Gravity Hills

I read about these a while back and was wondering if any of you had an experience with a "gravity hill." They exist all over the United States.

They are stretches of highway which you mentally/visually perceive as being downwards sloping. However, if you put your car into neutral, the car will roll back "up" the hill. Water does the same thing - it runs "uphill" at these stretches of road.


This oddity - which defies the laws of physics, feh! - Has to do with an obstructed horizon. That is, if the horizon is obstructed, the "reference point" for human balance and motoin is also obstructed. I found this which touches on the concepts of these "hills." It also gives locations where they are found.

I'm interested in seeing of anyone has ever seen one or can explain more thoroughly ("obscured horizon" doesn't quite do it for me..) exactly how or why they work the way they do.

wow, i never knew so many of these places existed. that site lists one in michigan, but here's another i know of.

Farmington Hills - Farmington Cemetery - On Grand River just past Farmington road there is a cemetery that is haunted. If you are leaving through the west gate, which is on a hill, and you put your car in neutral, your car is mysteriously "pushed" up the hill and out of the gate of the Cemetery.

from theshadowlands.net...

i always thought that that story was a load of crap, but now it makes me want to check it out and see if it really would happen. i'll have to try the water thing as well...

ive been to one in mexico, parked at the botom put it in nuetral and we rolle dup the hill going backwards.. there is also a place around here( Socal ) that has afew hills and if u park your ca there itll go up and down the hills .. at the same speed.. very, very weird.. was long time ago for both and do not remember both locations right now

This is the same psychological quirk - malcontextualisation, if you will - that can affect people on trains (you know the way it works, you pull into a station next to another train. After a few minutes, the other train begins to move - or is it *your* train that's moving? Aargh!).

It also works sometimes if you are driving down a steep hill, and remove your foot from the accelerator - the feeling of acceleration is compelling, even though your speedometer is going down.

I wonder - and perhaps one of the esteemed elite of ATS can answer - how much data the brain must process in a given second in order to provide these automatic conceptions and situational awareness. Also, since men have a stronger sense of spatial awareness than women ("damn your feminine intuition, I want to be good at playing Wing Commander!"), are men subject to these contextual mistakes more or less often?

[Edited on 1-5-2004 by StrangeLands]

We have one here in Texas. It's the old fun house at AstroWorld (Six Flags). I'll bet if you place a carpenters level on the road it goes dowm hill.

I've been to the one in New Brunswick, Canada. It's called Magnetic Hill. Pretty interesting, and very deceiving!

There are those magnetic-vortex houses, too (AKA "Tourist Traps") which are sort-of filed under the same category of strange fun.

They're houses (slightly reminiscent of the Remington Mansion) where all of the angles are slightly off. That is, walls don't meet at 90 degrees, they meet at 92.5, or the similar. Thus, you have rooms which although your brain "perceives" them to be correctly angled, you can stand at an angle 45 degrees to the floor, or brooms will stand on end.

I want to go on a paranormal roadtrip. Or at least a kitschy tourist-trap roadtrip.

This is strange. But explainable. It may look downhill but its not.
I am a pool skater, sometimes the deep end is higher than the shallow end( i mean the bottom of course). Its weird but just depending on things.......nevermind this isnt making any sense.
You have to see it.

Yeah, we have one here in south Texas. It's just off highway 151 South outside of San Antonio.

There are railroad tracks that bisect the hill. A legend has grown up about the tracks, that many years ago a school bus was crossing the road. The bus stalled and was hit by a train. Ever since, if your car stalls out on the tracks (or you put it in neutral) the ghosts of the dead children will push your car off the tracks.

The is a very small community that still live in the area, called Berg's Mill. Every Halloween hundreds of teenagers and adults drive over to the tracks, turn off their cars and hold their breaths as they are magically moved out of all danger.

The magic is gravity. But none of the believers accept that. They dust their bumpers with powder and always swear the handprints are those of the ghostly children.

Those "crazy houses" are all tourists traps. Fun, but fake.

in the site on the 2nd post it talkes about the school 3 house down from being built on a indean cematry and alot of stuff hapning. I always thought i was hereing stuff .going to turn my light on now

you might want to check out this thread, i believe a mod. incorporates more threads on this subject as well.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

There was one where I grew up in Santa Rosa, Calif. It is a pretty strange feeling when your senses tell you your facing down hill as your car rolls uphill. Just an illusion, but a very convincing one.

There's one about an hour away from my house. I've always wanted to go to it, but never got a chance.

Originally posted by NightGloom
There's one about an hour away from my house. I've always wanted to go to it, but never got a chance.

Go!
Take gratuitous amounts of photos! Then, link us as necessary! These things have a subject of my interest for quite some time.

I know of 2 in australia , one about an hour away from me . I had found out before i went that it was an illusion so it kinda ruined it for me but the sensation of going backwards "up" the hill was still apparent. If possible i suggest you check one out, its pretty cool but also frustrating trying to figure out wtf is happening

There is, or was one outside Inverness, I was on it as a child, they have changed the road, so I don't know if it still exists. We called it an Electric Brae.
alliemacb.hubpages.com...
I just googled it, here is the link to it. It appears there is an Urban Ledgend attached to it, which I didn't know before.