A Time Traveller???

[Simmy]

Could this be a time traveller caught on film talking on a mobile phone in 1928?

Perhaps she really is a time-traveller, sent back through the decades to make a jaw-dropping cameo appearance.

Or maybe she was a maverick genius, secretly testing out advanced technology for the government and caught on camera at the wrong moment.

Whatever the explanation, this footage from a Charlie Chaplin promotional film in 1928 showing a woman apparently using a mobile phone has left viewers stumped.

The baffling scene is found in the extras section of The Circus and shows members of the public attending the premiere of the film at Manns Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

The short piece of footage shows an older woman dressed in a coat and hat with her hand held up to the left-hand side of her face as she talks.

There is no one around for her to be speaking to apart from a suited man who strides on ahead at the beginning of the shot.

Even her gestures and behaviour as she 'talks' will be eerily familiar to modern-day viewers as she appears to stop, mid-sentence, during her apparent conversation.

The bizarre anachronism was unearthed by film buff George Clark on his Charlie Chaplin box set.

He says he has shown it to more than 100 people and still no one can come up with a convincing explanation.

Some viewers have suggested she is listening to a portable radio close to her face, although this would not explain why she appears to be talking.

Others say she may be displaying signs of schizophrenia and covering her face to hide the fact that she is talking aloud to herself.

It has also been suggested that she is simply trying to hide her face from the camera so she is not filmed.

There are also sceptics who believe the footage is just a stunt created by Mr Clark - a film maker with Yellow Fever Productions - to publicise his latest film festival.

The first device that could be likened to a mobile phone was Motorola’s original ‘Walkie-Talkie’ which was developed in the 1940s, but that was the size of a man’s arm and still came more than a decade after the Chaplin film.

Portable mobile phones that we would recognise today did not appear until the 1980s and even then they were still too big to hide in the palm of your hand.

In a video that Mr Clark has posted on YouTube he jokes that the only plausible theory is that the woman is a time traveller.

He says: ‘This short film is about a piece of footage I found behind the scenes in Charlie Chaplins film The Circus.'

'Attending the premiere at Manns Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California - the scene shows a large woman dressed in black with a hat hiding most of her face, with what can only be described as a mobile phone device - talking as she walks alone.

‘I have studied this film for over a year now - showing it to over 100 people and at a film festival, yet no one can give any explanation as to what she is doing.

‘My only theory - as well as many others - is simple... a time traveller on a mobile phone. See for yourself and feel free to leave a comment on your own explanation or thoughts about it.'

Chaplin’s The Circus was one of the master director’s final silent movies and won him the Academy Award in 1929 for ‘Versatility and genius in writing, acting, directing and producing’.

It tells the story of the Tramp, who works as a clown in a circus and who falls in love with a circus-master’s daughter.

Chaplin produced the film at the height of the legal fallout over his divorce from Lita Grey and he did not mention it once in his autobiography, even though it is now regarded as one of his masterpieces.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1324132/1928-Charlie...

[CHRISTINA]

meanwhile I wrote an email to George Clarke, that one sorted for the time being....:):):)

[Bishop]

yeah too right! i can only dream how different the world would be TODAY if so!

[CHRISTINA]

If Tesla's technology hadn't been suppressed....The genius meant to share his ideas and inventions with everyone and use these for the highest good of all.......

[CHRISTINA]

Anytime Bishop :)

[CHRISTINA]

"Did you guys notice that the Lady dude was really over dressed compared to the others as well."
Hey pT, what do you expect from a drag? LoL, sorry, just kidding....

[Bishop]

Thanks for the Tesla info Christina! i hadn't heard of Teslas communication device, very interesting!!

[CHRISTINA]

I take it it was one of Tesla's wire-less devices, like our mobile-phones, but which didn't emit harmful electromagnetic radiation :)

[CHRISTINA]

....as for the walkie-talkie-theory, it wasn't yet invented then in 1928...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkie-talkie
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/When_was_the_first_walkie_talkie_invented

[CHRISTINA]

".....it wont be a conventional mobile phone like ours, because they need satellites and infrastructure to find a signal to work."
Bishop, not necessarily, if it was an invention by Nikola Tesla...

[Bishop]

you know i've been thinking about this one.
To be honest, like most of you i do actually believe in time travel.
But as for this video,...
presuming it is a time traveller, it wont be a conventional mobile phone like ours, because they need satellites and infrastructure to find a signal to work.
Or it could be walkie talkies which work over short range directly one to one.
Or, if it really is a time traveller, they could be from a distant future, using a mobile phone, but one which does not require infrastructure. who knows, it could be time phone lol!

Or it could be she is holding an ice pack to her face and talking to the person in front?