Now you can see the Battle of the Alamo, and you won't need a time machine to do it, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
A local firm called Alamo Reality has introduced Enhanced Reality technolology to 'recreate' the Alamo mission of 1836, and let you hear the stories of the people who lived and died during the battle.
President Michael McGar says you download a free app to your iPhone or iPad (an app will be available for android phones next month) and when you look at the Alamo, or the plaza, or the Long Barracks through your phone, what you see isn't tourists and buses and the familiar 2018 Alamo, but 1836.
"Magically as you look through your phone, a blue line will appear on the ground," he said. "You tap that blue line, and all of a sudden this doorway presents itself over the real world and that is a portal to 1836. You then virtually walk through that portal, and once you're inside it is 1836 and everything you see is 1836. You spin around and you can see the fort and you see it in exact scale."
He says the virtual 1836 world is in exact historic detail, thanks to the work of historians on the AR project, which is the first of its kind for any historic site.
"One of the things is, when tourists come to Alamo Plaza, they look at hte church and look at the little bit of Long Barracks, and they think it is so small," he said. "They don't realize that the entire Plaza was the fort. Using this technology, you'll see the wall, you'll see the entire Alamo the way it was in 1836. You'll see Travis headquarters, you'll see where Bowie died, you'll see the cannon that Travis shot to start the battle."
He says the VR program will open up an entirely new window for the visitors to the Alamo, which is the largest tourist attraction in Texas.
"People walk through here all the time, there is a little piece of grass behind us. Bowie died right there...nobody knows. Where we are standing right now is the Palisade, that's where Davy Crockett fought, and people have no idea. But with our app, you can watch Crockett defend this part of the Alamo."
He says there is also a narration on the app that will tell visitors what happened at every place.
"You can see every piece of the battle."
He says you can get up close and personal with the Alamo defenders.
"You'll see the wall, you'll see where Bowie died, you'll walk into Travis' headquarters and see his 'Victory or Death' letter sitting right on his desk."
McGar says he knows that the Alamo Reality app will lead to people walking around Alamo Plaza staring at their phones, but he joked they are 'staring at their phones now, they're just texting everybody saying 'boy, this place is small.'
Alamo Reality plans to expand their efforts. McGar says the company already has a contract to put together a similar Augmented Reality view of the Battle of Gettysburg, and is working with Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim to do the same with a historic Aztec site in Mexico.
PHOTOS AND VIDEO COURTESY OF ALAMO REALITY...USED BY PERMISSION
WATCH a video of the Alamo VR: