Google co-founder Larry Page has been secretly funding a flying car project, and a prototype has been spotted in the wild, according to the Monterey Herald.
As Bloomberg discovered earlier this year, Page has been privately funding a company called Zee.Aero, which wants to build a "flying car" that can take off and land vertically without a runway. That means pilots would be able to park the vehicles in their driveway.
Even though the vehicle looks like a tiny airplane, it sounds much different, according to witnesses quoted in the Monterey Herald report. They describe the machine as emitting a "high-pitched whine."
The Monterey Herald ran a photo of the Zee.Aero flying car.
Witnesses also described their shock when they saw the vehicle simply hovering instead of flying forward like a regular plane. It can hover about 25 feet above the ground, land, and then take off and hover again.
The testing has taken place at an airport in Hollister, Calif., a small town of about 40,000. Residents have reported seeing the flying car in action with increasing frequency in recent months.
You can read the full account of the flying car sighting, with more details, at The Monterey Herald.