If You Drive On A Ghost Hill You Can Coast Uphill, And It's Weird

Ghost hills, or gravity hills, are random stretches of road where gravity seems to reverse itself. And it's making drivers lose their minds on the road!

#1 This Thing Is Called A Gravity Hill… And It Can Make Drivers Lose Their Minds On The Road

Sometimes you may find or hear of a mysterious place where objects can apparently roll uphill. This is a remarkably common illusion that is found in numerous locations around the world. Usually it is a stretch of road in a hilly area where the level horizon is obscured. Objects such as trees and walls that normally provide visual clues to the true vertical, may be leaning slightly. This creates an optical illusion making a slight downhill look like an uphill slope. Objects may appear to roll uphill. Sometimes rivers even seem to flow against gravity.

#2 Ghost Or Gravity Hills Are Steep Stretches Of Road Where Gravity Seems To Reverse Itself

Spots where the illusion is especially powerful often become tourist attractions. Tour guides may like to claim that the effect is a mystery or that it is due to magnetic or gravitational anomalies or even that it is a paranormal phenomenon that science cannot explain. This is not true of course. Natural anomalies can only be detected with sensitive equipment and cannot account for these places but science can easily explain them as optical illusions. There are several Ghost Hillis in Pennsylvania.

#3 Some Believe These Mystery Spots Are Supernatural But There Is Always An Explanation For Everything

A little knowledge of physics and a little personal observation will tell you the obvious: Unless something holds them up, objects tend to accelerate downwards. Gravity is a force of nature that even babies understand instinctively, and that even inanimate objects obey without question. And yet there are places in the world in which the laws of gravity seem to be broken regularly. They go by many names: gravity hills, gravity roads, mystery spots, or spook hills. But they all work in pretty much the same way: If you put your car in neutral on one of these roads, slowly but surely, it begins to move uphill instead of down. Experts say this is an illusion based on physics, but to some, it's just downright freaky!

#4 When The Horizon Is Obscured It Becomes More Difficult For Driver's To Gauge And Pitch The Angle Of The Road

A little knowledge of physics and a little personal observation will tell you the obvious: Unless something holds them up, objects tend to accelerate downwards. Gravity is a force of nature that even babies understand instinctively, and that even inanimate objects obey without question. And yet there are places in the world in which the laws of gravity seem to be broken regularly. They go by many names: gravity hills, gravity roads, mystery spots, or spook hills. But they all work in pretty much the same way: If you put your car in neutral on one of these roads, slowly but surely, it begins to move uphill instead of down. This phenomenon has been observed all over the world (there are gravity hills documented in Scotland, Portugal, Barbados, Australia, and Korea), but true to form, Pennsylvania offers several. And one of them is so feted that Bedford County has produced a tourist leaflet to help people find it.

#5 Without A Visual Reference Point, It May Appear To The Driver That They Are Defying Gravity

The attraction of gravity hills is plain. You can pour water onto the roads or roll a ball or bottle downhill, and see it stop and begin to roll uphill. You can (if you're careful and obey traffic regulations) sit with your car in neutral and experience the phenomenon for yourself. It feels disorienting, but quite pleasantly so. Of course, skeptics dismiss the gravity hill phenomenon as the result of an optical illusion. A road that appears to go uphill may in fact be pointing down, which would account for the weird feeling of disorientation that some visitors report. That may indeed be the explanationbut unless you've been to one of these places yourself, armed with surveying equipment for good measure, how can you be sure?

#6 As If We Didn't Have Enough Problems With Our Roads, Now There Are Mysterious Ghost Hills

This video was taken at a well-known ghost hill in Lewisberry, Pennsylvania. Watch as the startled passengers realize that they are rolling uphillin reverse.