Mad Man Marcum

Mad Man Marcum: The Backyard Time Traveler Who Vanished Into the Vortex?

Meet Mike “Mad Man” Marcum - a Missouri tinkerer who went from messing with a Jacob’s Ladder to claiming he built a legit time machine on his porch. His story’s got it all: disappearing screws, stolen transformers, a mysterious vortex, and a guy who vanished - twice! - leaving the fringe buzzing with theories. Was he a genius who punched a hole through time, or a dreamer who fried his own circuits? We’re diving deep into the raw, unfiltered saga, pulling straight from the man’s own words and the grassroots chatter that’s kept this legend alive.

The Spark That Started It All

It’s 1995, and 21-year-old Mike Marcum, an electrical engineering dropout with a knack for high-voltage hijinks, is futzing around in Stanberry, Missouri. His goal? Build a Jacob’s Ladder - you know, those buzzing, climbing arcs you see in Frankenstein flicks. But Mike’s no Hollywood prop guy; he’s got bigger dreams: winning lottery numbers from the future. He tweaks his setup with a CD laser to heat the air, lowers the resistance between two poles, and fires it up. What happens next ain’t in any textbook. “I saw a circular vortex, like heat waves off pavement,” he told Art Bell on Coast to Coast AM (April 18, 1995). Curious as a cat, he tosses a sheet-metal screw into it. Poof - gone! Seconds later, it clatters back, two feet away. “I thought I’d made a teleporter,” he said, but oh no, folks - this was just the warm-up.

Michael "Mad Man" Marcum

From Porch to Power Station: The Big Leap

That little vortex lit a fire under Mike. He figured more juice meant bigger results, so he “borrowed” six 300-pound transformers from St. Joseph Light and Power in King City - yep, stole ‘em right out from under the utility’s nose! Cops nabbed him in ‘95 (Stanberry PD report confirms it), and he did a stint in jail, but not before he’d rigged up a monster: a 3-kilowatt rig with rotating electromagnets, lasers, and a plasma tornado he swore could bend time. On his second Art Bell appearance (1996), he bragged he was 30 days from testing a “legal” version - human-sized this time. “I’m taking my cell phone,” he said, planning to step through himself. Then - bam! - 1997 hits, and Mike’s gone. No trace, no machine, just a ghost town of a story.

The Comeback: Two Years, 800 Miles, and a Wipeout

Fast forward to 1999. Mike resurfaces in The New York Times Magazine (Dec 8, 1996, update), claiming he’d jumped in back in ‘97, blacked out, and woke up 800 miles east - Ohio, two years later. “It felt like a flashbang went off,” he told Art Bell in a 2015 Midnight in the Desert reunion. Amnesia hit him hard; he barely remembered the trip. His warehouse? Empty. Millions in donated gear - transformers, magnets, the works - vanished. “Someone took it all,” he grumbled, but no witnesses stepped up. Reddit’s r/timetravel lit up in 2022 when he posted: “Rumors I died in 1930 on a beach? Bunk. I’m in Hawaii, alive!” (u/MikeMarcum, Feb 2022). He’d been homeless, crowdfunding via GoFundMe (2016) to rebuild, and by September ‘22, he’d moved to Ohio, still chasing that chrono-dream.

The Fringe Files: What Really Happened?

The grassroots have been chewing on this for years, and the theories are out of this world! On AboveTopSecret.com, “TimeBender” (2018) swore: “I knew a guy in Missouri who saw lights over Marcum’s place ‘97 - big flash, then nothing.” Over on Unexplained-Mysteries.com, “VortexHunter” (2020) claimed: “He didn’t travel time - he opened a dimensional rift. That’s why the gear’s gone - other side snatched it!” Montalk.net spins it darker: the vortex was a government trap, and Mike’s a lab rat now. Then there’s the 1930s beach tale - a caller to Coast to Coast (unverified) said a crushed man in a metal tube washed up in California with a “cell phone.” Mike debunked it himself, but BibliotecaPleyades.net ties it to ET tech gone wrong.

Real kicker? Witnesses from his ‘97 test - like the “dozen backers” who funded him - never surfaced. No photos, no blueprints, just Mike’s word and some fuzzy radio tales. His arresting officer even called Art Bell in ‘95, saying, “Kid knew electronics cold - crazy, but sharp.” Polygraph? Never took one, but his story’s stuck like glue for 30 years.

The Science and the Madness

Let’s get cosmic: Mike’s rig - high-voltage arcs, spinning magnetic fields, plasma - ain’t pure sci-fi. Einstein says time bends with energy and rotation (think black holes). Crrow777’s lunar wave hints at glitches in reality; maybe Mike tapped that vein. Skeptics like Phil Plait scream “hoax” - no evidence, no dice. But Marcum’s details - vortex shape, east-west reappearance of objects - echo fringe claims of electromagnetic anomalies. On ConspiracyOutpost.com, “EMFreak” (2019) posted: “I replicated it small-scale with a Tesla coil - saw a shimmer, lost a nail for 10 seconds.” No proof, but the echo’s there.

The Verdict: Lost in Time or Lost His Mind?

Here’s the rub: no hard evidence - just a guy with a wild tale, a rap sheet, and a knack for vanishing. Did he zap himself to 1999, or just skip town? Did the feds - or ETs - nab his tech, or did he sell it for scrap? The Missouri State Highway Patrol never listed him missing, and his 2015 comeback killed the “dead in the ‘30s” buzz. Yet the story’s too juicy to dismiss. On TheParacast.com, “ChronoNut” (2023) nailed it: “Marcum’s either the Tesla of our time or the P.T. Barnum - either way, he’s epic.”

So, keep your eyes peeled, folks. Mad Man Mike’s out there, tinkering in Ohio, chasing that next vortex. If he cracks it, you’ll hear it here first - unless he’s already calling from 2099!

Citations, Sources, and Further Investigation

Art Bell Coast to Coast AM (April 18, 1995; July 30, 1996) - “Circular vortex… screw vanished.”

Midnight in the Desert (Sept 4, 2015) – “Woke up 800 miles away, two years later.”

Stanberry PD Report (Fox2Now, 2023): The transformer heist.

ATS “Mad Man Marcum Time Machine” (2009-2022): Vortex tales and updates.

GLP “Marcum - Time Traveler?” (2011-2023): Conspiracy and woo spins.

Reddit: u/MikeMarcum (Feb 2022): “Rumors I died in 1930? Not me. I’m in Hawaii, alive.”

  coasttocoastam.com/guest/marcum-mad-man-6293 - Art’s guest page