July 05, 2008

“With deep breaths I climbed up the hill. My feet felt as if they were filled with lead. I glanced beside me and almost screamed. All the people beside me were tilted towards the ground and were about to fall! I waited for the crash…but nothing happened. Looking back, I realised… everyone was tilted towards the ground but not falling!”
 

The above is an extract from my diary; describing how I felt when I entered this amazing place. Don’t worry, everything will be explained in due time… or maybe not!

On the outskirts of San Francisco, California (USA), lies a small town by the name of Santa Cruz. As you move further into this suburb, way into the wilderness, there is located a tourist attraction by the name of ‘The Mystery Spot’. What is so mysterious about it? Read on find out…

Historical background

Back in the 20th century, probably in the 1930s, a large piece of land, in the Santa Cruz forest area, was owned by a man, who wished to sell it. Finally, he came across a buyer, a businessman named George Prather, who agreed on purchasing a small part of the land. However, the owner was persistent that Prather should buy the whole plot. At last, the businessman agreed and purchased the whole land, which also consisted of a hill, covered by plants.

After obtaining the land, he decided to build a summer cabin on top of the hill. But when Prather and his workmen went on top of the hill something weird happened. Their compass refused to point in the correct direction and all their measurements gave different results each time. Prather assumed it was probably due to the presence of metals and minerals in the ground. His curiosity would not let him rest, so he conducted an investigation into the matter. But the results did not turn up the presence of any sort of metals or minerals which could deviate the compass’ reading! Furthermore, it was calculated that this phenomena existed only within a certain area of the whole land, namely the area near the hill.

Ignoring these results, Prather went ahead and built the summer cabin. However, some years later, the cabin slid partway down the hill into the redwood forests…

The Mystery Spot comes into being…

After observing these weird happenings, Prather decided to use them to his own benefit. He converted the place into a tourist attraction and since then it has acquired thousands of dollars.

Main attractions and weird happenings

The Mystery Spot, as the land is now known as, is considered to be a place where the existence of the laws of physics and gravity come to an end, especially near the cabin.

Here’s partly why:

• As you advance further up the hill, your height ‘decreases’ by eight inches! That is, two people of different height appear to be of the same height even when on level ground. Sometimes the taller one shrinks and the shorter one gains height. So all of you out there, who are complexed about their short heights, this is the place for you!

• The cabin is a wonder in itself. It now stands on the slope of the hill and seems to be like something out of a movie; appearing as it would fall down any minute. That is why there is a fence all around it.

• The real fun begins as soon as you enter the cabin. Your first step in results in you sliding down and practically crashing into the wall opposite the entrance door!

However, you soon become accustomed to it and the tour guide then makes some demonstrations to explain how physics actually works there:

• A pendulum, with an 18-pound metal ball at its end, hangs from the ceiling of the cabin. Strangely, it hangs at an odd angle, tilted by a good measure of degrees, towards the wall. The weird part is that when you push it, it is easier to push it to the west than the east.

• Instead of rolling down as they should normally do, balls and other round objects roll uphill!

• You can actually climb up the side walls of the cabin, as easily as if you were on plain ground… like lizards! Imagine how much fun it would be if we were able to do it all the time!

The beliefs attributed to the place

• Some people, like Prather, believe that these weird happenings are due to the presence of strange metals, deep inside the ground.

• However, some alien fanatics claim that it is due to the meteorite which fell in the forest a few years back, while some of their fellow beings believe that aliens had planted metal cones in the ground, many years back, which resulted in this weird behaviour.

• An engineer claimed that it was due to the seepage of carbon dioxide from the ground, resulting in the refraction of light, thus creating ‘illusions’.

• Some attribute it to a magnetic field around the area.

The real deal…

Well, no one yet knows why such strange incidents occur at this site. To this date, the Mystery Spot remains to be the mystery it is. No conclusion has yet been reached about the queer occurrences which take place in that cabin. People have many beliefs, but something always contradicts it and we are back at square one.