The genius inventor Dr. Emmett Brown was the instigator of all the haphazard happenings seen in Back to the Future, although the opening scene hints at experiments that we never got to see. While the Hill Valley teenager Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and the eccentric scientist Doc (Christopher Lloyd) embarked on three distinct adventures in Robert Zemeckis’s Back to the Future franchise, none of this would have been possible without Doc’s discovery of the secrets of time travel. Although most will be familiar with the iconic retrofitted DeLorean time machine, the movie offers clues about Doc’s unseen experiments.

The opening scene of Back to the Future was a masterclass in visual storytelling as things began with a tracking sH๏τ of Doc’s cluttered garage. With ticking clocks and wild contraptions, we see burnt toast popping and mechanical arms opening cans to feed Doc’s dog Einstein, who is nowhere to be seen. Even before Marty arrives and famously blasts a giant speaker with one overpowered guitar strum, the audience is fed visual hints about Doc’s eccentric lifestyle and ongoing time travel experiments. Some fan theories even suggest this scene holds hidden insight into the development of the DeLorean.

Theory: The Clocks In Back To The Future’s Opening Scene Are An Early Time Travel Test

Back To The Future’s Opening Scene Was A Masterclass In Foreshadowing

Back to the Future begins appropriately with the sounds of several ticking clocks littered across Doc’s chaotic workstation. These opening minutes were packed with clues about Doc’s mysterious endeavors, as even before we meet him in person at the Twin Pines Mall parking lot, it’s made clear that he’s one in possession of the stolen plutonium being discussed on the news. When the clocks go off at once, Doc tells Marty over the phone that they are all 25 minutes slow and “my experiment worked.”

While it’s easy to view this as just a quick example of Doc’s eccentricities, these clocks hint at an earlier time travel test or tests. Although it was Doc’s canine companion Einstein who boasts the тιтle of the world’s first time traveler, the fact that these clocks were 25 minutes behind indicates that Doc actually sent them to the future and was careful to make sure no living creatures were used in the earliest stages of his experimentation.

It Makes Sense That Doc’s First Time Travel Experiment In Back To The Future Isn’t His Dog

Doc Had Already Ensured Einstein’s Safety

It’s a relief to know Doc’s very first time travel experiment wasn’t with Einstein, as it feels out of character for him to risk his dog’s life without being sure that the DeLorean was safe. After Marty met Doc outside the Twin Pines Mall, we see his first onscreen experiment when Einstein was successfully blasted forward in time by one minute, leaving at 1:20 am and arriving at 1:21 am on October 26, 1985. With Marty filming the whole experiment, the arrival of Libyan terrorists looking for their stolen plutonium set in motion Marty’s journey back to 1955.

While Einstein was unaware of what had happened, it feels appropriate that a dog named after the theoretical physicist who developed the theory of relativity would become the first time traveler. Although Doc was about as close to a mad scientist caricature as one could get, he was still a man of incredible empathy, and he wouldn’t needlessly risk the life of an innocent dog. As one of the best sci-fi franchises of all time, it’s amazing to see how fans are still spotting new aspects of Back to the Future four decades after it first hit theaters.