It would make us double-take, to be fair
People on social media are convinced that they have seen a "glitch in the matrix" after stumbling across a clip of a
plane stood still and floating mid-air.
The video itself was originally posted on
TikTok before being reshared to the
/Damnthatsinteresting subreddit last week. It shows a small prop plane hovering in the same spot above a suburban street somewhere in America.
While we're sure there is a logical explanation, it does look pretty weird at first glance. Even more curiously, if you go to search the account on TikTok, it is no longer anywhere to be seen. We're not suggesting anything but it's certainly an intriguing one...
Unsurprisingly, many people remarked along the lines of this being proof of a "glitch in the matrix"; one person even said, "There’s nothing in this video that proves the answer isn’t aliens", and we have no idea whether he was joking or not - and that's the beauty of
Reddit.
Well, sorry to spoil the party but as plenty noted in the comments, this is actually a rather common sighting and despite the person recording's confusion, there's a
very simple explanation for it.
As the top commenter goes on to detail: "This is one of the most fun things to do in small prop plane", adding that they "used to do this with [their] students all the time.
"All this takes is a very strong headwind. Point the plane into the wind, slow the aircraft to its slowest possible airspeed and bam, you have a 0 kt [knots] groundspeed. It is possible to fly backwards if the wind is strong enough."
In fact, as others went on to point out, there are even purpose-built glider planes designed to achieve effects like this. Aptly called gliders, they have "special wings and a tail to catch updrafts and stay up in the air for hours with no engine to power it at all. Just gravity, wind and some ingenuity."
Just think of a bird hovering on the wind rather than having to flap its wings all the time. Both look cool and a bit surreal if you stare at them long enough, but it's just ordinary physics.
So, while it might have been a rather cool-looking and admittedly clever marketing stunt for whoever was flying the banner plane, it's still not quite proof of
simulation theory.
