Summer is nearly behind us. All across Japan, people are turning their air coolers down a touch, returning to sleeping with their feet under the blankets, and stopping to groan “it’s hoooot!” at co-workers a little less often.

But before you put those electric fans away, make sure you take a few minutes to put them to what is quite possibly the best use they’ll have all year: making paper planes magically float in mid-air.

When you watch the following video, you’ll undoubtedly take a moment to wonder whether it can really be done. With almost 80 thousand views so far, YouTube video “Placing a paper plane in-between two facing electric fans” has probably left plenty of others thinking the same thing.

So what exactly happens in the video? Exactly as the title states, two small electric fans are placed facing each-other, then switched on. With both fans at the same height and set to the same windspeed, the wind created by each fan collides with that of the other. Next, a paper plane is slowly and carefully placed into the space where the two winds meet, then let go of.

Ta-daaaa! A free-floating paper plane!

It almost looks as if some kind of anti-gravity system is being used; despite the two powerful forces acting upon it, the plane hangs gently in the air for ten… twenty… thirty seconds! It’s a miracle of modern science!!! Why haven’t we been doing this for years!?

Even so, there are plenty of doubters out there, tapping away at their keyboards like angry grannies who have just witnessed a respected newsreader drop the “f” bomb on live television.

“There has to be a piano string stretched between the fans or something!”

“With the laws of physics in mind, this looks weird somehow…”

“This has to be some kind of trick!”

Oh, Internet, why so cynical? Paper planes can’t float in mid-air unless we all believe! Thankfully, at least one YouTube user could see the fun in the video and was able to suspend their sense of disbelief for a moment, commenting: “Even if it is a trick, this is still pretty awesome!”

We wonder if this is the real deal, too. But, since we’re ultra-super-eco here at RocketNews24 Towers, and, instead of using air-conditioners or electric fans, we employ an innovative new energy-saving dress code, we have no way of testing this out for ourselves. If you have a couple of electric fans at home, or even at work, do us all a favour and try to reconstruct this feat of physics-defying fantasy for yourselves!


[ Read in Japanese ]