"Time Traveller" spotted in 1928 Charlie Chaplin Film

[Candlelight]

http://www.bloginity.com/blog/2010/...on-film-cell-phone-chaplins-the-circus-video/

Have you heard about the time traveler caught on film? If you thought the iPhone was ahead of its time, then check out this apparent cell phone user in 1928. In the time traveler caught on film video below, you can see a devoted Charlie Chaplin fan pointing out a bizarre occurrence in the 1928 Chaplin film, The Circus -- a woman that looks to be using a cell phone.

Nice to know it's the ONLY explanation the guy can come up with.

Pretty cool though.

 

[Jetfire]

Already a thread in Misc.

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=131180

 

[Candlelight]

Yeah but I'm in TV and Media.

Love the comments in the link. "Who is she talking to? Who else would have a cell phone back then?"

 

[bigdaddy]

Can you hear me now?

Maybe Doctor Who related.

 

[The Wormhole]

Why assmue it's a time traveller? Maybe she's an alien talking on an alien communications device to a ship in orbit?

No but seriously, likely just a nutcase who thinks they're talking on a phone. Maybe they were prankster who tried to trick people into thinking they had a "portable telephone." Did the word portable exist back then? I'm sure the concept of a phone you could take with you anywhere you go was thought up by someone back then, even if it was considered laughably unrealistic. Anyway, this could explain their look of surprise when they notice the camera. "Crap, I've been caught on camera. Now everyone who sees this is going to think I'm mental. I'll be mocked horribly." Ironically, no one noticed for 90 years and now its fodder for conspiracy theorists who think they have proof of a time traveller.

 

[Christopher]

What phone? It's just someone holding their hand to the side of their head. I don't see anything in the hand. Maybe they had a headache or something.

 

[TemporalFlux]

I can just see the marketing potential in this.

Fade in on black and white film. Someone walks on screen speaking into their cell phone.

"Hey man, the signal's fantastic since I switched to Verizon, but the damn thing sent me back in time! I'm stuck in the 1920's dude; what the f*** am I supposed to do now?"

...

AT&T

Be happy with what you've got.

 

[lennier1]

Nothing unusual. Electronic hearing aids had become quite compact by the time that movie was made.

 

[Reverend]

...or maybe she spotted the camera and was trying to hide her face? Really, there are hundreds of possible explanations, a time traveller being the least likely by a very wide margin.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

...or maybe she spotted the camera and was trying to hide her face?

Exactly, this whole thing is more about some dude in Belfast doing some viral self-promotion.

 

[scotpens]

Maybe they were prankster who tried to trick people into thinking they had a “portable telephone.“ Did the word portable exist back then?

Yes, it did.

 

[Captaindemotion]

I'm not seeing it.

I'm more concerned at how bald Chris Martin from Coldplay has got and why he's pretending to be called George Clark.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Looks to me like she's holding her hat brim to stop it blowing off - I wonder if the guy plugging his product has altered it to bring the hand and a piece of the brim down a little bit in the later close-up, or if its just a result of the grain or damage to the original piece of film.

 

[the G-man]

...or maybe she spotted the camera and was trying to hide her face? Really, there are hundreds of possible explanations, a time traveller being the least likely by a very wide margin.

This. Whatever happened to occam's razor?

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ Was that an electric one? Did the time traveller also have one of those?

 

[Christopher]

No but seriously, likely just a nutcase who thinks they're talking on a phone. Maybe they were prankster who tried to trick people into thinking they had a "portable telephone."

Except people in 1928 didn't hold phones like that. Most phones of the time had the earpiece on a cord and the mouthpiece attached to the phone itself. And those phones that did have handsets containing both earpiece and mouthpiece had handsets much larger than a modern cell phone. Someone pretending to talk into an imaginary phone in 1928 would've held their hands in a very different way than what we see there -- most likely holding one hand straight out from the ear, curled around an imaginary cylinder, while the other hand is held out in front, clutching the neck of the base unit or cranking the handle to ring the operator.

Whatever that hand placement was, nobody in 1928 would've seen it as having anything to do with a telephone. That's a modern perception of that sight, and it's always unwise to project modern preconceptions onto the past. An observer in 1928 seeing a person holding a hand to the side of the face that way would probably conclude that he was nursing a toothache or something.

 

[Tulin]

Unless it WAS a time traveller talking into a mobile phone.........meanwhile we're discussing it in Misc.

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=131180

 

[Christopher]

Again, what phone? There's no sign that anything is being held in the person's hand. It's not like human beings were physically incapable of holding their hands to their heads before the invention of the cell phone. It's ridiculous that anyone is making an issue out of this.

 

[Starbreaker]

IT'S A JOKE!!!!!

 

[Christopher]

That's just it -- I have the impression that not everybody who's talking about this is joking.