Car Buried in Snow

I think it's real. The car top still looks a little moist, so I'm guessing they polished it off before they took the picture. Also note how the lighting and the shadows are exactly how they should be on the car.

It also might be warmer than freezing there, so where the car had been brushed off, the thin layer of remaining snow could have melted. Looks like that good packing snow that you get when its all about to melt, which would explain how they managed to cut such nice walls.

Seems like it could be real. Probably there was some kind of snowslide into a parking lot. You'll notice that the door of another parked car can be seen to the left of the uncovered one.

Why would they dig a square around the car? Don't they need to get it out, or are they just showing it off to passing aircraft (maybe UFOs)?

Anyone who has ever dug a car out of snow knows that you can never get all of the snow out. Zoom in on the car. It appears as if the front end of the hood is buried, but there is not even any snow stuck in the cracks around the hood.

If you load the picture with photoshop and zoom in on the edge of the foreground snowbank, and then change to a negative image, the editing along the edge becomes apparent.

It looks as though someone dug a path out, parked there car there, posed for the photo, and then someone edited the front snowbank in.

As for the idea that it was warm out; if that was the case then the windows on the car which is still buried would also be clear.

look! the snow didn't even damage the arial!

I've never seen snow before so I have no comment.
:down:

The more I look at it, the more I think this is a clever fake. I highly doubt that two guys were capable of digging a square hole like that. If anything the hole was dug by an earthmover (look at the huge snow chunks piled behind the hole, too big for a wooden handled shovel!) then the car was placed inside. I agree the front snowbank does look a bit fishy as well.

I think some of you guys have never lived anywhere that experiences heavy snowfalls. I don't see anything fishy about this picture at all. Sometimes it isn't just mother nature that buries your car in a snow drift, sometimes the snow plow ("look, Daddy, another bastard") buries your car or your driveway for you. Also a dark coloured car in the sun can quite easily melt the bit of snow that's left after brushing it off even if the temperature is still below 0C.

I managed an account in New York here a couple of years back. They were having a really bad winter, and the guy I allways spoke to told me that he would be gone a couple of days because he couldn't find his car, said it was buried somewhere in the snow in a parking lot.

When I looked in photo edit software I couldn't get the effect Rod saw, but then again I'm not using photoshop.

The edges of the snow where it is so square looks fishy, but on the other hand I have seen snowdrifts this high. (I'm from Canada remember, and my Mum lives waaaaaaaaaay up north.)

To my eyes the picture doesn't look obviously Photoshopped - note the second car embedded in the wall to the people's left, which looks real enough. Nonetheless it does seem mighty odd that they would dig an impressively square hole around the car, rather than simply digging a path for it to drive out. It looks for all the world as if someone has used a big digger to chomp out a hole, and then the car was craned in; or that it's a toy car, and the people have been pasted over the image. The bigger question is, why are they bothering? They're not going anywhere in that weather, not in that kind of car.

The reason why the area around the care is square is because they propped up boards around the car to prevent the snow from caving in on them and the car. Simple explanation.

D'oh! That makes sense. if the photo is real, I'd do the same thing.

I love how their hands reflect off the roof of the car even though the sky is overcast and there would therefore be no reflection.

Actually even in the darkness of my room right now I can still see somewhat of a reflection when I hold my hand over the glass top of my desk. Now combine that with the glossy finish of a car and mild lighting and that explains it right there.

it might be my bad eyesight, but if im right i love the touch of the blue shirt hanging in the back of the car!
if this is real however (i dont think it is) they musnt like their neighbour that much - all that effort they could have dug a bit further! Also - why isn't the owner of the other car digging his/her car out? they must be nearby, I don't think they'll be going to far in that snow?!?

Because both cars are in the same driveway? They're probably both focusing on one car at a time (and I'm assuming they went with the most expensive car first), instead of working on both cars at once. That's alot of shoveling they had to do, remember.

While I have seen cars and other things buried under heaps of snow similar to this...I think this picture is just a fake. I've done a lot of digging in the snow and the pattern matches in no way. Has to be larger machine of some sort.

Then that has to be one of the best Photoshopping jobs ever since that's a real situation people deal with and the picture isn't far-fetched. The lighting is accurate, the shadows are accurate, the car is obviously still wet, and the digging pattern in the square shape is standard. The snow walls are flatted, because they probably used boards to keep the snow out while they were digging. There's nothing about this picture that strikes me as fake, but I can understand it's a little hard to believe for people who've never experienced massive snow fall before.

Like "Blondin" above said, it seems plausible to me. Most likely, this is drifted snow rather than plowed snow. Plowed snow would be very dense and compact, while drifted snow would be a lot easier to heave about.

If you're going to dig out a car and get a picture of it, you may as well make the corners neat and tidy. While you're doing that, the black car will warm up in the sun and melt the sun.

The first car to be dug out will be the hardest (i.e.: the most work.) Any subsequent nearby cars to be moved will have a nice big gap to dump snow into, or manuever the car through. The first car to be dug out might be owned by the guy to needs to get to work (or the store or take care of the family) the most, rather than the most expensive.

A snow drift isn't going to hurt a car. (But an 11 year old bounding through the snow might...)

It is oviously a staged picture. The snowbank and cut-out look exaclty like those made by those big snow-blower trucks they use to clear highways and ski area parking lots with.

The folks in the truck were probably clearing a parking lot. They cut a hole in the bank, parked a car in there, plowed some snow in front, and took a picture of themselves.

The car in the bank on the left is probably real, and is what they were trying to get out.

Used boards to keep the sides up? Really? It is obvious you really know nothing about snow.

If you need to prop the sides up, when you remove the boards the snow will simply collapse. Unless the weather hits 40 below for a few days, the snow will not solidify enough to remove the boards.

Again, if the snow melted off of the car that is dug out, it would have melted from the window of the buried car.

As for the machinery to dig the hole, there is a chance, but if they did, then they marked up the sides with shovels when they were done to make it look better. The sides simply do not have the toolmarks to show anywhere that anything other than a shovel has been used.

Now take a look at the size of the hole. How much snow was removed from it? Lots. Where did it go? There is very little piled around the top. Nobody gets out of a hole to carry the dirt (or snow) twenty feet away while they're digging a hole straight down now, do they?

And my main point, WHY? Why dig a square hole around a car? Where are you going to move the car to?

Maybe they just dug it out to get at their bong.

Okay wanna see something neat?

This is Rod admitting he was wrong.

:red:

I took another look at the picture, and I seem to have mistaken the pixellation effects of the camera that was used as photoshopping.

Sorry.

Also, when I was looking at the pic again, I thought of an optical illusion. I think what I came up with is probably what happened. And this would explain why they dug the hole.

http://www.villagephotos.com/image.asp?id_=12100030

But all of the stuff I said about cars and snow still applies.

Therefore, as Mayor Diamond Joe Quimby would say, "I am flip-flopping." I think it is a real photo with an optical illusion built in.

Not a fake. YOU get snowed in for more than a couple of days and see what happens. You'll do anything for entertainment. Also, a nice, fluffy, light snow is easy to move with a shovel, and a snow shovel makes a wide, flat cut. Just like the cuts you see on the side of the snow in the pic.

I think it was a couple guys sitting around having a beer after being stuck inside for a week. They wanted to show the world just how miserable it was so they grabbed their shovels and started digging.

No Peter, I think you're the one whose mistaken. You've obviously never experienced their situation before judging from your post.

Why bother? Where the heck are they going? I agree, why would they did straight down and not some kind of path? It looks believable enough, but my question is why would anyone expend all of that time and energy when you clearly can't drive the car anywhere? Did they do it just for the cool picture? I've dug my car out of snow before, (not that much, but still) and believe me, if it's for the purpose of using the car, you really only dig out as much as you have to in order to get the car out. It seems to me that they really went overboard with the digging for some other purpose, don't you think? Either they were really bored or thought it would be cool to achieve some kind of internet fame. In any case, that's an aweful lot of work!
I live in the south now and I don't miss the snow!
Cool picture though.

It could be out of sheer boredom or something like "Oh man this would be a funny picture", or they could be doing it because they don't want to damage the car, since it's being submerged in snow for what looks like an extended amount of time.

Well, I dont think they actually went overboard digging; after all they had to drive the car in there, and also have room to open the doors, and get at the trunk and stuff. And the bong.

They probably just guessed at what size to dig the parking spot.

I think Peter's explanation is the best one. Snow plows dug the hole and they pulled the car in there and made it look like they had dug all that.

I think it's real.

Why dig a square? I think they have started digging from the rear of the car and are working towards the front. They are taking a break (not done yet) and posing for a photo.

Why isn't the snow melted off the car to the left?
1. That area may be in shadow (it doesn't look very sunny out anyways- the background looks pretty misty).
2. They may have just dug out that area (more recantly than uncovering the top and windows of the car on the right) and the snow has not had a chance to melt off.

If the care was driven into an opening made by a large snow removal machine (this snow is way too deep for the average pick-up truck plow), and then plowed in, the guys would have to neaten it up anyways, because the plowed in snow would tumble over the front of the car.

When the weather is like that, how easy is it to get in cahoots with a plow operator for a funny photo? Aren't they busy doing their jobs?

I translated the page looking for clues, all I can tell you is that the headline above the image says "Boss, I will be in late!" in Dutch.

There is a comments area on the page, but one needs to register to see it, and my attention span for translated foreign language websites is pretty much used up for today.

one more thing: the guy who posted the picture on the dutch site can be reached at this email adress: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) .

*shivers* Lordy Lou, that remindes me of the first time I had to dig my car out of the snow. There was three feet of snow covering it and the snow plow had piled up the snow another foot or so... I resolved there and then to never go two months without shoveling my car out of the snow.

It wasn't so bad though... One of the girls in my hall actually shoveled out an entire car before realizing that it wasn't even hers.

Without prejudice as to this being a fake, if you've had a big snowstorm and have shovelled your sidewalk, your front walk and everything else - it's worth it to go to a bit of extra effort to make the shovelling more fun. If this is real, I suspect these guys shovelled down from the top, just to see if they could. To me, it looks as if there is extra snow piled up around the top of the hole, less smooth than what can be seen on top of the car to the left. This doesn't look like plowed snow to me (too clean). The snow looks less deep towards the front of the picture, suggesting that they might have just a few feet to shovel to free the car (one might very well shovel drifts off a car even if there was no possibility of moving it immediately, as snow can harden up and get icy and miserable to shovel within a couple days after falling). As to there not being any snow on top of the car, around here we tend to start the car at some point during the digging-out process, just to help melt off the windshield and rear window. Snow melts together a bit from the car's heating up, or from the sun hitting the car, and comes off the car very cleanly in clumps.

It does not matter how the hole got dug.

It does not matter how the car got clean. The car was not in the hole when it was cleaned. It was moved in on the path which is almost hidden on the left-hand side of the picture.

This is a clever optical illusion picture.

That's it, that's all.

There should be a lot more snow around the hole.

The men and the car look extremely sharp in comparison to everything else...

Even factoring in the snow.

At the left there still is a car visble deep in snow, when you look inside the car yiu see snow.
When you wipe snow away you are left with a clean surface since snow is water.

When you leave a car outside and there is a snowfall of 1 meter not only will there be snow on the ground but also a meter of snow on top of the car.
etc.etc.
It

At yhe left there still is a car visible deep in snow.
When you look inside of the car you see snow.
If a meter of snow falls it will pile up 1 metre high on top of the car too.
When you wipe of the last bit of snow the surface will be clean (snow is water).
If you dig neatly this is an easy thing to do with no harm to the car.
It

woops
first post didn

I believe the pic is real. If you have ever been in a snowstorm in South Dakota or anywhere north and ya get alot of snow and drifts, you would know that this kind of stuff actually happens. 5 years ago when we had 28 inches fall overnight I had to dig my car out in the same way so the snowplows and payloaders could remove the snow from the street. we chiseled off all the snow around the car and then pulled it out the rest of the way with a pickup. It left a perfect indentation in the side of the drift, rearview mirror and all. After digging it out you can brush off the rmaining snow with a car scraper/brush and get the same shiny effect of the roof and metal.

Having grown up in Winnipeg I can attest that there is nothing unreal about this photo. While it's not common to get snow that deep in one snowfall it's not unheard of to get a few 2 or 3 day blizzards that bury everything under several feet of snow.
The worst one I remember was in 1966. Some of my neighbours dug their cars out even though they couldn't go anywhere because a) they were going to have to dig them out sooner or later anyway, b) snow is easier to shovel when it's fresh, c) they wanted to make sure the plow could see the cars when it did finally come down our street.
I also remember seeing people putting signs in the snow to show that a car was buried underneath. Occasionally the roads would be so bad that nobody but snowmobilers and emergency services (in military troop carriers with tank treads) could get anywhere. You wouldn't want one of those parking on top of your car.

Snow cleans your car, "snow-shine", it's driving on sanded/salted roads that makes it dirty. A good wind and drifting snow can do amazing tings in a short time.

A clean car is still clean after clean dry snow has fallen on it.

"Why would anyone expend all of that time and energy when you clearly can't drive the car anywhere?"
I've lived in high-snow towns in the Colorado Rockies where it was a city ordinance to dig out - even if you couldn't go anywhere.

It's not amazing to anyone who has lived where it can snow 5' of dry & clean powder snow overnight. That's exactly how you dig it out. I compared this to my own car/storm-of-the-year photos and it looks fine. Add in powder drifting which can put an extra few feet on one car but not the next. Those of you who live below 6000' are assuming it's heavy snow. Think about the existence of snow that is only 5% water (in famous ski resorts) as opposed to, say, 30% on the coasts.

Okay, people, if this is so common and all, duplicate the damned photograph with your own vehicle.

Sure, summon up a snow storm for us then.

Yes, being (almost) all powerful, I will. If you fail to recieve it, it's in the mail and will get there next year.

And if you seriously want to duplicate it, snow machines work even in the summer.

I've explained how it was done, not too hard, really.

"Common sense isn't"

i think it is real you can see the other car
next to it buried also. yep it is real.....

Looks real to me - the car next to them is showing itself as being buried...

I think the picture may be real and unaltered but misleading.

The snowbank in front could have been photoshopped in but I think it could also be that the picture was taken from across the street. If the street is narrow and the snow that deep, a picture taken from that angle could make it appear that the street is not even there.

Since the edges are so clean I don't believe the hole was made with humans with shovels unless they were trying to be really artistic.

So I believe the area was cleared by a machine, a car was parked there, and a photo taken from across the road of the car and 2 guys with a shovel.