Wednesday’s Wonderful World Of Wikipedia: Gravity Hills

A gravity hill, also known as a magnetic hill (and sometimes a mystery hill or a gravity road), is a place where the layout of the surrounding land produces the optical illusion that a very slight downhill slope appears to be an uphill slope. Thus, a car left out of gear will appear to be rolling uphill. There are hundreds of known gravity hill locations around the world. These “paranormal” sites also tend to have names like “Haunted Hill”, “Magnetic Hill”, or “Anti-gravity Hill”, reflecting attribution by local folklore of the unusual properties of the area to such “mysteries” as the supernatural or magnetism. While humans also have a sense of balance to determine the inclination of the ground, visual cues can override this sense, especially if the inclination is shallow. This wikipedia link also lists all known gravity hill locations.

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2 Comments

  1. Posted August 8, 2007 at 12:54 pm | Permalink

    I’ve been to the “Ghost Tracks” entertaining evening!

  2. Posted August 9, 2007 at 9:10 am | Permalink

    Cool. Did it seem realistic? I’ve heard that the “Vortex” in Portland, Oregon is also very cool.

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