This makes me feel Afraid Connected Delighted Uncomfortable at an Individual but Shared scale
The Mystery Spot
The Mystery Spot is a tourist attraction near Santa Cruz, California where gravity seems to not work the way it normally does.
The Mystery Spot is essentially a wooden building that is located on a steep hill where due to the angle of the house and the environment things seem to not obey the laws of gravity. The result is that it seems like balls roll uphill, people can lean farther than usual without falling, people’s heights seems different, etc. The reason behind why this happens is simple visual illusions. The house is located on an oddly tilted environment and the house itself is slanted at a 20 degree angle. This results in very strange illusions that make it seem like gravity doesn’t work as it should. The place has become a very popular tourist attraction as it was featured on Buzzfeed, the Santa Cruz Sentinel and other newspapers, comic strips, and travel blogs. On the official website they say that there are different theories behind how this spot works. Some people believe there is a spacecraft buried under the location, other theories have more to do with science. The truth is simply a visual illusion however the effect is very powerful.
Contributer notes
What is surprising, refreshing, most interesting?
It is fun to see how the place brings out the child in just about everyone. It is a normal house that essentially becomes a playground due to how strange and mysterious everything there is. It is interesting to think about how confused the people who originally discovered this place must have been. The person who originally found the spot was walking in the area and felt some dizziness. Later the newspaper also reported that in further exploration of the spot his compass was also jittery. It must have been very confusing to see such an extreme visual illusion in nature.
Key Insights? What can we learn from this?
There are museums that feature similar things to the Mystery Spot such as rooms that use visual illusions to change our perception of height and location. What makes the Mystery Spot unique, however, is the fact that it is an outdoor building that seems to be normal. One thing to learn from this spot is that it shows just how powerful our visual perception can be. As humans we become very used to seeing things work a certain way and when these things change it is difficult to understand how.