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The footage was discovered by George Clarke on a Charlie Chaplin DVD. It was shot in 1928.



The short clip, which you can also see embedded below, at the end of the article, shows a woman passing in front of the camera – or a figure that looks like a woman, more exactly.

She’s seen holding her hand up to her face as if she’s holding a cell phone in her hand – and she’s clearly talking to someone. She’s also seen smiling as she moves away.

There’s absolutely no doubt that she has something in her hand and that she’s speaking into the device. Plus, there’s no one else there for her to speak to, apart from a man who crosses the same frame seconds before her.

Because Mr. Clarke can come up with no possible reasonable explanation for what the woman is holding, he believes she’s a time traveler – and she’s actually having a conversation on a cell phone.

“Right now the only conclusion I can come to, which sounds absolutely ridiculous I’m sure to some people, but it’s a time traveler. It’s kind of strange, you can’t explain it,” Mr. Clarke says.

However, there might be an explanation for the odd cameo appearance after all. Since the video went viral, it has prompted quite a heated debate.

As expected, many hold the clip to be a fake, with the woman added sometime later. Others, though, think she may be using a 1920s-era hearing aid, which would have looked very much like one of today’s cell phones.