Viral 2023 ‘Cole Allen’ Post Fuels Time Travel Conspiracy Theories After WHCD Shooting

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner (WHCD) shooting has sparked a wave of theories, ranging from claims linking suspect Cole Allen to the Nancy Guthrie disappearance to speculation involving time travel.

A December 2023 post on X has resurfaced and gone viral. In it, Henry Martinez mentioned the name “Cole Allen” without context. The vague post has fueled online speculation, with users questioning how Martinez knew the name and what he meant. Martinez, who now has more than 25,000 followers on the social media platform, has not shared any additional posts or clarification since.

The post, shared on December 22, 2023, at 7:37 a.m., has amassed more than 55 million views.

People quickly linked the post to the WHCD shooting suspect. “Henry, the FBI would like to speak to you,” one X user wrote. “You were in a time machine study?!?! Who the f*ck are you,” another added.

“This is a rabbit hole I didn’t expect tonight,” a user commented. “This wouldn’t be so weird if it wasn’t your only tweet from over two years ago,” said another.

Others pointed to less sensational explanations, suggesting it could simply be a coincidence. “Crazy thought, there may be more than one Cole Allen,” one user wrote.

“It smells like this attack against Donald Trump had been planned for years… so many ‘coincidences,’” another person claimed.

As speculation swirled over whether someone could have hacked X to plant a backdated post, cybersecurity expert James Knight said that scenario is highly unlikely.

“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,” Knight told Daily Mail.

The DigitalWarfare.com expert added that the post can be traced to December 2023 because every X post carries a unique “Snowflake ID,” which encodes its exact creation time.

“I believe that this is just a coincidence with someone guessing [or] posting a common name of ‘Cole Allen’ in 2023,” he said.

According to the outlet, while “Cole” has not ranked among the top 150 names for boys in the U.S., “Allen” remains one of the most common surnames, consistently placing within the top 30.

Meanwhile, conspiracy theorists have pointed to what they described a link between Allen, the WHCD shooting suspect, and a person named Henry Martinez.

They note that Allen was a summer intern at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California in 2014, the same year NASA published a research paper on the Orion spacecraft, authored by aerospace engineer Henry Martinez.

Adding to the intrigue, the X profile’s background featured the same 3D image used by a website called Time Machine.

The Justice Department said that Allen was arraigned on April 27 in the U.S. District Court on charges stemming from the April 25 shooting at the WHCD.

Allen was charged with one count of attempting to assassinate the President of the United States, transportation of a firearm and ammunition in interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony, and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence.

According to court documents, on April 6, 2026, Allen made a reservation at the Washington Hilton hotel for three nights, from April 24 to April 26, 2026.

On April 25, at approximately 8:40 p.m., Allen approached a security checkpoint on the Terrace Level of the hotel leading to the hotel’s ballroom. Allen ran through the magnetometer holding a long gun. U.S. Secret Service personnel assigned to the checkpoint heard a loud gunshot. A U.S. Secret Service officer, who was wearing a ballistic vest, was shot once in the chest.

The Secret Service officer drew his service weapon and fired multiple times at Allen, who fell to the ground and suffered minor injuries but was not shot. Officers subsequently arrested Allen, who was in possession of a 12-gauge pump action shotgun and a Rock Island Armory 1911 .38 caliber pistol.