For all the "Back to the Future" fans, who fantasized about cruising around on a flying skateboard, the recent YouTube video that has been making the rounds must have been like a dream come true. But sorry folks, it is definitely a hoax.
Recently, a company known as HUVr Tech released a video, claiming to be a "completely real" demonstration of a 'hoverboard', similar to the ones shown in "Back to the Future Part II" (1989). But here are five reasons why it is definitely a prank and a complete hoax:
- To add credibility, HUVr brought in famous skateboarder Tony Hawk and a whole lineup of famous people, including Los Angeles rapper Schoolboy Q, Best Coast's Bethany Cosentino and Christopher Lloyd. The video shows them taking the test around Los Angeles. But then the project's "engineer" seen in the video is an actor. Why use an actor and call him an engineer, if not to promote a hoax?
- In the video, one can clearly make out that a harness has been used on the celebrities. Though the harness has been digitally removed, the tension around their shoulders gives it away. But the biggest giveaway is the shadow of the crane holding them.
- The HUVr tech claims that the board uses liquid nitrogen as propellant. While it is true that liquid nitrogen was used as a propellant in rockets, for using it on a flying skateboard, the size of the hoverboard will have to be much bigger to store the fuel.
- The HUVr team claims to have developed the hoverboard back in 2010 at MIT's Physics Graduate Program. It is definitely a hoax, because if it was real why wait till 2014 to show off something that could have been the invention of the century!
- While getting Lloyd, who played Dr. Emmett Brown in the "Back to the Future" series, for the video does makes sense, it also gives rise to the speculations that may be the hoverboard hoax was created to bring back a fourth instalment of the movie. And the hoverboard is just a teaser for what is yet to come - "Back to the Future Part IV"
