forward about twenty feet, got out, and started rooting around in the yards around the intersection. Eventually, after not finding the Dimensional Warp Generator, he went up to the house across the street from the drop point and rang the doorbell.

I just sat there in complete amazement that there was any activity at all at the street corner. How could anyone be taking the pickup seriously? When the minivan driver made eye contact with me again I decided that it was definitely time to leave. Although nothing magically appeared at the intersection, I was kind of hoping that someone would toss a random box out of a moving car or something. At least I got some fun photos!

I really was tempted to make contact with the minivan driver but opted not to. Who knows what strange temporal rift I would have been sucked into…

On a side note, what makes this incident so freaky is that my friend James decided to check out the intersection as well! He arrived at 2:45 PM, got bored, and left around 2:55 PM because no one was there and the street was completely deserted! He snapped a single photo and left. Weird…

Revised 07/29/2003 09:44 PM