A story online tells of a woman named Alexandria Alexis who traveled from the year 2025 back to 1898, and disappeared a year later. Today we take a closer look at this story and accompanying photo.

It’s not true.

Let’s first take a look at the tale which has circulated online since late 2013.

Time travel will be invented in the year 2025. How do we know? Because that is the year that this delightful lady claimed to have traveled from. In the year 1898, according the contemporary reports, Alexandria Alexis appeared ‘as if from nowhere’ and took New York society by storm. Some fawned over her while others claimed she was insane. This debate was however rendered moot when, on New Year’s Eve 1899, she simply disappeared…

Time Travel. pic.twitter.com/WmML5ocdCh

— Freaky Mysteries (@FreakyTheory) January 16, 2015

Analysis

The photo above shows actress Grace Rawlinson, taken in the 1870s. Rawlinson is known to have acted in the U.S. from 1870 through 1873 in such Broadway shows as “The Black Crook” and “Ingomar.”

Rawlinson’s name can clearly be seen in the photo circulated above, which was from the Sarony Stereo Celebrities series. A larger version can be seen below. You can see another photo of Rawlinson here.

The legend associated with this photo was created as part of a 2013 online promotion for a The Victorian Academy of Magick, a steampunk/alternate history novel and posted to its Facebook page (which is offline as of May 2016). Since then, several social media “fact” pages have circulated the tale as a real event.

Bottom Line

The story of a time traveler named Alexandria Alexis is not real. The story was created to promote a steampunk novel, and an 1870s photograph of actress Grace Rawlinson was used. Several internet fact pages continue to tell the story as if it actually happened.

If you have additional information about this story or photo, please leave us a comment below.