“There’s so many surprising things that have been documented in tornadoes,” he said. “Driving straw into a wall, sucking all the water out of a swimming pool. So who can say?”

McGowan, the storm chaser, said he once saw an approaching tornado tip over a semitrailer and then, as the tornado passed over it, set it back on its wheels.

Because everything surrounding the house in the photo had been leveled by the tornado, McGowan said he’s mostly convinced it was the same structure in his video.

The Pilger tornado has already drawn comparisons with the 2004 Hallam, Nebraska, tornado, another destructive EF4.

In Hallam, a house was lifted off its foundation and left on its side, mostly intact. But in that case, the homeowner saw what happened from his basement and said the house did not loft very high off the foundation.

Video footage from inside tornadoes shows that they typically obliterate houses. Rarely do structures hold together long enough to take flight, as they are subjected to tremendous wind force and a barrage of bricks, rocks and other debris.