Mystery: The Floating Girl in the Woods

Believe it or not, I'm walking on air.

Russia seems to have a monopoly on strange occurrences that have little to no rhyme or reason for happening. Whether it's the sky lighting up at night, people vanishing mysteriously, gigantic craters in the middle of nowhere, or Yetis in good old Siberia, you can count on Russia having it. That said, there are some mysteries that a more, shall I say, mystical sense to them. That's where today's story comes in: The Floating Girl in the Woods.

A favorite among mystery YouTube channels, this video, uploaded by Jebgenij2000 under the name “flying russia girl in wood”, is a mere 43 seconds long. It begins with a man—who’s filming and never seen—walking through the woods with his dog. For those interested, the video is available to watch above. For those who don't want to watch, I'll describe it for you. About seven seconds into the video, the dog rushes ahead and stops near a small clearing. The man catches up and waits back a bit, aimlessly looking around before going to the clearing. It's there that he sees a little girl with a woman in an orange coat; likely the girls mother or legal guardian.

The little girl—who's dressed in pink—is floating roughly fifteen or so feet off the ground. Her arms are stretched out, though she doesn't seem to be at all scared. In fact, she's so calm that it's likely that this is a natural occurrence for her. The other woman it looking up at the girl and also seems to be calm; pleased even. At one.point, the little girls back arches like she's channeling something, though it's maybe two seconds before she's once again in a more casual pose. After that, the dog barks and the man panics. The camera goes wild and after about two or so seconds, the camera fixate back on the woman, whose hand is on the shoulder of the girl, who's landed in the few seconds the camera wasn't focused on them. With that, they run off and the video ends.

While YouTube is no stranger to weird and perplexing videos, this one has caused a fair bit of speculation. Perhaps it's the casual nature of it. Perhaps it's the inclusion of the little girl, or the seemingly genuine reaction of the woman who's with her. Whatever the case, there exist some theories.

The first one is that the girl was channeling a spirit of some sort in a ritual. Russia—as far as I'm aware—isn’t a country known for rituals, save for the one performed to appease the modern day Csar. While that may not involve little girls floating in the air, neither do any others I've ever heard of from any sort of occult related stories. Sure, there have been tales of people who've channeled powerful entities (typically malevolent in nature), but that's all they are: tales. Claims of capturing such events on film have seldom, if ever, been legitimate or plausible. More often than not, they utilize clever usage of wires or CGI. Speaking of that, let's move on.

Theory two is it's a hoax. Whether it not the man's wife and daughter were the two seen is up for debate. Either way, this theory states the man or whoever put the video together used CGI to make it appear as the girl was floating; the dog barking being a cue for then to run off. Counter arguments to this theory say that the entire thing feels too genuine for it to be fake, which is fair. It doesn't have quite the same “coincidence” feel other videos that supposedly capture something weird have. It's entirely plausible the man was recording a day with his dog or because he'd for something interesting there a day or so ago.

Nonetheless, one has to wonder why the women and the little girl would be doing this seemingly so close to a clearing and not deeper in the woods. Callousness isn't uncommon, it absolutely happens. It's plausible that this could've been a trail seldom taken by people who take walks and it just so happened the man stumbled upon it. I guess I'll leave this up to you, dear reader, to decide.

Our third theory is the polar opposite of this one: it's all real. If you wish: take everything I said above and just flip it on its head. For others, this theory states the man really did capture footage of a little girl floating; perhaps even levitating. Nothing more, nothing less.

The fourth and final theory is the woman was using telekinesis to make the girl float. That's an entirely different story, but stories of telekinesis have existed for a very, very long time. Evidence for this theory mostly stems from the suddenness of the girl landing. It's possible the women is experienced with using this power and landed the girl. As for why she was doing this, perhaps it was to practice her power or to spend a day with her daughter or younger relative.

Look levitation is a controversial topic. Much like channeling spirits, summon rituals, Ouija boards, or anything else of that nature. While there are countless claims through history of men and women levitating off the ground, there's no evidence of it. By and large, the belief of levitation is just that: belief. As I've stated before, belief is an extraordinarily powerful thing.

And if I'm to be honest, I… actually believe in it. I remember in fourth grade having a conversation with my homeroom teacher about levitation. I didn't believe it, but he did. At the end of the day, while I was leaving, I passed by the door. He was finishing something and saw me. He called my name and told me to watch him, to which I did. He stretched out his arms and tilted his head down a bit and to my shock, he levitated a bit; a few inches to be exact, and for maybe three or so seconds at the most.

That said, while I believe it may be possible for a human to levitate through some means I cannot explain, I've never heard of an explanation for anything like what's seen in the video above. It's something more than the story I told. I personally don't believe the video is genuine, but I know what I saw in fourth grade and I cannot explain it. You be the judge on levitation as a whole.