A 1940s wartime photograph has prompted some individuals to claim it provides evidence that time travel exists. The image doesn't initially appear unusual, depicting a rather bustling street in Reykjavik, Iceland, with a well-dressed gentleman standing on a pavement corner.
However, sharp-eyed history enthusiasts claim the man is clutching a mobile phone, a gadget which only emerged approximately 30 years after the photograph was captured. The first handheld mobile phone was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, which hit the market in 1973.
Captured in the Icelandic capital in 1943, the photograph revealed a fairly congested street filled with residents and US servicemen during the Second World War. A collection of GIs were photographed positioned before a taxi rank.
Yet it's not the congestion of the thoroughfare that has captured numerous people's attention. It is rather a seemingly ordinary-looking gentleman wearing a pale trench coat who is resting against a shop front. He seems to gaze straight at the camera while others remain entirely unaware of the photograph being captured.
And the enigmatic figure has his hand positioned at his ear, and some social media users suspect he may be grasping a mobile phone. Several have suggested he's a time-traveller who journeyed backwards with the electronic gadget, which hadn't been created during that era.
The photograph triggered an animated debate on Facebook, following its upload to the Facebook group Gamlar ljósmyndir, translating to "old photographs" in Icelandic, by Kristjan Hoffmann. In his 2016 post, Mr Hoffmann described the man as "far ahead in technology."
One even drew upon a quintessentially British sci-fi phenomenon to explain what might be occurring in the wartime photograph. "Dr. Who," wrote Karolina Petursdottir. Another turned to comedy, joking that the image was evidence that Icelanders had "already invented the mobile phone way before anyone else."
However, some remained unconvinced by the time-travelling theory, instead believing he was doing something entirely ordinary with his hand raised to his ear. "He's checking if the watch works," wrote one Facebook group member. While others were of the opinion he was simply attending to his ear. A further suggestion put forward was that he was using his tobacco pipe to scratch the back of his ear.
Allied forces took control of Iceland in 1940, with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill fearing that Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany would invade and seize dominance over the Northern Atlantic seas. US troops agreed to defend Iceland, replacing British and Canadian forces, in 1941. By 1943, when the photograph is believed to have been taken, approximately 30,000 Allied troops were reportedly stationed in Iceland.
