# Charlie Chaplin and Time Travel **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 27, 2010, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510 "2010-10-27T13:00:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![nilum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ed8c4c/32.png) [@nilum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nilum)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/1 "2010-10-27T13:00:35Z")
What is this woman REALLY holding? [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Y6a4T2tJaSU/maxresdefault.jpg "Chaplins Time Traveler") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6a4T2tJaSU) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/2 "2010-10-27T13:08:45Z")
Her hat. ---
**Author:** ![Sizzles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e480ec/32.png) [@Sizzles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sizzles)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/3 "2010-10-27T13:13:08Z")
And who is she talking to ? ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/4 "2010-10-27T13:17:51Z")
This video proves that they not only had cell phones back then, but they also rode on zebras. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/5 "2010-10-27T13:26:41Z")
There’s an existing thread [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=583094). ---
**Author:** ![nilum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ed8c4c/32.png) [@nilum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nilum)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/6 "2010-10-27T13:29:20Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > There’s an existing thread [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=583094). sorry I searched, but didn’t find it. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/7 "2010-10-27T19:44:56Z")
It looks to me like she’s just scratching her head. It’s not clear that she’s even holding anything at all. And even if she is holding something small, she could still be scratching her head while holding whatever it is. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/8 "2010-10-27T20:56:41Z")
Could be a hearing aid, a glasses case, a cigarette case, or any one of a number of other small objects. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/9 "2010-10-28T09:02:06Z")
I think what we have here is a moving picture version of [pareidolia](http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/lenin.html). Instead of it being a pattern that resembles a face or a human body in some way, in this case it’s an action that looks startlingly familiar. I admit it sure as hell looks like she’s chatting on a cell phone, but in order to admit this is true we have to assume a whole lot of highly implausible things - for one, that somehow the mobile signal is also able to travel through time, or that somehow a group of time travelers have managed to install a cellular network completely off the grid and undetectable to the society of Chaplin’s day. Or that the cameraman and film crew, whose job it is to make sure the scene isn’t marred by things that shouldn’t be there, wouldn’t notice a woman gabbing on a strange device made of substances that may not even have been invented yet. In short, I have no idea what she’s doing. But, in the same vein as arguments about the existence of God, the unexplainable does not render the impossible a reality. ---
**Author:** ![ColdPhoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@ColdPhoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdPhoenix)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/10 "2010-10-28T09:12:12Z")
Mobile phones from the future probably won’t need a cellular network. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/11 "2010-10-28T09:16:05Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > Or that the cameraman and film crew, whose job it is to make sure the scene isn’t marred by things that shouldn’t be there, wouldn’t notice a woman gabbing on a strange device made of substances that may not even have been invented yet. Note that this is not part of any movie. It’s film taken at the crowds at the movie’s opening. The woman is just a random passerby, not an actor. There wasn’t anyone making sure the scene wasn’t marred, because it wasn’t a scene. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/12 "2010-10-28T09:37:40Z")
Fair enough; I have the sound off here at work so’s I don’t attract any unwanted attention and I missed the narration. Nonetheless, you don’t think a woman gabbing on a strange device made out of substances that probably hadn’t been invented yet wouldn’t have drawn the attention of passersby? Just because it wasn’t a scene from Chaplin’s movie and there was no film crew around doesn’t mean everyone’s attention spans suddenly dropped to nil. Oh, and **ColdPhoenix** , nice non-falsifiable speculation there. Occam’s razor should shave that one off nicely, however. ---
**Author:** ![ColdPhoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@ColdPhoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdPhoenix)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/13 "2010-10-28T09:41:05Z")
Listen friend, it’s clearly someone from the future. It’s the \*\*only \*\*explanation that makes sense!! ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/14 "2010-10-28T09:50:54Z")
I’m going to go ahead and assume that’s parody so as to avoid a headache for the rest of the afternoon. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/15 "2010-10-28T09:53:08Z")
If you are willing to consider the possibility of time travel (not saying I do), I don’t see that it’s required that a wireless communications network be in place in 1928. The “time traveler” may not be actually talking to anyone, but miming doing so; he/she simply decided to appear on film doing something no one would recognize until decades later (ala Marty McFly playing a Van Halen solo in 1955). ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/16 "2010-10-28T10:03:14Z")
Pfft, seriously? “I’m gonna mimic talking on a cell phone and _blow people’s minds!_” Yeah, way to make a splash. Now if she paraded by the camera with a placard saying “KENNEDY - STAY OUT OF DALLAS”, that would be something. ---
**Author:** ![ColdPhoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@ColdPhoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdPhoenix)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/17 "2010-10-28T10:14:41Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > I’m going to go ahead and assume that’s parody so as to avoid a headache for the rest of the afternoon. I decided to make it more obvious in my second post. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/18 "2010-10-28T10:28:18Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > Nonetheless, you don’t think a woman gabbing on a strange device made out of substances that probably hadn’t been invented yet wouldn’t have drawn the attention of passersby? Just because it wasn’t a scene from Chaplin’s movie and there was no film crew around doesn’t mean everyone’s attention spans suddenly dropped to nil. Note - I wasn’t actually defending the time travel theory, just clarifying a small point that you had missed. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/19 "2010-10-28T11:17:04Z")
A friend of mine on another board found this: > **[Western Electric Model 34A "Audiphone" Carbon Hearing Aid](https://www.hearingaidmuseum.com/gallery/Carbon/WesternElectric/info/westelect34a.htm)** > > Western Electric Model 34A "Audiphone" Carbon Hearing Aid A hearing aid available three years before the film was shot. If the woman in question is actually fiddling with a device, this is a fine candidate for what that device is. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-chaplin-and-time-travel/558510/20 "2010-10-28T12:04:27Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Note - I wasn’t actually defending the time travel theory, just clarifying a small point that you had missed. 'S cool. Like I said, fair enough - I missed a lot by having the sound off.