A viral clip actually shows a dark-haired woman “completely disappearing” behind actress Scarlett Johansson during a red carpet interview.
Following an interview with Scarlett Johansson on the red carpet at the Weinstein Company’s Golden Globes after-party at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in 2006, a clip went viral showing a woman “disappearing” after walking behind the Hollywood actress . The incident sparked many theories and conjectures on social media, with speculation ranging from goofy to ghostly.
In the clip, as the interviewer asked her about the highlight of her evening, the Valentino-clad Johansson faced a brunette woman in a black dress and a man in a dark suit walking behind her in the background. Although the man appeared to pass quickly, the woman in black failed to materialize on the other side of the actress once he passed behind her, appearing to disappear into thin air.
The clip has been shared multiple times on platforms such as Reddit and X (formerly Twitter), and many wonder if this is an editing trick. An account on X asked: “Can anyone explain to me what happened in this video. A woman completely disappearing behind Scarlett Johansson on the red carpet?
Clips posted on “I don’t look 20 times until I try to find a reason to calm down, there was a passage behind her… Omo! There must be an explanation for this… I’ll tell you beg, I’m very interested,” one poster shared, while another replied, “Magic doesn’t happen there.”
However, after further examination and clarification from Johansson herself during an appearance on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon” in November 2023, the mystery was downplayed, when the “Asteroid City” actress revealed that the woman who seemed to have vanished was none other than her. mother, film producer Melanie Sloan, who attended the Golden Globes after-party with her daughter.
Humorously expressing surprise to Fallon at seeing her mother in the clip, Johansson, 39, joked that she had been looking for her for 15 years.
“Oh my God, it’s my mother!” she told the late-night host after playing the clip for her studio audience and viewers. “It’s my mother! It’s my mother! That woman with black hair is my mother.” As Fallon burst into uncontrollable laughter, Johansson continued, “I’ve been looking for her for 15 years. … It’s very strange, she’s all my mother.”
On January 9, 2024, it was shared again by X, this time on the Crazy Clips account, who posted: “Woman completely disappears behind Scarlett Johansson on the red carpet.” However, this time an account named Tuong_Pi Network responded with the same clip but filmed from a completely different angle, finally offering a concrete explanation for the apparent optical illusion involving Johansson’s now-identified mother after all these years of viral theory.
“Here’s the other video with a different camera angle,” the poster writes, alongside a new clip filmed from a wider vantage point, several meters away from Johansson, as she was interviewed on the red carpet .
The text written on the 12-second clip translates the voiceover’s explanation as follows: “Here is proof that the video was not edited. The woman stops at the perfect spot for the other camera don’t see her, apparently disappearing.”
In the clip, as Sloan and her companion pass behind Johansson, she stops briefly at a spot that happens to be completely covered by her daughter’s silhouette while her companion walks by.
Thus, Sloan’s apparent disappearance can be attributed to the angle at which the initial viral video was captured, as well as the timing of her male companion walking by, combined with the fact that Johansson was blocking the view of her mother, who was walking behind her, thus creating the optical illusion that she has disappeared into thin air.
While the clip initially sparked intrigue and speculation, Johansson’s pleasant explanation clarified the situation and dispelled any notion of a supernatural event, and the apparent disappearance was the result of camera angles and timing, rather than a supernatural phenomenon. The incident was a reminder of how viral videos can sometimes distort reality, leading to unfounded theories and speculation.
Snopes has already reported on other original optical illusions.
