A man locked out of his account has correctly recalled every password he has used since 2009, none of which is the current one.

“I know it has a seven,” said Marcus Oyelaran, 44, on his eleventh attempt. “I know I was angry when I made it.”

Oyelaran produced, in sequence, the password from his first email account, a variant with an exclamation mark, the same variant with a capital, and the name of a dog he no longer owns.

The Bureau of Credential Studies confirms this pattern is universal. Recall degrades not by age but by relevance.

“Subjects retain obsolete credentials with astonishing fidelity,” said Dr. Fenna Aldrich. “The one they need was created six weeks ago under duress and stored nowhere, because at the time it felt unforgettable.”

Oyelaran ultimately selected Forgot Password, which he described as a defeat.

The system then declined his new password on the grounds that it could not match a previous password — confirming, he noted, that it had known all of them the entire time.

His new password contains a seven. He was angry when he made it.