Is climate change activist Greta Thunberg secretly a time traveler who has come to save humanity? A 120-year-old photo of a Greta Thunberg doppelganger has certainly sparked the intrigue of online conspiracy theorists.
“The photo, unearthed from archives at the University of Washington, shows three children working at a gold mine in Canada, including a girl wearing Thunberg’s signature braid and stoic expression,” reports The New York Post. “Historians believe it was taken around 1898.”
Here’s both a side-by-side comparison and a broader photo of the young girl to provide further context:
Here is the entire photo. If you click on it, it shows that it has the University of Washington in the lower-left corner. Also, people are idiots if they think she traveled forward into the future. Time travel does not exist. Except in the movies or a book. 🙄 pic.twitter.com/YmJVrMJcvV
— Donna Jonas ☘ 🖖🏻 (@warriorwoman64) November 19, 2019
Though usually done in the spirit of tongue-in-cheek, people on social media openly pondered if indeed Greta Thunberg had the power of interdimensional travel:
So, ‘Greta Thunberg’ is in a photo from 120 years ago, and it’s my new favourite conspiracy. Greta’s a time traveller, from the future, and she’s here to save us. pic.twitter.com/5ObTjPFXvk
— Jack – J.S. Strange (@JackSamStrange) November 18, 2019
Maybe she's not right here, right now. 😳https://t.co/3li2qwMXjZ
— LADbible (@ladbible) November 19, 2019
She is a time traveller 😆@GretaThunberg
1898 – 2019 pic.twitter.com/FP7N3BgM2y— bobby ross (@mertens_tiff) November 19, 2019
Greta Thunberg rose to become a household name earlier this year when she issued a scathing speech at the UN Climate Action Summit, during which she scolded lawmakers for ruining her childhood.
“How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” she said.
Though indeed wild in its own right, the Greta Thunberg time traveler conspiracy theories pale in comparison to those posed about White House son Barron Trump after the public discovered the book “Baron Trump’s Marvellous Underground Journey” from the 1890s, which had more than a few striking similarities to the real Barron Trump. Here’s how Newsweek described it:
There are some incredible connections to be made to the first family of the United States and Lockwood’s novels from the turn of the 19th century. For starters, the main character’s name is the same as President Donald Trump’s son, albeit spelt differently. Trump’s adventures begin in Russia, and are guided thanks to directions provided by “the master of all masters,” a man named “Don.”
Before leaving for his voyage through the unknown, Trump is told of his family’s motto: “The pathway to glory is strewn with pitfalls and dangers.”
But by Lockwood’s third novel, The Last President, things become even more eerily linked to the present day.
The story begins with a scene from a panicked New York City in early November, describing a “state of uproar” after the election of an enormously opposed outsider candidate.
“The entire East Side is in a state of uproar,” police officers shouted through the streets, warning city folk to stay indoors for the night. “Mobs of vast size are organizing under the lead of anarchists and socialists, and threaten to plunder and despoil the houses of the rich who have wronged and oppressed them for so many years.”
“The Fifth Avenue Hotel will be the first to feel the fury of the mob,” the novel continues, citing an address in New York City where Trump Tower now stands. “Would the troops be in time to save it?”
However, as Snopes noted after the Trump time travel conspiracies went viral, some of the book’s similarities were overly exaggerated or misstated. For instance, the name “Baron” referred to the character’s title as an actual baron while the character Don refers to the Spanish honorific title for “Mr.”