Mystery clouds Times Square kiss for 70 years

The photo bellow shows an anonymous U.S. sailor and woman in a white dress kiss euphorically in the middle of New York's Times Square.

This is the famous — and often recreated — photo that is most commonly associated with the day Japan surrendered in WWII, ending the war on Aug. 14, 1945. This historical day America celebrated, and it is so memorable that students of the future got one of the most ubiquitous posters ever put up on a dorm room wall.

It is safe to say that the image is ingrained in pop culture, it's long remained a mystery. It is a mystery: from who starred in the world's famous public display of affection, to when the photo was taken.

Because their faces are almost completely hidden, many people have claimed to be the famous couple. Conflicting stories are published in books, affirmed by facial recognition experts and sworn by dozens, year after year. The photo is captured by photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt and later showed across the nation on the cover of Life magazine, but even he does not know the identity of the famous couple.

It is just in time for the photo's 70th anniversary, and experts at Texas State University have brought science to the debate and found a dominent piece of the puzzle: the exact time the photo was taken.

USA Today notes that physicist Donald W. Olson and his team, in an article published in the August edition of Sky and Telescope magazine, report that the photograph was taken at 5:51 p.m. ET.To figure out the exact time the shutter went off, Olson's team used maps, archival photos and blueprints to interpret time based on the shadows of the buildings in Times Square.

"As the sun moves across the sky, the shadows of tall buildings in Manhattan move and can be used, just like the gnomon of a sundial, to determine the time of day," Olson explained.

And while "astronomy cannot provide a positive identification of a person ... knowing the precise time of the photograph does appear to rule out some candidates," he told the USA TODAY Network in an email from a research trip in Scotland.

It is rumored that 7:03 p.m., the time President Harry S. Truman announced Japan's surrender, or around 6 p.m., is the time of the photo (as one person claiming to be in the background of the photo had told the Times.)

According to the detailed maps of Times Square, circa 1945, was how they could "understand precisely how the shadow of one building will fall onto a nearby building." Once they figured out which building cast the shadow on the Loew's Building, which is the backdrop to the theatrical kissers, "the astronomical calculations are not difficult."

According to The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo that Ended World War II by Lawrence Verria and George Galdorisi, a book published in 2012 by the Naval Institute Press, the kissers are George Mendonsa and Greta Zimmer.

"However, the book claims that Mendonsa and Zimmer locked lips at 2 p.m. — three hours before Olson's scientifically proven timing.," according to USA Today.

Co-author Verria says "as far as timing, this has absolutely no effect on who is in the picture." USA Today concludes that "The book places Mendonsa, a sailor from Rhode Island, and Zimmer, a dental assistant, in Times Square in the early afternoon. It offers details: Mendonsa was seeing a movie with his future wife when the screening was interrupted with news that the war was over. They left to get celebratory drinks, and wound up in Times Square. At the same time, Zimmer was taking a late lunch and passed through the hub to check out the celebration. As the story goes, a stranger grabbed her, kissed her, and the rest is history."