Friday, October 29, 2010

Why It Can't Be A Cellphone

One of my favorite episodes ever of Torchwood is the one where the creepy couple shows up at carnivals all throughout time. Seriously, I just got chills right now thinking about that episode. If I could remember the name of it I would tell you all to go watch it this Halloween weekend. Anyway, all over the internet, people are talking about this Charlie Chaplin video and how some person on there looks like they are talking on a cell phone. We think they are on one because it is what we are trained to see and feel because we are thinking about now.

Let us say I am wrong though and it is a time traveler. Fine. Time traveler is in the background of a Charlie Chaplin movie and has a cell phone up to their ear. Who exactly are they talking to? The reason I ask that is because unless that time traveler took a whole bunch of cell phone towers back in time with them, they are not going to be making any phone calls.

35 comments:

JW said...

I asked the same question yesterday - who was she talking to.
I heard on ABC news that the speculation is it was an early hearing aid.

Sue Ellen Mishkey said...

Not really sure what this is supposed to be showing me, all I know is that this guy is like almost all my relatives; takes 15 minutes to set up a story and then the end isn't as great as it was set up to be. Gotta love the Irish.

childeroland said...

I think the episode's called From Out of the Rain.

Madeline said...

LOL @ Sue Ellen, haha YES! I was just logging on here to leave a comment to warn people to fast forward the first 3 minutes of this clip to spare yourself the whole, long, drawn-out set-up :P

Melody the First said...

When you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras. Unless you're in the middle of Africa, of course.

It looks more like a hearing aid device or something.

Maja With a J said...

Here is my issue with time travel stories in movies and such:

If the person in this clip is in fact (ha) a time traveler with a cellphone, when did the movie change in the present?

Say the time traveler left 2010 and went to 1928 and appeared in the movie. What if I saw the movie in 2008, before the time travel happened. Was she not in the movie then?

I drive myself nuts every time I watch a movie with a time travel story! *L*

Danielle said...

If it was a hearing aid device that still doesn't explain who she was talking to. You can clearly see when she turns she's having an animated convo to or with someone or herself.

Danielle said...

@Maja.. I think 'the present' would be the time the person left to go to 1928. Like say they left in 2001 that would be 'the present' I think lol now I'm confused myself! =)

MISCH said...

It's weird..

The Nightmare Child said...

Something tells me she was calling The Doctor for a ride.


What everyone doesn't know is that later on...a blue police box appeared and took her away.

BigMama said...

@nightmarechild Nice!

I am sure I could think up an explaination that would satisfy my own sense of reason.....but I'm not gonna cause it's almost Halloween and I totally dig getting spooked around this time of year. :)

Sue Ellen Mishkey said...

Sometimes I think about stuff too much and get stuck in this maze of circular logic, and then I think I'm going crazy, so I feel you, Maja.

That's why I focused on this man's drawn out explanation instead.

(p.s. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that, Madeline. ;))

Kimberly Kay said...

http://hearingaidmuseum.com/gallery/Carbon/WesternElectric/info/westelect34a.htm

Someone suggested this on YouTube...my first thought was "hearing aid"...and looks like this device fits the size profile of a cell phone?

jax said...

she is clearly talking into a device of some sort. crazy.

Squeezebox said...

Take a look at what she's wearing: a heavy coat, hat, and fingerless gloves. It was January 28th and pretty chilly for L.A.

So - what has she most likely got in her hand? A hand warmer, folks. They looked like this:

http://www.atticshoppe.com/metalware/js2228.htm

Furiously Curious said...

If I were a time traveler, I'd be pretty careful not to walk onto a movie set doing something obvious...like carrying around devices from the future. Unless, of course, I wanted someone to see me and notice what I was doing. Then I would just whip out my cell phone and pretend to be talking into it, so that one day someone in the future would be like 'cell phone! Time traveler!' It would be good for proof and bragging rights. Why would I need to actually be talking to someone? If I am so obviously trying to be seen, I just want to get people talking. I'll do it whatever way I can. :)

M. said...

They sell those same vintage handwarmers as new. Just saw it in a catalog for the holidays. I recall, $15 for one, two for $9 ea.

Squeezebox said...

Oh, and Jax - we don't know if she was talking, much less if she was talking to herself, or talking to someone out of frame. You have to be careful not to let someone else's suggestions tell you what you are seeing. She may have just lifted her hand to the side of her face to block the wind, or block her face from the camera. She may have had a folded handkerchief in her hand to dab at her cheek. Or, as I suggested earlier, she may have had a handwarmer in her hand and maybe was holding it to her face to warm her ear.

The event was the LA premier for the Chaplin film Circus. The management of the theater even arranged to have a circus act perform prior to the film's showing. That made it a very big deal, hence the cameras filming the scene.

This woman could have even been muttering to herself about how inconvenient all those people fussing around were making it for folks who were just trying to walk down the darned sidewalk.

D said...

Ent, your point technically doesn't refute the claim that this is a cellphone. Just because the person can't get a signal, doesn't mean they wouldn't be trying. I mean, this could easily be a time traveler who isn't well versed in the concepts of cell phones.

jax said...

that's nice. i only said she is clearly speaking to someone or something in that device.

how often do you speak to your hand or hand warmer? lol.

look from this video, much better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As2aieB0ud8&feature=player_embedded

feraltart said...

Hi Everyone,
It looks to me like she is listening to a radio. If it was a race meeting and she had a bet on, she could have been mumbling about where she wanted her horse to be.

Maja, the time traveller would be in the film because they went back to 1928, therefore from 1928 on they would be in the footage. Doesn't matter what year they left from, because it is what happens in the past that will affect the future.

Sarah said...

I have been creeped out by this video for 24 hours. I really don't know what to make of it. The way she smiles, the way she talks, seems like she is on a phone, regardless of how much sense that truly makes. Really strange stuff IMO.

OhYouBoy said...

Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?

Jessica said...

I wish the original story had been credited, not necessarily here, but all the other places it appeared around the internet.
The original was from here:
http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/

The original article here:
http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/2010/10/time-traveler-in-1928-chaplin-film/

That site has some of the coolest pictures I've ever seen, including this video (yes video!) of San Francisco in 1910 after the earthquake, with a link below it to a video of the exact same street 4 days earlier, before the earthquake.

http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/?s=san+francisco&submit.x=0&submit.y=0&submit=Search

Maja With a J said...

Feraltart, that's what my husband tells me too but IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE to me *LOL*.

I mean, let's say that I couldn't find my iPod this morning, so I left for work without it. Meanwhile, my husband decides to go back in time, get my iPod from whatevere odd place I had put it, and place it on the shelf by the door for me so that I will find it and listen to music on my way to work.


I am on my way to work as he steps into his time machine and goes and does this. He is time traveling, bu I am riding the c-train. Is the iPod just going to suddenly appear in my hand? It would make sense if he were Superman and went spinning around the planet to reverse time for everyone on it, but he didn't. He went back in time by himself.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about this people. A LOT. When I saw "The Lake House", my head nearly exploded because that movie had PLOT HOLES that could NOT be filled!

Unknown said...

Someone suggested it was a very early transistor radio that she was holding up to her ear to listen to...which seems very plausible to me. People laugh or talk back to the radio when they are alone all the time. I don't know about sticking a handwarmer up to my face though.

RocketQueen said...

Lol at this entire thread and this having gone so viral. It's obviously not a cell phone - who cares what she's holding?

Robert said...

Maybe it was just Paris Hilton's great-grandmother doing the same thing Paris does every time she's photographed outside a premiere or a club...?

Kimberley said...

If this person is from a time when we can create a time traveling device, why wouldn't the cell phone be MUCH smaller or even just a transmitter chip. If a species has the capability to distort time, I'm pretty sure their communication device would be way more advanced than my nokia 3190!

Lissette said...

Someone said if she is a time traveler, it stands to reason that she is talking to someone else. Perhaps it's not a phone, but rather a type of communicator, or walkie talkie prototype? Either way, it's very strange...
definitely not a handwarmer, look at the other sites.
She is definitely having an animated conversation, btw.

PotPourri said...

She's yelling at her husband ahead of her while adjusting her fricking hearing aid. CASE CLOSED!

Tenley said...

Cell phones haven't been the size of a brick in at least 20 years. I suppose it's possible we had time travel in the mid- to late- 1980s and it was all very top secret, but a time traveler by definition already already has to be pretty tech savvy. It'd be like seeing the same time traveler carrying a giant boom box on the shoulder. It's technology ahead of Charlie Chaplin's time but well behind our own time, hardly state-of-the-art.

Jerry said...

If you want some science fictionish plausibility, how about if the same people who sent her back to 1928 also launched a satellite back then {the residents of 1928 wouldn't have had the technology to detect such a launch} and rather than talking on a cell phone, she's on a satellite phone instead.

Meg said...

Guys, its clearly a flux capacitor. She hops into her DeLorean in the next frame and takes that magical saddled zebra with her.

This post/comments made me laugh. :)

shakey said...

kvr - it's a Bluetooth.

Reminds me of that Star Trek episode where they go back in time to the early 1930s and Joan Collins's character must die. It's Star Trek - this person is from our far future, and laughing at his/her predicament. "Duuude, check it out! I'm in a movie!"

Now we know 2012 is a bunch of hoo haa.

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