People are convinced time travel is real after they spotted 'Nike shoes' in a 400-year-old painting

Time travel sleuths are always on the lookout for clues on the internet that coincide with their conspiracy theories. A 400-year-old painting hanging on the walls of the National Gallery has recently caught attention for depicting sneakers with an apparent Nike logo on them. A woman, Fiona Foskett, was visiting the museum in London with her 23-year-old daughter, Holly, when her eyes fell on a portrait from the 17th century, per The Sun.

Upon close inspection, the 57-year-old woman quickly realized that the painting could be proof of time travel. Painted by Dutch Master Ferdinand Bol, Portrait of a Boy depicts a young boy with blonde hair in formal attire appropriate to those times. He holds a goblet placed on a table covered in red velvety cloth. While all of that seemed indifferent, when the eagle-eyed mother looked downwards, she observed a faint white ‘swoosh’ mark, resembling that of a Nike logo, on the boy’s black boots. Unable to wrap her head around how a painting from the 1650s could possibly depict a sportswear brand that was not established until 1964. 

Hailing from the Isle of Wight, Foskett told the outlet, “I was looking at the painting and the trainers really stuck out to me. I said to my daughter, ‘Hold on, is he wearing a pair of Nike trainers?’” She and Holly laughed their hearts out, concluding that the boy was certainly a “trendy-looking youngster.” However, she also considered the idea of time travel in the pursuit to explain the oddity. “Looking at the age, he must have got his hands on the first pair of Nike trainers ever made. Or is he actually a time traveller?” Foskett quipped. Soon after her discovery, curious visitors flocked to the museum. “We are delighted that this picture has been such a hit with our visitors,” a spokesperson for the National Gallery (@NationalGallery) said.

They said the picture “resonated” with their followers once they posted a photo of the painting backed with a trivial question. “We put out a tweet asking people to see if they could spot a more ‘modern’ detail by taking a closer look at the shoes of the eight-year-old boy in the portrait,” the spokesperson noted. According to the report, the boy in the portrait is Frederick Sluysken, the second cousin of the artist’s wife. He was the son of a wealthy wine merchant. The correlation between the painting and Nike is rather inconceivable. The brand was initially known as Blue Ribbon Sports, founded by Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman. The billion-dollar company adopted its new name on May 30, 1971, per Britannica.

Speaking of the iconic logo, the Nike Swoosh was designed by Carolyn Davidson, a graphic design student at Portland State University, per Crowdspring. In other news, this is not the first time time travel sleuths have clawed on a vague proof of time travel surfacing on the internet. Earlier, a monochromatic photo of a young boy from 1941 waiting in line at a movie theatre was speculated to possess an iPad. The snap went viral on Reddit (u/Slow-moving-sloth) and offers glimpses into a historic time in the clicked in the south side of Chicago.