In 1923 there were no such things as time machines. Technology has advanced quite a bit since then, but there are still no time machines. There are, however, cell phones and people with vast imaginations and clearly some dreamers with too much time on their hands. That's the most likely explanation behind Irish filmmaker George Clarke's claim that he found a woman talking on a cell phone in a Charlie Chaplin movie. Or rather not in the film itself, but in the bonus footage included on a new DVD version of The Circus. Filmed outside the movie's 1928 Hollywood premiere, a woman walks from right to left, holding what appears to be a cell phone, chatting as she strolls. When Clarke uploaded the footage in October, the Web erupted in a flurry of time-travel intrigue (the video has been watched more than 5 million times since), as viewers struggled to come up with alternatives as to what the woman was doing, and with what object. Our thoughts: she was probably carrying an early version of a hearing aid called a carbon amplifier, which Siemens Corp. patented around that time.
The Top 10 Everything of 2010
- Top 10 Albums
- Top 10 Animal Stories
- Top 10 Apologies
- Top 10 Biz Deals
- Top 10 Buzzwords
- Top 10 Campaign Ads
- Top 10 Comebacks
- Top 10 Crime Stories
- Top 10 Facebook Trends
- Top 10 Fashion Statements
- Top 10 Feuds
- Top 10 Fiction Books
- Top 10 Fleeting Celebrities
- Top 10 Food Trends
- Top 10 Gadgets
- Top 10 Green Stories
- Top 10 iPhone Apps
- Top 10 Late-Night Jokes
- Top 10 Magazine Covers
- Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs
- Top 10 Movie Performances
- Top 10 Movies
- Top 10 New Species
- Top 10 Nonfiction Books
- Top 10 Numbers
- Top 10 Oddball News Stories
- Top 10 Overreported Stories
- Top 10 Pictures
- Top 10 Plays and Musicals
- Top 10 Quotes
- Top 10 Political Gaffes
- Top 10 Reality-TV Moments
- Top 10 Religion Stories
- Top 10 Scandals
- Top 10 Scientific Discoveries
- Top 10 Songs
- Top 10 Sports Moments
- Top 10 Talented Web Videos
- Top 10 Toys
- Top 10 Travel Moments
- Top 10 TV Commercials
- Top 10 TV Episodes
- Top 10 TV Series
- Top 10 Tweets
- Top 10 Twitter Moments
- Top 10 World News Stories
- Top 10 Underreported Stories
- Top 10 U.S. News Stories
- Top 10 Video Games
- Top 10 Viral Videos
In 50 wide-ranging lists, TIME surveys the highs and lows, the good and the bad, of the past 12 months