Earlier this morning, the police in Olathe, Kansas, posted the photo above to their Facebook page with very few details, only saying that a road in town was closed because this truck had gotten stuck in some power lines. 

At first glance, the photo appears kind of impossible. How did the truck bed get so high? Why is it leaning slightly to its side? 

A closer look reveals some clues—the bed appears to have been lifted up dump truck-style when the collision with the power lines occurred, while the lean might have been the result of the driver trying to accelerate through it, dragging the bed behind. 

The police did not immediately respond to a request for comment about exactly what went down, but in a response to a Facebook commenter they confirmed that it wasn’t a prank or a dare, just what appeared to be a simple accident. (Update: Olathe police confirmed in a Facebook message that it was, indeed, an accident.)

Still, we’ll always have this photo, taken in the early dawn, which is both arresting and slightly unsettling, like an outtake from Stranger Things. Facebook commenters tried as best they could to spoil the moment. 

“There has got to be a way to stop this idiocy,” one commenter said, with outrage that’s perhaps disproportionate to the problem at hand. 

“I feel for this dude,” another said, more empathetically. “I am almost positive this is not how he wanted to spend his Monday.”

But what if it was?

31 Days Of Halloween
October 2017