A Virginia man claims he has used an experimental government technology to travel to another reality after expressing disappointment in the direction of the Star Wars franchise and the final season of Game of Thrones.
Dylan Taylor says his grandfather, Warren Taylor, worked for the U.S. Department of Defense for over 40 years, where he was engaged in top secret research involving quantum mechanics and temporal anomalies. One of these programs involved developing an experimental technology to travel to parallel universes. This so-called “sideways machine,” as it was nicknamed by scientists, attempted to use high-frequency vibrations to open pathways into parallel worlds.
Taylor says his grandfather remained tight-lipped about his work throughout his life but admitted to the project after he was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 2018.
“I remember he sat me down in the kitchen and told me this wild story. I couldn’t believe it,” said Taylor. “He said everything we knew about him was a lie and that that he was involved in some of the most secretive projects in America’s history. We always thought he was just pushing paper in a cubicle all day.”
Taylor said his grandfather described every moment of time as a constantly branching path with infinite new worlds. His life’s work involved developing a bridge into these other dimensions.
“He told me they had tried it tens of thousands of times and always failed, but the government kept funding the research because they were afraid another country would develop it first. But there was some equation they needed to finish it and they couldn’t figure it out, no matter how much time or money they spent. Grandpa finally cracked the code last year, but no one else knew. He brought the machine home because he wanted to find himself a cure, but unfortunately he died beforehand.”
Taylor’s grandpa showed him how to use the machine before he died, and its mechanism was surprisingly simple, consisting of several mechanical looking components and physical dials.
“I really don’t understand it at all,” said Taylor, “but you don’t have to understand a car to drive it, right? Grandpa said something about these quantum bands that separated all the infinite realities from each other. This machine was supposed to allow someone to slip through them. It was all over my head.”
Taylor says he feared returning the technology to the government because they would believe he had some part in its theft. He didn’t know what to do with the machine until a string of disappointing entertainment gave him an idea:
“I just left it in the basement and sort of forgot about it. But then, after seeing the final season of Game of Thrones, I started thinking, you know what, the version I wanted to see exists in one of those parallel universes, man.”
Taylor said he had been experiencing a growing frustration with his two favorite properties for some time.
“All the new Star Wars movies suck. I mean, The Force Awakens just feels like a remake of A New Hope, and The Last Jedi was even worse. And those anthology films were just uninspired cash grabs. And don’t even get me started on Game of Thrones. They spent seven seasons building tension, and then just destroy these characters with rushed plot-lines and unearned payoffs. After the wall came down I could barely contain my excitement. I was getting ready for a season long war with the white walkers, and then they were all defeated in a single episode. I couldn’t believe it.”
Taylor said he coped by ranting online and reading criticisms on Reddit, but then he remembered his grandfather’s machine.
“I didn’t even know if I could make it work, but I wanted to give it a shot. There’s a dial on it. The closer you keep it to zero, the more similar the worlds are to ours. A second dial then takes you to worlds within that similar universe. I don’t know how the machine does it, but it knows. If you turned the dial all the way over you wouldn’t even recognize the world at all. There might not even be an Earth in that universe, and you’d probably die immediately. I know my grandpa was always worried about that, so I never took it that far.”
Taylor said the worlds were almost indistinguishable at first, but he began to notice the subtle differences. The first thirty either had no Star Wars or Game of Thrones, or they were too similar to our versions to notice a difference. In one, he did say Ned Stark was played by Russell Crow, who was Scottish there. Taylor then began turning the dial on the machine incrementally for better results, and after three thousand journeys found his win.
“I couldn’t believe it. The final season of Game of Thrones was amazing. In their world it went thirteen seasons, and Daenerys’ character isn’t butchered at the end. And you get to see Jon Snow become Azor Ahai. He even gets the flaming sword from the legends. And the Long Night is so scary. It’s not one episode, but it lasts multiple seasons. The white walkers push the humans all the way down to the Reach, and the final battle is just insane. It’s a true fight for humanity, and everything just felt so earned.”
But things got even better.
“And then I found out that Star Wars was everything I could have dreamed of. The prequels were so serious and played out like some sort of epic Shakespearean tragedy in space. Anakin’s fall is just nuts. It’s very slow and methodical, and it’s so tragic when he finally realizes he can’t turn away from the dark side. And the newer ones are even better. The Mandalorians are invading the Republic, and there’s also a Jedi civil war and you get to see Luke in action again.”
But it wasn’t all good. Taylor said their version of Breaking Bad was terrible and aired on ABC. He also said Mad Men was canceled after one season.
Still, he believes it was worth the trade-off.
“I mean, I get it all,” he said.
When Taylor returned he said he said the technology ultimately malfunctioned and he was unable to repair it.
“I wanted to go find a cure for cancer or aging but the machine broke. I guess I should have done that first,” he said with a chuckle.
The government has denied any knowledge of the technology Taylor described and maintains that his grandfather’s work never involved anything more than accounting.
