Cellphone-Wielding Time Traveler Spotted In Charlie Chaplin Film

Oct 28 by Ty Dunitz | 12 comments
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I’ve been engaged in a hot debate over the last hour with a friend of mine over just what this is. Seems like Irish filmmaker George Clarke has discovered a time traveler in footage from the 1928 premiere of Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus.

In the scene, the alleged time traveler walks across the screen, clearly speaking into… well, who knows? In 1928, there certainly weren’t any eletronic devices that portable, much less ones designed specifically for communication. It’s hard to believe, but after seeing the footage, it’s hard to believe anything else.

Check out George’s video, and weigh in. What on Earth is going on here? Cellular phone? Star Trekian communicator? Something else?

WRITTEN BY TY DUNITZ

Ty is an illustrator who stays up too late, and has to wear glasses. You can follow him on Twitter if you want to (@glitchritual), but he's just gonna throw your stupid PR crap in the garbage, so don't email him.

COMMENTS
  • Matt

    A simple explanation is more likely to be true than something as wild as time travel. The simplest explanation for the film is not that a person with a mobile phone traveled back in time to be captured in some footage at the premiere of a Charlie Chaplin film. The simplest explanation is that here you have a woman holding some unknown device from the early 20th century to her head while she walks and talks. So what might the device be? She is an older woman, so my guess is that it’s an early hearing aid. And we’re assuming she’s “talking into” the device. But why? Because what’s she’s doing reminds us of something distinctly modern: walking while talking into a cellphone. She may be walking down the street singing to herself, while pressing the hearing aid to her head. Any of those explanations are simpler and more plausible than the time-traveler theory.

  • Jason

    Simply a time traveler.

  • Jacqualine

    If it were a time traveler who would she be talking to? Even if she had friends from the future with her, there were no cell phone towers in 20s.

  • Sean

    SO let’s entertain the idea that it is in fact a time-traveling cross-dressing chap with a cel phone. Who would he be talking to? What kind of service do you think they ‘d get in 1920? Of course someone with the technology to time travel would probably have a pretty ballin’ cel phone.

  • Tom

    Jacqualine, I’m sure cell phone technology will improve along with our time travel technology.

  • errol
  • Andy

    Alright, you caught us. Time travel is possible, along with a ton of other “impossible” technologies. And as far as the phone working, we invented technology to time travel, do you really think we can’t invent technology to get our cell phones to work…cause you know having the ability to time travel and be anywhere at any given time, we still need to communicate via a communication device from the beginnings of technology? RIIIIIIGGGHHHHHHTTTTTTTT!

  • Andrea

    Doesn’t Dr. Who have a cell phone that works whenever he travels to different times and/or places? If he has one, she can have one too. Maybe they are talking to each other?

  • http://www.becomeasuperapprentice.com Jerrico Usher

    Maybe the time traveler wasn’t talking to someone but mimicing this and was a ploy for putting the idea/seed to the public eye through a movie (submiminally?)… so we’d start thinking, wow I want what he’s got :)

  • Keith

    Right!

    Of coarse she is using AT&T Wireless in 1928 with an iPhone. Cough.. which would need to be connecting to the cell phone towers that were all over America in 1928… err.. what?

    Seriously.. some people make me wonder how they can function in day to day life.

    For you that are worried that it is a time traveler. It is not. It is not a person using a cell phone in 1928.

    You say.. “how do you know?” Sadly the obvious may not appease you. They didn’t have cell phones in 1928 much less micro solid state devices. There is zero evidence this person is – One, from the future. Two, has a cell phone. Three, was a man. Four) Wasn’t blocking the sun from her eyes or need I offer.. the really bright camera lights that were needed to make the cameras work!

    I repeat for those that are slower… they were shading their eyes from the very hot bright lights needed to expose the film in the cameras! No.. it wasn’t a AT&T Cell phone call!!

    So you can believe the following: A) This is simply an older woman walking across the camera’s view with her hand held to her head for personal reasons – like blocking the light from her eyes. Or, B) It is a transvestite time traveler using an iPhone on their way to a Chaplin opening which he could have bought on DVD for $12.

    You pick. Hint… its A!

  • Jake

    Its a person holding their hat down with their middle finger. wow what a waste of time lol

  • Paul

    Does it seem more impossible to send a human being through space/time than radio waves? If we have the technology to send a biological creature back in time, then I trust we know how to send commo with him/her that uses the same technology to communicate with us (still in the future).