1 Obi-Wan: {sitting in a speeder with Luke} Tell me, young Luke, how does this vehicle hover?
2 Luke: Er... it's the Force?
3 Obi-Wan: You can't fool me. I'm the Jedi here.
4 Luke: Okay, okay... It's really just done with mirrors.

Any real Star Wars geek will know that to achieve the special effect of Luke's landspeeder hovering above the Tatooine desert in A New Hope, the production crew really did use mirrors mounted underneath the speeder to reflect the ground and create the illusion of hovering.

Thanks to Tyler Herring for the idea for this.

And so many people have written to tell me I got this wrong, that they used Vaseline smeared on the lens and not mirrors, that I am compelled to share this: The landspeeder really did have mirrors.

I do my research, you know. If I get something wrong, I'm willing to admit it, but I don't take kindly to being told I'm wrong when I'm right. :-)

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2012-12-08 Rerun commentary: I've had to replace the original link above (which has vanished over the years) with a link to Wikipedia. It mentions the mirrors in the section on "Origin and design".

In this LEGO version, the speeder is held up by some round-bottomed plates stuck to the bottom of the vehicle. No mirrors required.