A self-proclaimed ‘time traveller’ claimed he was from 1958 and visited the year 2050, even providing ‘evidence’ to support his claims.
Sergei Ponomarenko made worldwide headlines back in 2006 after rocking up in Kyiv in vintage clothing and carrying an antique camera.
He claimed to be from decades prior, which as you’d probably expect, puzzled everyone across the world.
Police officers in the Ukrainian capital were left confused after Ponomarenko asked for directions for a street which didn’t exist in current-day Kyiv.
Ponomarenko then told officials that he had been born in 1932 and to be honest, he didn’t look like a regular person back in 2006.
But his dated outfit and a vintage camera weren’t enough for authorities to believe he was a time traveller.
Ponomarenko was subsequently arrested and taken in for questioning, where he then provided ‘evidence’ to support his wild claims.
He held a Soviet document from the 1950s, which he explained showed he was the age of 25.
On top of that, photos from his vintage camera seemingly showed pictures of Kyiv from a previous decade which seemed fitting with the 1950s.
They also saw Ponomarenko in the same outfit he was wearing at the time of the arrest, as he posed with a woman he claimed to be his fiancée.
A less believable picture came from what Ponomarenko claimed to be a UFO flying near a building, which likely didn’t help his cause for people to believe his story.
That wasn’t the end of the story, however.
When authorities looked for records of missing people, they discovered that a Sergei Ponomarenko had been reported missing in 1958.
The woman in the pictures with Ponomarenko stated that her then-fiancé went missing for two years before reappearing.
She also claimed to have received a picture from her fiancé that was apparently taken in 2050.
In the snap, an older Ponomarenko was seen standing in front of what was meant to be a futuristic-looking Kyiv skyline.
Well, after that, Ponomarenko left before he could be questioned again – so maybe he did head for his time machine and visit another year.
The whole story sounds completely mad, which led to YouTuber Joe Scott debunking Ponomarenko’s claims in one of his videos.
The YouTuber discovered pictures developed from Ponomarenko’s camera appeared ‘cloned’ by images used in an episode of Ukrainian TV show Aliens.
And you guessed it, the show features a time-travelling plot.
Scott couldn’t find the original images from the TV show, however, the reenacted material looked eerily similar to that of Ponomarenko’s story.
