Timetraveller in Charlie Chaplin film?

I came across this video on Youtube.

An Irish film director stumbled upon what he believes is a women talking on a cell phone in the extra footage from the DVD version of Charlie Chaplin's 'The Circus'. It shows a recording outside the venue where the film premiered. A women is clearly shown talking into a small mobile phone sized device while she passes the camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6a4T2tJaSU

Speculation runs wild over the internet ...

So what do you guys think it really is?

Yeah, sure. But who is s/he talking too on that phone? No Cell towers, no other cell phones. Don't buy it.

Dude, if someone can time travel, then I'm pretty sure they can figure out how to make a cell phone work in 1920.

On the one hand I'm more inclined to believe it's a hearing aid, but...

The problem is that
#1 it's too thin for that time period
#2 the person is clearly talking
#3 It is unlikely that someone would go through the trouble of setting up a scene like that and then allowing the actor to carry a hearing device that they needed for that small scene. They could do without it for those few seconds.

So while I'm inclined to believe that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation it doesn't seem that that explanation would be satisfactory.


Few of the comments on the video are just idiotic reasons to not believe something like that were to happen with time travelers...

"time travelers could erase that from happening" unless they knew it was going to happen and didn't want to interfere with what was already there.

"time travelers wouldn't use a cel-phone that look the same" some what true and somewhat not... a phone of any sort is always going to be about the same shape if it's external. A future might use internal cel phones for their era, but a phone capable of calling a different time might need to be external for some unknown reason.

"He didn't know it was a man!" challenging his historical knowledge about films thus challenging the claim through a fallacy.


There could always be the possibility that the woman/man is nuts or Chaplin set this up to mess with people in the future by thinking up something that may exist in the future and making it look like it could possibly be something... after all it's not a clear picture of anything... and the hand is in a different position than it is with phones and other things so it is also just as likely nothing is there at all and it's just a trick of shadows.

Couldn't be that someone added her into the scene in our current era, just for the grins....

Upon the close-up slow-motion views, it appears to me that there is nothing in that person's hand. They could have been itching their face, or perhaps trying to cover up from letting the camera see them (and somewhat failing).
Their fingers somewhat close in the final moments of the clip; if they were holding something that didn't need all the fingers to hold, I'd doubt they would have all their fingers in that position to start with.
I don't see any personal evidence of talking, but that's not really relevant. They could have been talking to the man in front of them, or someone who was off-camera the entire time.

The uploader's explanation sounds increasingly desperate to me.

"Guess where I'm ringing you from!"

What the guy sees as an object, I see as a harsh shadow typical of "live" footage of the day.

She wasn't talking on any device, she was walking behind her husband.

Her hand was up to shade her face from the bright sunlight.

Her fingers were bent because she's old and there weren't many treatments for arthritis back then.

As for the "looks like a man" ********? She looks old. That's all, old.

Guy clearly has never heard of Occam's Razor. Or if he had he's forgotten to use it.

Dumb people believe dumb things.

It is obviously clear there is *not* a black device in her hand, but that is the shade of her hand on her face.

Though it looks sunny, the heavy coats portray a chilly day. She was probably warming her ear. The index and forefinger are cupped behind the upper ear. Or she had an earache. Or she was trying to block out noise from the street.

Or time travelers are fat.

Can you hear me then?

Looks to me like she's talking to her husband - the guy walking in front ignoring her - probably complaining about the toothache she has.

Or it could be one of these. How many times have people talked to their Walkman?

Or it could have been a simple ear trumpet.




-np

The guy that made that video is brilliant! I hope he makes tons of cash off the stupid people who buy his DVD.

It was Jack the Ripper!

Man you guys are no fun.

The Youtube comments were much more entertaining.

At least Durakken put some effort in

When the old lady turns towards the camera, she opens her hand somewhat, and it's plain that she wasn't holding anything. I'm thinking it's just a headscratch plus a trick of forced perspective.

I have a guess.