Users baffled after noticing 'evidence' of time travel in picture painted in 1882

Time travel is something that's widely speculated but near impossible to prove, yet many across social media have put their brains to work to spot often tiny details that point towards someone going back in time.

Often you'll find that theories of time travel relate to the clothes that people wear or their seemingly supernatural ability to predict the future, but this has long been disputed by scientists.

Some are able to achieve 'time travel' by manipulating some foundational scientific theories, whereas if you're a keen flyer you likely engage in a bit of time travel all the time if you're jetting long distances at the right time of day.

However, sometimes all it comes down to is a bit of intrigue hidden inside even some of the most popular artefacts from hundreds of years ago.

One such of these is a painting of a famous poet, and people on social media have convinced themselves that it features an early iPhone version despite being created in the 19th century, as per the Daily Record.

R. Josey and James Archer's 'The Betrothal of Burns and Highland Mary' is an incredibly famous painting portraying the iconic Scottish poet and his lover by a stream, and it is estimated to have been completed in 1882.

It depicts the pair gazing lovingly into each other's eyes, in addition to both their hands holding a mysterious black object, perhaps passing it from one to the other.

It clearly doesn't take much for some people to go wild with their theories though, as they've taken this small black object to be an iPhone, and it does indeed hold a striking resemblance to some of the earlier (and chunkier) smartphones from Apple.

Could this very well be definitive proof that time travel exists - and Robert Burns is at the heart of it all? Probably not, although where's the fun in that.

What you're likely seeing passed between Burns and Highland Mary is a Bible with a black leather cover, and this is revealed in the reason behind their meeting. Famously this scene depicts the moment they pledged their intent to wed one another, and an old Scottish custom dictates that this circumstance would involve exchanging Bibles while stood over a stream.

Not everyone is quite as on board with this time-traveling theory on social media either, as one X user remarks: "So you know, the time travel theorists are saying that an 1882 painting called 'The Betrothal of Burns and Highland Mary' shows a man holding an iPhone. That's their proof that time travel is possible. I will require a little more convincing."

It certainly would appear improbable for the pair to get their hands on a gadget that released 221 years after the meeting took place, or 125 years before it was painted by Josey and Archer, but perhaps that could have helped Burns spread his bardic work even further on Twitter or even TikTok.