XINGTAI, China — Witchcraft? Or some kind of supernatural force?
These were all reasons Internet theorists put forward when a video emerged out of China last week appearing to show cars mysterious lifted up by an unseen force.
Camera surveillance footage showed three cars at a busy intersection in Xingtai, Hebei lifting up in the air for few seconds, bouncing like ragdolls and then falling back to the ground, one car landing on its side. Shocked bystanders begin running away.
Thousands shared the video of the seemingly gravity-defying accident.
But the answer, it turns out, is much more pedestrian. A fallen cable wire had gotten tangled up in the street cleaner vehicle visible to the right side of the screen, creating a tripwire.
“I was driving slowly straight ahead,” a driver of the van told CCTV. “All of a sudden, I was lifted up. The street cleaner car snagged on the wire. The wire just so happened to be underneath our car and it sent us flying.”
Luckily, nobody was injured in the accident.