Woman Uses Cell Phone In 1928?

In what’s either evidence of time travel, an impossibly elaborate hoax or just a clip of an insane woman talking to a shoehorn, an independent filmmaker has sifted through the DVD special features of Charlie Chaplin’s 1928 movie The Circus to find footage of what appears to be a woman talking on a cell phone.

The clip defies logic, but is fascinating to stare at and hyper-analyze in a Zapruder film sort of way. A skeptic will say that a cell phone wouldn’t have worked in 1928 because there were no cell phone towers or satellite. And a believer would counter that a society capable of time travel would figure out how to make a device that could pick up signals through the space-time continuum.

Take a look and tell us what you think:

Chaplins Time Traveler [via Hollywood-Elsewhere]

Comments

  1. Sparkstalker says:

    Has anyone else independently verified this footage? That is, this guy’s an amateur filmmaker, as he painfully reiterates throughout the video. Shooting a quick scene like this and re-cutting it into the existing footage wouldn’t be too hard…

  2. plasticorange says:

    I dont see anything in her hand, looks like shes scratching her face/hair.

    The reason 100 people “cant explain it” is probably because they werent there.

  3. DeepHurting says:

    What I find most amusing about the comments for this article are the people who are rationally explaining why there can’t be cell phones, and why they wouldn’t work in 1928.

    It’s like if you showed them a picture of Jesus driving an Abrams tank through Bethlehem; they would explain how they didn’t have diesel fuel in Jesus’ times.

  4. zacwax says:
  5. Benjamin says:

    My guess is that the lady is just holding her gloves to the side of her head to hide her face from the camera.

  6. meisme says:

    There were no towers or cellular networks so who was she able to ‘call?’ Her phone must have been the time travel device itself, and she was calling a different time.

  7. dush says:

    In star trek in teh 70s they had these little communicator devices that they were able to talk on.
    How could they do that when in the 1970s there were no subspace communications relays?

  8. wojonet says:

    Apparently time travelers from the future use use Microsoft KINs.

    I guess a cross-dressing man from the future talking on his cell phone while attending a Charlie Chaplin premiere is the best way to explain that footage.

  9. Mr Sytry says:

    I hope the time machine had room for the celluar towers, relaying and transmitting equipment, or even satellites needed to operate a cell phone.

  10. Mimet says:

    Why is the photo for this a horse and carriage? CARS existed in 1928..

  11. catastrophegirl chooses not to fly says:

    eh, so many things it could be. lots of things come in flat boxy shapes, especially things one is taking into a movie theatre. and holding something up to your face while talking to yourself doesn’t mean the device is listening.
    could be folding opera glasses
    http://whatafind-antiques-collectibles.blogspot.com/2007/12/vintage-folding-opera-glass-25x-coated.html

    or a makeup compact or she could be following after the man saying “honey you’ve dropped your wallet’ and holding it up. if you notice the man in the grey suit is looking in his inside jacket pocket, probably for his wallet.

    it could be an elaborate hoax for the time also, not just hoax footage stuck on the DVD as some have proposed. the first mention of the concept of a portable wireless telephone was in tik tok of oz in 1914.

  12. yessongs says:

    It’s Captain Kirk with his communicator asking to be beamed up. If you look carefully you see him vanish! Remember they did some time traveling, and a communicator needs to cell towers.

    The other explanation is The Doctor is following the Master (the old guy in front) and is reporting it to Martha Jones of Unit!

  13. Mclick says:

    What blows my mind about this video is how it is black and white yet the stones on the zebra harness flash in color…yowzerz. Go to 3:00 minute mark and you will see it. The only conclusion I can come to is that the man dressed in drag, from the future is talking on his cell phone and he must be using some form of technology control where he essentially invented color television by secretly flashing a color sequence on a black and white movie by making the gems on the zebra harness work. I have checked with about 6 of my buddies and that is the only thing we can come up with.

  14. wheeitsme says:

    Dude. She’s scratching her head and talking to herself. I’m guessing she decided her character was confused/lost. It’s just a bit of stage business that she’s managed to ham up.

    A cell phone? Really? That was your first thought? Why not a Starfleet communicator?

  15. Froggmann says:

    Ooooooo! Somebody violated the temporal prime directive! I’m tellin’!

  16. There's room to move as a fry cook says:

    She paused because of the cameraman with his new fangled contraption – why’s that man cranking that broken music box, I don’t see no monkey.

  17. Atoramos says:

    It’s a women holding the collar of her undercoat up against the cold, and then moves it at the end to un-obstruct her view. If you look closely at the bent knuckles, they’re spread as if you were digging your fingers into a fabric. It also explains why her body is the shape it’s in. Around 4:55 in the video, you can see the darker undercoat curving back below the white collar of her overcoat.

  18. The Marionette says:

    This article has done a good job of helping me with my consumer needs…………….

  19. Browncoat says:

    Actually, she is talking to a 6 foot rabbit named Frank.

  20. Inzane says:

    Well one thing we know for sure by the way she’s gripping that thing. It’s definitely not an iphone.

  21. huygensbyer says:

    There’s more wankery in this video than in a bank of adult video booths. This guy is kind of retarded. We’re looking at footage from way back in time, and he’s taking for granted that she’s holding a phone to her ear. While it’s something common for us to see nowadays, it doesn’t mean that’s what was going on.

  22. sybann says:
  23. Nap says:

    I have no logical explanation for what I just saw…. but I refuse to believe that it’s a time traveler or The Doctor, lol.

  24. watchwhathappens says:

    here’s my brother story on this, from the exact location: http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=456331196623

  25. kidres says:

    Who would they be talking to?

  26. ouijabored says:

    I’m not saying this a phone, but…I don’t know what it is. It’s very, very strange, for sure.

  27. nacoran says:

    It’s a streetlight.

    Because clearly Occam’s Razor says a streetlight is more likely than a time traveler with a cell phone.

  28. nacoran says:

    It’s a streetlight.

    Because clearly Occam’s Razor says a streetlight is more likely than a time traveler with a cell phone.

  29. nacoran says:

    Is she holding her hat and talking to herself?

  30. brinks says:

    I applaud the guy’s imagination here. I see some lady muttering to herself while holding up something to shield her ear, possibly from noise or wind.

  31. Scott Mercer says:

    She is talking, and she is holding something up to her ear.

    He is making a huge jump in logic by assuming those two things are connected.

    Occam’s Razor dictates that this is a hearing aid. And she was probably talking to that old man walking ahead of her, out of frame. Probably her husband. “Hey, you slag, wait for me!”

  32. riddlershadow says:

    Alright so at first i was like oh he/she is just scratching his/her face and complaining about it. But as i watched the clip more it does look they are talkin into their hand. So maybe he/ she is just crazy and thinks that his/ her hand can talk. But why is their hand formed into the shape of a cell phone.