Time Traveler Captured In Museum Photograph

[The Straight Story]

Time Traveler Captured In Museum Photograph



When you look at most of the two dozen or so people in this photograph, which belongs to a Canadian museum, there's no doubt that they're from 1940, the year in which it was taken. But what about that guy?

Those funky sunglasses? That stamped t-shirt and hippie shawl? The doofy, disinterested expression? He sure as hell doesn't look like any Roosevelt-era bro I have ever seen. Maybe that's just it—he looks like a "bro," which we all know didn't come into existence until the 1970s, at the earliest.

Forgetomori has an extensive analysis of the photo and the mystery man, and, with some help from members of ATS, points out that no single item of his wardrobe is technically out of period.

But his entire essence, especially in contrast to the sea of fedoras and 1940s enthusiasm around him, screams that he's from another era entirely. Sorry, time travel bro, you've been spotted.

http://gizmodo.com/5519660/time-traveler-captured-in-museum-photograph

Hmmm, maybe I need to look over those JFK pics, surely a time traveler would show up at his assassination and maybe leave a clue for us....got nothing else to do today :)

[hobbit709]

1. Not this crap again!

[warrior1]

2. Hiya

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x9585459

[azul]

3. He is just a rebel trend setter.

Real time travelers are fined for such mistakes.

[Joanne98]

4. You can't travel back in time until time travel is invented. You need another machine.....

on the other side to hook up with. Or so the theory goes.

:)

[Incitatus]

15. How can you travel back at all if matter cannot be created or destroyed?

You would be composed of the same atoms that would have to exist in the time you go.

[Xicano]

46. Since the atoms which make up you are what's traveling through time

Those atoms are neither being created or destroyed. They're simply traveling trough time the same way they are able to travel through space. Time is just the fourth dimension of space-time.

[Xicano]

44. That's not exactly correct as of late... Remember space & time are woven together as space-time.

Traveling back and forth through time doesn't violate quantum mechanics anymore than traveling through the other three dimensions of space-time. One example is how the highly distorted space around a blackhole allows backward time travel. Of course there's the large problem in developing an energy source and technology to sufficiently and rapidly enough twist space, but, theoretically it could be done.

:)

[slackmaster]

5. Zelig

[louis-t]

13. Hilarious movie.

[KansDem]

6. This raises a question: Are there TSA screenings for time travelers?

I mean, how do we know a time-traveling terrorist isn't coming back from the future to commit acts of terror?

Is Janet Napolitano even concerned about this? Is she sending time-traveling TSA agents willing to grope the breasts and genitalia of time travelers form other eras?

If not, then why not? Isn't our security their priority?

[Historic NY]

7. Early Beatnick.

[Xithras]

39. Hipsters. Forerunners of the Beatniks.

Similar, but focused more around the white jazz subcultures, and missing the literary underpinnings that helped to define the Beatniks.

Beatniks, according to some authors (including Jack Kerouac) were a later evolution, or even an offshoot, of the Hipster culture. The Hipsters rejected the dominant American WASP culture, and instead embraced many aspects of African American culture that were shunned by society at the time. Jazz music, marijuana use, more open sexual attitudes, etc. Beatniks embraced many of the same ideas, but were less interested in African American culture, integrated a worldview centered more on Asian theology, and were aiming to build their own cultural norms around a more highbrow literary core.

As an unrelated aside: My grandfather ran a small restaraunt in SF in the 50's, and Alan Ginsberg was a fan of his food. As for my grandfather, he once described Ginsberg, a founder of the beatnik movement, as "a great poet, but an asshole in person, and one of the lousiest tippers I ever met." :p

[razorman]

8. Maybe the rest of the crowd time-warped to the 1970s.

[Raschel]

23. lol. the guy's the only one who's not a TT

[cbdo2007]

9. John Titor??

[nadinbrzezinski]

35. LOL... didn't he say that he traveled father back?

FUNNY.

[Zephie]

10. Looks too much like a jerk to be the Doctor. Master, maybe?

Then again, Saxon/the masters last regeneration was simply GORGEOUS, even if he was insane...

[Cheap_Trick]

20. Did you catch John Simm on "Life on Mars"?

Love that show.

[Flubadubya]

11. Take a look...he's carrying a digital camera in his hands to boot!

:eyes::evilgrin:

[mmonk]

12. The shirt actually looks stitched instead of stamped.

[louis-t]

14. Reminds me of the Chaplin movie with the woman who appears to be

using a cellphone.

[Motown_Johnny]

17. yep, without considering that a cell phone needs a cell phone tower

and this one seems to boil down to some nice shades

[Motown_Johnny]

16. The one nobody is paying any attention to? The young one?

Listen,


IF time travel becomes possible they all the people from the future are assholes. Look at all the things that could be changed but still are allowed to have occurred.




The guy in the center of the picture seems to be similarly attired only without the glasses. So we are ready to believe that all the laws of physics as we know them must be wrong because this guy is wearing unusual sunglasses. I don't think so.



Besides, if he was a time traveler couldn't he go back again and destroy the picture before it is discovered in the museum?

[cbdo2007]

22. Headline should read: "Weird eccentric guy captured in museum photograph"

Right, it's basically JUST the sunglasses and everyone assumes this guy is a time traveler? There were plenty of weirdos around in the 1940's, this one just happened to be around a bunch of well dressed people, so he looks out of place.

This makes me think I should walk around somewhere with a silver jumpsuit on and have someone take my picture and then in 50 years I'll say I was a time traveler and show everyone the photograph.

[Norrin Radd]

24. Relax. It's just a bit of fun.

There is no basis for you claiming "everyone assumes."

[NBachers]

18. It's Neal Cassady

Don't I see the Wicked Witch of the West in the top right hand corner of the crowd?

[boppers]

19. History fail.

Beats came before bros, as did jazzniks, hippies, and a whole parade of other "misfits".... but leave it to successive generations to insist that they were somehow the true rebels and unusual ones.

[Confusious]

28. Nothing happened before the boomers...

Didn't you know?

[boppers]

30. Sorry, I'm Gen X.

Nothing came before us, as we invented the Bohemian lifestyle, slacking off normal responsibilities, tattoos, piercing, funny hair, and angry music with guitars.

:evilgrin:

[Confusious]

31. So am I, but I don't believe that for a minute

That's just what the boomers want us to believe. They did so much, you know.

[Art_from_Ark]

21. It's Sherman as a grown-up

Down by his feet, hidden from view, is Mr. Peabody

[DearAbby]

25. McFLY!

Great Scott!

[qb]

26. Occam's Razor is an excellent tool.

"...no single item of his wardrobe is technically out of period."

[Motown_Johnny]

27. I agree but I am having trouble finding a picture of sunglasses like that

from that era



Not that I consider traveling into the past a possibility, I don't.

[Confusious]

29. Not an exact match, but close

I looked up 1940's motorcycle glasses.

http://www.vintage-designer-sunglasses.com/item_vs066.html

I get the feeling it's a late 40's picture, a lot of veterans came back and took to riding motorcycles.

The striped tie (30's and early 40's ties all dark primary colors and thin, as far as I have seen) and the rounded appearance of the cars which lead into the 50's gives me that feeling.

[Cleita]

32. If you look carefully at the picture you will notice

he is proportionately a tad larger than the other people in the photo. I think it's a photoshop or maybe even uses an older technology before we had computers. But he has been inserted in there and not shrunk down sufficiently to match the other people in the photo.

[rucky]

33. Can't the hipsters leave anything good alone?

[Taitertots]

34. The secret to time travel is a ridiculous amount of pot

"Cool hat bro, how did I get out of my Mom's basement"

[Cleita]

37. Magic Shrooms also are good for that. n/t

[Jamastiene]

36. The lighting on the lower part of his neck is all wrong.

From the neck up, his skin tone and the lighting is totally different than anyone else in the photo. Also, the shadows that are on him are a different shade of gray than the others as well. It has to be a Photoshop.

[Zanzobar]

38. It's true. The letter M was not invented until after the war.

[Lucian]

40. "...points out that no single item of his wardrobe is technically out of period."

I think that pretty much kills the time traveler hypothesis.

[L. Coyote]

41. I went back to the day before and told him to dress like this to mess with you.

:rofl:

[Uncle Joe]

42. I was expecting to see "Get a brain moran guy" in there, he's been immortalized.

Thanks for the thread, The Straight Story.

[TrogL]

43. It doesn't look like a sweatshirt to me and the logo looks recent

I'm old. I've seen the kind of sweatshirt they're talking about (by the way, sweatshirts are a recent invention) and it actually looks like he's wearing a hoodie over it and the logos are never that big. They were hand stitched and it would take forever to make one that big.

[yesphan]

45. Standard haircut

Shades are standard for that era with detachable side panels. Perhaps he worked
as a brazer in a factory. Shirt woven, sweater knitted. Camera looks box type to me.

[Javaman]

47. You want time traveling? I'll give you time traveling...

http://www.bertisevil.tv/pages/bert000.htm

[Javaman]

48. The angle of the shadows is enough to disprove this comic pile of photoshoping. nt