Optical Illusions Changing People’s Perception of Gravity


Since Isaac Newton discovered gravity, it has become common knowledge among humans. Simply put, Gravity is an invisible force of attraction between two masses. Due to Earth having a lot of mass it has a lot of gravitons which are responsible for gravity’s attractions. So, what about the places where gravity seems to not work the same way as it does elsewhere? Or maybe the places where gravity  just looks like it doesn’t work.

The Mystery House in Santa Cruz is thought to have a mysterious gravitational pull causing people to be able to stand at quite unusual angles. The backstory of the house is that a scientist realized this when approaching this area. His compass went crazy, so he bought land and built a house. The idea was that beneath that house, or area there was a gravity anomaly due to a magnetic crater. This is simply an optical illusion. The house is on a tilt so you are actually standing properly up but the inside of the house is constructed to hide the tilt and seem as though you are “defying gravity” by being flat footed and leaning. 

On a stretch of North Crosby Road in Washington if you go to the start line that has been drawn and put your car in neutral and then stop off the break, your car is supposedly going to roll uphill rather than be still or roll back. Yet again this is another ilusion. This road actually rather dips and the hill is further down the road but because of how it’s aligned and the fact that it doesn’t drastically dip, it might look and feel as though you are going up. Inevitably you will end up stopping right before you ever actually ever get up the hill. 

The inverted waterfall is also one of the supposed “backwards gravity” places. Once there, it is quite easy to realize the reason the water flows up instead of down is because of the raging wind beneath the waterfall pushing upwards. So while all of these amazing “Gravity defying” attractions seem unexplainable and reject physics they are quite simple illusions that play games on the human eye. Still these places can be quite entertaining to visit, though do know the gravity is the same as always.

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