Vintage film shows woman holding what? [1928 cell phone?]

www.wnd.com ^ | 10/30/2010 | WorldNetDaily

[rxsid]

"Vintage film shows woman holding what?
Filmmaker says he's 'stumped' by image he calls 1928 cell phone

Shades of the flux capacitor.

Millions of people have watched a video by a Belfast filmmaker who thinks he has discovered a "time traveler" walking and talking on a cell phone in behind-the-scenes footage of the 1928 opening of a Charlie Chaplin film.

"I was kind of stumped by what I saw," George Clarke says in his YouTube video, "I kept winding it back … and I couldn't explain this. Nobody can give me an explanation as to what it is."

The video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Y6a4T2tJaSU

[Edit: difficult to make this pic out until after you've seen the video]

He said the film appears to show a "thin black device that is held to your ear." He said the knuckles are "bent in the flat shape of a phone.""

Continued: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=221357

[vladimir998]

FDR wasn’t president yet.

[rxsid]

"This has been going around for a few days now. Someone in another thread posted a photo of what it was, a very early model of electric hearing aid."

Interesting. Did they have a link or pic to the hearing aid? Also, did they have a theory as to who (or what) she appears to be conversing with?

[FrankR]

There was nothing, electronic, in 1928 that was THAT small...so it was not a radio, or a recorder, or a walkman.

The Belfast filmmaker (there's your first clue, filmmakers need publicity to sell their wares) never explains that even if it WAS a "time traveler" on a "cell phone"....WHAT IS HE USING FOR A CELL TOWER? I don't think they had any of those in 1928 either.

I ain't buyin' it...maybe the guy had an earache.

[rxsid]

"If it’s a time traveler with a cell phone, I’d imagine service would be pretty spotty in 1928... Can you imagine the roaming charges alone?:)"

Yeah, no kidding huh? Wow. That would be some bill! :)

[dfwgator]

FDR wasn’t president yet.

Tell that to Joe Biden.

[rxsid]

LOL. Indeed.

[DanielRedfoot]

Art Bell, please call your office....

[LostInBayport]

Maybe she was using it to listen to FDR’s Fireside Chats.

No, those fireside chats all aired on television during the 1920s...so it can't be that. [Source: Joe O'BiteMe]

[jerry557]

Yeah but there is a few frames where it looks as if she’s talking into it.

[rxsid]

"WHAT IS HE USING FOR A CELL TOWER?"

LOL, right! The comments posted in the WND article mention that as well.

[SunTzuWu]

Siemens hearing aid from 1924. Nothing supernatural about it.

http://hearing.siemens.com/sg/10-about-us/01-our-history/milestones.jsp?year=1924

[FreedomPoster]

Early hearing aid. Hashed out on another thread. I think muawiyah was the first one with the answer, and someone else chimed in with a link to contemporaneous similar device.

Here’s the thread.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2615864/posts?q=1&;page=51

[rxsid]

"Siemens hearing aid from 1924. Nothing supernatural about it.

http://hearing.siemens.com/sg/10-about-us/01-our-history/milestones.jsp?year=1924

-----------------------

That's the best explaination for what she/he is actually holding.

But who is she talking to? Perhaps herself?

[texmexis best]

It is probably an early electronic hearing aid or an early radio.

[kimmie7]

From the comments on youtube: Apparently the womans name was audrey manningham, she was 62 when this film was shot, she suffered from dementia and constantly talked to herself,, she was re fixing a comb she had in her hair at the time, the man who walks in front of her was George Manningham her husband.

[Joe 6-pack]

I agree that’s the most likely explanation (early hearing aid). At the same time, I don’t know many people who talk into their hearing aid, as this lady clearly appears to be doing.

[kaehurowing]

The phone connects to the one you can see on the wall in “Alien Autopsy.”

[moehoward]

"It’s not a cell phone..it’s obviously a transistor radio..."

Which had not been invented yet.

[A CA Guy]

Could be a cold compress to the head or a time traveler trying to figure why there are no signals without towers.

[A CA Guy]

Could be a cold compress to the head or a time traveler trying to figure why there are no signals without towers.