Magic or plain physics? Video of boy's reflection moving faster than he does leaves Internet stumped
A video clip has emerged which shows a boy making faces at the mirror and then moving away. Looking at the video, you'll see that the boy's reflection appeares to move faster than he does. Eerie? The seemingly normal video was taken by the mother's boy, who then shared it on social media with a caption: "Is it just me or did his reflection walk away quicker than he did?" The video since then has gone viral, leaving netizens scratching their heads wondering if it's indeed some sort of magic?
The video, which has more than three million views and shared more than 109,00 times, was taken at the duo's home in San Antonio.
As reported by Daily Mail, the video that was shared showed the boy making faces while sticking his tongue out in front of the mirror. But he soon loses his interest and walks away. But even before the boy has turned fully, the reflection has already disappeared, appearing to move faster than the child. Twitter has gone into a frenzy ever since the video was spotted as many are trying to understand how it is possible.
"I don't even want to know tbh lol cause that's how a little boy in the scary movie starts lol," wrote one user. Another one added, "'I've never heard of a mirror that's got a .5 second delay." While a third person added, "Everybody knows mirror images are from another dimension, they can do what they want."
However, there were others who believed that there was nothing wrong with the video and it was just the angle of the camera doing the trick in the video. "If you watch him walk up he's leaning on the leg to the opposite side of us. So when he comes back down to both feet evenly plus the angle it looks like he's already turning around," noted one Twitter user. Another added, "I don’t see anything wrong with this tbh, it just appears faster because of the angle we’re looking at and his blink as he turns."
Another user tried to explain that the video was perfectly fine by sharing a picture of a toddler. The picture showed the toddler's eyes shut in the picture, but when one looked at the screen which had his reflection, it appeared to be like his eyes were open. "It’s called a rolling shutter. The camera records from left to right, it doesn’t capture the entire picture all at once. In this picture, the kid blinked while the pic was being taken. His eyes are open in the reflection," the same user noted.
Jolynn, who originally posted the video on Twitter also agreed with this. The next day she noted that the illusion was caused by a combination of the angle of the mirror, and the position she was sitting in. Nonetheless, the video sure did give to debate among people and some hilarious memes.