OK, we all know technology is getting stronger by the day.... but this is just plain strange.
One short clip has gone viral on TikTok after a woman appeared to freeze in the background of a video.
The footage, shared on the platform last week, seemed to show the pedestrian caught mid-stride, with her hair caught defying gravity, frozen in motion, while vehicles continue moving in the foreground.
The caption claimed the woman “was like that for a minute before” the video, while the voiceover remarked: “Why is she frozen?”
The clip wracked up more than 5.5 million views in five days, as well as more than half a million likes.
It was posted by an account called “unknown1575489”, but no other information on the TikTok user is available as yet, as they don’t have a bio and have posted no other videos.
Other TikTok users were quick to come up with their own theories though, with some joking she was “buffering”, and that she was caught up in the “matrix”.
Another person suggested it was a “paused video of a video”, although others pointed out that a car moves in the foreground while the pedestrian stills seem frozen.
Of course, this is just the latest in a long line of eerie things which seem to have grabbed the internet’s attention recently.
In October, a young woman in an 1860 painting had the whole internet convinced she was a time-traveller of some sort, as she seemed to be holding a smartphone – although experts debunked this theory, saying it was a prayer book.
And then there’s the surge in the use of artificial intelligence in 2023, which is – understandably – making us all question everything, especially after that picture of Pope Francis in a white puffer jacket.
Maybe this six-second video will become one of those internet phenomenons set to remain a mystery forever. Only time (and the social media) can decide.