Copyright � 2026 by Shane
Tourtellotte
Much of what fills these pages has been advice about fitting in where and when you visit, not sticking out as someone who doesn’t belong. The same principle applies to your time machine. It doesn’t belong, either, and it can’t fast-talk its way out of distrustful scrutiny. You need to do the thinking for it, in advance.
Much of what you can do depends on the type of machine you have. A WABAC model or a Boggs-style handheld device will pose much different problems than a large time machine that just stands around in the period you’re visiting. It’s those machines that I’ll give the bulk of my attention.
There are two things a time machine needs for successful hiding: concealment and camouflage. One may suffice in certain cases, but it’s far better to have both. Concealment means something that keeps the machine from being visible, meaning intervening materials or items. Camouflage means something that makes the machine appear like something other than what it is.
For machines that aren’t self-mobile, concealment will be tough. Where you appear is where the machine is going to be, concealed or not, until you leave. The solution, for machines that can move through time and space, is to treat your initial arrival as a scouting trip. Drop in1, look around, and find a nearby place that will provide the concealment you need: a stand of trees, a cave, an abandoned building. Take an exact location measurement of that place, then re-board your machine and make a trip that will deposit you there.
If your machine can only traverse time, this becomes difficult but perhaps not impossible. You may be able to convey the machine to the right spot yourself without being seen by the wrong people of your own time. It pays to figure out in advance where nearby you can move your machine back home, so you can concentrate your search for concealment in those places on your scouting trip.
A machine that can traverse both time and space can move itself to concealment in one trip, but this may not be optimal. You need to select good camouflage for your machine, and you can’t be sure about what that will be until you see where you’re going to be hiding it. Unless you’ve made a good guess, you best option may be to return home and get the right camouflage before making the return trip.
If your time machine is self-mobile, it’s much easier to get to concealment. Doing so, however, is liable to leave tracks in the ground you cross, tracks that someone could find mighty peculiar and follow. Try not to run through foliage you cannot repair, or across ground you cannot sweep clean, and in short order. Long attempts to cover your tracks may draw as much suspicion as the tracks themselves. It may be worth choosing a less ideal concealment place if you can get there across terrain that leaves fewer traces of your passage.
Once your machine is under concealment, by whichever method, camouflage comes into play. If someone’s eye does fall on the machine, it needs to look not out of place, to blend in with the surroundings. What this entails depends on what the surroundings are.
If you’ve scouted the area, you have an excellent idea already. If you aren’t scouting, know the foliage common to the area today, and make allowances for shifts in climate in the intervening centuries or millennia. Keep the season of your arrival in mind. Proper camouflage for June and December are likely to be very different. If you’re dropping in on an arid area, know its geology, so you can match the local rock formations. Having a limestone appearance in a sandstone region leaves you as well camouflaged as a white squirrel in summer.
Several methods exist to camouflage your time machine. There are companies today that sell camouflage-patterned vehicle wraps by the roll of laminated vinyl. The functionality of this varies greatly. Many of the patterns are made for the aesthetic appearance of camouflage rather than the function. The last thing you need is a decoration that draws the eye rather than fooling it. Examine this option at your own hazard.
Other companies do specialize in camouflage that’s functional rather than decorative, but many of them focus on clothing rather than vehicles. Be careful with the pixelated “digi-camo” styles some will offer. They work best at longer ranges, but won’t fool the eye closer in, and may actually be more noticeable to people in bygone eras who are more familiar with how nature really looks. Camouflage on the machine surface may help, but probably should not be your only line of defense.
Blankets or nets with the right coloring, along with attached foliage if applicable, are more promising but still carry problems. A car-sized ghillie suit will be bulky to transport. There should be room in your machine, but it will crowd out other supplies you could be carrying. The foliage, if from live plants, is a fine short-term method. It won’t hold its color very long, though, and could end up making your machine stand out more as it decays.
The particular type of camouflage you use will vary with the distance of any possible observers. Anything you employ needs to pass a cursory inspection from close by, but in some cases observation from a greater distance won’t be a problem. Deep cover in woods, or concealment in a cave or building, will prevent passers-by from getting a far glimpse and perhaps decide to look at that funny thing more closely. In those cases, you can tilt your efforts toward deflecting a close-up look.
Maintain some flexibility. Bringing a white cover to disguise your machine as a snowy hummock in winter sounds great -- unless it didn’t snow much that year. Looking like a collection of bare branches might do much better.
Whatever pains you’ve taken hiding your machine, you must be certain the machine itself doesn’t undo them. The outside surfaces of the machine need to be matte, so they don’t catch the light and glint. Any light sources on or in the machine must be shut down when it isn’t in use. One flashing LED could give everything away. Likewise with any sounds it could make: a mute mode is crucial.
This may make your time machine seem drab. Fine. Owning a time machine at all should be a sufficiently ostentatious display for those who need to make such displays, without the flashy appearance. Functionality is far more important, and not getting found out by the locals is a vital function.
Footnote:
Arriving at night makes you less liable to be discovered, but makes looking around lots harder. Using a flashlight would be a dead giveaway. Coming in a little before dawn, with some light but fewer curious people roaming around, may be the best balance you can strike.
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