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From: jay@imagen.UUCP (Jay Jaeckel)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Electric Brae
Message-ID: <270@imagen.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Feb-86 23:43:49 EST
Article-I.D.: imagen.270
Posted: Wed Feb 12 23:43:49 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Feb-86 02:38:23 EST
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John Shipman writes, regarding "Electric Brae":

> Sue Stratton's story about the "Electric Brae" sounds like a tourist
> trap called the "Mystery Spot" in the southwest--I can't remember where,
> somewhere on I-10 or I-40 in Arizona or New Mexico?  The illusion
> of the "Mystery Spot" is that gravity seems to be off vertical;
> water runs uphill, you have to stand off plumb, and so forth.
> 
> Has anyone visited such a spot?  I haven't, but I remember one
> of my secondary school science teachers said this was done by 
> providing erroneous vertical references.  Artifacts that everyone
> assumes are vertical, such as walls, phone poles, or conifers,
> were all bent slightly to disorient the eye.
> 

The description above sounds like some place that was built intentionally
to give this illusion.  "Crazy House" buildings are sometimes built like this
as a tourist attraction.  As I recall, there is one in Southern California,
somewhere on the road to Lake Arrowhead I think.

But such things also occur naturally in some places.  In the hills
north-north-east (or so) from the San Fernando valley, up behind Hansen Dam
somewhere (near Dexter Park) is such a place.  Called "Gravity Hill", it
is often visited by high school driving instructors from the area, with
their students.  You drive your car to what seems to be the bottom of a
slight hill, put it in neutral, and it rolls up the hill by itself.

                                               -- Jay Jaeckel
                                               ...{ucbvax,decwrl}!imagen!jay