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Fact-Checking the 'Back to the Future 2' Newspaper

A look at all the things the paper got wrong, and right, about 2015.
Marty McFly takes a look at the Oct. 21, 2015 edition of USA Today while Doc Brown checks what appears to be an Apple Watch. (Image: Universal Studios)

In the 1989 movie Back to the Future 2, Marty McFly travels to October 21, 2015 to save his children in what's one the most well-known and beloved adventure movies ever.

Alas, that 2015 is not exactly the same 2015 we have to today, even though the movie, for all its crazy futuristic ideas (where are our damn flying cars? And our hoverboards?), got a surprising amount of stuff right.

But there's one, small, often overlooked detail of the movie that's completely wacky: the future's USA Today newspaper, which Marty uses to make sure he altered the course of events as Doc planned.

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Let's take a look at its wackiest headlines.

CHOLESTEROL MAY BE CANCER CURE: Do we even need to call bullshit on this one? There's no scientific evidence that cholesterol can cure cancer at all, and actually, it might cause it, at least indirectly. Perhaps the most bizarre thing here is that the actual story under the headline has nothing to do with cholesterol or cancer, but it's a story about food trucks illegally carrying waste. Someone at USA Today probably got fired the next day, although the editors and journalists of the Back to the Future newspapers are notoriously awful, so maybe whoever is responsible for this is still employed.

UPDATE, 10/22/2015, 12:17: Motherboard reader Matt Hill found that the story is actually a real article from the Gettysburg Times. So the producers likely just used it to fill space, given that the area below the fold is not shown in the movie.

SWISS TERRORIST THREAT MAY BE REAL, say CIA officials: It's too bad we can only read the headline and not the full story, because this is a wacky one. As you know, in the real 2015, the CIA isn't worried about Swiss terrorists at all, but other kinds of terrorists. And Switzerland continues to be as peaceful as ever.

QUEEN DIANA WILL VISIT WASHINGTON: This, obviously, never came to be true because of Princess Diana's tragic death in 1997.

CUBS SWEEP SERIES IN 5: It's still possible the Cubs will win the World Series as the movie predicts, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen.

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Other headlines, however, aren't that far from the truth.

PRESIDENT SAYS SHE'S TIRED of reporters asking same questions: Note the pronoun. A female president! That must have sounded wacky in 1985 (how sad…), but today, that's actually quite possible if Hillary Clinton delivers on her over-hyped campaign.

The other part of the headline is also very true. Sometimes reporters are that annoying—though a president probably will never have the guts to say it.

PITCHER SUSPENDED FOR BIONIC ARM USE: I know, no pitcher has a bionic arm yet, though we're making better and better bionic arms. What makes this story pretty believable is that droves of actual baseball players really got caught for cheating, not with robotics, but performance-enhancing drugs.

HOME PRICES INCREASE: Yup.

Here's the full newspaper in its full, unadulterated wackiness.