In what might arguably be the strangest iteration of the Transformers-themed cosplay ever, a mysterious northern Virginia resident has been driving his minivan around the streets of Washington D.C. while camouflaged as a car seat, tricking unsuspecting pedestrians and downtown tourists into thinking they have witnessed a fully-operational self-driving car in action.

The bewildering sight of the "driverless" gray Ford van seemingly roaming the streets without anyone behind the wheels was first spotted by residents of Arlington, Virginia and reported on by the local news outlet ARL Now on August 3rd, which prompted confused reactions from both the residential community and the law enforcement agencies, including the Arlington County Police Department, Virginia Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration. According to the ACPD, the officers were unable to stop the vehicle as they didn't observe any traffic violation:

“ACPD is aware that driverless vehicles are being tested in the Commonwealth," said Arlington County Police spokeswoman Ashley Savage on August 7th. “Officers have not had contact with the vehicle observed in Clarendon. If officers observe a traffic violation, they will attempt a traffic stop.”

Then yesterday, the already-bizarre story took another odd turn when the NBC local affiliate traffic reporter Adam Tuss spotted the van and approached the driver's seat, at which point he realized that there was a driver in the van all along, except he had camouflaged himself as a car seat. As seen in the video tweeted by Tuss, his interview attempt with the driver revealed little substance. “What are you doing?” Tuss asked in the video. “I’m with the news, dude.”

Here's me trying to talk to a man in a car seat costume @nbcwashington pic.twitter.com/e5humOM7uS

— Adam Tuss (@AdamTuss) August 7, 2017

Shortly after a video recording of their brief encounter went viral on Twitter, NBC News 4 eventually got to the bottom of the mystery by tracking down the owner of the vehicle, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. As it turns out, the research institute has been quietly conducting a study on how people reacted to sightings of self-driving cars. In response, the institute released a statement:

“The driver’s seating area is configured to make the driver less visible within the vehicle, while still allowing him or her the ability to safely monitor and respond to surroundings."

Moral of the story: if self-driving cars don't work out for Google or Uber, there's always the car-seat costumed driver option. Why have a autonomous car captain itself, when you can have a captain dressed as a seat drive?

To sum up-Va Tech Trans Inst testing self driving car in north Arlington+camouflaging driver to see how you respond. This is how I responded pic.twitter.com/j6H64mhY4E

— Adam Tuss (@AdamTuss) August 7, 2017