I don’t expect everyone to understand this and some of you may need to put your fingers in your ears as you read to keep your brains from leaking out because it might get confusing. My goal is for you to dismiss it all as entertaining nonsense.

So, this picture has been going around the internet and a lot of people have concluded that it contains proof of a time traveler using a cell phone in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1943 during World War II. It doesn’t. I mean, it does capture a time traveler, but c’mon… talking on a cell phone?

I mean, although it appears to be a guy talking on a cell phone in public in 1943, it isn’t. That analysis is ridiculous. Taking a modern communication device back in time would be fraught with danger and even if you were dumb enough to take your cell phone with you on your time travels to Europe during a World War, you’d hopefully not pull it out in public and try to make a call. Especially since there aren’t any cell towers in Iceland in 1943. Besides, if that guy is a time traveler, wouldn’t the 2022 people who are talking about this on Facebook be asking why he isn’t somewhere else trying to kill Hitler instead of lounging around in Reykjavik watching strangers? Isn’t killing Hitler what you are supposed to do if you time travel? (*Spoiler alert: You can’t go back in time and kill Hitler… or Walt Disney before he can open Disneyland in Anaheim because the Time Cops will stop you. Believe me.)

Some friends who like to play along with my purely imaginary time traveler persona tagged me while sharing the picture on Facebook by asking if this was me in the picture. That’s a little insulting. Basically, they are accusing me of not knowing that there aren’t cell towers in Iceland in 1943. You might as well accuse me of trying to kill Walt Disney. Which you can’t do by the way. At all.

So, forget the idea that he’s talking on a cell phone (or that it is me.) Now, a person could be listening to a small recorder held up to the ear or cupping a radio earpiece, which might be noticed but might not. The mystery is revealed when you realize that the time traveler is the man in the midshot. You see him now… the man wearing Elton John sunglasses. In Reykjavik. In winter. I mean look at that guy! He’s obviously passing something to the guy passing him in the light-colored trench coat whose back is to you in the shot. There was plenty of room for everyone in the picture to pass each other on that sidewalk without bumping into one another, but do they? No. Elton John glasses here is passing classified secrets to light-trench-coat-guy. Let’s focus on that guy and not the other guy who seems to be (but is not) talking on a cell phone.

Elton John Glasses Guy is a Russian spy and (Okay, I admit it) I’m the one watching him while listening to instructions via a radio earpiece. Elton John guy is caught in the act here by our photographer as he passes time travel secrets to the Russians. Everyone who thinks this is me talking on a cell phone is just confused and can’t interpret the picture properly. I’m not dumb enough to take a cell phone back thinking there are cell phone towers in Reykjavik in 1943. Do I seem to be that crazy? Am I dumb? And listen, even if I made such a dumb mistake, I’d have figured it out pretty fast. And even if there were some cell phone-like towers in 1943 they wouldn’t be in Reykjavik, Iceland. They were in Colorado Springs. And don’t ask me about the Walt Disney thing. I’m sensitive about that.

I’m coming clean here. You can’t really make person-to-person calls without cell towers or satellites until 2029 when Elon Musk slathers the world in barbecue sauce and tinfoil in order to make those kinds of wireless calls doable. This article might have to be continued… the Time Cops are calling, and I might’ve said too much.

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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear periodically on the website.