The Capitol physician shut down speculation that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, 81, suffered a stroke or seizure after his second ‘freeze-up’ incident last week, as the Senate is set to reconvene today after a 40-day hiatus. 

McConnell’s health has been under increasing scrutiny following his second public freeze-up in recent weeks during a press conference in Kentucky where he didn’t respond for 30 seconds after being asked if he would run for reelection in 2026. 

The episode mirrored the senator’s first freezing event that occurred at a July press conference in the Capitol. It also comes just months after McConnell suffered a concussion and broken rib when he tripped and hit his head at the D.C. Waldorf Astoria and was admitted to hospital for treatment. 

Capitol Physician Dr. Brian Monahan said there is ‘no evidence’ that McConnell suffered a stoke or seizure or has a ‘movement disorder’ such as Parkinson’s disease, according to a letter publicized by the minority leader’s office on Tuesday ahead of his return.

The physician said he consulted with neurologists and examined McConnell’s MRIs and an EEG study in making his determination. As a result, he writes that there are ‘no changes in recommended treatment protocols’ since the senator’s fall and concussion in March.

The minority leader’s office said last week that he was just feeling ‘lightheaded’ and assured he would consult a doctor as a precautionary measure.

Dr. Monahan cleared McConnell on Thursday to continue working, saying the episode could be attributed to dehydration and that it’s normal to experience lightheadedness during concussion recovery. 

Senators will reconvene at 3pm today for the first time since the end of July. It is customary that the leader would make remarks on the Senate floor at that time, but it is unclear if McConnell plans to do so or if he will address his recent health issues.

The Senate has a busy few weeks ahead as government funding is set to run out by Oct. 1. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has stated his plan to move forward a series of spending bills over the next several weeks.

But the House of Representatives is not set to return to D.C. until next Tuesday, not leaving much time to get a deal done and starve off a government shutdown.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy has floated the idea of a one-month short-term funding bill, but he is receiving push back from farther right members of his conference.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., is also continuing his blockade on military appointments – which sparked a rare public rebuke from the secretaries of the Army, Air Force and Navy in an op-ed this week calling it a ‘dangerous hold.’ 

The House minority leader made a series of calls to his Senate allies following the latest troubling episode, DailyMail.com confirmed last week. 

It was an apparent effort to assure them of his stable health and drum up support as worries intensify. 

South Dakota Sen. John Thune’s spokesperson Ryan Wrasse confirmed to DailyMail.com that the Minority Whip spoke with McConnell and the leader ‘sounded like his usual self and was in good spirits.’

A spokesperson for Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., did not confirm that a call took place between the senators, but said they were aware of reports that the two spoke.

McConnell told Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, that he is doing well when the two spoke after the incident on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the senator confirmed to DailyMail.com.

The GOP senators, known as the ‘Three Johns,’ are also next in line to replace the minority leader in the event that he steps down or is unfit to serve.

The very swift all-clear comes as reports emerge that a handful of Republican senators are discussing holding a meeting amid McConnell’s declining health. 

It does not appear that party leadership is involved in these alleged talks.

At least a dozen GOP offices said when reached by DailyMail.com last week that they are not aware of any meetings on the topic.

The latest episode has led to renewed calls for term limits in the House and Senate – even from those within the walls of Congress.

GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley called the Senate the ‘most privileged nursing home in the country’ after McConnell’s recent episode.

‘What I will say is, right now, the Senate is the most privileged nursing home in the country,’ she said last week. ‘I mean, Mitch McConnell has done some great things and he deserves credit. But you have to know when to leave.’ 

Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., said the limits would help restore ‘human decency’ for elderly politicians like McConnell and Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 90, who is also suffering public health scares.

‘For goodness sake, the family, friends, and staff of Senators Feinstein and McConnell are doing them and our country a tremendous disservice,’ Phillips wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

‘It’s time for term limits for Congress and the Supreme Court, and some basic human decency.’

His criticism of Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein comes after the 90-year-old was hospitalized earlier this month following a trip and fall at her home in San Francisco.

She was released after tests showed she was fine, but the latest health incident raised more questions about her ability to carry out her duties as a senator. 

Her many absences since the start of the year have hampered the majority Democrats’ ability to move nominations through the Judiciary Committee.

A top Democrat is coming to the defense of Joe Biden following damning testimony by Hunter Biden‘s business partner Devon Archer who revealed the then-vice president sat in on at least 20 of his son’s calls to ‘sell’ the Biden brand to foreign associates.

Archer told Congress in bombshell testimony Monday the ‘Biden brand’ helped keep Ukrainian firm Burisma from going bankrupt. He also revealed Joe was on the phone or present in-person at least 20 times while his son who called him ‘my guy’ was talking with foreign business partners.

Following Archer’s testimony, Republicans are now saying they may have enough evidence to begin an impeachment inquiry into the president for lying about his involvement in Hunter’s businesses. However, the White House has maintained that Joe ‘has never been in business’ with his son and Democrats are working to back up their claims.

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Ranking Member Jim Himes, D-Conn., fired back at Republicans Tuesday, saying that they have not presented any evidence that President Biden engaged in corruption – despite Archer’s testimony.

‘Have [Republicans] pointed to anything to suggest that Joe Biden engaged in corrupt behavior? No,’ said Himes on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Tuesday.

‘On the contrary, Hunter Biden’s business partner said, yea, he was on some phone calls talking about the weather, exchanging pleasantries,’ continued Himes.

‘It is sure and absolutely not a crime. They’re just in this box of their own making.’

‘On the topic of a Biden impeachment: If impeachable crimes are surfaced – and I say this as a Democrat – fine. [Republicans] have found no evidence whatsoever that there are impeachable crimes,’ continued Himes. 

Republicans claim Archer’s testimony added to mounting evidence that the then-Vice President was involved in Hunter’s overseas deals that raked in millions from nations including China and Romania. 

However, Democrats say that the phone calls were innocent and did not involve business, insisting they were talking about ‘niceties’ like talking about ‘the weather,’ and ‘what’s going on?”

White House spokesperson Ian Sams also hit back at Republican claims of corruption following Archer’s testimony, saying that Republicans have not yet produced any solid evidence implicating Joe.

‘They keep promising bombshell evidence but over and over, they can’t produce any,’ he wrote on Twitter.

‘Yet the goose chase rolls on, at the expense of focusing on Americans’ real priorities.’

Himes’ counterpart – committee Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio – said Tuesday morning that Joe Biden’s ‘lies are piling up.’

The chairman did not rule out backing a future impeachment inquiry into the president as the GOP continues to collect evidence.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said last week that President Biden has ‘lied to the American public’ about son Hunter’s business deals – and is ‘hiding info’ like former President Richard Nixon – who was impeached in 1973 and resigned from office.

He threatened opening an impeachment inquiry of Biden if he does not get full cooperation from federal agencies in the House investigations of Biden family business deals.

‘The evidence continues to mount and today we saw Joe Biden has lied to the American people. He knew who his son was getting those dollars from and he spoke to them and spoke to them often,’ House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told Fox News’ Sean Hannity hours after the testimony concluded. 

Archer’s revelations to Congress provided evidence to help Republicans take a ‘huge step towards implicating Joe Biden in these crimes,’ continued Comer. 

‘We heard from someone on the inside that it was influence peddling. Joe Biden himself talked to every person that has wired money to the Bidens.’

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said Monday that the information that came out of Archer’s testimony could ‘really push’ many Republicans to get to a ‘yes’ vote on impeachment for Joe Biden down the road.

Greene, Rep. Andy Biggs and Ronny Jackson immediately called for an impeachment inquiry into the president following Archer’s testimony.

‘I 100% SUPPORT an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden! What we’ve learned now is just the tip of the iceberg. His career of corruption knows no bounds. Biden has been a TRAITOR to our country for decades!!’ tweeted Jackson. 

But most Republicans say that there needs to be additional evidence compiled first before going down the impeachment path. 

Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., confirmed Archer told the House Oversight Committee that Joe had been on speakerphone multiple times while his son was talking with business partners – but insisted they were talking about the weather and geography.

Republican Rep. Andy Biggs then said that, according to Archer, Hunter was on the Ukrainian energy firm board because of his family ‘brand’ – and Joe added ‘value’ and may have helped take down a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the company.

In addition, Archer revealed that Hunter referred to Joe as ‘my guy,’ according to a statement put out by Oversight Republicans. 

Goldman – lead counsel on the first Trump impeachment and the only Democrat present in the room of the testimony – told reporters that Archer ‘indicated that Hunter spoke to his father every day, and approximately 20 times over the course of a 10 year relationship, Hunter may have put his father on the phone with any number of different people, and they never once spoke about any business dealings.’

‘Remember, this is when Beau got ill,’ Goldman said, noting that Hunter and Joe spoke on the phone frequently before Beau’s death in 2015. 

But Republicans had a different retelling of Archer’s account. 

Biggs said as he left the room that Archer had testified ‘Burisma would have gone out of business sooner if the Biden brand had not been invoked. People would be intimidated to really mess with Burisma because of the Biden family brand.’ 

He added that Archer had told the committee he did not know anything about the specific bribery claims made in the FBI’s FD-1023 document.

The internal document, which detailed a conversation with a confidential source who had spoken with Burisma CFO Vadim Pojarski in 2015, said that Pojarski had claimed Joe and Hunter had been paid $5 million each when Joe was vice president in exchange for policy outcomes favorable to the company. 

Archer testified Monday that Pozharskyi and CEO Nikola Zlochevsky put ‘constant pressure’ on Hunter in 2015 to get his father to fire prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma.

Hunter Biden, along with Zlochevsky and Pozharski, reportedly ‘called D.C.’ to discuss Shokin. In March 2016, Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid to Ukraine if Shokin was not fired for corruption – which he eventually was.

Separately, in a 2017 email to Hunter, his uncle Jim and other business partners regarding a deal with Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC, business partner James Gilliar made a reference to the ‘big guy’ getting a 10 percent stake in the lucrative deal. 

Another former associate of the first son, U.S. Navy veteran Tony Bobulinski, publicly claimed in October 2020 that ‘big guy’ was a reference to President Biden. 

Oversight member Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told DailyMail.com in an interview Archer testified that ‘the Bidens were in the actual business of influence peddling.’ 

‘It’s extremely damning,’ she said, claiming that the 20 phone conversations Archer referred to were directly about business deals. 

‘We have Devon Archer coming out and telling the truth that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden spoke over 20 times about his business deals, not about the weather, not about what was for lunch, about his business deals,’ she said. 

Goldman explained Archer’s testimony of the phone calls as such: sometimes Hunter would be at dinner with business partners and take a call from his dad who didn’t know who else was at the table and put it on speaker phone. 

‘There was no indication that he had any idea who was at dinner with them. It was just to say, ‘Hello I’m at dinner’ and there was nothing related to his business dealings.’ 

A Democratic source familiar told DailyMail.com that Archer told the committee ‘Hunter Biden was selling the illusion of access to his father.’ 

Judiciary Chairman and Oversight member Jim Jordan, who was in the room for the deposition, told reporters that Archer had provided the committee with new information and called the meeting ‘very productive.’ 

Archer’s attorney Matthew Schwartz said after his client’s testimony: ‘We are aware that all sides are claiming victory following Mr. Archer’s voluntary interview today. But all Devon Archer did was exactly what we said he would: show up and answer the questions put to him honestly and completely.’

Greene, who communicates regularly with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, said she believed Archer’s testimony could be what ‘moves the needle’ on the potential Biden impeachment inquiry. 

She said that at last week’s weekly meeting of the Republican conference, McCarthy told his members: ‘when it’s time to vote for this, I want you to be with me on this one.’ 

‘We have to have 218 Republicans to vote for it,’ Greene said. ‘And there’s been some that just aren’t there yet, but in my opinion, the information that’s coming out today could really push many of them to get to ‘yes.”

Archer was on Burisma’s board with Hunter, who was paid $50,000 a month for his role. He is facing a lengthy prison sentence for defrauding Native Americans out of millions. 

Is this the oldest case of cannibalism? Cuts made on a bone from a mysterious human relative 1.5 million years ago reveal they were butchered and likely eaten by one of their own

By Stacy Liberatore For Dailymail.com

Updated: 15:32 EDT, 26 June 2023

Prince Harry today told the High Court what he believed was in the public interest – amid a series of testy exchanges with a lawyer who told him: ‘Could I ask the questions?’ 

The duke – who is suing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) for damages over claims journalists at its titles used hacking, ‘blagging’ and other illegal means of deception – repeatedly clashed with the KC representing the publisher during the second day of his cross-examination.

Andrew Green KC told the prince after one fractious exchange: ‘Could I just repeat what I said yesterday – this is about me asking you questions, not you asking me questions.’

Meanwhile Harry repeatedly pushed back against the barrister’s line of questioning, telling him several times: ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

Harry, 38, alleges that about 140 articles published between 1996 and 2010 by MGN publications contained information gathered using unlawful methods, and 33 of these have been selected to be considered at the trial.

Mr Green asked the duke about an article published in the Sunday People in May 2005 about him having a knee injury and fellow cadets at Sandhurst complaining he was given ‘preferential treatment’ by being let off ‘gruelling marches’. 

The barrister asked about a press release issued by Clarence House about the injury, which included a quote from Harry. He asked the duke whether he stood by the evidence in his witness statement, in which he said he wasn’t ‘going around discussing any medical issues or injuries’.

Harry replied: ‘Yes, it is entirely accurate. That is a reference to while I was at Sandhurst and the distrust that I ended up having … with the medical staff at Sandhurst.’

Mr Green then turned to an article published in the Independent newspaper on the same day as the People article, and asked the duke if he accepted there was a degree of public interest in the story.

Yesterday, Harry said there was ‘a difference between the public interest and what is in the interests of the public’.

Harry replied today: ‘No, I do not.’

Mr Green asked the duke what he thought a public interest story about him would be.

‘I’m not entirely sure, I’d be speculating,’ Harry replied.

‘Well could you speculate for a moment,’ Mr Green said.

Harry said it could be in the public interest to report ‘a life-threatening injury’ he had suffered.

At one point in the cross-examination, the royal spoke directly to the judge.

Mr Green responded: ‘Could I ask the questions?’

In another testy exchange, Harry was asked if he would be happy or disappointed to find out that his phone had never been hacked by Mirror Group journalists.

‘That would be speculating,’ Harry replied.

He said there was ‘industrial scale hacking’ occurring at newspapers, so would feel it was an ‘injustice’ if this was not ‘proved’ in his case.

‘So you want your phone to have been hacked,’ Mr Green said.

‘No one wants to have been phone hacked,’ Harry replied.

Mr Green questioned Harry about a September 2007 People article that claimed his relationship at the time was ‘in crisis after a string of bitter bust-ups’.

Harry told the court that the ‘whole article itself is suspicious’, adding: ‘I never discussed with the Palace any details of my relationship with my girlfriend.’

Mr Green asked the duke if he was alleging that information in the story came from phone hacking.

‘Yes,’ Harry said, adding: ‘I say that everything that has been attributed to a Palace source… was obtained unlawfully.

‘The Palace wouldn’t know this information.’

Mr Green said the prince was in the ‘land of total speculation about where this information might have come from’.

‘Not at all, I disagree,’ Harry responded. 

Mr Green also used the phrase yesterday when Harry said he was ‘not sure’ whose phone was hacked when he broke his thumb playing football at Eton and it appeared in the media. 

The duke then claimed another Mirror article about his breakup with Chelsy Davy had been obtained through voicemail interception.

The article ‘Down in the dumped’ reported on an ’emotional phone call’ in which Ms Davy apparently asked for a trial separation.

Harry said in his witness statement yesterday that the piece included ‘a quote from a ”friend”, that said we needed some time out, but that we were likely to get back together’.

But he said neither he nor Ms Davy had ever spoken about what happened to anyone outside their closest friends.

Harry said he thought the information could have been obtained through voicemail, but confirmed he did not specifically recall leaving a voicemail as it happened so long ago.

Mr Green said the trial separation was ‘already widely reported’ in the Sunday papers. ‘I’ll take your word for it, Mr Green,’ Harry replied.

Referring to a December 2007 article about Harry dropping Ms Davy off after she spent the night at Kensington Palace, which included a paparazzi photograph of Ms Davy, Mr Green suggested that was something ‘anyone could have observed’.

The barrister said there were often photographers outside the palace, to which Harry said: ‘They were only there for pretty much emergencies or big moments of the royal family – weddings, engagements, hospital visits.’

Mr Green said: ‘There were there on this occasion’, to which Harry replied: ‘That is why it’s suspicious, my lord.’

The duke added: ‘This to me is incredibly suspicious as I say. She spent the night with me, I was dropping her off as close to Kensington High Street as I could get without being seen.

‘To know that a photographer was there for us, waiting, was highly suspicious.’

The prince said he suspected he had seen the article at the time of publication as he believed his security team would have alerted him to it.

Mr Green also mentioned a Sunday Mirror article about Harry’s breakup with Ms Davy, which was headlined ‘Hooray Harry’s dumped’ and contained reports of a ‘vodka binge’. 

The duke said it was ‘hurtful to say the least’ that ‘such a private moment was turned into a bit of a laugh’.

Mr Green said the name had been used to describe the royal in previous stories.

‘It was not celebrating the demise of your relationship,’ he added.

In a 49-page witness statement unveiled yesterday, the duke said that he found it ‘very hard to trust anyone, which led to bouts of depression and paranoia’.

‘Friendships were lost entirely unnecessarily,’ he continued, later adding that some of his friends ‘became instant targets’.

The duke later said that he can now see ‘how much of my life was wasted on this paranoia’, adding: ‘I’ve always heard people refer to my mother as paranoid, but she wasn’t.

‘She was fearful of what was actually happening to her and now I know that I was the same.’

Mr Green questioned Harry on about 20 of the 33 articles over the course of yesterday.

Harry was asked about why he has complained about articles in MGN titles when the same information had previously been put into the public domain by other media outlets.

The duke said his understanding was that MGN journalists used unlawful methods to get ‘exclusive’ angles on existing stories or to move the story on in some way.

Mr Green also asked Harry about his claim that articles ’caused him to be paranoid and to distrust those around him’, and whether he was referring to specific MGN articles or ‘the general effect of all of the articles’ about him.

Harry said: ‘Yes, because … it is 20 years ago and I simply can’t other than speculate whether I saw these articles at the time.

‘I certainly saw a lot of articles at the time and was made aware … unfortunately, by the behaviour and reaction of my inner circle.’

The duke added that when information he had told to only a few members of his inner circle was made public, ‘your circle of friends starts to shrink’.

MGN is contesting his claim and has either denied or not admitted that articles about Harry being examined at the trial involved phone hacking or unlawful activity.

At the start of the duke’s individual case on Monday, Mr Green said there was ‘simply no evidence capable of supporting the finding that the Duke of Sussex was hacked, let alone on a habitual basis’ and that payment records used in the duke’s claim ‘simply do not demonstrate unlawful conduct or knowledge thereof’.

Harry’s claim is being heard alongside three other ‘representative’ claims during a trial which began last month and is due to last six to seven weeks.

The three other representative claimants are Coronation Street actor Michael Turner, known professionally as Michael Le Vell, who is best known for playing Kevin Webster in the long-running soap, former Coronation Street actress Nikki Sanderson, and comedian Paul Whitehouse’s ex-wife Fiona Wightman.

BELOW IS HARRY’S FULL WRITTEN WITNESS STATEMENT –  

 President Joe Biden said he was ‘optimistic’ of a deal that could avert a U.S. default as he left Washington for Camp David hoping for a signal of progress within hours.  

‘I hope we’ll have some clear evidence tonight before the clock strikes 12 that we have a deal,’ Biden told reporters as he left town at the start of the Memorial Day Weekend.

He spoke hours after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the nation would likely hit the ‘X’ default deadline June 5 unless Congress is able to act. 

Biden said negotiators were ‘very close’ but declared himself ‘optimistic.’ 

‘I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to know tonight whether we are going to be able to have a deal,’ he said.

‘With regard to the debt limit, things are looking good,’ Biden said, despite the White House long disputing that negotiations were about raising the nation’s statutory limit, which Biden thinks Congress ought to do on a ‘clean’ basis. 

The White House has been taking heat, including from Democratic House members, for Biden’s decision to leave town amid the high-stakes talks that could have the U.S. failing to make good on his debts.

He said he was flying to Camp David ‘because my granddaughter graduates on Sunday.’ 

Even with the high stakes global finances on the line, Biden spoke about some other logistics behind his decision. He said the Secret Service ‘is working on my house’ and there’s ‘no place to go at home for five weeks.’ He has previously spoken about bullet proof windows being installed at his Wilmington home.

Biden didn’t otherwise speak on the standoff publicly Friday, although at one of his events, where he hosted the Louisiana State University women’s basketball champs, Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), one of McCarty’s top negotiators, was in attendance. Biden negotiator OMB head Shalanda Young was also there.  

Earlier, Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he believed ‘progress’ was made in debt talks overnight, though the two sides still remain hung up on the biggest part: spending levels. 

‘I thought we made progress last night. We got to make more progress now,’ McCarthy told reporters on his way into the Capitol. 

He said he’d met with his top negotiating deputy, Rep. Garret Graves, for a morning bike ride.  

‘It’s about spending. The Democrats never want to stop,’ McCarthy said. 

Graves and fellow top negotiator Rep. Patrick McHenry were seen entering the speaker’s office again mid-morning on Friday. 

The two sides still have not come to an agreement on a top line number for increasing the nation’s borrowing limit.

McHenry told reporters on his way into the speaker’s office that there were no in-person meetings scheduled between House GOP negotiators and White House negotiators Steve Ricchetti and Shalanda Young for Friday. 

President Biden is headed to Camp David Friday before he plans to spend the weekend at his home in Delaware. The White House insists he can negotiate from anywhere via phone. 

‘We are here night after night after night. The pressure is more, the consequences are greater. We recognize that. The White House should recognize that,’ McHenry, N.C., said. 

Bloomberg reports the two sides are closing in on a deal that would increase the debt limit for two years and would cap spending for the same amount of time – and the deal would claw back $10billion from the $80billion increase in IRS funding Democrats passed last Congress. 

But a source familiar with the talks told DailyMail.com the two sides have not agreed to a top line and have not agreed on whether to extend borrowing for one or two years. 

Republicans want only one year, Democrats want to push the extension through the next election. 

The two sides are also going into Friday hung up on defense spending. 

Republicans wanted a large increase to the defense budget, even as they want to cut spending overall, while Democrats wanted spending cuts. 

The two sides could come to agreement with a small increase – in line with President Biden’s $886.3billion budget request. 

In 2011, the country was in a similar crisis under former President Barack Obama who also faced a Republican House opposed to raising the ceiling.

While the ceiling was raised, the threat of default was enough to plunge the U.S. financial markets into turmoil and the country’s rating downgraded from AAA to AA+ as a result.

A 19th-century painting that appeared to depict a woman using an iPhone hundreds of years before it was invented ignited the imaginations of social media users who said she may have been a time traveler.

The 1860 work — Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller’s ‘The Expected One’ — is just the latest in a line of evidence of seemingly modern technology cropping up in historical photos and artworks.

People are seen with what appears to be satellites and laptops – or with ‘modern’ clothes such as bulky sunglasses that would not look out of place at a Yeezy fashion show and logo-print T-shirts that didn’t become popular until the late 20th century.

However, experts told DailyMail.com that this is just a sign of the times. While modern people will see relics of our own time in these devices, those who lived in the time the art was made would easily recognize the maker’s intentions.

Scroll down to see the seven ‘time travelers’ for yourself

For example, what we see as a smartphone or a laptop with our modern eyes would be recognized as a prayer book or jewelry box for those who lived centuries ago.

Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Investigations Manual, explained to DailyMail.com that these ‘tourists of the future’ would not be using our current technology if they were realtime travelers’. 

‘Why would time travelers who come from the future – when time travel is invented – still be using mobile phones?’ he explained.

‘Wouldn’t it make more sense if they were using something a little less visible, and had technology we aren’t familiar with?’

The Expected One

Internet users pounced on this image as showing a woman ‘using an iPhone’ – in a painting dating from the 19th century.

‘The Expected One’ is an 1860 painting by Austrian artist Ferdinand Georg Waldmüllerin. It currently resides at the Neue Pinakothek Museum in Munich, Germany.

It depicts a distracted young girl walking down a prairie path with a young boy waiting to surprise her with a flower at an upcoming turn.

But, the pose and seeming unawareness of what’s ahead displayed by the girl seems eerily familiar — it looks like she is looking down at her phone.

Gerald Weinpolter, CEO of the art agency Austrian-paintings told MotherBoard, ‘The girl in this Waldmüller painting is not playing with her new iPhone X, but is off to church holding a little prayer book in her hands.’

Retired Glasgow man Peter Russell told MotherBoard, ‘The big change is that in 1850 or 1860, every single viewer would have identified the item that the girl is absorbed in as a hymnal or prayer book.’

The time-traveling hipster

In 2011, a photo from 1941 showing a man dressed in modern fashion emerged on the internet.

Many referred to the unknown man, wearing sleek sunglasses, with a cardigan over a sweater and an unkempt hairstyle, as the ‘time traveling hipster’,

He looks like a person someone would see today wandering the streets of Manhattan or Los Angeles and stands out among the crowd of time-appropriately dressed people next to him.

However, the clothes this fashionable fellow was wearing would make sense for this time.

The photograph comes from the Bralorne Pioneer Museum, and captures the re-opening of the South Fork Bridge in Gold Bridge, British Columbia.

The sunglasses the man was wearing are wrap-around glasses that first hit markets in the US in the 1920s.

His t-shirt also sports the logo of the Montreal Maroons, a professional hockey team that played in the National Hockey League from 1924 to 1938.

While his fashion may have been ahead of his time, this man is dressed in clothing that would make sense for 1941.

The ‘flip phone’ at the 1962 World Cup

Brazil triumphed over Czechoslovakia in the 1962 World Cup final, but it is the device that a photographer is holding that made a picture of captain Mauro Ramos hoisting the trophy infamous.

It appears that the person in the media scrum is holding a flip phone, which did not come to the market until 1996 and was not popular until the mid-2000s.

Given that flip phones are now largely out of fashion, it suggests that the time traveler might have come from the year 2007 or thereabouts, when the Motorola Razor ruled the world.

The fixation with spotting 21st-century tech highlights how silly such ‘time traveler’ stories really are, Mr Watson told DailyMail.com.

It is likely that this photographer is actually holding a box camera.

The time-appropriate device can be controlled with one hand.

In this case, it appears to have an attachment fixed atop of it — likely a flashbulb. 

God, Jesus and a Sputnik satellite

The artwork titled ‘Glorification of the Eucharist’ by Bonaventura Salimbeni has caught the attention of UFO enthusiasts due to its depiction of what appears to be God and Jesus tinkering with a Sputnik-like satellite.

The spherical object in question is a representation of the Celestial Sphere, which symbolizes the universe.

Many paintings containing ‘UFOs’ were highlighted in a book, ‘As the Ancient Chronicles Relate’ by Roberto Volterri.

But art experts dismissed Volterri’s claims.

Martin Kemp, professor of art history at Oxford University, says ‘Many artists used their imaginations to represent celestial or sacred powers.’

Ancient Greek statue ‘using a laptop with USB ports’

An ancient Greek statue – ‘Grave Naiskos of an Enthroned Woman with an Attendant’ in The J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu – seems to show a woman using a laptop.

Or at least that’s what internet users believed. But the reality is a little more prosaic.

Jeff Hurwit, a professor of art history and classics at the University of Orego said, ‘The ‘USB ports’ are drill holes for the attachment of a bronze object, or perhaps a separate piece of marble.

‘The ‘laptop’ is in fact a shallow box or lidded tray from which the woman is about to select a piece of jewelry, as is commonly shown in grave reliefs like this one.’

Woman ‘using a cellphone’ at Charlie Chaplin Premiere

Conspiracy theorists seized on the fact that a woman seems to be using a cellphone in a DVD extra of Charlie Chaplin’s film The Circus.

The woman was caught on film at the premiere of Chaplin’s movie at Graumann’s Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles.

The Circus was filmed in 1928: the clip was unearthed by film-maker George Clarke, and became a hot topic of conversation worldwide.

But it was debunked – the woman is holding a hearing aid which just happens to be oblong.

Speaking to LiveScience, Philip Skroska, an archivist at the Bernard Becker Medical Library of Washington University in St Louis said, ‘As you can tell from these, old-fashioned mechanical or resonating hearing aids were not necessarily long and rounded. Short, compact rectangular forms were not unusual.’

Nicolas Cage’s 1800’s doppelganger

In 2011, an eBay seller attempted to sell an antique Civil War-era portrait for over $1million. 

The inflated price resulted from the man depicted in the photo bearing a striking resemblance to Hollywood star Nicolas Cage. 

The unknown man was photographed in 1870 and is believed to have lived in Bristol, Tennessee.

After it emerged, many began to speculate that the ‘Night at the Museum’ star was actually a time traveler or vampire.

Jack Mord, the eBay seller who listed the photo for the exorbitant price, even titled it ‘Nicolas Cage is a vampire’. 

Mr Cage addressed the rumors on the David Letterman show, a year later saying, ‘Now look I don’t drink blood, and last time I looked in the mirror I had a reflection.

‘So I’m not going with his vampire theory. I’m just not going to do it.’