1928 Charlie Chaplin film sparks theories of a time traveler

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Scene from 1928 Charlie Chaplin film sparks theories of a time traveler
By Jack Pickell, Boston.com Staff | October 28, 2010
Did a time traveler go back to 1928 and walk straight into a Charlie Chaplin movie while talking on a cellphone? Despite the scientific improbability of such a thing happening, one Irish filmmaker thinks it did.

George Clarke was watching DVD footage from Chaplin's "The Circus," when an image caught his attention. The image appears to be a woman walking through the shot while holding something to her ear. Clarke reached the conclusion the woman is talking on a cellphone. And since such devices didn't exist in 1928, he said, the person must have come from the future.

A video Clarke posted to YouTube has gone viral, with views now in the millions. In the video, he slows down the shot of the woman, whom he speculates could have been a man in drag.

Time travel, obviously, isn't the only explanation. Comments under the video include a suggestion that the device the woman was using could have been an early version of a hearing aid.

Watch the video, above (at about the 2:45 mark), and decide for yourself.