'Time traveller' in Chaplin film debunked

Whether Charlie Chaplin was a time traveller is a question that burned up the internet this week.

A YouTube clip gaining huge attention on Friday showed a woman in a hat in Chaplin's 1928 movie “The Circus” – talking into a black box she was holding up to her ear.

Speculation was she was a time traveller from the future, no less – at least, according to Irish filmmaker George Clarke, who said she was talking into a mobile phone, a device only invented in the 1970s.

The video amassed nearly three million views on YouTube.

You can watch it here:

The mystery solved

It took a few hours before the mystery was cleared up.

While some thought it might be a radio, that was discounted quickly – the film was made well before the invention of transistor radios. Some viewers also were of the opinion that the woman had a toothache and was holding an ice-pack to her cheek.

Technology bloggers finally came to the rescue. It seems the actress in question is holding a new type of hearing aid invented by Siemens in 1924. These replaced the old ear trumpets with a carbon microphone linked to an electromagnetic diaphragm that vibrated close to the listener's ear.

Details of the device are still available in a section of Siemen's website that relates the company's history.