Allegation:
In the video shot in 1938, a female “time traveler” talks on her mobile phone.
Evaluation:
Since at least 2013, a video has been circulating online purporting to show a female “time traveler” from 1938 talking on a cell phone. “The 1938 movie The Time Traveler captured him talking on a cell phone as he left the Dupont Factory in Massachusetts in 1938,” read a description of the video on YouTube.
“This was shot in 1938 in Massena’s office at the New York Aluminum Company of America office,” another YouTube channel wrote. One user commented, “Sorry John, Your information is incorrect. This is the Dupont factory in Leominster, MA, in October 1938. The woman is holding a cigarette case,” while the video’s original poster commented, “this was an April Fool’s joke.” “The prank video I made for Massena a few years ago, which got a lot of views.”
The video and the “time traveler” claim also spread to other social media platforms, including Facebook and TikTok.
But while the video itself is clearly original (i.e., real and unaltered), posts that suggest someone in the video was using a cell phone decades before the advent of the technology are incorrectly captioned.
The images are really from 1938. Featured in a video titled “Leominster 1938 Film Additional Footage” uploaded by the Leominster Access Television YouTube channel in 2017 (“mobile phone” can be seen around 00:40):
The video shows a woman holding a device strikingly similar to a modern mobile phone next to her ear, fueling fanciful theories that she is a “time traveller”. The video’s poor visual quality and lack of audio make it impossible to determine with certainty what the woman was holding or doing at the time of the shooting.
Some social media users have dared to make other explanations that do not rely on time travel, citing actual technology available in the 1930s. For example, one YouTube user commented, “This is a Siemens hearing aid or Western Electric Model 34A Audiphone Carbon Hearing Aid patented in 1924.”
Others simply resorted to different anachronisms; for example, the participant wrote: “Small portable radios were very common in those days. Since they were outside in the crowd, he held it to his ear to hear the program better. You can also see how it happened.” at the same time he is actively chatting with the two women to his left (our right) and talking about what they are listening to.” In fact, small portable radios did not exist in 1938.
Some suggested that the woman in the clip might be holding a small bag or a cigarette case. Additionally, users emphasized that cell phone use would have been impossible in the 1930s due to the lack of necessary cellular infrastructure such as transceiver relay towers.
A Daily Mail article from 2013 had this lengthy headline: “Is this the world’s first mobile phone? A 1938 film shows a woman talking to a wireless device… but it’s not the ‘time travel’ the family says it will, to the disappointment of conspiracy theorists.” notified readers that a YouTube account called Planetcheck claimed that the woman in the video was Gertrude Jones, the YouTuber’s great-grandmother. The article reads:
However, recently a user named ‘planetcheck’ appeared and claimed to have solved the mystery.
Planetcheck said: ‘The woman you see is my great-grandmother, Gertrude Jones.’
‘He was 17 years old. I asked him about this video and he remembers it clearly. He says Dupont has a telephone communications department at the factory.’
‘They were experimenting with wireless phones. ‘Gertrude and five other women were given these wireless phones to test for a week.’
‘Gertrude is talking to one of the scientists who is holding another cordless phone to her right as she passes.’
Planetcheck’s post has not been independently verified so far, but another YouTube user who said he knew someone else who worked at the factory promised to investigate further.
However, the user behind Planetcheck remained anonymous and provided no further evidence to support the claim. A UNILAD article on the subject concluded: “Although the claims have been reported by a handful of major news outlets, they have never been 100 percent confirmed; yet Planetcheck’s version of events seems much more plausible than time travel.”
We reached out to Dupont via email and will update this article if/when we hear back.
We have fact-checked many claims about time travel in the past. For example, in December 2022, we investigated viral rumors about the visit of a time traveler in 2036 that have been circulating on the Internet since 2000. Additionally, in April 2016, we fact-checked a video that purported to show a viewer traveling through time using a camera. He used his phone to take photos at Mike Tyson’s fight in 1995. In February 2015, we debunked a photo from the 1940s that purported to show a clearly out-of-place time-traveling hipster.
Resources:
Daily. “Was This the World’s First Cell Phone? 1938 Movie Shows a Woman Talking on a Wireless Device, But It’s Not the ‘Time Travel’ That Disappointed the Family’s Conspiracy Theorists.” Online Mail31 March 2013, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2301996/Was-worlds-mobile-phone-1938-film-shows-woman-talking-wireless-device-time-travel-family- frustration-conspiracy-theorists.html.
Evon, Dan. “Can a Photograph Capture a Time-Traveling Hipster?” SnopesFebruary 23, 2015, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/time-traveling-hipster/.
—. “FACT CHECK: Does This Video Capture a Time Traveler at the 1995 Mike Tyson Fight?” SnopesApril 30, 2016, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/mike-tyson-time-traveler/.
Leominster Access Television. It Happened in Leominster – 1938 Film. 2017. YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8THwylw5XI.
—. Leominster 1938 Film Supplementary Footage. 2017. YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53lZVcX-JRw.
newsroom. https://www.dupont.com/news.html. Access date: 14 May 2024.
Palma, Bethania. “No, this is not the 1941 photo of ‘Time Traveler’ John Titor.” SnopesDecember 18, 2022, https://www.snopes.com//articles/464084/time-traveler-john-titor/.
“In 1938, a woman who ‘proved the existence of time travel’ was seen ‘chatting on the phone’.” UNILADNovember 2, 2022, https://www.unilad.com/news/woman-mobile-time-travel-proof-20221102.