Sheer lunacy: Giant runaway moon balloon rolls over cars, pedestrians in Chinese city

Picture it. You’re stuck in traffic on the highway when all of a sudden a planet - a planet! - starts rolling toward you car.

It happened to folks in the city of Fuzhou, the capital of southeastern China's Fujian province.

A video posted to Twitter early Wednesday morning shows a humongous moon-shaped balloon rolling like a big fat blob over cars and pedestrians and everything in its path.

It’s like a scene from a sci-fi movie: “The Day the Earth Stood Still and Got Mowed Over By a Moon.”

It reminded one writer at Slate of the Nintendo 64 video game Majora’s Mask, where the Skull Kid uses the mask’s power to crash a moon into the land of Termina with catastrophic outcome.

“But now I wonder what would happen if, instead of ending the world, the moon just bounced from one object to the next, bringing an unexpected joy to the people of Termina,” writes Chris Plante.

Here’s the backstory from the Hindustan Times.

A super typhoon named Meranti, the strongest to hit China in years, blew through on Wednesday, at the same time mini-moon models and giant lanterns were set up across the country in preparation for the annual Mid-Autumn Festival — also known as the Moon Festival.

As part of the festivities people pose for photos in front of giant, lit-up balloons, the Times reported.

One of those balloons broke away from its base and that’s what people saw rolling through the streets of Fuzhou after typhoon winds of up to 141 miles an hour hit the city.

This story was originally published September 14, 2016 at 12:07 PM with the headline "Sheer lunacy: Giant runaway moon balloon rolls over cars, pedestrians in Chinese city."