Time Traveler May Just Be Hard Of Hearing

Internet enthusiasts everywhere have been losing sleep since a certain conspiracy theory went viral last week. Irish filmmaker George Clarke posted a video on YouTube containing bonus footage of a Hollywood film premiere from the 1928 Charlie Chaplin film "The Circus" at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. The clip shows a woman talking on what appears to be a cell phone. Naturally, the only conclusion was that this woman is a time traveler from the future. Obv!

The adamant filmmaker explains the impossibilities of a mobile device being used during the 1920s (which, of course, is true being that the invention didn't come about until a good fifty years later) but doesn't seem to want to entertain the idea of the object being anything other than a cell phone.

That's where the guys over at LiveScience beg to differ. According to their team of theorists, the most likely solution to this baffling mystery is that the object in question is a hearing aid, particularly an ear trumpet. Supposedly ear trumpets were roughly the same shape and size and would not have been unusual to see during that time.

"Old-fashioned mechanical or resonating hearing aids were not necessarily long and rounded," said Philip Skroska, an archivist at the Bernard Becker Medical Library of Washington University in St. Louis. "Short, compact rectangular forms were not unusual."

So, basically, the party is over, kids. Nothing to see here. And to be honest, we have a harder time believing that she's a woman, let alone one that time traveler. Look at that bone structure!?

We won't even perpetuate the concept of the time travel theory by asking George Clarke further questions about why the woman would have been non-discretely using a cell phone from the future? And who would she have been talking to? Other time travelers? Perhaps she was following up on that eBay order she put in the day before? Or calling a spaceship-taxi company to come pick her up?

However, even thought the idea is wacky, it's a pretty neat theory.

If you could travel in time to any movie premiere of your choosing, what would it be?

Courtney Gilmour
		About the author:
		Courtney is a published writer, stand-up comic, and shameless Internet enthusiast. She holds a double bachelors degree in English Literature and Communication Media Studies, specializing in semiotic theory, however she doesn't get Shakespeare and has never won a game of Scrabble. Currently she lives in Toronto and works as a writer for WOMAN.CA.
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