Electric vehicles being able to detect paranormal activity has become something of an urban legend. One Tesla driver recently became a believer after he has what he describes as a chilling experience in a cemetery.
Jacksonville, Florida realtor Daly Braxton (@dalybraxton) was driving his red Cybertruck through a graveyard when the car stopped because its cameras believed there was something in the road.
Nothing was there. At least, as Braxton believes, not anything that could be perceived by the human eye.
“So I’m driving, right? Through the graveyard … and my car immediately stopped. As if I hit a pole. I promise to God,” he says. “So I’m like, what the hell is going on? And I look down at my camera, let me show you this.”
The infotainment screen displays an uncanny sight: throngs of people floating around in the middle of the road. But there's no one in front of him.
Can Cybertrucks See Ghosts?
Braxton is one of several drivers who claim they've seen humanoid shapes on their car’s interior display while driving through a cemetery. According to Jalopnik, this isn’t due to the automaker secretly installing paranormal detecting tech in its vehicles. Rather, its exterior traffic monitoring systems mistake headstones and other items for people.
Tesla’s cameras don't display real-time footage unless you’ve switched on your camera/rearview monitoring in Sentry mode. Rather, Teslas' exterior cameras process the surroundings, which is then transmuted to data points that are displayed on infotainment system.
So if a Tesla mistakens one object for another, this perception is then reflected on screen.
Gallery: Tesla Cybertruck
But Then Why Did Braxton’s Car Stop?
The realtor’s surprise is palpable in the video. After all: his screen showed apparitions while he was driving through a graveyard, and then his Cybertruck came to a dead stop.
So what happened? Well, it could be that the visual data in his car’s infotainment system perceived a slew of tombstones as people, and ones that are closer to his vehicle than they appear.
After all, this is the same system that reportedly confused the moon for a traffic light. Teslas have also been criticized for “phantom braking” out of nowhere. American Auto Safety regulators looked into Teslas braking out of nowhere as well, according to a 2022 CBS article. Also that year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration noted that “unexpected activation of braking system[s]” may occur in Tesla vehicles.
In Braxton’s case, there are two possible scenarios. He could’ve witnessed a true paranormal event. His Cybertruck was alerted to the presence of a myriad of different spiritual entities that wanted to halt his commute. And that there were so many of them that it convinced his car they were actual people, prompting his car to strike them.
Or there’s another possibility: he was driving a model that has had several recalls. On top of that, his vehicle's traffic monitoring system is under scrutiny from the NHTSA for sporadically braking, seemingly unprompted. The system also has a documented history of presenting real-life objects as different fixtures entirely in its in-car display.
Braxton did not respond to an inquiry from Motor1.
