While it looks like a scene from a horror film, a video showing a little boy’s reflection seemingly moving faster than him, is very real, and very terrifying.
The video was shared online by the boy’s mother on Monday (August 20), but had apparently first been captured on Snapchat.
The young boy was playing in front of the mirror at his home in San Antonio, Texas, when the creepy video was taken.
The caption reads:
Is it jus me or did his reflection walk away quicker den he did? [sic]
Check out the disturbing video below:
The mother filmed the child as he was pulling faces in the mirror. He stuck his tongue out at his reflection before losing interest and turning away – but the mirror seemed to be one step ahead of him.
The boy’s reflection appeared to take a step back from the mirror while the 3D, real life child didn’t look as if he had moved.
Like I said, creepy.
The video was posted in slow motion, which only serves to emphasise the movements of the ghostly reflection.
Jolynn, who posted the video, added ‘the more I watch this, the crazier it gets’, and most viewers of the video agree.
The post was quick to receive comments about the confusing scene which was shared more than 110,000 times, at the time of writng.
One person wrote:
Everybody knows mirror images are from another dimension , they can do what they want….
While another added:
i dont even want to know tbh lol cause thats how a liitle boy in scary movie starts lol [sic]
People also tried to come up with logical theories as to how the video could be explained.
One tweeter suggested the boy and his reflection were actually a set of twins, and there was no mirror, just a frame:
Jolynn debunked the theory however, writing:
there no twins [sic]
The mother did offer one explanation to the illusion though, stating how it was caused by a combination of the angle of the mirror and where she was sitting while filming.
She wrote:
y’all , i get its the angle the mirror was in and i was in . i jus didn’t know the video was gonna blow up [sic]
The angle of the mirror probably does play an important part in the weird scene, as another eagle eyed viewer gave a similar explanation as to why the reflection appears to move faster than the boy.
They wrote:
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.
While there’s probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for the video involving the various angles of the mirror and camera, I think it’s more fun to leave it as the ‘creepy boy in the mirror’ mystery.
It’s probably a good job the boy wasn’t identified. Kids might have made a trend out of standing in front of mirrors and saying the boy’s name three times, to see if he’d appear and stick his tongue out at them!
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.