1928 Time Traveler Caught On Film? 685
Many of you have submitted a story about Irish filmmaker George Clarke, who claims to have found a person using a cellphone in the "unused footage" section of the DVD The Circus, a Charlie Chaplin movie filmed in 1928. To me the bigger mystery is how someone who appears to be the offspring of Ram-Man and The Penguin got into a movie in the first place, especially if they were talking to a little metal box on set. Watch the video and decide for yourself.
OK, I'll bite. (Score:5, Insightful)
Who was she talking to? (considering the lack of cell-phone towers)
Ugh.
Huh (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, this has been in the media for days now. It's almost certainly someone using an old-style hearing aid.
/. at its best (Score:2, Insightful)
On their best day, Slashdot readers would think of cell phone towers. I don't think there are any days this rabble would be intelligent enough to realize that any species or members of humanity from a time traveling society wouldn't need towers for their communication devices. Or would have very rapid means of deploying them from relatively small devices.
Slashdot reminds me of ignorant atheists who attack creationism on the same logical level that creationists attack atheism on.
Re:OK, I'll bite. (Score:1, Insightful)
The Doctor?
Conspiracy theories are for gullible idiots. (Score:2, Insightful)
There is no clear device in the hand. It looks like they're talking to someone in front of them or themselves while holding their hat.
Re:OK, I'll bite. (Score:3, Insightful)
Schizophrenia? (Score:4, Insightful)
like cave men trying to explain a TV (Score:5, Insightful)
The "cell phone" theory is a golden example of people projecting their own limited conception of the world onto something they don't recognize. Someone 40 years ago probably would've imagined that they saw someone singing along to a transistor radio. Someone from 120 years ago would've thought they saw someone listening to a seashell and chewing gum. If she's really holding something (IMO the video isn't clear enough to be sure), it's almost certainly a contemporary hearing aid.
Re:Prime Directive! (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you know? Maybe without his involvement the Depression would've played out differently. Maybe he set events in motion that changed the outcome of WWII so that the Allies would win. Could've changed anything or everything; it's not like any of us would "remember" how it was "supposed to be".
Actually, if he was so open about using anachronistic technology that he got caught on film on a movie set, I'd say he did a pretty piss poor job with the whole 'leaving no trace' thing.
Re:OK, I'll bite. (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it's not a cell phone as we know it. Maybe it allows communication through time. Maybe it isn't about time travel at all, but was an alien communicating with the mother ship.
Or maybe the story is bs, and either the video was manipulated, you're not seeing what you think you see, or the guy was immitating "talking on a phone" with a small, boxy object that happened to be in reach (either for reasons you'd have to be in his converation to know, or because he's nuts). For that matter, maybe he was holding something cold to a bruise on the side of his head while takling to the person next to him.
Even for Idle this is silly.
Genius Marketing... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is genius. I've never heard of this guy, George Clarke, but now by mentioning his work at the beginning of the video, he's got a great viral marketing campaign!
Of course he doesn't believe a word of it, but he managed to get word to spread of his silly little video, and thus free advertising for his work. Pure genius!
Re:OK, I'll bite. (Score:4, Insightful)
Simple explanation (Score:5, Insightful)
Who was she talking to? (considering the lack of cell-phone towers)
Ugh.
Not that I believe in this, but if you were time-traveling to the past to be an extra in a Charlie Chaplin movie (which is a plausible thing for any film buff), it's perfectly reasonable that such a person would whip out their cell phones just to be filmed pretending to talk on it. They could then point it out to their friends once they return to their time.
Re:Verizon's Network Was So Terrible in 1928 (Score:5, Insightful)
If they did that, only idiots would read it!
"Nobody can give me an explanation..." (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Huh (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, she's shielding her eyes from the (probably VERY bright, since film was less sensitive back then) studio lights. If you look at the shadows, that is exactly where the light is coming from. But it's funny nonetheless.
Re:OK, I'll bite. (Score:3, Insightful)
Looks like shes shielding her face from the camera or trying to hold her hat on
there's 2.
Re:OK, I'll bite. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:OK, I'll bite. (Score:3, Insightful)
Who was she talking to? (considering the lack of cell-phone towers)
Ugh.
Of all the reasons to suspect that this is not a time traveller, that is the dumbest one.
First of all, cell-phone towers are not required for mobile communications. They are required for one particular kind of mobile communication that is widespread now, but there is no reason to believe that a time traveller would be using that particular kind of mobile communication. She could be using something akin to a walkie-talkie, which is point to point, and is being used to communicate to someone else nearby (or not nearby--she could get away with a very high power walkie-talkie without drawing attention to herself in 1928, it is not like now where it would quickly draw the attention of the FCC). Or she could be using something akin to pre-cell mobile phones, which had one base station serving a large area, with the base station at the time traveller's 1928 base location (surely you are not assuming that there is a single time traveller?).
All of the above suggestions are realizable with technology we already have (and in fact is readily available). It is also reasonable that if someone has time travel, they have communication technology we don't have--such as mobile phones that communicate through time, so she could be talking to someone in the future or past.
Or when it comes to denying them (Score:3, Insightful)
You've got to admit that the circumstances of the 9/11 incident were fairly suspicious. A few days prior to the attack they had an evacuation drill in the towers that was out of the ordinary, the attack occurred during a time of day when most of the people who worked in the towers were not in the building, another building that was not struck by a plane collapsed, and the buildings collapsed in a way that was consistent with the way that buildings collapsed during controlled demolitions when there are explosives planted on each floor at key structural points.
I would seriously not be surprised if the Bush family helped the terrorists co-ordinate their attack in order to create a pretense for war that would allow them to tighten the federal government's hold on national security and drive oil prices through the roof.
Re:Verizon's Network Was So Terrible in 1928 (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with this and most claims of the paranormal is that people just don't understand how common coincidences are. The woman in that film is just holding her hand coincidentally like the modern cellphone.
What's funny is that this was never noticed before because cell phones never looked like that until fairly recently. If it was 1983 then that wouldn't look like a phone at all, it would look like a woman holding her scarf funny because cell phones were twice to three times the size with big honking antennas. Or if it was 2030 it wouldn't look like a phone at all, we'd probably just have them implanted into our bodies.
This is an old sci-fi trope which I like to call the "unsophisticated sophisticate." A time traveler would of course know not to use a piece of technology like that in public or even possess it, but audiences like the idea of "Aha! I caught the time traveler because I'm smart and the traveler is dumb or careless!" We see this also when aliens step out of their spaceships and die from the common cold or future archeologists can't fathom what a 'car' is or when aliens land and don't know what love is, etc. In other words, conspiracy theories not only exploit of ignorance but more so our vanity. It makes us feel good to "know whats really going on" or feel superior to threatening things. Unfortunately, humans seem drawn to feel good bullshit and sometimes go to war about said bullshit.
blu8503 (Score:2, Insightful)
Where's the ORIGINAL footage? (Score:4, Insightful)
The DVD conversion certainly is a lossy process... if they could get the original film to look at frame-by-frame, you could certainly see a ton more detail, which might let you clarify if she's holding anything at all.
Contact the studio. It'd be great promo for them!
MadCow.
Nonsense! (Score:3, Insightful)
You would think people with the technology to travel through time wouldn't even need a phone. Hell, we don't even need to hold a phone to our heads today. A nearly invisible headset will do the job just fine. I suppose it could have been a voice recorder, but again why the need to hold a device to the head?
What it looks to me is like an older woman shielding her eyes from the sun and some guy with a hyperactive imagination. Or a guy with quite a talent at special effects and a good sense for keeping things just subtle enough that people wont be quick to dismiss it. And in either case the guy is likely looking for his 15 minutes of fame and a springboard for his career.
Re:OK, I'll bite. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is something in her hand. And the object in her hand is...
An early model Siemens hearing aid. [siemens.com] While they gave a great boost in hearing quality, they tended to have feedback whine issues. You may notice that the person's mouth doesn't move until right at the end. Likely she is reacting to a feedback, possibly caused by someone yelling at her to "GET OUT OF THE SHOT YOU OLD BAG!"
So despite all the hullaballo, it's just an ugly old lady with a hearing aid. Yeah, they had them then too.
Guy doesn't notice? (Score:2, Insightful)
I love Joss Whedon! (Score:3, Insightful)
What if the footage was of a lady wearing a "I love Joss Whedon" baby doll t-shirt, or a shirt that said "All your base are belong to us!" or t-shirt that said, "I'm a Slashdot Karma Whore!"?
30 to 40 years ago we wouldn't have thought anything about a t-shirt like the above if we saw it in old footage. We'd probably just assume it was some saying or something from back in the day.
If there was a time traveler, there's a span of time where we wouldn't see anything out of place with the footage, but then we pass a point in time where we would recognize that their is something in the footage that is out of place. Then our brains would recognize the t-shirt for what it is and say "How did that get to 1928?"
Re:Simple explanation (Score:3, Insightful)
What do you mean? They're in the movie because they went back and got caught on film. If they already went back then why would they have to not go back? That's nonsensical.
Re:OK, I'll bite. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OK, I'll bite. (Score:3, Insightful)
There is the possibility that whatever changes you might try to make to change history would only backfire and cause many more problems.
Back in the 1920's there was a very strong pacifists movement including some attempts at very high levels of government to "outlaw war" through treaty and other means. This included naval armament limitations on the major world powers (Germany and Japan got the short end of the stick on these efforts... a lot of good that did) and doing things like the Geneva Convention.
If you really think you could have done better than some of the best minds and diplomats in the world to stop World War II, I would love to see you try. Assassinating Adolph Hitler right after the Beer Putsch might have helped a little bit, but even that wouldn't necessarily have fixed the problems of the era.
You might make a small difference on some key thing, and perhaps get some "green" technologies funded and developed a bit earlier if you went back in time, but I think it would be much harder to make a difference even if you tried.
I'm not saying that an individual can't make a difference, but it often is much harder than it seems and there certainly are social forces at play over history that often need to be resolved... and those methods of getting resolved often aren't pretty either. In going back in time the only advantage you would be able to have is some 20/20 hindsight on some key issues and some foreknowledge of what would be coming. If you read history, many of the crazy ideas you are suggesting were even tried... often by people who were quite wealthy. An easy way to lose money is to invest in something prematurely that is "ahead of its time".
Re:Simple explanation (Score:2, Insightful)