I'm just saying....>About 15 miles north of Prosser (half an hour from here) -- inside the labyrinth of roads, past where the irrigated fields of grapes, hops, cherries and apples give way to dry-land farms and rolling fields of sagebrush and tall grasses -- sits Gravity Hill.
The concept is simple: Drive to the start line, stop, put your car in neutral, lift your foot off the brake and let nature pull you up Gravity Hill. As the vehicle inches away from the spray-painted line, it picks up speed, eventually coasting up an incline at more than 10 mph. With ease, the slope is crested, revealing an expansive view of the lower Yakima Valley.
But is Gravity Hill a scientific anomaly? A stretch of lonely road that defies one of the most basic laws of physics? A bizarre world where water runs uphill and dogs meow?
Not quite, say a Prosser High School physics teacher and Washington State University professor. Both men -- Mark Sundberg of Prosser and Sukanta Bose, a gravity expert at WSU -- said Gravity Hill is more likely a natural sleight of hand than a physics-defying phenomenon.
"There is such a kind of thing that if a slope looks one way, it's actually the other," Bose explained. "What is really looking up, is actually down."
"I wonder if it's just a perception thing," Sundberg mused.
Neither man has seen Gravity Hill, which is on North Crosby Road, only found after taking a long drive up Gap Road and several detours along other rural streets. WHAT kind of MAD SCIENTIST are you?!
Sundberg plans to make a trip soon, and when he does, he'll bring a level. Bose said he'd use a plumb line. Okay, I forgive you but you better bring something to detect buried alien spaceships.
....There is the possibility that a large magnetic rock or ore (or space ship) sits beneath Gravity Hill, pulling vehicles uphill and holding them on the downhill slope. Although he acknowledged it's possible, Sundberg said the theory is unlikely because the ore's mass would have to be greater than the vehicle's...<
6 comments:
Or a chunk of a brown dwarf that creashed into the Earth eons ago and is keeping us in orbit, maybe.
I watched Impact last night.
totally a space ship!
I've heard of this Gravity Hill for years now. Had no idea it was close to you. Now ain't that sumpin' Maudy? Land sakes alive.
xoxoxo Charlie
We have a similar hill near where I grew up in Ontario. The hill is also noted for apparitions. Maybe a convergence of "lay lines"? As far as I know, it's never been surveyed or had the actual grade measured. I believe a T.V. program Unexplained Canada or Haunted Ontario or some such thing, did an article on some years ago.
I since found out this hill is included in a book titled 'Weird Washington'. I am going to HAVE to get this!!
This is fascinating!
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