Chaplin’s Time Traveler

Thursday, 28 October 2010 | by Pat's Picks

Let me start with a disclaimer: I’m usually a serious man. But in the spirit of Halloween, I’ve decided to suspend reality and share this crazy video I just saw. It’s a few seconds of footage from Charlie Chaplin’s 1928 “The Circus.” An Irish filmmaker swears there is a time traveler in the shot. At first I scoffed at the very idea. But then I watched the clip. The woman/man-in-drag definitely seems to be holding what appears to be a cell phone up to her/his ear and chatting away on it. And if you ignore the fact that there were no cell towers or satellites in 1928, you can almost believe that it could be a cell phone.

The New York Daily News managed to keep their wits about them and did some research. They ruled out a walkie talkie, which wasn’t invented until the 1940s but said the “time traveler” could be using a hearing aid, which came on the market in the 1920s. Definitely a more plausible answer—just not as fun.

Check it out for yourself: