How David Copperfield Made The Statue Of Liberty Disappear

March 2024 ยท 1 minute read

As with a lot of magic tricks, the secret behind the "disappearing Liberty" bit is almost annoyingly simple. If you don't want the "magic" spoiled for you, now would be a good time to quit reading.

The secret to the Lady Liberty illusion was nothing more than a rotating platform (via iHeartRadio). Copperfield had seated his audience on a surface that turned via a hydraulics system. He then raised the curtain and kept the audience distracted with loud music and general showmanship, while the platform was slowly rotated a few degrees. Then, when the curtain was lowered, one of the pillars that had previously supported it now blocked the audience's view of the statue. In the area that the platform now faced, Copperfield and his team had set up a circle of lights identical to the ones that encircled the real Liberty. Oh, and the radar? It was fake. Just a picture on a screen. But you probably guessed that already.

Copperfield (born David Kotkin) claimed the point of the disappearing Statue of Liberty trick was that our freedom could be taken away at any moment, which seems a little overly earnest. We're pretty sure the real point was that making giant things disappear is super cool.

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