A scientist at the University of Texas at Dallas has created his own invisibility cloak.

Ali Aliev, a physicist at the university, said the cloak is small and is several strands of what look like thread. The thread-like material is made of carbon nanotubes.

Whenever the material is heated it bends the light around an object and makes it look as if it has disappeared.

We really can hide objects, Aliev told MSNBC. We can switch for a short moment and make it disappear.

In his June paper published in Nanotechnology in June, Aliev stated that the invisibility cloak exploits the mirage effect. This means that the phenomenon works similarly to the way desert heat can create a mirage.

Aliev told MSNBC's Amanda Guerra that the technology is currently limited to his lab and that with time, his technology hide large objects such as military tankers.

Aliev also said what once seemed like science fiction could now be science fact.

So it's interesting for ordinary people, because usually [scientists] show something microsized under some microscope ... but here, in real time, real objects [were] disappearing, Alieve told Guerra.

You can watch the threads disappear as they are heated up in the video below and read his paper here.

Video