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This video of dozens of inflatable mattresses taking off in the wind is perfect

🎵 “Born freeeeeee, as free as the wind blows… 🎵

Photo of Stacey Ritzen

Stacey Ritzen

mattress migration

It was a thing of wonder and beauty. Mattresses, dozens of mattresses, blowing through a grassy park in a veritable mattress migration. Kind of like the plastic bag scene in American Beauty, only on a much grander scale.

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Such was the case in Stapleton, Colorado last weekend, when roughly 150 inflatable air mattresses had been set up for an outdoor screening of The Phantom Tollbooth.

Unfortunately, the blustery weather of Colorado had other plans, and a couple of hours before the film was to begin, winds picked up and sent the mattresses flying. The incredible scene was captured on video by software engineer Robb Manes, who uploaded it to YouTube with the catchy title: “The Great Mattress Migration of 2019.”

https://twitter.com/robbmanes/status/1163094250973589504

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After his video went quickly viral, Manes later told Denver’s CBS 4 that he and his fiancée first noticed the air mattresses in the park on their way to a trip to a local pool. Although initially they didn’t think anything of it, about an hour later storm clouds began rolling in, and so began the Great Mattress Migration of 2019.

“The wind picked up. They lowered the umbrellas under the pool, and that’s when the first air mattress kind of flew over the fence,” he told reporters. “I called it ‘The Great Mattress Migration of 2019,’ and that apparently was funny. A lot got by the pool and the buildings caught a few of them.”

Manes likewise described the unfolding scenario as “super surreal” in a Reddit post.

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“It was absolutely hilarious; we just happened to be at that pool for the first time with a friend who lived nearby,” he wrote. “When the first one landed in the pool nobody was too fazed, but the second and third one made us look over the fence.”

He added: “We stood up out of the pool and we all looked at each other, and then I yelled to my wife “I have to get my cellphone!”

And thank goodness he did, because the wholly captivating Mattress Migration was all but destined to become a viral hit, as many have since shared on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/NatlSecCnslrs/status/1163804075575713792

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https://twitter.com/p01arst0rm/status/1163779721139765250

And then there were the inevitable mashups, as Twitter user Emma Mullan set the mattress migration to the 1988 single “Sail Away” by Enya.

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And of course—of course—someone edited in the Jurassic Park theme:

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Although we’ll remain ever thankful for the Great Mattress Migration, you have to wonder whose idea it was to pull this kind of shenanigan in Colorado in the first place. As the saying goes, a fool and their air mattress are soon parted.

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