The Olympic flame isn’t a flame.

Well, it’s sort of a flame. But it’s not made of fire. Even if it looks a lot like fire.

Wait. Let me backtrack. Every Olympic host city has a few basic tasks that force it to straddle the line between acknowledging the tradition of the Games while showing that it is keeping up with the times. Essentially, each new host needs to play the hits but still surprise and delight the listeners. That’s how you end up, for example, with an opening ceremony featuring a nearly nude man on a barge, covered in blue paint and glitter.

And that’s how you get an Olympic flame that’s not a flame at all. A flame that is actually “a cloud of mist and beams of light,” according to Paris 2024 organizers. That flame (or is it “flame”?) rests in an enormous cauldron, comprises 40 LED spotlights and 200 misting nozzles and is tethered to what looks like a gigantic hot-air balloon that will rise into the air every night of the Games.

I visited that “flame” on Sunday in the Tuileries Garden, in central Paris, where it exerted a certain planetary gravity on its surroundings. Tourists gathered and held their cameras over their heads. Cyclists hopped off to take photos. Police officers took turns snapping selfies with it.

The “flame” flickers like a fire, though as I walked alongside it, I felt a spray of cool mist on my legs, a reminder of the illusion at work. The entire structure — metallic, otherworldly and vaguely futuristic — creates an appealing contrast with the serene setting and the 19th-century sculptures that ring the garden.