Sad news, levitation fans: Dynamo, the magician who caused a stir in London earlier this week by appearing to levitate alongside a double-decker bus, was not, in fact, levitating. It was an illusion. According to a crowdsourced investigation conducted on Australia's news.com.au Facebook page, Dynamo's "arm" was actually a steel prosthetic that was fastened to the bus. A harness lifted Dynamo into position, the site concluded, as his hand was tucked inside.
A video of the stunt, which was sponsored by Pepsi Max, was thoroughly dissected.
"His fingers don't move in the clip and there are no people around when he hovers up and down the bus," the news site noted. "In fact, at second glance the arm attached to the bus looks pretty phony."
Of course, Dynamo's not the first illusionist to pull off a levitation stunt using a fake arm.
As news.com.au notes, Johan Lorbeer, a German street performer, has been "hanging off walls in all sorts of impossible locations, including the sides of street buildings and shop facades since 2002."
An Agence France-Presse photo showing one of Lorbeer's fake arms was held up as proof of Dynamo's trickery.
But like most magicians, Dynamo refuses to reveal how he did it.