Many have claimed to unlock the secrets of time travel, but kept the technology secret to prevent catastrophic paradoxes or history alterations.

For instance, Chris created Time Juice in "Get A Life" and stopped Gus from taking a whiz on his boss. While that allowed Gus to keep his job, it also resulted in a world of brain-eating zombies. Bulma created a capsulated time machine so that Trunks could warn the Z fighters about the killer androids from the future. And while that saved Goku's life, it also forced a face-off with the much more deadlier foe Cell. Even the Smurfs unleashed the horrors of time travel, though I forget the details.

That is why Iron Maiden had to use subtle measures to tell the world that they had, in fact, discovered how to time travel. The truth is in Maiden's brilliant 1986 concept album "Somewhere In Time." It doesn't seem like a concept album on the surface, but once you the time connections are realized, the songs fit together tighter than a woman shagging a pony.

Now, I admit that Iron Maiden could have been on the brink of understanding the nature of time during the making of their seminal 1984 album "Powerslave," but it wasn't until "Somewhere" that they had the applicable knowledge to ride forwards and backwards on the river on time.

The proof is in the first song "Caught Somewhere In Time." Iron Maiden begins by TELLING you that they have been time traveling. The song has no clear time setting, meaning they must have traveled for the first time without any idea where/when they were going. The song contains your usual British pompousness, with the band confidently claiming that "time is always on my siiiiiide, time is always on my siiiiiide," but they soon admit to being "caught somewhere in tiiiiiiime, caught somewhere in tiiiiiime."

Iron Maiden find themselves lost in time for what seems like years to them. The next song "Wasted Years" chronicles the seemingly never-ending eternity they spent trapped in the vortex of space-time. From the first stanza ("From the coast of gold, across the seven seas / I'm travelin' on, far and wide / But now it seems, I'm just a stranger to myself / And all the things I sometimes do, it isn't me but someone else") you realize they have no control yet, and that their accidental history alterations are creating new universes and copies of themselves. The line "And all the things I do, it isn't me but someone else" attests to the existence of their parallel universe doppelgangers. But even though Maiden realizes they're wasting many years trapped in time, they still have all the time in the world: "Too much time on my hands, I got you on my mind."

The sea of time is a sea of madness, says the next tune "Sea of Madness." They give up trying to control where/when they end up, allowing themselves to be carried by the current: "Like a river we will flow, on toward the sea we go."

Being trapped in time, wasting their years, and losing control of their path through time-space leaves the band thinking that they're knocking on death's door: "My body tingles and I feel so strange, I feel so tired I feel so drained / And I'm wondering if I'll ever be the same again / Is this in limbo or Heaven or Hell? / Maybe I'm going there as well / I can't accept my soul will drift forever." But Iron Maiden are resilient and proclaim that "Heaven can waaaaait / Heaven can waaaaait / Heaven can wait another day!"