The location of iconic 'ghost car' video has been found after 150 days of research
"Watch this!" your friends say innocently, displaying a pleasant-looking screen filled with lush countryside. Little do you know that your soul is about to leave your body. Watch the infamous ad below:
The prank was a staple of the early days of YouTube; a video which initially just appeared to show a car taking a scenic drive down a country lane.
You can almost imagine yourself there, listening to a roadtrip playlist - or homemade CD, back in those days - and letting the warm air stream in through the window. Why wouldn't you want to watch this scene unfold?
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But then: mystery. The car travels behind a tree and disappears. Where has it gone? You lean in, intrigued, and that's when the mother of all jump-scares hits you.
The sight of a zombie-like figure unexpectedly popping up right in front of the camera has no doubt caused millions and millions of people to jump out of their seats, scream, and berate the cruel person who enticed you into the video in the first place.
The video - which was actually an ad for an energy drink called K-fee - never gets old, and it's returned to the spotlight this week as some determined Google Maps users have managed to track down the location where the video was filmed.
Years after the video first arrived on the internet, Twitter user @georainbolt, who describes himself as a 'google maps player', shared a scene from the video and compared to a screenshot taken from Google Maps.
The images show the same winding road, though this time the surrounding landscape is depressingly brown - evidence of climate change, if I've ever seen it.
Alongside the images, the Twitter user wrote: "we’ve completed the internet', and made clear in a follow-up tweet that tracking down the road was a team effort."
Hoping the successful mission will inspire others, he added: "this took over 150 days to find with multiple people helping. a true reminder; never give up."
The Google Maps user shared another post on Instagram where he combined the Maps finding with a clip from the video and made clear it was 'not a random road', though he was at least kind enough to cut the clip before the zombie man made an appearance.
According to the coordinates revealed by the Twitter user, the road is located in California.
After sharing the revelation with the world, internet users responded to @georainbolt to praise him and his companions for their work, though one questioned how the Google Maps user hasn't yet been hired by the 'CIA or FBI'. With this discovery under his belt, it's surely only a matter of time.
Emily Brown