Time Traveler in 1928 Chaplin Premiere

“When all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” – Sherlock Holmes

The internet is all a buzz with the video of a woman walking down the street talking on a cell phone… in 1928. The fact is that there is a video of a premiere of Chaplin’s movie The Circus that shows a person dressed as a woman holding her hand up to her ear and talking.
In all fairness, before I opine one way or the other, here is the original video with a pitch from the guy who spotted the discrepancy, he concludes that it as a time traveler who is talking on a cell-phone-like device.



I like Sherlock Holmes, he’s one of my favorite characters, and I agree with his statement that ‘when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” That is reasonable and logical to me. My point of contention is that in this day and age people think they have considered all other contingencies and the only thing that was left is “time traveler with a cell phone”. Here are some contingencies that were not considered:

• Alien talking to the mother ship
• Resident of the lost city of Atlantis
• 1928 secret government stealth airplane, no wait that’s a different conspiracy
• Maxwell Smart’s father in drag talking on a shoe phone.
• Alien trying to talk to the mother ship, not getting through and mumbling “for this quality I could have AT&T”
• Clairvoyant who saw into the future and is just messing with us.

And here is mine: It is an old woman, or a man dressed like an old woman. She is either cold or has seen the camera and does not want to be filmed so she holds her scarf up over her face. It’s a hefty sort of garment and she holds it up above her ear and covers her face shielding it form wind and prying lenses. You can see the black scarf pass through her hand drape around her neck and fall over her shoulder on the other side. Since it is a thick garment her hand wraps around it as she holds it up in a position similar to holding a cell phone.

It fascinates me that even CNN picked up the story. Well that is not so much a testament to the story’s veracity, but rather to the complete descent of CNN into the realm of credibility previously occupied only by FoxNews.