Perhaps the most unexpected development in all of 2018 was the seemingly unending stream of alleged 'whistleblowing time travelers' that emerged over the course of the year. Looking back, one might very well say that 2018 was the year of the 'time traveler' in many respects as the past twelve months have seen a cavalcade of dubious individuals claiming to have arrived from the future with profound revelations to share with the world.

It all began in a snowy park back in January when a young man was filmed with his identity distorted in a style that became increasingly familiar as the year progressed and more time travelers appeared on the scene. In this particular instance, the 'future man' was from the year 6000 and, to prove his claim, he produced a photograph from that distant time. Sadly, he explained, the image was distorted due to the rigors of time travel, leaving us to largely 'take his word for it' that he came from the future.

Nonetheless, a torrent of 'time travelers' was subsequently unleashed, including an older gentleman named 'Alexander Smith' who also had his own photograph from the future, although this one came from the year 2118. Not to be outdone, a young man named 'Noah' upped the ante by submitting to a polygraph test that, he claimed, confirmed that he was telling the truth about his time traveling escapades. Alas, the lie detector was conveniently never shown on video, making the veracity of his tale suspect at best.

Be that as it may, the 'time travelers' continued to multiply in the coming months with three different individuals stepping forward in March alone to say that they also had come from the future. The trio's accounts of dire predicaments set to befall the planet in the years ahead and one young man's lamentations that he was now stuck in 2018 paled in comparison to a video which featured not one, but two time travelers who just so happened to be the same person from different years in the future.

Just when we thought things couldn't get more outlandish, there was a Slovenian 'time traveler' who revealed the device he uses to travel to the future. Viewers expecting something akin to the iconic TARDIS of Doctor Who fame were likely disappointed to see what looked like the guts of an old computer cobbled together. The trend continued its bizarre trajectory when an alleged 911 call surfaced that purportedly featured a woman discovering her dead husband was not only alive and well, but apparently here from the future.

Other memorable 'time travelers' who caught our attention over the course of the year were the young man who weaved a fantastic tale involving a trip to the distant past to observe dinosaurs and a woman who unveiled a plant which she said was from the future. Beyond that duo, there were countless other individuals who also appeared online over the course of the year with 'time travel' claims to the point that keeping track of them all became an exercise in futility.

Why, exactly, this past year saw so many 'time travelers' show up at once is a mystery that was, oddly enough, never quite explained by any of them. While we suspect that simply garnering more YouTube viewers was the real reason, since these videos have proven to be incredibly popular, we're also inclined to hold out a little hope that maybe, just maybe, some of these 'time travelers' are telling the truth and that we'll someday come to find out that 2018 was the year that some kind of secrecy embargo came to an end.