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Could it be a ghost? Video of a floating rock in a Japanese cemetery spooks Japanese Twitter

Dale Roll Sep 10, 2019
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The small rock bounced and spun around in the air for almost two minutes, even after being caught and touched by a person.

Cemeteries are spooky places. Being surrounded by monuments preserving the ashes of people no longer in this world is, to be honest, definitely creepy. The somber vibe of the place doesn’t help either. You just can’t help but think, even in the back of your mind, that there are spirits hanging around, watching…waiting.

Some people want nothing to do with ghosts, but some people would love to see them. Which are you? And would you believe a mysterious video of a stone floating in the air in a cemetery?

墓参りいったらお地蔵さんの前石が浮いてた。
隣の石碑倒れてて直したら落ちた。 pic.twitter.com/sHiUTWXG7Z

— 坂井一樹 (@skazuk1929) August 15, 2019

This video was uploaded by Twitter user Kazuki Sakai (@skazuk1929), and appears to show a small white rock floating in the air, moving all over the place, in a small space surrounded by Jizo statues.

At first, when the video starts, you don’t know quite what you’re looking at, but once the focus is on the right spot, you can see a small, white thing that appears to be bouncing around in the little square in front the statues. It looks a bit like a flower petal picked up by the wind, but it doesn’t quite seem to be moving like one. An older man bends down to get a closer to look at it, and after a few seconds begins to reach his hand out to touch the space around it. You can see that it’s actually floating high enough off the ground for his hand to fit underneath.

A small crowd is apparently watching, and their puzzlement is evident in their comments. “It isn’t a stone, is it?” “Creepy!” “What is going on?” It then begins to spin quickly while rocking back and forth as it hovers over the ground. Someone suggests that it’s a bug, so the man flaps his hand at it, but that doesn’t affect the stone’s movement in the least.

Then someone recommends he touch it, so he scoops it up in his hand, where it lays for a little bit. He examines it, and confirms it to be a small, light rock. It’s hard to see in the video, but it does appear to have angular edges. Shortly afterwards, it floats off of his hand, and flies almost jubilantly in buoyant in circles, towards the Jizo statues and back.

At this point the spectators are convinced that it’s a spirit, and guess that it was happy to be touched, considering how joyfully it seems to bop around in the air. Kazuki, the user who uploaded the video, also mentions that a nearby stone pillar had fallen over, and when they fixed it, the stone fell to the ground. Perhaps the rock had been possessed by a spirit that was awoken by the change in its environment?

Many Japanese netizens would disagree. They assumed that the moving rock was the result of some kind of trick.

“Isn’t it because of magnetic forces?”
“It’s being moved by an invisible thread.”
“Since it’s spinning so much I think it’s caught on something.”
“I know this trick! It’s Wingardium Leviosa. You learn it in the first year at Hogwarts. I can do it too.”
“Before, on TV, they showed a much bigger rock floating around but it turned out to be because of a spider web.”
“Instead of the stone I was more concerned with how long the old guy’s pinky nail was lol”

Still, some netizens were intrigued and found it to be evidence of paranormal activity.

“This is a UFO!”
“When I first saw the video I got chills up my spine, but I feel much better knowing your family was warmly watching over it, and to hear you say it was happy when it was bouncing around.”
“People are saying it’s a magic trick, but why is it so hard to believe that the little rock was alive and happily moving around?”
“When the stone got all happy after it was touched, I thought it was cute. This is definitely more mysterious than scary, isn’t it?”
“That’s very mysterious! How interesting.”
“Please be careful.”

So what do you think, SoraReaders? Spooky phenomenon, or lame magic trick? Or is it some weird result of physics? Either way, a Japanese Buddhist monk says there’s nothing to fear from Japanese cemeteries, so I think it’s safe to say that, paranormal activity or not, this group of people was probably not in any danger from interacting with it.

Source: Twitter/@skazuk1929 via Kinisoku
Images: Twitter/@skazuk1929
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