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Watch cars levitate -- there's a down-to-earth explanation

Technically Incorrect: In China, cars roll up to a junction, lift off the ground and spin bizarrely. A weird magnetic field? Or something more prosaic?

Chris Matyszczyk

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.


flying-car.jpg

Magnetic? Or merely terrestrial?

Viral MTV/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

Whenever I see a UFO video, my default response is to be skeptical.

So when I was sent a video of cars appearing to levitate, I approached with the same life-tortured caution.

It's been quite popular on YouTube and elsewhere, this video. A number of cars roll up to a traffic light in Xingtai, China. A couple of the cars leave the Earth's surface as if someone from above was calling them home.

Was this the work of a strange magnetic field? Was a local David Copperfield involved in creating some magical prank?

It seems the explanation might be more mundane.

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Posters on China's social network Weibo suggest that this blockbuster movie-like event was caused by a cable.

It seems that this cable may have become tangled around the brushes of a street-cleaning vehicle that was on the left side of the road. This made it the perfect tripping mechanism for approaching cars.

This being the World Wide Web, I refuse to believe completely that there wasn't some deep viral intention involved.

However, should you see cars flying up into the sky on your next journey home from a night out, you might first consider that it might not be alien or other celestial powers that are behind the event.

Google isn't that clever yet.