The Scariest Time Travel Story in Missouri Has Never Been Solved

Inventors for centuries have tried to build a time machine. One Missouri man claimed he was successful and his story remains the scariest time travel story in Missouri and it's never been solved.

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The story of 'Madman' Mike Marcum is a curious one. On September 4, 1995, he appeared on the Art Bell radio show Coast to Coast AM saying he had built a time machine. He gave Art very specific details about what he called "Jacob's Ladder".

As Mysteries Unsolved mentions, Mike was 21 years old and majoring in electricity studies in school. He used a compact disc laser which caused reduced air resistance between two poles. The force field created by Mike's invention looked strange to him so he threw a screw into it. He claims it disappeared. 

'Madman' Mike Marcum was not done making appearances on the radio. He appeared with Art Bell a second time in 1996 and said he was only a month away from having his time travel machine completed. But, the biggest twist in this time travel story was about to happen.

In 1997, Mike Marcum really did disappear and he was never seen again.

But what made Mike's story one of the scariest time travel stories of all time?

Mysteries Unsolved says that another person called Art Bell shortly after Mike disappeared and said he found a newspaper story that said the following:

In the 1930s police found a dead man on a beach in California. He was crushed to death in a strange metal tube, the man was unrecognizable and a mysterious device was found near his body. The caller said the device looked like a cell phone.

Was 'Madman' Mike Marcum successful in his attempt to build a time travel machine in Missouri? No one will ever know for sure, but the story of a man found on a California beach in the 1930's is one of the reasons his story is considered one of the scariest time travel stories of all time.