Vanishing the Statue of Liberty

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Making the Statue of Liberty seem to disappear on live television in 1983 is one of David Copperfield's most memorable tricks. The illusion was a creation of Jim Steinmeyer [1] and Don Wayne, and it is still unpublished. William Poundstone's book Bigger Secrets tells what could have happened.

Contents 1 Suggested possible method 2 See also 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Suggested possible method

In the book Bigger Secrets, William Poundstone published his hypothesis for how Steinmeyer's illusion may have been accomplished. Poundstone suggests that the entire stage and seating area for the audience was atop a rotating platform. Once the curtains were closed, blocking the view, the platform was rotated—slowly enough to be imperceptible. In viewing the video recording a slight wobbling of the camera can be seen, which might lend a degree of support to this theory. When the curtains opened again, the audience was facing out to sea rather than toward the statue. Poundstone also speculates that, once the stage rotated, the statue itself was perhaps mostly concealed behind a brightly-lit curtain tower. To further misdirect attention, there were two rings of lights: one, initially lit, around the statue, and another (dark and invisible at first) in the area the audience would end up facing. When the trick "happened", the statue's lights were doused and the others turned on. The radar blip highlighted in the television presentation was possibly simply an animation. As for the three Kodak flash cameras taking pictures of the statue at the moment that it "vanished," Poundstone suggests that the cameras' tiny flashbulbs would probably not have been powerful enough to illuminate the statue on their own once the main lights had been switched off.

Observing the moving light reflected on top of the radar screen suggests a platform was rotated about 40 degrees.

[edit] See also

• David Copperfield's flying illusion

[edit] References

• Poundstone, William. (1986). Bigger Secrets. Houghton Mifflin. 

[edit] External links

• Vanishing the Statue of Liberty (shortened version) at YouTube (requires Adobe Flash) - video of the illusion, edited and shortened from the original, longer 1983 footage as featured in the broadcast of the TV Special of that year