How accurate is the BACK TO THE FUTURE series? Is it actually possible for humans to travel through time? If not, how likely is it that one day we will be able to? There have been many conspiracies about real-life time travelers. Are these tales just the result of people overreacting, or could they be true travelers who’ve accidentally slipped up?
TIME TRAVELING HIPSTER
The most infamous case is the “Time Traveling Hipster,” who became an Internet sensation after his photo appeared in the Virtual Museum of Canada. The picture, taken in 1941, was supposed to be a generic photo of a crowd at the re-opening of the South Forks Bridge in Gold Bridge, British Columbia. However, many viewers couldn’t shake the fact that one of the crowd-goers looked like a modern-day hipster. Also, many people have noticed that he carried a camera with advanced lens for the time. There have been many debates since then claiming that he isn’t wearing anything that wasn’t available at the time (including the camera), but his casual demeanor, unkempt hair, face stubble and untailored clothes still say otherwise.
CAN YOU HEAR ME?
Then, there’s THE CIRCUS Charlie Chaplin video that surfaced on YouTube. Uploaded by Northern Irish filmmaker George Clarke, the video is Clarke walking the audience through a clip taken from the DVD’s bonus material. It shows visuals of a woman casually walking and talking into a device that’s beside her ear. Of course, we would assume that this is a cell phone, but the footage is from 1928, before cell phones existed! The most rational conclusion is that the woman is holding a rectangular-shaped ear trumpet, a handy hearing device for the time. Why would a woman talk into her own hearing device though? Wouldn’t a hearing aid be used for listening to others? Plus, there’s no one around really talking to her…
JIM FROM THE OFFICE
The strangest case has to be the “Jim from THE OFFICE look-alike” case. While on vacation in Copenhagen, Denmark, an American student saw a painting of a man that looked oddly identical to actor John Krasinski, who plays Jim Halpert on THE OFFICE. The painting was actually completed in 1835 by artist Christen Kobke, and it was supposed to be a portrait of soap manufacturer Carl Adolf Feilberg. Is it a coincidence, or did Krasinski travel back in time? Or perhaps forward in time? His only response to the painting was, “Wow! Seems a little highbrow for NBC marketing…. But I like it!”
A TRUE TRAVELER
The closest anyone has ever come to traveling through time was Russian engineer and astronaut Sergei Avdeyev. Avdeyev holds the current record for time dilation (elapsed time between two events) experienced by a human. After traveling about 27,360 km/h, Avdeyev aged 0.02 seconds slower than an ordinary human would have, making him 0.02 seconds younger than he should have been!
CAN IT BE DONE?
Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku has publicly stated that “there’s no law of physics preventing time-travel.” He elaborates on his theory, saying Einstein’s office mate, Kurt Gödel, was the first to find a solution to one of Einstein’s equations that allowed for time travel. So, while time travel seems like a fictional thing, Kaku and other scientists believe that it’s very possible that people in the future have already mastered it and could come back in time to visit us whenever they want.