A wild conspiracy theory has been floated following a suspected assassination attempt at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, with people linking the suspect to time travel.
There has been chaos across the media landscape since the shooting over the weekend, with police and journalists trying to find out who exactly the shooter is, his motives and where he lives.
Cole Thomas Allen, 31, has since been charged with attempt to assassinate the President of the United States, using a firearm during a crime of violence, and the transportation of firearm in interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony.
The next hearing for the suspected shooter will be on April 30, which will be a detention hearing and will determine whether he should continue to be detained up until his trial.
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And now, it seems there is an even wilder theory circulating around, after a mysterious post was found on a dormant X account.
The post, made in December 21, 2023, came from a user calling themself 'Henry Martinez' and it simply shared the the name 'Cole Allen'. This was the first and last message ever posted from the account.
This has led internet sleuths down a seemingly never-ending rabbit hole, where people the internet are now accusing Allen of time travel.
People are now frantically trying to work out who Henry Martinez is, and whether they have any connections to the WHCD' shooter, and how whether they come how predicted the shootings 28 months before they happened.
Commenters on the post say 'time travel is real' and: "I hope everyone is creeped out as I am," adding to the intrigue and mystery around the one time post.
Another suggested that 'it smells like this attack against Donald Trump had been planned for years.. so many coincidences'.
This claim is without any evidence, it's important to note.
Others are less convinced, however, and have suggested the post could just be a huge coincidence.
Cybersecurity expert James Knight
Speaking to the Daily Mail, cybersecurity expert James Knight said they had already ruled out somebody hacking into Henry Martinez' X account to edit the post.
He said: "It is not possible on X to manipulate or backdate an existing post to make it appear years older than its actual creation date. Also, there are no known hacks or third-party tools for backdating.
"I believe that this is just a coincidence with someone guessing [or] posting a common name of 'Cole Allen' in 2023."
The account has gone on to rack up an impressive 23,000 followers, and the 'Cole Allen' post has been viewed a massive 54 million times.
Is Cole Allen a common name in the US?
According to information on the Social Security Records and Census data, the name Cole has been an uncommon name for years, ranking outside of the top 150 names for boys.
Conversely, Allen is one of the country's most common surnames, sitting near the top 30 surnames in America.
There's also an actor called Cole Allen who hails from Texas. He starred in the 2019 movie Round of Your Life and the 2018 series Kidding.
The link between Cole Allen and Henry Martinez
Internet detectives have pointed to another freaky link between Cole Allen and Henry Martinez.
Allen was a summer intern at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in California back in 2014.
The same year, NASA released a research paper on the Orion spacecraft, which was just used to visit the moon, written by aerospace engineer Henry Martinez.
Topics: Social Media
Thomas Bamford