‘If I Slow Down, They’ll Catch Up’: Man’s Rivian R1T Detects People All Around Him In The Woods, But There’s Absolutely No One There

A Rivian R1T owner recently had a creepy experience while driving through a dark forest. Dominic Armand shared a video on TikTok showing his electric truck’s screen saying there were multiple people around his car, even though the woods were completely empty.

In the video, Armand is driving slowly through a line of trees as the sun is about to set. He points his camera at the screen above the steering wheel, which shows several blue human shapes walking around his car. But when he turns the camera to show the actual road and forest around him, there is nobody there.

“Just going through the dark woods and everything, right? About to be sunset. Spooky thing, though. My truck is saying there’s people around me,” Armand says in the video. He then shows the weird problem by slowing down his truck. “Watch, if I slow down, they’ll catch up. See? Right next to my,” he says, before pointing the camera out the driver’s side window to show the empty woods. More invisible figures keep popping up on his screen as he drives.

Turns Out There’s A Pretty Normal Reason For This

This is not the first time that car safety systems have seen what look like ghosts. Tesla drivers have had similar experiences, especially when driving near cemeteries. According to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Tesla drivers near the famous Arnold Estate from Conjuring House saw human-shaped figures on their car’s screen while passing through a nearby cemetery.

These car safety systems use sensors, cameras, and radar to watch the area around vehicles, as explained by CarWale. But the technology is not perfect. There have been times when the systems get things wrong. For example, one Brazilian Tesla driver’s car thought a boy wearing an orange shirt was a traffic cone. Just like some car maintenance tricks that mechanics say you should never try, not all car technology works as well as people might think.

Jalopnik offers a simpler explanation for why electric cars seem to see people in cemeteries and wooded areas. The website says the cars are not actually seeing ghosts but are just having trouble figuring out what tombstones and other things really are. Tombstones come in different shapes and sizes, and some are about the same height as small children or adults.