'Time Traveler' May Just Be Hard of Hearing & Using Ear Trumpet | Space-Time Continuum, Black Holes & Charlie Chaplin | LiveScience

'Time Traveler' May Just Be Hard of Hearing & Using Ear Trumpet | Space-Time Continuum, Black Holes & Charlie Chaplin | LiveScience: "Speculation about a supposed time traveller talking on her cell phone at a 1928 Hollywood film premiere has sped across the Internet faster than a DeLorean time machine. But a less mind-bending possibility is that she was just hard of hearing, experts say.

The story first surfaced in a YouTube video that includes film footage showing the 1928 premiere of the Charlie Chaplin film 'The Circus' at Manns Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Cali. Irish filmmaker George Clarke points out a woman in the old footage holding what he describes as a cell phone against her ear. The shape implies the woman is a time traveler using a modern mobile device rather than an ear trumpet, Clarke said.

What Clarke didn't consider was that a simple ear trumpet could still explain it all, said hearing device historians, who provided LiveScience with images of sample ear trumpets for comparison."