A decades-old clip from Elvis Presley’s last concert has resurfaced online and sparked a new time-travel theory. In the footage from June 1977 at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, Indiana, viewers focused not on Presley’s performance, white suit, or final days, but on a woman in the crowd who appears to be holding a small black rectangular object with a shiny silver-like top.
The appearance was Presley’s final one onstage. Seven weeks later, on August 16, 1977, he died at Graceland in Tennessee at age 42 after suffering cardiac arrest. Some social media users argued the object looks like a modern smartphone camera, with one writing, “It definitely looks very much like the camera of one of today’s phones.” Another said he was unsure what technology existed at the time that could resemble it.
Skeptics offered more ordinary explanations. Suggestions included an autograph book with a reflective silver pen, an old pocket camera, a small tape recorder, a bottle, or another common 1970s item. One commenter said it looked like a camera, while another said a close look suggested an autograph book and that the silver glint came from the pen. The article notes that the first iPhone did not go on sale until 2007, and the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, the first commercial mobile phone, arrived in 1983.
The piece places the clip in a broader pattern of conspiracy-driven re-readings of old images, including claims about a man using a cellphone in World War II-era Iceland and a 1995 Mike Tyson fight photo that seemed to show a smartphone. It also notes that physics does allow time dilation, citing NASA’s explanation that very fast clocks can run slightly behind stationary ones, but says that is far removed from a time traveler at an Elvis concert. Presley’s death has long attracted conspiracy theories, including claims that he faked it; one such claim points to the spelling on his gravestone, where “Aaron” appears instead of his birth spelling “Aron.”
