A photo taken in the 1940s convinced people of the existence of “time travelers.” What is the rational explanation?
A vintage photo taken on a beach in Cornwall in 1943 has resurfaced and caused quite a stir on the internet. The photo, which shows people lounging on Towan Beach, includes a man in a suit who looks a little out of place, holding something that has driven some people crazy. Click on the image to enlarge.
The photo, which first went viral a few years ago when someone named Stuart Humphries shared it, shows “British workers enjoying the shoreline”. But if you zoom in on the man in the brown suit, standing in the middle of the photo, you might see something a little unusual.
It does indeed appear that this man is looking at something in his hands – and many people think that this “something” is a phone. Given that the mobile phone wasn’t invented until 1973, there’s no way it could have appeared on a beach in Cornwall 30 years earlier.
Since it was first published, people have been analyzing the photo to try to see what this man is holding in his hand – and if this photo is the proof we needed that time travel is in real effect. “This man seems to be sending messages. Is he a time traveler?” asked one user. Another joked: “Good look. It’s obvious the man in the photo is a time-traveling tourist, checking his mobile device.”
But others had much more logical suggestions. “Maybe he winds his watch,” one person commented. “It seems the ‘time traveler’ is just a man rolling a cigarette,” said a second. And a third suggested: “I guess he checks his pocket watch.”
Many people were less focused on the possibility of using a cell phone in the 1940s and more concerned with the time traveler’s choice of clothing. “Forget the phone,” one user wrote on Twitter. “This man is at the beach in a suit!” This seems perhaps the most irrational thing in this photo!