Andrew Basiago, past present, and more past.

First, read this:

A lot of people have a hard time trusting lawyers as it is, but what about one who claims he was part of a secret government time travel program when he was a kid?
Since 2004, Seattle attorney Andrew Basiago has been publicly claiming that from the time he was 7 to when he was 12, he participated in "Project Pegasus," a secret U.S. government program that he says worked on teleportation and time travel under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
"They trained children along with adults so they could test the mental and physical effects of time travel on kids," Basiago told The Huffington Post. "Also, children had an advantage over adults in terms of adapting to the strains of moving between past, present and future."
Skeptical? You're not alone. Hong Kong physicist Shengwang Du issued a paper last year saying time travel is impossible, because nothing moves faster than the speed of light, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Nevertheless, Basiago's claim gets support from Alfred Webre, a lawyer specializing in "exopolitics," or the political implications surrounding an extraterrestrial presence on Earth. Webre said teleportation and time travel have been around for 40 years, but are hoarded by the Defense Department instead of being used to transfer goods and services faraway distances.
"It's an inexpensive, environmentally friendly means of transportation," Webre told The Huffington Post. "The Defense Department has had it for 40 years and [former Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld used it to transport troops to battle."  (Courtesty the HuffPost.)

Andy as a child enjoying the sights and sounds of Gettysburg during Lincoln's Address.  According to him.



So let's take a little time trip with Andy and, well, Andy.  You see, he claims to have run into himself during one (or two, if you prefer) of his five or six trips to the Ford Theatre the night of Lincoln's assassination.  If you're still with us, it's not so hard to imagine him/them doing an interview with a certain humble blogger.

We meet at an outdoor table at a neighborhood McDonalds (my choice, natch).  A curtain of light shimmers open and a boy in "contemporary clothes" but shoes about four sizes too big (Like the ones at Gettysburg- "I had been dressed in period clothing, as a Union bugle boy," he said. "I attracted so much attention at the Lincoln speech site at Gettysburg -- wearing over-sized men's street shoes -- that I left the area around the dais and walked about 100 paces over to where I was photographed in the Josephine Cogg image of Lincoln at Gettysburg." - followed by a second Andy wearing the same pants but a Homer Simpson t-shirt instead of an Aeropostale original.

"Boy, " Andy "H" says.  "It's been a long time since I've been to a McDonalds.  Can I get a couple Big Macs before we start?"
"You did,"  I said, pointing at a pair of bags sitting at the table.  "About 15 minutes ago."
"Don't you know how bad that stuff is for you?"  Andy "A" says.  "This era still had 'pink slime'."
"Don't care," says I.
"Don't care," says Andy "H".
"So," I go on as "A" and "H" tear into their bags.  "What made you pick me as the guy you give the interview to?"
"Why," "A" begins, it's an honor to meet with the man that singlehandedly derailed Tom Henry's presidential campaign."
"He hasn't done that yet," says "H".
"Ooops..."
I jot down a note to look further into Fort Wayne's beloved mayor and go on.  "All right, I guess we should start with some questions any skeptic would have.  The tech you claim to be using is supposedly being kept under wraps by DOD."
"Why would anyone be skeptical of that?" "H" asks.
"Not the question, " I say.  "My point I'm going to get at is, if Rumsfeld used it to move troops... Why didn't they use that to get Bin Laden..."
"Who says they didn't?"
"Or Qaddafy?"
"Couldn't nail down his name's proper spelling.  Kinda hard to calibrate when a letter here or there could send you to Fiji, or Des Moines, or..."
"Or Bashir Assad?"
"I told you, we got that.." "A" sputtered.
"Haven't done that yet, either," "H" interjected.
"Crap..."
I scratch my head.  "If you used this tech to get Bin Laden, why the copter crash?" I ask.
"It was supposed to be there as a cover story," "H" said.  But it was the first time we teleported a moving vehicle, and nobody thought to see if fuel teleported without evaporation."
"Just one of those unfortunate bugs," "A" agreed.

Of course, there are risks. Basiago remembered feeling extreme turbulence while going through the vortal time tunnel. Webre said one tragedy occurred in the early days of the technology in which a child in Project Pegasus arrived a few seconds before his legs.
"He was writhing in pain with just stumps where his legs had been," Webre said.

"Moving on," I muttered.  "If you- that is, your 2012 self- is 49 years old and no longer involved in the project, then how is it that you here- as ten year olds, I'm guessing- know things that haven't even happened yet?  Have you went into the future as well?"
"Don't be silly," "H" scoffs. "You can't go into the future."
"Why not?"
"Because," says "A" with a roll of the eyes."You can go into the past because the present has already happened.  You might accidentally change something, but that just makes more pasts and presents.  But if you went in the future, you could never come back."
"Why not?"
"Because the future hasn't happened yet.  If you went, you'd find nothing, and when you'd try to come back, there'd be no way to find your way," "A" explained.
"Because there's nothing in-between to connect to," "H" added.
"So how do you know..." I begin, starting to feel a headache coming on.
" 'Present-Andy' keeps in touch," "A" said.
"We keep each other updated," "H" added.
"Mmmm" I nodded.  "Let's see... Project Pegasus is- or was- a secret government project..."
"Yes, the Project Pegasus in Marvel Comics is based on it, " "H" interjects.
"Hide in plain sight," "A" nodded.
"Mark Grunewald came up with the idea," "H" said.  "He was a genius, as a comic editor and a project group leader.  He is missed."
"Well, by the comics world and the present," "A" put in.  "I mean, we still talk to him."
"And check out his Monday morning briefings."
"But Mark.. oh, never mind," I shake my head.  "What I was going to ask was, what were their goals in sending you and the others into the past?"
"Finding new technology," "H" said casually.

Basiago said he experienced eight different time travel technologies during his stint in the program. Mostly, he said, his travel involved a teleporter based on technical papers supposedly found in pioneering mechanical engineer Nikola Tesla's New York City apartment after his death in January 1943.

"The machine consisted of two gray elliptical booms about eight feet tall, separated by about 10 feet, between which a shimmering curtain of what Tesla called 'radiant energy' was broadcast," Basiago said. "Radiant energy is a form of energy that Tesla discovered that is latent and pervasive in the universe and has among its properties the capacity to bend time-space."

"New Tech?  In the past?"
"How do you think Tesla developed what he had?" "A" replied.  "He worked from what had gone before.  Graham Bell, Whitney, Benjamin Franklin..."
"George Foreman..." "H" added.
"The boxer?"
"Yeah, I guess," "A" said.  "Although he's actually famous all down through history for the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine."
"Shhh," "H" cautioned.  "They haven't stumbled onto all its uses yet."
"Damn," "A" cursed.  "They should give me a cheat sheet..."
"I put it in your mailbox tomorrow," "H" answered.

Resisting the urge to bang my head on the table, I tried one last time.  "So, then, what era does Present-Andy actually live in?  Is he actually here, a 49-year-old, in 2012, or..."
"2012?" "A" choked on a fry.  "WTF..."
"Shit, we aren't supposed to be here till 2015!" "H" exclaimed.  Pulling a quarter out of his pocket, he shouted into it, "Emergency retrieval!  Emergency retrieval!"
"Wait!" I shouted at the panicked child/children.  "What's so bad about being in 2012?"
"We can't be here for the rapture," "A" shouted.  "We haven't become a Christian yet!"
I could just hear "H" scold "A" as they faded into the shimmering return of the field that brought them, "At least they knew that one..."  And with a short rush of wind, they were gone.

I looked at the empty seats before me, the normal sky, the unfinished food on the table.
"Oh well," I said.  "More for me..."