14 DAY TRIAL // A few days ago, an extra clip from Charlie Chaplin’s 1928 “The Circus” went viral amidst claims it showed a woman speaking on a cell phone. The man who made the finding believes the video is concrete proof of time traveling.
As we also reported at the time, George Clarke, a film festival organizer from Belfast, uncovered the extra scene on a Charlie Chaplin DVD and, since he can make no sense of what it shows, he concludes it can’t but show a time traveler.
Taking this for the light matter that it is, E! Online offers several possible explanations for what is going on in the much mediated short clip, including the most circulated on right now: that she is really a time traveler.
“This is the first part of Clarke’s theory. And it’s not all that out there. Some scientists, including renown physicist Stephen Hawking, believe time travel is possible,” E! says as a supporting argument.
The second possible explanation would be that the figure who appears to be a woman was a time traveler talking on a cell phone, which, clearly is not really possible.
Kent German, senior editor for CNET, underlines that it would be impossible for her to be speaking to someone on her phone since they had no coverage or reception back then.
Unless of course, as one of readers pointed in our comments section, she’s from our future and she’s using a device that doesn’t need coverage to work.
Explanation number 3 is that the woman has a hearing aid, which remains to this day the most popular theory with all those who dared venture a guess as to what she’s doing.
“And she’s using one of them new-fangled ‘pocket-sized carbon microphone/amplifier device[s],’ patented in 1924,” E! says. She appears to be talking because she’s actually testing it.
The fourth possible explanation is that the woman is crazy and she’s mumbling gibberish to herself, E! says. She doesn’t have anything in her hand, but she appears to do because she’s holding it up to hide her face.
Another explanation would be that the scene with the woman, the so-called “time traveler,” is actually an Easter egg.
“According to Clarke, the footage of the walking, apparently talking woman was found in the special-features section on a DVD release of Chaplin’s The Circus. One YouTuber suggested the shot could be the result of a post-production whiz having some fun,” E! says.
“No word back yet from Warner Home Video as to whether the footage, as presented in the YouTube clip, appears undoctored,” the e-zine further notes.