The reporter is an idiot, he keeps calling it a “thousand year old artifact”. If the museum really described it as such, they have no expertise. Such an “ancient” item would have to be at least 2,000 years old to be considered “ancient”.

Bread, beer and beef? Why don’t they give him some and see if he quits spinning? I vote for the vibration theory; even though the statue didn’t always spin, I’m sure that whole building has done some settling over the years so it might not be level anymore, or something.

I agree @ccrow. It’s still cool, though!

I think it is something like this

Cool @flutherother. But useless. ;)

@Dutchess_III What, the explanation or the app?

The app.
I agree that the statue rotating is probably caused by vibrations and the nature of the statue…the way it’s built.

Three possibilities from most to least likely

1. A museum employee is secretly turning it and creating an animation, then releasing it as a publicity stunt

2. It’s turning on its own from vibrations from footsteps

3. It’s magic.

An employee can’t be turning it since it is being filmed 24/7 and you would see someone opening the glass case . They’d be fired (or he’d be fired since only one man has a key).

It could be turning on its own from footsteps except it has not been moved. It is where it has been for 80 years and just began turning. I can envision it being jostled around a bit on occasion but we are speaking of a perfect turn while the statues next to it are not moving. You can see the videos on cbs.com .

Magic? I don’t believe in magic.

@Dutchess_III It never vibrated and turned around before. It just recently began turning after being in there 80 years.

@zenvelo it is about 2K years old. At least.

@Aster He wouldn’t be fired if it were a publicity stunt organized by the museum. It’s a time lapse photograph. It’s childs play to turn off the camera when the case is being opened. And even if it’s not organized by the museum, how do you know he’d be fired? It’s harmless, and it’s actually pretty funny. I’ll bet they got a kick out of it.

And isn’t it also strange that the statue only rotates when there is people in the museum, presumably when the person who has the key is there?

http://skepticdetective.wordpress.com/2013/06/23/is-this-egyptian-statue-possessed/

It was free advertising, too.

I wish they’d put it in a different case. I never heard of a museum needing publicity.

ALL businesses need publicity. It brings in revenue.

Goes to show you how much I know. I thought museums were free. lol

IDK. Maybe they are, but they have to get revenue from somewhere.

No, museums are not free. They’re either taxpayer funded (like the Smithsonian), or they rely on memberships and grants.