14 DAY TRIAL // This week, we have talked about Santa Cruz’s Mystery Spot in California, a popular tourist attraction where the normal laws of physics and gravity do not seem to apply. Honestly, although I never visited the house of illusions built there, or any other mystery spot for that matter, I was fascinated by the strange phenomena that occur there, so I decided to dig a little deeper on the endless well of the Internet and find out how it works.
I admit I was surprised by the amount of logical explanations I found, but still the numerous mystery spots that exist in the world continue to draw crowds and delight visitors every day.
But first, let’s start with a little bit of history, to understand how these mystery spots have come into being. According to Sandlot Science, they are a product of the Great Depression, a period preceding World War II, when entertainment was just about the only industry still growing in America.
Most of these gravity-defying places are located in the proximity of a magnetic hill, a place where the layout of the surrounding land produces the optical illusion that a very slight downhill slope is an uphill slope. There are hundreds of recognized gravity hills around the world, such as The Saint Ignace Mystery Spot in Michigan, the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, the Oregon Vortex, the Uphill-Downhill Road of Ariccia in Italy, and so on.
Typically, commercial mystery spot attractions are backed by a fictional account of how the location was discovered. On the website of The Saint Ignace Mystery Spot, for instance, it is said: “In the early 1950's, 3 surveyors... stumbled across an area of land where their surveying equipment didn't seem to work properly. No matter how many times they tried to level their tripod, the plum-bob would always be drawn far to the east, even as the level was reading level.”
A series of bizarre phenomena and optical illusions can be witnessed in these places, such as water being poured upward, balls rolling uphill, and people walking up walls or standing in impossible positions. Moreover, people who have attempted to survey the areas realized mechanical and scientific instruments did not work correctly. At the Santa Cruz’s Mystery Spot, for instance, misperceptions of the height and orientation of objects also occur.
So, how do these bizarre activities occur?
First of all, you should know that some of these apparent gravitational anomalies occur naturally, and some of them are purpose-built as attractions and are cleverly engineered to deceive visitors. And although there are several conspiracy theories surrounding these mystery spots and the cabins built on or around them (some referring to extraterrestrial forces or large metal spacecrafts buried under the ground), there is always a logical explanation.
As you would have guessed, the slope of gravity hills is an optical illusion, although some say that magnetic forces are at work on these sites, and the most important factor contributing to the visual illusion is an obstructed horizon.
The lack of a horizontal line to use as a reliable reference makes it difficult for the human eye to judge the inclination of a surface. As such, objects that we would normally assume to be more or less perpendicular to the ground may actually be leaning.
Like all optical illusions, the tricks showed at mystery spots work because our brain tries to improperly apply the rules it has learned about how the world functions. Objects that are farther away appear closer together and smaller, people who stand under the low end of a tilted beam appear taller than a person who stands under the high end.
So even though we know at an intellectual level that the room or cabin is actually tilted at an angle, our brains still transmit us the interpretation that water is indeed flowing uphill and fellow visitors are indeed standing on the wall.
All in all, the fascinating thing about the mystery spots is that even when you learn the secret behind the effects, they are no less amazing, as the illusions are in-your-face real, and happening right now.