Video: Cars dive off cliff in Alaska town's insane Fourth of July celebration

Forget fireworks. For one small US town, Independence Day is all about sending cars soaring off a cliff. For nearly two decades, Glacier View in Alaska has celebrated the Fourth of July with a spectacle that’s thrilling and a little bit insane.

While most places light up the night sky with fireworks, Glacier View illuminates the day with the screams of metal martyrs.

“You gotta see cars fly,” one attendee told Alaska News Source.

Videos online show vehicles, some with the American flag painted over them, achieving a brief moment of glory before transforming into crumpled heaps of metal at the bottom of the cliff.

But at least they went out with a bang, as a swan song of rock anthems like Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Fortunate Son’ and Nickelback’s ‘Burn It to the Ground’ blared in the background.

According to Alaska News Source, this year’s event boasted the most airborne automobiles yet, with a dozen taking a one-way trip down the rocky bluff.

Everything from police cruisers to buses dived off the cliff, much to the delight of a thousands-strong crowd that arrived as early as 8:45 am to snag the prime viewing spots.

This quirky tradition, which some consider “the most quintessentially American way” to celebrate the Fourth of July, has become a magnet for thrill-seekers around the world.

For just $20, one can witness automotive acrobatics and witness the kind of freedom that only comes from launching a car off a cliff (safely, of course – no drivers were harmed in the making of this celebration).

So how exactly do these cars fly? According to a report by Roadtrippers, some get a little help from a monorail, while others are launched freewheeling, most with a simple block of wood keeping the pedal to the metal.

The result? Cars soaring through the air, performing daredevil stunts (unintentionally, of course) before meeting their final destination in a hail of scrap metal.