Debunked: Ghost car seems to appear out of nowhere! [Illusion]

[Trigger Hippie]

Here's my counter proposal.

The cars enter the intersection. Ghost car swerves to avoid the "first car"



About one and a half seconds later we are at this point. Judging from the tram tracks (in Yellow) they're about in the middle of the intersection.



aerial view.

 

[Mick West]

I guess someone will have to create a full 3D simulation of the event, to be sure.

Not it!

 

[Trigger Hippie]

I guess someone will have to create a full 3D simulation of the event, to be sure.

Not it!

Maybe the guys at NIST are not busy today.

The YouTube video has 2500 views in 2 days (surprising!), so I added a link to Metabunk in the info section. Cheers.

 

[deirdre]

Here's my counter proposal.

if you swerve to your left to avoid the first car, you'd have to do one of those movie skid turns to go back to the right to avoid the collision car. which of course is technically possible since the collision car is still hidden from view.

 

[Trigger Hippie]

if you swerve to your left to avoid the first car, you'd have to do one of those movie skid turns to go back to the right to avoid the collision car. which of course is technically possible since the collision car is still hidden from view.

Sure why not... the road is wet. What's interesting is that the front driver side tire of the ghost car looks to be bent 90 degrees in the wrong direction. Hope nobody got hurt.

It's funny, some people are now claiming that the ghost car had no driver!

 

[Mick West]

I think your suggestion makes more sense in terms of obscuration, but requires some more extreme maneuvers. The rain certainly makes that possible though.

 

[Trigger Hippie]

My scenario also requires one more assumption than yours. The driver would have had to ignore or not see a red light that was practically in his face.

It was a fun exercise, and after having looked at that intersection from every angle in Google Earth, I came to the conclusion that I'll never willingly drive a car in Moscow.

 

[deirdre]

My scenario also requires one more assumption than yours. The driver would have had to ignore or not see a red light that was practically in his face.

It was a fun exercise, and after having looked at that intersection from every angle in Google Earth, I came to the conclusion that I'll never willingly drive a car in Moscow.

well who would expect a red light 20 feet after a green light? that's just bizarre.

 

[Trigger Hippie]

well who would expect a red light 20 feet after a green light?

Canadians?

BTW, what did you mean about our intersection lights being in the wrong place?

 

[Mick West]

well who would expect a red light 20 feet after a green light? that's just bizarre.

180 feet. The street view images are a bit misleading.

 

[deirdre]

180 feet. The street view images are a bit misleading.

math ; ( so if I'm going 20 miles an hour that's 1.5 seconds, right?

 

[Mick West]

math ; ( so if I'm going 20 miles an hour that's 1.5 seconds, right?

6.1 seconds

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=180 feet at 20mph

 

[wotgorilla]

What the hey, guess I'll throw my hat in. Any scenario involving any approximation of the straight line traversal seen of the ghost car wouldn't work. It's just too long to be hidden by the car approaching it's left side. It would have to be approaching it close to head on for the last bit, and a car can't make that small of a radius turn to remain hidden. Fishtailing would do the trick, though. And if it recovered shortly before it was seen, it could have remained hidden. This would explain the wheels appearing to be turned all the way to the left, as most people over correct to try to get out of the back end breaking loose in that direction, generally resulting in a complete loss of control. Hope I explained that sufficiently.

 

[Trigger Hippie]

I guess someone will have to create a full 3D simulation of the event, to be sure.

Not it!

Done. Thanks to Michael Robb

 

[Anirudh A Dwivedi]

At 0:10 in the video, you will see the lights of the ghost car under the car being followed by the camera. Maybe this will help.

By the way, why would anybody follow a car with a good resolution camera? Unless its the police keeping the video for the record?

Think about it.

 

[Mick West]

By the way, why would anybody follow a car with a good resolution camera? Unless its the police keeping the video for the record?

http://www.wired.com/2013/02/russian-dash-cams/

 

[Anirudh A Dwivedi]

Thanks man!

For me it was kind of weird being from India where this isn't followed. But its really useful.