Does Behind The Scenes Footage of 1928 Movie Show A Time Traveler?

Dan Koelsch,

File this one under “Weird and Wacky”. A video has quickly gone viral online that supposedly shows a woman with a cell phone in behind-the-scenes footage of Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus, which was filmed in 1928. This is obviously impossible since cell phones were invented around 50 years later. However, the footage almost seems to speak for itself. So, was this burly woman playing a game, or is she a time traveler?


The video, made by amateur filmmaker (red flag #1) George Clarke, has already gotten over 1 million views on YouTube in just over a week. In it, Clarke explains that the footage is one of the DVD extras on a Charlie Chaplin box set he had recently purchased. You can see in the video a woman (or man in drag, as some theories go) walking across the view of the camera holding a black object to her ear and seemingly talk to it. She even turns to the camera before the clip transitions away. Watch for yourself below.




The blogosphere has picked up on this in the past day or so, and speculations abound. From what I can tell and have read, the footage seems to be real and untampered with, though I have yet to see a solid confirmation on that. Most people give chronologically sound explanations for what the object could be (including a hearing aid or portable radio), but don’t explain the fact she looks to be communicating with the object itself. Obviously, Clarke thinks she’s a time traveler. What do you think?

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Comments (14)

  2. It honestly looks like a regular home phone from back in the day with the wire cut off if you pause the image… it was a bunch of actors and a circus theme, they were known to do silly funny things… it was probably a man dressed in drag talking on a phone with no wires as a funny!!!!! if you really look at the phone you can see up towards the ear that it looks like one of those old receivers from the day cut off from the wire, the man or woman 🙂 probably just did this as a funny because it was a circus theme and they were a bunch of actors , comedians, etc.

  3. assuming the footage is not hoaxed either by the person who brought it to all of our attention or by the person who put the old film stock on to DVD format let us evaluate every potential possibility:
    Cell phone… as has been pointed out no infrastructure… so not a cell phone.
    Time traveler… even a time traveler would not be able to use a cell phone in 1928 without the infrastructure, and if a time traveler from beyond our current time then the communication device he/she is using could be made much smaller. Obviously this person, if time traveler using communication device must be communicating to someone else who has a similar device/technology, but would need to bring the infrastructure to operate the devices with them which may cause the devices to need to be larger than our blue tooth type devices… not eliminated as possibility.
    Space traveler/ time traveler… if this individual is from a distant civilization they would likely need to travel through both space and time to arrive in Hollywood in 1928, and the ship they traveled in could be used to relay the communication signal if it remains in geosynchronous orbit over the users of the device… more likely than a time traveler from our future.
    insane person… in 1928 if this individual was seen by people in authority, time traveler or not, they would be escorted to the mental institution where they would likely need to be rescued by their fellow travelers because the doctors would declare them insane and treat them with crude methods used in that time… not likely at all.
    as far as it being a 1922 model Beaver Baby Grand radio… http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/beaver_mac_baby_grand_crystal.html the specks show that a headset or speaker is required so a person would not hold it up to their ear… not a baby grand radio.
    Someone should research who put the stock film on DVD and see if they had something up their sleeve.

  4. Bingo You figured it out, george clark needs the publisity, so he just happened to find and interesting film clip, of a man dressed like a women, with a hand set from the day with the cord cut off, George watch yhe film closer

  5. Somebody explained that it’s known as “Siemens hearing aid” which is released in the 1920s.

  6. At the 6:45 mark of the video it shows very clearly what appears to be a black ladies high heel shoe. You also can’t help noticing that he is trying to prevent smirking as he views the camera. Even then people wanted to get their 5 minutes of fame albeit 80+ years later.

  8. Could be possible if were done in the 50’s. There first Canadian patent was in the mid twenties (no hardware produced-just design), a physical patent was awarded to a German in the mid thirties (still well after this movie); however, transistorized radios were not a product of mass consumption until the 50s. Someone may be able to cite a hobbyist in the late 40’s but still transistors themselves were not in production until at least 2 decades after this movie was produced. NO radios were that compact and portable in the 20s. It could be some rudimentary play back device (music box of sorts?) I think we are all over thinking it. We still have a few choice though:
    1. Time traveler – nah
    2. My Mom – no wait that means she is doing that travel thing
    3. Einstein in drag – no wait that’s time travel again but in two directions.
    4. Maxwell Smart in drag – dang time travel is too freaking easy to plug in here – no again
    5. Silly guy with a shoe goofing off – seems simple, probable.
    6. Captain Kirk? – Oh, I’ll just shut up already

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  12. that black “phone” thing — and the way they’re holding it — looks almost identical to 1920s concealed hearing aids.

  14. yeah, I agree… in the 20’s it is really impossible to use mobile phone since it was not yet in circulation, hence it becomes a funny thing to use one… time traveler? nahh, this guy or lady should be given an award for predicting the future use of phones… 😉

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