A video from 1938 shows a female "time traveler" talking on a cell phone.
Judgement:
Since at least 2013, a video has been circulating online allegedly showing a female "time traveler" from 1938 talking on a cell phone. "Time Traveler in 1938 film caught talking on a cell phone in 1938 while coming out of a Dupont factory in Massachusetts," read a description of the video on YouTube.
"This was filmed in 1938 at the Massena New York Aluminum Company of America office office," another YouTube channel wrote. "Sorry John, your information is incorrect. This is the Dupont factory in Leominster, MA in October 1938. The woman is holding a cigarette case," one user commented, while the original poster of the video replied: "This was an April Fool's joke .prank video I made for Massena a few years ago that ended up getting a lot of views."
The video and "time traveler" claim also spread on other social media platforms, including Facebook and TikTok.
But while the video itself is verifiably authentic - that is, real and unaltered - the captions on messages suggesting someone in it was using a cell phone decades before the technology existed are false.
The footage actually dates from 1938. It was featured in a video titled "Leominster 1938 Film Supplemental Footage", which was uploaded by the Leominster Access Television YouTube channel in 2017 (the "cell phone" is visible at around 00:40 o'clock):
In the video, a woman appears to briefly hold a device that looks strikingly similar to a modern cell phone next to her ear, prompting fanciful theories that she was a "time traveler." The video's poor visual quality and lack of sound make it impossible to determine with certainty what the woman was holding or doing at the time of filming.
Some social media users ventured other explanations that did not rely on time travel, even citing actual technology available in the 1930s. "It's a Siemens hearing aid, patented in 1924, or a Western Electric Model 34A Audiphone Carbon hearing aid," one YouTube user noted, for example.
Others simply resorted to other anachronisms, such as the respondent who wrote: 'At that time, small portable radios were common. She holds it to her ear to hear the program better as they stand outside in the crowd. You might also see her simultaneously in active conversation with the two women to her left (our right) and talking about what they are listening to. In fact, small portable radios did not exist in 1938.
Or the woman in the clip could have been holding a small bag or cigarette box, some suggested. Furthermore, users emphasized that using a mobile phone would be impossible in the 1930s due to the lack of necessary mobile infrastructure, such as relay towers for transceivers.
A 2013 article in the Daily Mail with the long title: "Is this the world's first mobile phone? 1938 film shows a woman talking on a wireless device...but it's not a 'time travel' family to disappointment of conspiracy theorists says: ' informed readers that a YouTube account called Planetcheck claimed that the woman in the video was Gertrude Jones, the YouTube user's great-grandmother. The article read:
But in recent days, a user named 'planetcheck' has come forward, claiming to have solved the mystery.
Planetcheck said: 'The lady you see is my great-grandmother Gertrude Jones.'
'She was 17 years old. I asked her about this video and she remembers it very clearly. She says Dupont had a telephone department in the factory.'
"They were experimenting with cordless phones. Gertrude and five other women were given these cordless phones to test out for a week.'
"Gertrude is talking to one of the scientists who is holding another cordless phone and is walking to her right as she walks by."
So far there has been no independent verification of planetcheck's post, but another YouTube user who says he knows someone else who worked at the factory has promised to investigate further.
However, the user behind Planetcheck remained anonymous and provided no further evidence to support the claim. "While the claims have been reported by a handful of major news outlets, they have never been 100 percent verified, although Planetcheck's version of events seems a lot more plausible than time travel," concluded a UNILAD article on the subject.
We've reached out to Dupont via email and will update this article if/when we receive a response.
We've fact-checked several time travel-related claims in the past. For example, in December 2022, we investigated viral rumors about a visit by a time traveler from the year 2036 that have been circulating online since 2000. Additionally, in April 2016, we checked a video in which a time-traveling spectator allegedly uses a camera. phone to take photos during a Mike Tyson fight in 1995. In February 2015, we debunked a photo from the 1940s that showed a clearly out-of-place time-traveling hipster.
Sources:
Daily. "Was this the world's first cell phone? 1938 film shows a woman talking on a wireless device, but it's not a 'time travel' family triumph to the disappointment of conspiracy theorists." Email online March 31, 2013, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2301996/Was-worlds-mobile-phone-1938-film-shows-woman-talking-wireless-device-time-travel-family- say-disappointment-conspiracy-theorists.html.
Evon, Dan. "Does a photo capture a time-traveling hipster?" Snacking February 23, 2015, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/time-traveling-hipster/.
-. "FACT CHECK: Does this video capture a time traveler during a Mike Tyson fight in 1995?" Snacking April 30, 2016, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/mike-tyson-time-traveler/.
Leominster Access Television. It Happened in Leominster - 1938 film. 2017. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8THwylw5XI.
-. Leominster 1938 Film additional footage. 2017. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53lZVcX-JRw.
Newsroom. https://www.dupont.com/news.html. Accessed May 14, 2024.
Palma, Bethany. "No, this is not a photo of 'Time Traveler' John Titor in 1941." Snacking December 18, 2022, https://www.snopes.com//articles/464084/time-traveler-john-titor/.
"Woman spotted 'chatting on the phone' in 1938 video that 'proves time travel exists.'" UNILAD November 2, 2022, https://www.unilad.com/news/woman-mobile-time-travel-proof-20221102.