Bizarre ‘Smartphone’ Spotted in 1937 Painting

A nearly 90-year-old painting is suddenly going viral after eagle-eyed viewers spotted something that looks suspiciously like a modern smartphone.

The bizarre detail appears in “Mr. Pynchon and the Settling of Springfield,” a 1937 mural by Italian American artist Umberto Romano depicting Native Americans and English colonists in 17th-century Springfield, Massachusetts.

But one figure in the middle of the painting has sparked a wave of wild speculation online.

The Native American man appears to be staring intently at a small, dark rectangular object in his hands — and to some viewers, it looks almost exactly like a cellphone.

“iPhone in painting from 1937 JUST DISCOVERED???” one person wrote on X.

“Now that one actually looks like a cell phone,” another reportedly commented.

The strange object appears dark on the back with what looks like shiny or reflective trim around the edges, fueling tongue-in-cheek theories that Romano somehow painted a smartphone decades before the technology existed.

Some users have even jokingly pointed to the mural as possible “evidence” of time travel.

The artwork was completed in 1937 and is now located inside the Commonwealth of Massachusetts State Office Building, which previously served as Springfield’s Main Post Office.

Romano created the mural as one of six works commissioned for the building. He completed them with the help of students through the Federal Art Project, a Depression-era government program that employed artists between 1935 and 1943, according to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum.

Despite the bizarre resemblance, historians have offered a far less mysterious explanation.

The object is believed to be a small mirror.

Mirrors were commonly traded in the American colonies during the 1600s, making it entirely plausible that the man is simply examining his reflection.

The mural centers on William Pynchon, one of the founders of present-day Springfield.

Pynchon came to North America from Essex, England, and later became a prominent figure in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1636, he acquired land from the Agawam Native Americans that would eventually become Springfield.

Romano reportedly went to considerable lengths to make the mural historically informed, consulting local historian Harry Andrews Wright and author Esther Forbes while developing the artwork.

His goal was to depict the region’s development from 1636 through 1936.

Rather than showing one specific historical moment, the massive mural combines different people, events and themes surrounding Springfield’s early settlement.

Pynchon stands as the central figure while English settlers interact with members of the local Pocomtuc and Nipmuc peoples.

Art historians say Romano’s semi-abstract style likely explains why the supposed “smartphone” looks so strangely modern.

Still, that explanation hasn’t stopped the internet from having fun with the nearly century-old mystery.