An 82-year-old film clip from a Charlie Chaplin movie premiere that appears to show a woman talking on a mobile phone has baffled movie buffs and caused an online sensation.
George Clarke, a film festival organiser from Belfast, claims to have discovered the puzzling vision, shot in 1928, on a Charlie Chaplin DVD.
Mr Clarke said he studied the black-and-white film and sent it to his colleagues before uploading the scene to YouTube.
The video clip shows a woman dressed in a dark cloak and hat walking past a sign for Charlie Chaplin’s film “The Circus.”
She appears to be speaking into a device that looks remarkably like a mobile phone.
Mr Clarke said there was no rational explanation for the clip.
“Right now the only conclusion I can come to, which sounds absolutely ridiculous I’m sure to some people, but it’s a time traveller,” he said.
“It’s kind of strange, you can’t explain it.”
Hundreds of people have commented on Clarke’s YouTube video, which has gone viral.
Some have dismissed the clip as a fake, while others have put forward their own explanations as to what is happening in the video.
One popular theory is that the woman is using a 1920s-era hearing aid.