Photo of Ancient Communication Tool Surfaces
Long thought to be extinct, a Hanging-telephonepay-asauras, commonly known as the payphone, was spotted in the wild recently.
Rumors had been circulating for years about the continued existence of these once ubiquitous creatures. But, there had not been a confirmed sighting or photograph of one in its natural habitat for nearly a decade.
Recently, I was in Nebraska and saw one. In the photograph above you can see that it's a real working pay phone. It is hanging on the side of a gas station. You can see the tell-tell makings of the pay phone near the top of it rectangular shape, the slot for for a type of money once called coins and the lever that theoretically would bring forth coins from deep within the box.
One can also observe the silver cord connecting the rectangle to what is known as the handset, or receiver. Finding a specimen with the handset still connected to the rectangle is quite a rare.
Notice that the payphone is covered with curious marking. We have no way of knowing for sure, but the leading hypothesis is that the makings told ancient peoples how to use the device. Though some researchers contend that the markings are part of a sun-based calendar like Stonehenge.
You can't see it in the photo, but hanging from the payphone was a sort of rope with the remains of what looked to be a primitive form of the internet known as a phone book. The phone book was a collection of information that our ancestors would physically search, it is said they would walk with their fingers. Even more fascinating is that the phone book that was hanging here probably only contained information about the area surrounding the payphone, not the entirety of human knowledge as we would expect today.
While this was quite a find, proof is still sought of the continued existence of the cousin of the hanging payphone, the Glassenclosed-phonepay-asauras. These rare creatures featuring a payphone enclosed in a glass box. Old legends say that these 'phone booths,' as they were known, had the power to travel through time if one could recite the seven forbidden words.