Case no 0006 - Dr Who?

I have had an exchange of emails with my friend Russell, and also quite an agitated phone call. He sent me a video. He said it showed the face of Elizabethan mathematician/magican Dr John Dee in a can of paint.




For some reason the video played upside down on my computer so I couldn't see the face. There followed a phone call from Russell who had just come back from a school fete with Sachi and Mio - they visit events like this as prospective parents, to check whether the schools will be suitable for Mio. He said it was ridiculous that I couldn't see the face in the can of paint. He said that even Mio had looked at it and pointed and said, 'Face'. I said he should have taken the can of paint to the school fete and asked the other parents if they could see a face in it. I said he should have got irate if they said no.

He sent me another video.




I seemed to recognise the face so I posted this photo on Facebook hoping the face recognition software would suggest a name to tag it with, which it didn't. However, there was a thrilling development. My friend Serena said it looked like the fourth Dr Who, Tom Baker.



Conclusion: Evidence of time travel.

Case no 0005 - American Gothic

INVESTIGATOR: Helen Smith

Notes: I saw the man from this painting (American Gothic by Grant Wood) on the Tube yesterday. I got on the Victoria line going southbound from Oxford Circus and sat down directly opposite him. He was a tall man and he was wearing a pinstriped suit and resting his hands on his knees. I recognised him immediately. Although his clothes were different and he wasn't wearing glasses or carrying a pitchfork, his expression was strikingly similar to his expression in the painting. I stared at him but I didn't speak to him. He left the train at Victoria.

The painting is from 1930 and can be seen at The Art Institute of Chicago. It was painted in oil on beaver board.

Anything else? The Art Institute of Chicago tells us that Grant Wood used his sister and their dentist as models. Other sources tell us that his sister was called Nan Graham Wood and the dentist was called Dr Byron McKeeby.

This photo shows Nan and Dr McKeeby standing next to the painting. Dr McKeeby doesn't look much like the man in the painting - only his glasses are similar. The man on the Victoria Line opposite me yesterday looked exactly like the man in the painting, except for the glasses. Perhaps Grant Wood used his dentist's glasses as a prop and that's what persuaded Dr McKeeby to go along with the subterfuge?

I know that I should have used my phone to try to take a picture of the man on the Victoria Line as evidence. But taking clandestine pictures of strangers seems intrusive and I wouldn't feel right about publishing it here, even if I'd managed to get a decent shot of him.

However, if you compare the photo of Dr McKeeby to the man in the painting, it's difficult to believe that he was really used as the model. His head is too narrow at the top and he's not tall enough. His ears are different. His mouth is different. And take a look at Nan's expression in the painting. She looks pretty much the way you'd expect someone to look if confronted with evidence of time travel.
 
What does it mean? It's evidence of time travel.
 
Also see: Katie Pitts's theory of time travel.

Categorised under: Time travel.

Case no 0002 - Daughter of Herodias

INVESTIGATORS: Helen Smith and Lauren Smith

Notes: There is a painting in the National Gallery in London (Rm 12, level 2) by Sebastiano del Piombro called The Daughter of Herodias. Lauren's friend Katie Pitts, aged around 14 or 15, is depicted as Salome with the head of John the Baptist on a plate.

According to the National Gallery, del Piombro painted it while living in Venice in 1510. He later moved to Rome and became friends with Michelangelo.

What does it mean? It's evidence of time travel.

Anything else? Did Katie travel to Venice in 1510 or did del Piombro come to south London in 1999 or 2000? If SdP came to London, how did he avoid detection? If Katie travelled to Venice, how did she avoid detection? Wouldn't it be great to put Katie in a blue satin dress and get a peaky-looking long-haired chap to lie his head on a tray, and recreate the picture in a photograph?

Categorised under: Time travel.

Edit: When contacted for comment, Katie said she had no memory of time travel but thought it possible that she had posed for a photo similar to the painting, and the painting was therefore actually painted from a photo. She said, 'I think someone travels through time selling these photos for very high prices.' It's a very interesting theory. It means neither Katie nor SdP are time travellers, but there is some unknown intermediary who is stealing photos (from Facebook?) and travelling through time to sell them, perhaps to struggling artists who later become famous, perhaps to established artists who have run out of inspiration or run out of models. If so, he or she will have done it more than once. We need to look out for evidence of other examples of this happening.