Walking on glass or water? Slovakian hikers video themselves tiptoeing across crystal clear ice on lake in Tatra Mountains

·        Tomas Nunuk made the short video at the High Tatras mountain range

·        Video was published on YouTube and quickly generated 500,000 views

·        Some viewers doubt the video was genuine, arguing ice would 'crack'

This spectacular video of hikers walking across a frozen lake - where the surface is like a crystal clear sheet of glass - has gone viral and sparked a heated debate over whether it is a hoax.

Slovakian hiker Tomas Nunuk, 38, from the capital Bratislava, made the short video of him and his friends walking on the see-through ice after hiking up Slovakia's High Tatras mountain range.

The video, titled 'Walking on beautiful clean ice in Slovakian Mountains', was published on YouTube on December 8 and quickly generated over half a million views in the first few days.

Hikers walk on incredibly stunning crystal clear ice lake

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Tomas Nunuk, from Bratislava, made the short video of him and his friends walking on the crystal clear ice

Some viewers were amazed at the 38-second video that shows three hikers walking across the clear frozen lake, while others doubted that the video was real.

YouTube user Shawn G wrote: 'I've never seen ice that clear in my life. And I'm Canadian, so I've seen quite a bit of ice.'

And another who agreed with him was Narwhal Bacon, a video analyser and Redditor who commented on the video, saying: 'Last time I tried this with such clear ice, it just collapsed from under my feet. I'm calling fake on this one guys.'

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Some viewers doubted the validity of the video as they had never seen ice so clear before

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The ripples of the waters can be seen here, but could be viewed if the ice was around 2cm in thickness

But others were convinced it was genuine, including a user named John Callaghan, who sarcastically wrote: 'Yep, the guy who was filmed was wearing airboots, than they photoshopped those away, a few hundred thousand square metres of cardboard mountains in the background were then added, and of course the one who was filming was suspended from a helicopter, but they photoshopped the ripples in the water away, and there you have it... fake (lol).' [sic]

Slovak YouTube user Jakub Kutny wrote: 'I would advise you to visit this place instead of arguing about the originality of the video.'

Experienced tourist Igor Ludma, from Slovakia, was able to give a scientific explanation for the fact that the ice look like glass, saying: 'It is only possible when the temperatures fall from being relatively mild to very cold very quickly, and at the same time it's important that there has not been any snow which tends to make the ice very cloudy. And we have had those conditions lately which would explain this very clear ice.'

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Several commentators believe the video to be genuine as the cracking of the ice can be heard

'It looks like it was about 2cm thick and it is therefore able to carry a man.'

And he also backed up the point noted by several other users that it is possible to hear the cracking of the ice as the hikers walk over it.

The creator of the video has not added details about exact place where the video was filmed. But Slovak tourists who know their homeland's highest mountains very well say it is a lake called Velke Hincovo Pleso.

Velke Hincovo Pleso is located 6,300ft above sea level in Mengusovska dolina, under the Koprovsky stit mountain. The lake is 176ft at its deepest point, making it the biggest and the deepest in Slovakia.