Statue of Liberty vanishing trick

Making the Statue of Liberty seem to disappear on live television (in 1983) is the creation of Jim Steinmeyer and Don Wayne, and it is still unpublished. In the illusion, Copperfield raises a giant curtain on Liberty Island before lowering it again a few seconds later to reveal that the space where the statue once stood is now empty. A helicopter hovers overhead to give an aerial view of the illusion, and indeed the statue appears to have vanished and only the circle of lights surrounding the statue remain. To prove that it is really gone, Copperfield then passes two searchlights through the space where the statue stood, to show there is nothing blocking the way. A live audience sits in an enclosed viewing area, and most of the camera shots are from the same area.

Method

The method has never been published and as such any discussion concerning the method speculative.

One of the ideas is that the staging area with all the live viewers seats where on a rotating platform, which turned about 35 clockwise while the curtains where raised, and although a well thought out and plausible theory, it is devoid of any proper details as to the mechanics involved.