A painting from 90 years ago has resurfaced online and is sparking wild theories that it proves time travel is real.
The 1937 painting entitled ‘Mr Pynchon and the Settling of Springfield’ allegedly shows an Indigenous man in the 17th century holding a smartphone to take a selfie.
The man can clearly be seen in the foreground holding the bottom half of the black device with white or silver trim like a modern phone while he looks into the top half of the object.
The out-of-place item, which did not exist in either the 1600s or the 1930s, has sparked speculation for years that the painter left a clue in this well-known painting which confirmed the existence of time travel.
One person said: ‘Now that one actually looks like a cell phone.’ Another viewer asked: ‘Is that an iPhone?’
While believers and skeptics have clashed over what the item could be, historians have leaned towards the handheld device actually being a mirror, which the Indigenous man would have obtained in a trade with English colonist William Pynchon.
The 1937 painting is one of several paintings, sculptures and photographs which have allegedly captured an object which was centuries ahead of its time.
Moreover, multiple individuals have given viral interviews where they claimed without evidence that they were not only time travelers from the future, but that widespread use of time travel would begin as soon as 2028.
A painting from 1937 has drawn the attention of conspiracy theorists, who claim an Indigenous man in Massachusetts in the 1600s was painted holding a smartphone
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The controversial mural by Italian-born artist Umberto Romano is said to be one of six New Deal-era murals showing the history of Springfield, Massachusetts – where Romano grew up.
This particular image depicted Pynchon, the founder of Springfield, trading with natives, likely from the Pocumtuc tribe in western Massachusetts around the 1630s, when the settlement was established.
Unlike the other individuals in the painting, including two men appearing to be punished by being whipped and placed in the wooden stocks, no one else was seen holding anything that looked like it came from the future.
That included depictions of Pynchon’s group trading goods and animals with the Native Americans.
This has led historians, including Daniel Crown in 2017, to call the mysterious item a painting of a European trade mirror.
Mirrors were common trade goods in that era. The man’s pose – holding up the object and looking at it – matches someone examining their own reflection, possibly for the first time using a polished mirror.
Despite heavy skepticism that the painting was only showing a mirror, ‘Mr Pynchon and the Settling of Springfield’ adds to a growing theory that ancient art has been documenting incidents in which time travelers have visited the past.
A similar painting from the 19th century called ‘The Expected One’ by Austrian artist Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller depicted a woman walking along a path while looking down at an unknown object she was clutching with both hands.
Historians have said the man holding the alleged smartphone was actually holding a mirror he just traded for with English settlers
Other paintings allegedly depicted individuals holding objects in the same way present-day people look at and hold smartphones
Although the small, square device could have been a book, conspiracy theorists noted that the woman in the painting looked exactly like how present-day individuals walk while distracted by their smartphones.
Even a sculpture from 100 BC has been repeatedly claimed to be evidence of time travel. Called Grave Naiskos of an Enthroned Woman with an Attendant, the ancient Greek statue allegedly includes a laptop, complete with two USB ports.
At the same time as Romano’s painting has resurfaced, viral interviews online have allegedly documented the confessions of ‘time travelers’ who said the US government already had the ability to travel to the past or the future.
In one recording by a masked man who identified himself as Alexander Smith, the self-proclaimed time traveler said he was a former member of the CIA from 1981 who was recruited to journey to the year 2118.
Smith also claimed that time travel technology had existed for decades before the public knew about it and predicted it would become available ‘beginning in the year 2028’ for both commercial and non-commercial uses.
He further alleged that 2028 is also ‘the same year in which the government discloses the existence of intelligent extraterrestrials,’ claiming authorities had possessed knowledge of aliens ‘for some time previous’ to the announcement.
