Inside the house of mystery, Oregon Vortex founder John Litster stands with a group
A view of the crooked shack at the Wonder Spot in Wisconsin, February 2007
This sign from the Wonder Spot is now at the Wisconsin Historical Society
West Virginia has a mystery hole. Santa Cruz, Calif., has mystery spot. Gold Hill, Ore., has a vortex. The stories behind them are all mysteriously alike: a UFO or strange magnetic force has pulled a wooden shack down a hill, and everything in the now-crooked building is topsy-turvy.
The original mystery spot, the Oregon Vortex, opened to the public in 1930. Scientist and mining engineer John Litster announced the discovery of a three-quarter acre plot in the woods where he contended the laws of gravity are set askew by a confluence of magnetic fields.
Maria Cooper and her son Mark run the place today, and they say inside the vortex all sorts of strange phenomena occur. Even a short person can seem taller.
Dean Livelybrooks, a geophysics professor at the University of Oregon, says there are still plenty of mysteries in nature, but the Oregon Vortex probably isn't one of them.
"Are you going to be able to go to places in the earth and have a little light weight-test magnet ... suspended in the air because there's such huge magnetism emanating locally from your vortex spot? The answer is no," Livelybrooks says.
That's not really the point, says Doug Kirby from Roadsideamerica.com, a Web site that celebrates offbeat attractions.
"Mystery spots are interesting in that you can go and be a total skeptic and get something out of it, or go and be a total believer and get something out of it," Kirby says. "It allows you to make that transition and shed everything you ever learned in science class and get in there and have some fun."
This story was produced with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and Jack Straw Productions.
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