Truth behind $400,000,000 Virginia bridge revealed after baffling people by disappearing into water
- This bridge has left social media users confused
- These ‘disappearing cars’ have been seen nearly 30 million times
- But what’s actually happening is rather simple
Published on May 27, 2025 at 9:10 PM (UTC+4)
by Jack Marsh
Last updated on May 28, 2025 at 9:08 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Emma Matthews
As the $400,000,000 Virginia bridge recently went viral, leaving non-American road users baffled, the truth behind the ‘disappearing’ road has been revealed.
The concept of a bridge is no new phenomenon. Neither is a tunnel, for that matter.
Both systems are used to allow cars over or under bodies of water, becoming a necessity for some States.
But when a tunnel and bridge combine in a funky-looking ‘disappearing’ road, it leaves many drivers stumped.
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To locals, the Virginia bridge known as the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel, MMMBT, is just the norm.
But travelers around the world were left perplexed by a trending video on X, formerly Twitter, which showcased cars ‘disappearing’ into the water with no clear direction of where they might end up.
The short clip shows the road heading out over a river but ending abruptly in the middle of the water.
With 28 million views, the video clearly had some people confused, but it turns out the answer is incredibly simple:
It turns into a tunnel.
While it might not be the record-breaker in China, the MMMBT is still impressive.
Built back in 1992, the 4.6-mile road connects Newport and Suffolk by escorting drivers above sea level before taking them down into a tunnel, which rises again on the other side of the river.
All the disappearing cars are doing is driving into a tunnel that drops underneath the water.
The reason for the tunnel is simple, too: to allow ships through.
To avoid any nail-biting experiences like in St Maarten in the Caribbean, the tunnel drops deep enough for even the biggest ships on the planet to pass through the river.
That in turn keeps trade routes open to the docks – key for the Eastern state on the Atlantic Ocean.
It doesn’t seem like it needs a rocket scientist to figure out, but there you have it for the 30-million X users who needed it.
The only question left now is, does the American company that drives scared people across bridges stop halfway and disembark for the tunnel, or do they go all the way through?
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