Artist and inventor Paul St George revealed today his “Telectroscope” which he claims connects New York and London through an extremely long tunnel (3,471 miles/ 5,585 km) running under the earth and using a set of mirrors to transmit the images.

The artist explains everything on the project’s official web site, saying that he got the idea after finding some papers belonging to his great-grandfather, engineer Alexander Stanhope St George. The papers exposed vast quantities of information including diaries, diagrams, calculations and also two photographs.

A more plausible explanation could be the use of optical fibers for the real time images – but the first is surely much more entertaining.

One of the Telectroscope’s terminals surfaces next to the Brooklyn Bridge on the banks of the East River in New York and the other emerges right next to the Tower Bridge on the banks of London’s Thames.

Peter Coleman, the producer of the project’s New York end was quoted by BBC News saying: "It is a piece of art, and it's also a sort of curiosity in a public space. London and New York are cities with millions of people. They can't believe that those are actually people in another city looking at them. That's what I find all these people are sort of amazed at. It pulls you right into it."

Officials responsible for the project insisted that the connection has nothing to do with cable TV, video conferencing or any sort of web-cam-related gadget.

As the sound cannot be transmitted through the device, the people present on both sides used some wipe-off message boards to ask each other a series of short and amusing questions.

The project will remain open for all interested participants until June 15 and is expected to attract a large number of people.