Some pranks just leave you mystified about how the pranksters pulled them off. Or even why they pulled off. There is one such prank happening right now in British Columbia, where authorities are trying to figure out how to remove the shell of an old Volkswagen Beetle that mysteriously appeared above Highway 99 near the Stawamus Chief, a site known for natural beauty and cultural significance to the Squamish nation.
The hollowed-out Beetle has been left perched on a rock face, with a Canadian flag on its hood and a giant white letter E on its roof, perpetually frozen. It’s as if someone had hit pause on a movie in which a Volkswagen Beetle had careened off a winding road. Officials have asked the Royal Canadian mounted police and park rangers to investigate.
Someone Hung A Volkswagen Beetle From A Mountainside In British Columbia
As for the who and why of it all, there are no definitive answers yet, but there is a history we can refer to that might give us some clues. There is a long-running tradition among students at the University of British Columbia of staging elaborate stunts involving full tracking beetle shells, often setting them up in hard-to-reach or highly visible spots like an industrious serial killer’s calling card. It’s the kind of over-the-top prank that only a team of engineering majors with easy access to a mountain of Adderall can even begin contemplating.
But just because they were engineering majors doesn’t mean they’ve earned those degrees yet, so it’s no wonder local authorities were worried about potential public safety hazards. The shell is mounted onto a simple rig of a few wooden planks, which is itself being dangled from some hopefully strong cables. Should one of those cables snap, it could send the shell tumbling down the mountainside onto a road below. If that happened, it would be the first time. Back in 2009, a similar prank ended when a beetle fell from the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge. That prank led to some arrests; luckily, no one was hurt.
Will the masterminds behind this prank ever be revealed? Probably not, which almost makes the entire ordeal even better.
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