Rumours that an “unexplained time traveller” was seen at a 1995 Mike Tyson fight are spreading across the Internet. They link to a video on YouTube that purports to show someone filming the fight on a smartphone, a technology that was not available in 1995.
What’s true – the video does show someone in the background in the crowd filming Tyson in 1995 on some sort of video/camera device.
What’s false – that there is any evidence or suggestion that the video shows a smartphone or any other kind of technology that wasn’t readily available in 1995.
The video shows a man in the background filming Mike Tyson at a fight in 1995 and despite the caption of the video claiming that no such technology was available at that time, that claim is demonstrably false.
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While it is true that no modern smartphones were available in 1995 (mass adoption of modern smartphones began circa 1999/2000) there was a variety of video cameras and digital cameras (assuming the device was even digital) available in 1995, which may seem a long time ago to some, but could hardly be considered the “dark ages”!
The closest match we could find that fits the device shown in the video is the Casio QV-100 (below), which features a black band near the bottom (when used on its side) and an off-centre lens at the top left. What appears to be a flash in the video could be the slanted part of the camera case on the QV-100 reflecting light – alternatively it could be a another model with a flash in that position we were not able to find.
Of course the poor resolution of the video on the Tyson fight effectively makes it impossible to accurately determine what device was being used, but since it is clear that visually-similar devices exist, Occam’s razor would suggest this was simply a camera available in 1995, and not a time traveller using a not-yet-invented smartphone.
