Tourists spot massive black smoke and question ‘what they’re making’ before realizing they’re looking at a crematorium: ‘that’s people’

Footage filmed from inside a moving car shows two tourists reacting to a large plume of black smoke rising from a building along a quiet residential street. The video posted on the TikTok account Top Tier State follows the pair as they drive past the site, with the smoke visible from several angles as the car continues down the road. Neither person in the car appears to know what the building is when the footage begins.

At first, the two assume they are looking at a fire. One person says, “There’s a fire,” while the other agrees, “It’s a fire, but it’s controlled.” As they get closer to the building, one of them says, “Bro, look how bad that is.” Still unsure what’s causing it, the other asks, “Is that a real- what the hell they’re making in there?” That question goes unanswered for several more seconds as the car keeps moving.

The tone changes when one of them appears to realize what the building is. “Oh, bro, look what it is. Are you kidding me?” he says, followed by, “Let’s get the hell out of here.” His companion is still unaware of what the place is until the man reveals, “It’s a cremation society,” while pointing at a signboard. He replies in disbelief: “No, no, that’s people.”

The tourists were apparently the last to figure it out

The two also joke that everyone else in the city apparently already knows what the building is, leaving them as the only tourists who missed the obvious. They wouldn’t be the first tourists to find out they had something completely wrong, either, as visitors to the Statue of Liberty recently discovered.

The comments had plenty to say about the tourists’ delayed realization. One person joked, “The neighbors are like ‘oh no worries, that’s just Barbara, may she rest in peace.’”

Someone who identified themselves as a firefighter added more detail, writing: “Crematorium… I’m a firefighter and the local crematorium calls us when they are getting ready to cremate REALLY BIG PEOPLE because they put out much more smoke in the process.” A third commenter picked up on the tourists’ own remark about being outsiders, replying simply, “the whole city did infact know what that was.”

Plenty of people, however, seemed to agree with the tourists’ own conclusion that everyone else already knew what was going on. At least these two were already in the car when things got weird. Another group of Airbnb guests had to deal with a far stranger surprise inside the place where they were staying. The video ends shortly afterward, with the two passengers driving away after finally figuring out what they were looking at.