The internet has been left baffled by an apparent "glitch in the Matrix" as a reflection appeared to show a car that didn't exist.
TikTok user Eddie took to the app on June 3 and shared a video that has received over 2 million views and thousands of comments as people try to figure out what they are seeing.
In the clip, shared to Eddie's account @breaknpop, he records from a strip mall in Fresno, California, where the reflection of a bright orange Corvette C8 can be clearly seen in a shop window.
Eddie pans around the parking lot, asking: "Where is this car? I seriously don't see that car anywhere."
He wrote on the video: "Glitch in the Matrix?" and asked in the caption: "Can someone explain?"
Thousands flocked to the comment section, where one insisted: "We're in the Matrix for sure."
The term "glitch in the Matrix" comes from the 1999 film The Matrix, in which humans unknowingly live in a simulation that can sometimes defect.
In the movie, the protagonist recognizes the simulation when he notices the same black cat walk past him twice. The phrase is used today when something apparently unexplainable or hugely coincidental occurs.
Other TikTok users pointed out other weird things in the video, including two life-sized mannequins sitting on a park bench and a sign for a bird bath, with one asking: "Do birds read?"
"I don't see the bushes either," another commenter pointed out, and one joked: "That's the portal, it's on the other side."
However, some eagle-eyed users insisted they had found the car in question, the roof of which was visible through the windshield of a black Mercedes at one point in the video.
While some replied to comments pointing out the roof saying they still couldn't see it, others thanked commenters for "finally" showing them where it was.
Eddie later shared a video update where he returned to the parking lot to debunk some theories that the car was actually inside the store or that it was a design on the window.
This time, the reflection showed a series of cars parked outside—all of which were visible.
Apparent "glitches in the Matrix" often go viral online, including a 2022 Reddit post where a man said he saw the same cat every day, often enough that it appeared "impossible."
He then realized there were three "identical" cats all living around the same area and managed to get a photo of the trio together.
In 2017, theoretical physicists debunked the idea we are living in a Matrix-style simulation.
Researchers at the University of Oxford calculated that computers could not efficiently simulate all the aspects of our reality, labeling it "impossible" in research published in Science Advances.
Newsweek reached out to @breaknpop via TikTok for comment.
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Rachael O'Connor is a Newsweek Life & Trends reporter based in Leeds, U.K. Her focus is on reporting trends from ... Read more
