Time Traveler Caught in 1940 Photo?

By on April 19, 2010 in News 68

Mori writes on forgetomori:

Hipster In 1940?

Reopening of the South Fork Bridge after flood, November 1940

It’s the short description for the photograph shown at the virtual Bralorne Pioneer Museum, from British Columbia, Canada. The image can be seen specifically on this page (scroll down to see), among other items of the online exhibit. Did you notice anything out of place? Or perhaps, out of time?

The man with what appears to be very modern sunglasses seems to be wearing a stamped T-shirt with a nice sweater, all the while holding a portable compact camera!

Internet people reached to the obvious conclusion: it’s a time traveller caught on camera on 1940! Finally, we have proof!

If the story seems straight out of a movie and the photo is in itself a great funny find, the most amusing thing i came up with while looking into this — as an Internet person, on the Internet — was the reply for a skeptical, or perhaps somewhat cynical comment on how spurious it would seem the idea that a time traveler would want to visit the reopening of a bridge in some small town in Canada.

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  • Jam Handy

    Yeah, I couldn't help but notice that some geeky-looking guy from 1999 had been badly photoshopped into the photo. Amazing.

    • oman28

      I disagree. I think the photoshopping job is ok.

    • CousinX

      Score: 0 for jumping to conclusions! Isn't false skepticism awesome?

      • jam handy

        I really can't believe this is even being discussed.

      • jam handy

        Ok, I just read the FORTEAN TIMES article, and I stand corrected. But it appears that I'm not the only one who jumped to conclusions…the fellow IS in fact attired completely in things which were available at the time, and, on closer inspection, the haircut reminds me very much of the one my Grandfather has i photos from the same period. The shadows line up perfectly. The way he's wearing the sweater, the funky sunglasses, and a few other things all combine to make him LOOK like a RADIOHEAD fan circa 2000. Jump the gun I did! But, alas, so did many other folk, as he is evidently NOT a time-traveler.

  • http://twitter.com/Atherworld Kevin Stern

    Let's pretend it's real. Why not travel to then? Maybe his really great grandpa built the bridge? Maybe he meat really great grandma at the ceremony. Any number of reasons, really. Intertemporal pit stop, perhaps?

  • nemoide

    I'm pretty amused.

  • http://unhub.com/drewt333 drewt333

    Kevin has a good point. You want a clean bathroom and a decent meal? 1940's Canada ftw.

  • ASFBJ

    Hi guys, this is on another site. Apparently he is wearing a “new” tee shirt made popular the year before, souperman / spider man you know the ilk. And the camera is of the period – SLK rollei or something similar. SOrry to dissappoint, just a hip youth. xx

  • ben allen

    everything after 1900 is modern.

  • ben allen

    man at the front is also holding a modern portable compact camera

  • emperorreagan

    Now that time travel is a fact, I can't wait to use it to travel into the past and have sex with myself.

    If me and tons of future mes all target the same moment, I could have thousands of mes having a self-love orgy in the past.

    • Jorge

      And you will be the first multiorgasmic men in the world.
      The Guinness
      The Admiration of all the men in the world.

      Una gran idea.
      Un saludo desde España

  • Bryan

    Yea 'cause you know…They haven't invented Photoshop or anything right?

  • Mindlessangel

    Actually, I don't think its photoshopped, nor do I think its a Time Traveler, he kinda justs looks likes a Flash Gordon fan to me. Also if you take a look at the only woman not looking straight ahead you can see her gaze look almost right at him. He may just look out of place, but not out of his time. I think he may look “modern” only because fashion in the last year or so for men has been a clash of 1940's trends and early 1970's. Truly he does look odd, but not from an other time.

    Now if his collar was cut differently on his sweater or if lighting wasn't matching, or he was completely dressed in nothing that could be found in the 1940's I would be more inclined to think photoshop than time travel

  • 5by5

    Well that haircut he has isn't modern.

    • nikkii

      dont trust a hair cut.. maybe he is a retro dude.. lols or maybe he just woke up n didnt look in the mirror.. lols

  • Gregory

    That's really interesting in that a person dressed unlike the other people around him is thought to be from a different time. I imagine in 60 years time folks will be saying the same about Lady Gaga.

    But it is fascinating how our minds work when they are presented with information that doesn't match what we are expecting, but really…as the full article in Fortean Times shows…the problem is the expectations and the solution is education. To one who knows those sorts of glasses were available in that time and that neither the sweater or the shirt are actually out of place, the photograph is just a photograph.

    But when we do not educate ourselves on how, for example, people were really like in a given time period, we find ourselves coming to the wrong conclusions about that time period. Archeologists are all the time having to rewrite history or at least filling in the blanks about what we know about our more distant ancestors. But currently we are not even educated about our own time.

    Many Americans seem to have only a vague connection even with the current reality, much less being able to more fully realize, through eduction, the past. Take the Tea Party for example. They say they're protesting about high taxes. Well, taxes for the middle class were reduced last year. Military spending is more than half the federal budget but these Tea Party folks are conservatives who are pro-military, the ones who want to Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran. They say they are about preserving freedom, but the Patriot Act is full of unconstitutional measures, but they're not protesting that. They are against health care reform but many of these folks are Xians (maybe in modern translations of the Bible, the parable of the Good Samaritan has been omitted). They are trying to say Health Care is unconstitutional…but if it is then so is social security and medicare and try and take those entitlements away from them. They decry socialism, but please see the prior sentence…etc etc etc. So we can come to the conclusion that their platform is of no merit and it's either because they are not paying attention and haven't educated themselves or it's because they are predominantly protesting that there is a black man in the white house and that they want America to be a Theocracy, but they don't have the nads to say it, especially when the latter could be seen as treasonous.

    So whether it is a photograph that appears controversial and photoshopped due to a lack of eduction or it's an entire ideology that holds water like a hair net, the gathering and absorbing of true fax can help one come to the correct conclusions and start moving forward instead of running in place.

    But Lady Gaga is definitely from the future. True dat.

    fiat lux

    • nikkii

      they say lady gaga is a transvestite cause she dresses different too…lols

    • Darumatokyo

      That is exactly correct. I have a pair of the exact same sunglasses. They are marked Made in Canada. I always suspected they were 1940s, so this confirms it. I knew it was them at first glance. But to one who has never seen them, your imagination would fill in the gaps, making you jump to the conclusion that they are modern. They are not wrap around sunglasses but have perfectly flat lenses and sides. They only look wrap around because the man's eyebrow makes the square corner of the sunglasses look like curved wrap-arounds.

  • Dana

    Time travel will never happen…us not having it now is proof in itself. Think about it…if at any time in the future a way to go back was discovered someone would have come back and we would know about it and would have already created the technology…like in the beginning.

    • nikkii

      we dont have the technology to cure cancers. so we wouldnt have the technololy to travel through dimensions yet. they have been trying to smash atoms at cern to find the god partical at Cern.

  • James_Smith

    Given the ease of photo-editing today, this would seem to be rather suspect. After all, the simplest explanation is usually the best. It wouldn't take much skill to place this person in a Mathew Brady photo from the American Civil War. Say, snapping a pic of Lincoln?

    Another point, a time traveler would likely with to remain unnoticed and would not wear clothing or obviously carry equipment out of place. Otherwise, we'd already know all about time travelers, if they existed.

    Sorry to insert logical thought processes into a humerous page.

  • kathy

    maybe he wanted to visit there because a family member happened to be there and he wanted to meet them!!!

  • GoodDoktorBad

    This man causes Armageddon.

    He did it……

    We are doomed…..

    Whoa is me….

    • Just Because

      grow your own veges get some chooks maybe a cow drink rain water and dont eat processed foods.. only the meek will survive.. haha

  • jay789

    cool

  • Deb

    I would have thought that time travelers dont always get to choose where they end up

    • nikkii

      in our imaginations we can go anywhere : P

  • medarnit

    It does look very much like that camera is being held by the guy right behind him, but blow the photo up and the material on the right arm has the same roughness as the rough knit jerkin he's wearing. He must have been quite the character, I'd be surprised if he's not remembered back in South Fork. Definitely not a time traveller though, and who the heck thought that that was a digi camera he's carrying?

  • nikkii

    well he is also alot taller than everyone else there… other people are hanging off car bonnets and windows.. could be super imposed.. why would a time traveller need a camera ? you dont travel in time by the way you travel in dimensions..

  • kai

    Hard to believe it isn't some kinda prank. Perhaps the museum people would know…
    as to the bridge opening…who's to say what significance it has, Butterfly Effect etc…
    but I agree its just soo…Canadian…eh!

  • Randy

    Why not wear a shirt marking some specific date, like “Boston Marathon 1989″. I would wear a shirt with a future date on it if I was time traveling and knowing i was going to be photographed.

  • leppy111

    It looks like an MTV logo on his shirt

  • sarah

    he probably traveled in time to avoid child support. that shit is expensive.

  • tiredofthenonsense4566747474

    Time travel is not possible. Time is a construct, there is no past and no future. There is only now. The past is some hollow memory that is gone, the past is not a place.

  • Notso Blind

    Magnify the pic! The camera is not a compact. Its an old bellows type. The sunglasses are not modern and the clothes fabric and style is not modern. Sheesh open your eyes people.

    • Mainman

      the camera isnt modern … if you magn the pic … yep you can read “CANON” nice canon sell compact cameras on 1940? lmaoooooooooo the first t-shirt was invented in 1948 for newyork elect campaign
      anyway interesting that japa sell compact canon before pearl harbor.
      Man your comment is such your disinfo simply ridicolous

      • Aaron

        The first t’shirt was invented in 1948? B’SHIT! “T-shirt history
        The idea of the T-shirt came to the USA during WWI when US soldiers noticed the light cotton undershirts European soldiers
        were using while the US soldiers sweated in their wool uniforms. Since they were so much more comfortable they quickly became
        popular among the Americans, and because of their design they got the name T-shirt. During WWII the T-shirt had become
        standard issue underwear in both the U.S. Army and Navy.

        After WWII the T-shirt started appearing without a shirt covering it. John Wayne, Marlon Brando and James Dean all wore them
        on national TV. At first the public was shocked but by 1955 it had become acceptable. The T-shirt became cool when James
        Dean wore it in the film Rebel Without a Cause.”

  • Ash

    is this suppose to be a picture of john titor?

  • Mainman

    the camera isnt modern … if you magn the pic … yep you can read “CANON” nice canon sell compact cameras on 1940? lmaoooooooooo the first t-shirt was invented in 1948 for newyork elect campaign
    anyway interesting that japa sell compact canon before pearl harbor.
    Man your comment is such your disinfo simply ridicolous

  • Tony R.

    The man in question is a mountaineer, and he is wearing a pair of glacier glasses. Other indicators are the knit wool sweater and compact camera, typical of people who ventured to high places in that era. Decades after the photo was taken one can still buy glacier glasses that look about the same. After all, the photo was taken in British Columbia. The Canadian Rockies are in British Columbia and western Alberta. Sorry, no time travelers here.

  • Tony R.

    The man in question is a mountaineer, and he is wearing a pair of glacier glasses. Other indicators are the knit wool sweater and compact camera, typical of people who ventured to high places in that era. Decades after the photo was taken one can still buy glacier glasses that look about the same. After all, the photo was taken in British Columbia. The Canadian Rockies are in British Columbia and western Alberta. Sorry, no time travelers here.

  • Barbie 24joy

    what i notice time traveler always wore sunglasses

  • Barbie 24joy

    what i notice time traveler always wore sunglasses

  • Aaron

    The first t’shirt was invented in 1948? B’SHIT! “T-shirt history
    The idea of the T-shirt came to the USA during WWI when US soldiers noticed the light cotton undershirts European soldiers
    were using while the US soldiers sweated in their wool uniforms. Since they were so much more comfortable they quickly became
    popular among the Americans, and because of their design they got the name T-shirt. During WWII the T-shirt had become
    standard issue underwear in both the U.S. Army and Navy.

    After WWII the T-shirt started appearing without a shirt covering it. John Wayne, Marlon Brando and James Dean all wore them
    on national TV. At first the public was shocked but by 1955 it had become acceptable. The T-shirt became cool when James
    Dean wore it in the film Rebel Without a Cause.”

  • Peterjervis1970

    Its not the bloke with the t shirt who is the time traveller its the lady near the back of the crowd with the black hat on, if you can zoom in you will see she is holding her hand to her ear as if on a mobile phone,just like the lady in the charlie chaplin movie from 1928? coinsidence or what.

  • Peterjervis1970

    Its not the bloke with the t shirt who is the time traveller its the lady near the back of the crowd with the black hat on, if you can zoom in you will see she is holding her hand to her ear as if on a mobile phone,just like the lady in the charlie chaplin movie from 1928? coinsidence or what.

  • http://ken-anthony.squarespace.com/journal/2010/10/19/too-nuanced-for-a-democrat.html ken anthony

    Everybody in the photo is a time traveler. The guy that stands out just didn’t get in time for the wardrobe change.

  • http://ken-anthony.squarespace.com/journal/2010/10/19/too-nuanced-for-a-democrat.html ken anthony

    Everybody in the photo is a time traveler. The guy that stands out just didn’t get in time for the wardrobe change.

  • Jsolaire

    We should try to be serious: if the guy were a time traveller with modern clothes, people around him should be surprised…and they don’t take care about him. So it is not a time traveller in my opinion.

  • Jsolaire

    We should try to be serious: if the guy were a time traveller with modern clothes, people around him should be surprised…and they don’t take care about him. So it is not a time traveller in my opinion.

  • Marc

    12 MONKEYS!!!

  • Marc

    12 MONKEYS!!!

  • Pingback: Time Travel? You be the judge. |

  • Johnpahl

    Eat shit u over analyzing mother fucker, you just stated a bunch of irrelevant historical events that have nothing to do with this picture. Mayby you should take your education and shove it up your arrogant tight ass you flamming fuck.

  • http://www.facebook.com/GTBurns Gary Burnaska

    How do we know this photo has not been photoshopped, like so much other stuff on the net these days.

  • http://www.facebook.com/GTBurns Gary Burnaska

    How do we know this photo has not been photoshopped, like so much other stuff on the net these days.

  • http://www.cheappoloshirtsoutlet.ca ralph polo

    He must have been quite the character, I’d be surprised if he’s not remembered back in South Fork. Definitely not a time traveller though

  • http://www.cheappoloshirtsoutlet.ca ralph polo

    He must have been quite the character, I’d be surprised if he’s not remembered back in South Fork. Definitely not a time traveller though

  • http://www.lacostepoloshirts.co lacoste polo shirt

    Military spending is more than half the federal budget but these Tea Party folks are conservatives who are pro-military, the ones who want to Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran.

  • http://www.lacostepoloshirtsonline.com lacoste outlet online

    somewhat cynical comment on how spurious it would seem the idea

  • http://www.lacostepoloshirtsonsale.co.uk cheap lacoste polos

    the image can be seen specifically on the page..

  • Marc Chevalier

    The sunglasses worn by this man were common enough in the late 1930s.  Here’s a link showing two late ’30s advertisements for them:  http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?51649-Time-Traveler-spotted-at-the-1928-Chaplin-film-quot-The-Circus-quot&p=1285762&viewfull=1#post1285762

  • Blah

    Terence McKenna said that when time travel is invented, instantly everyone from the future with access to that technology will come see that event.

  • Martsbrain@googlemail.com

    The same woman from the chaplin film in the late 1920′s is in this
    Picture aswell.she is the one wearing
    The large black hat on the right of this picture.i wonder if she is with the man with the sunglasses?