Thursday, October 01, 2009

A Trip to Gravity Hill


On a quiet country road west of Freeman, Mo., past railroad tracks and between two hills, almost throwing distance from the Kansas state line, sits a flat spot in the gravel.

Some locals, like Kylie Guier of Freeman, claim that if you stop on that spot and put your vehicle in neutral, the car will start moving, sometimes up to 25 miles per hour.

People say gravity doesn’t work there.

“Everybody calls it Gravity Hill,” Guier said. “It’s out on this gravel road in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know anyone who’s an expert on it. Everyone just knows it’s there.”

Guier’s been to Gravity Hill a number of times, as have most area people she knows, and, “I’ve never known anybody it hasn’t worked for.”

It didn’t work for Jake Koehn of nearby Adrian, Mo.

“(My friends and I) went there around 6 p.m. during the summer, so plenty of daylight,” he said. “We parked at the bottom of the hill, put the truck in neutral and did not see much for a result. After about 10 minutes, we gave up on it and left.”

He may have given up too soon.

Urban legend has it if you sprinkle flour or gravel dust on the trunk of the car, drivers will later find child-sized handprints in the dust.

I’m so there.

I pulled my minivan onto 299th Street (much too gravelly and rural to be called a street) from Route D in Cass County on a clear September afternoon. Sure I was in a minivan, not the Mystery Machine, but I think a minivan’s what the Scooby gang drove when they grew up.

The lane leading to Gravity Hill is surrounded by wavy pastureland, the occasional pond and patches of sunflowers breaking the swaths of green. Over the railroad tracks and up two hills – according to many listings on the Internet – you’re supposed to drive to the end of the lane, turn around and come to rest at the bottom. Then the magic happens.

Many people who’ve been to Gravity Hill claim the moving car phenomenon is an optical illusion and, as I parked the minivan at a spot between hills that looked flat, I found it wasn’t.



The level I brought to Gravity Hill showed where I’d parked was anything but level. So, when I put the vehicle in neutral, it moved.

Duh.

I let the minivan coast farther down the hill and checked the road again. Not level.

But the next time I stopped, I found a spot in the road that was flat. I moved the level all around my vehicle and the ground was sufficiently flat enough the minivan shouldn’t move unless it became so embarrassed from being a minivan it collapsed.

OK. The ground was flat. I marked the spot, hopped into the driver’s seat and slid the gear into neutral.

The minivan moved immediately. Three mph, five mph, seven mph, the sound of gravel popping beneath the tires carried through the open windows of the minivan’s cab.


The van stopped halfway up the hill and I put my foot on the brake to keep it from rolling back down.

Sweet.

I took my foot off the brake and, yes, the van rolled back down.

After I placed the minivan back onto the flat spot, I ran the level around the van again. Yep. Still flat.

I did this six more times. Five times my vehicle seemed to move of its own volition. One time it just sat there and a bee flew through the cab.

Driving away from Gravity Hill, not one darned fingerprint on my bumper, I realized I’d been a part of something weird. Could Gravity Hill be an optical illusion? Sure. Even after I’d determined the ground was flat and my van shouldn’t have moved, I’m willing to consider that. It’s still a mystery.

Copyright 2009 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.

7 comments:

Sharon Day said...

Very cool experiment. I think it's an optical illusion. They have them in just about every state. I'm curious if you've ever gone to Devil's Promenade in that area. That's where the spooklights are. I've always wanted to hear about that from a regular man on the street who witnessed it.

Pharos said...

I've heard about these 'gravity hills' before, such as the 'Mystery Spot' in Santa Cruz, CA. Another mysterious aspect people have noticed is people can appear to change heights based on where they standing....someone should experiment with that at the gravity spot you speak of to see if it also has the same effect. I think I've also heard that sometimes people standing straight up can appear to be standing at a slight angle.

Those ghost fingerprints also occur at a location in San Antonio, TX. That's interesting that it also happens somewhere else...I think this is the first I've heard of the ghost fingerprints showing up on cars somewhere besides San Antonio.

Paranomalist said...

We've got one of those here in north Jersey, on Rt. 208 in Franklin Lakes, right by the Ewing Ave exit. I had a girlfriend that lived on Ewing and it was she that first told me about it. We went there, put the car in neutral, and yup - went backwards up the incline. Very weird.

Anonymous said...

There is a similar place just outside of Alamogordo, NM, except one really does not want to experiment with the windows rolled down. People with open windows have experienced shrieks, growling, whispers and other audio phenomena and fingerprints and scratches have been known to appear on the base of the window frame. Experiences range from benevolent and playful to downright malevolent and nasty. There is a second spot, quite some distance from the first where cars have been known to be pushed over the railroad tracks if they stop too close to the tracks and place the car in neutral. I've never experienced this one since I don't care to risk being hit by a train, but lots of people try it every year and speculation runs from optical illusion to the supernatural.

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