Is this for real? Watch a man fly like a bird

Have you ever wished you had wings to fly like a bird? Humans today can fly around the world and break the speed of sound, but of course with the help of machines. But Jarno Smeets, a Dutch mechanical engineer decided to stick with the birds' way of flying, and if this video is to be believed, he finally cracked it.

Watching Smeets fly through the air by flapping his arms is surreal, like something out of a movie.

[caption id="attachment_253012" align="alignleft" width="380" caption="Screengrab/ YouTube"][/caption]

Smeets writes on his blog that it took him over eight months to build the artificial wings. He says he constructed them using parts from an Android smartphone and a Nintendo Wii to amplify his arm movements through two small brushless outrunner motors.

More from News Analysis

The 31-year-old, is seen running through a park in the Hague, flapping his huge kite and carbon 'wings' before he appears to lift off and cruise for a minute, travelling 300 feet through the air.

But is the video that raked up nearly 750,000 viewers in just a couple of days, fake?

Many observers say so and we don't vouch for it either. Take a look at the video here.

At the end of the flight, Smeets says,"We did it! This weekend I flew a 100 meters with my selfbuilt wings. I have always dreamed about this. But after 8 months of hard work, research and testing it all payed off."

Smeets got the idea from sketches of a futuristic flying bicycle drawn by his grandfather, who spent much of his life designing the contraption but never actually built it, reports Mirror News.