The car on the roof (Photo: Policia Local LPA) 

On the island of Gran Canaria, one of the Canary Islands off the coast of West Africa, police were called to the neighborhood of La Isleta to witness a strange sight. A small, white car, a Daewoo Matiz, had somehow appeared on the roof of a building.

The car had no plates, and both police and neighbors had questions. Where did the car come from? How did it get up on the roof? Could it fly? Why would someone fly a car up to the roof?

The police initially thought the car was stolen, local news reported, but they were eventually able to track down the owner, who had some answers to the question.

The car had belonged to a relative, and the current owner planned to strip it down for parts. The house on which the car was found belonged to the owner’s mother, and he used a crane to hoist the car to the roof in order to work on it without making a mess on a public street.

There was some question about whether the building’s roof could support the weight of the car, but it turns out that parking a car on a roof is entirely legal. In La Isleta, it apparently was once common practice to use building roofs as impromptu garages for cars that needed work, according to local news. 

For now, the Daewoo will stay on the roof, although the owner has reportedly covered it with a blue tarp, to keep from shocking people with a vision of a flying car. 

Bonus finds: 100,000 sealed records, oldest platypus ever discovered in the wild, the oldest known land fossil (it’s a fungus!), and a turtle hauling a giant gastropod hitchhiker around

Every day, we highlight one newly lost or found object, curiosity or wonder. Discover something unusual or amazing? Tell us about it! Send your finds to sarah.laskow@atlasobscura.com.