A link to a video from Roger Ebert’s Journal shows some footage from the 1928 premiere of Charlie Chaplin’s ‘The Circus’ in which a heavyset older woman appears to be speaking on a cell phone. Could this be a time traveler? That’s exactly what George Clarke, the man who spotted the anomaly, thinks. Fact or fiction? Where’s Jonathan Frakes when you need him? Possible explanation below the video.
This may explain what we’re seeing in the video. It’s a hearing aid of some sort.
“1924 Siemens patent for a compact, pocket sized carbon microphone/amplifier device suitable for pocket instruments. For a while, the carbon amplifier patented by Siemens played a major role in hearing aid technology and significantly raised the volume of hearing aids. The electrical energy controlled by the carbon microphone was not fed to the receiver directly. It first drove the diaphragm of an electromagnetic system connected to a carbon-granule chamber. Current was transmitted across this chamber from the vibrating diaphragm electrode to the fixed electrode plate. The amplified current produced mechanical vibrations in the electromagnetic hearing diaphragm that were then transmitted to the ear as sound.” –
http://hearing.siemens.com/sg/10-about-us/01-our-history/milestones.jsp?year=1924
No time traveller. If you look closer it is 2 actors from the Mac Sennet studio filming a short. They needed the front props. That is a person not woman. One would have to look into the archives who was making a film.
It must have been a strong phone to pick up a signal from 60 years in the future, unless of course the time traveller brought back a telephone exchange and microwave dish repeaters with them, together of course with another party with a telephone to speak to. It certainly wasn’t a Mk4 Iphone, you can’t get signal on that now.
Funny that someone would think it was a cell phone because if she had the only one and there was no cell service, who would she be talking to?
That’s crazy. The other weird part is that you can actually see her talking as she is walking just before the fade. Perhaps there was some kind of device that allowed her to listen and record speech, idk, but that is pretty weird. Thats a great catch.
weeeeird!