YouTube is full of massively popular videos from self-professed “time travelers”

The scientific possibility of time travel has been dismissed over the years by one simple line of rhetorical questioning: If time travel is possible, then where are all the time travelers? Why haven’t they made themselves known? Why aren’t they warning us about the future? Well, according to a recent article on Mel, if the time travelers are here then they are all on YouTube, racking up millions of views.

In the past year, there has been a sharp increase in the number of videos featuring self-professed time travelers like the one above. The content of these videos and the apocalyptic warnings therein differs from case to case, but they all share a few common elements. The time traveler is always white and male. His face is usually blurred and his voice digitally altered. And, perhaps most importantly, his acting is terrible and his story is inconsistent. But that hasn’t stopped sci-fi junkies and conspiracy theorists from binging these videos like there’s no tomorrow. This 25-minute “confession”—in which a man who is clearly wearing a rubber mask and doing a fake southern accent divulges the details of his secret trip to the year 2118—currently has over seven million views.