Strange Forces in the Oregon Vortex

We had little time to play tourist in the Medford area because we need to get up to the Portland area to make a flight to Toronto to keep Little William company while his parents have to work during the second week of his preschool spring break.  Before spending a wonderful dinner and evening with Tom's sister Mary Beth and her husband Scott, we had just enough time to explore the Oregon Vortex:

The Oregon Vortex is a roadside attraction located in Gold Hill, Oregon, only a few miles from the RV park where we were staying. It consists of a number of interesting effects.

The site is coincidentally located only 200 yards from where gold was originallty discovered on Sardine Creek in Gold Hill, as this sign attested:

According to the tour guide, the history of the Oregon Vortex goes back to the time when Native Americans populated the area. Their horses would not come into the circular ground comprising the Oregon Vortex. The Native Americans called the area the "Forbidden Ground", a place to be shunned. Before any buildings were constructed on the ground, settlers noted that unusual conditions existed there.

John Litster was a geologist, mining engineer, and physicist. He developed the area in the early 1920's and opened it to the public in 1930. He conducted thousands of experiments within the Vortex until his death in 1959.

The central physical feature of the Oregon Vortex is a building that was originally an assay office built by the Old Grey Eagle Mining Company in 1904.  The strange slopes of the building give rise to optical illusions, both inside and out, as explained by our tour guide below:

The dizziness that people sometimes experience in the house is based on the disorienting way people have to stand when they go through it.  David experienced this as we stood beside the house, but the tour guide explained that the dizziness is a result of the optical confusion, not any mysterious forces.

He demonstrated how the angle of the sinking floor of the old assay office building make it seem that a person standing inside is tilted off vertical:

He demonstrated how irregular the slopes of the floor, walls and ceiling are by balancing a broom to demonstrate true vertical:

Investigators from the SyFy reality show, "Fact or Fake: The Paranormal Files," checked out the Oregon Vortex.  The "Fact or Faked" team, led by former FBI criminal investigator Ben Hansen, used scientific equipment to measure the odd angles and warped floor of the Vortex's famous Mystery House. They determined that certain brooms could easily stand on their own based on the type of bristles and the angle of the floor. They also debunked the appearance of a ball rolling uphill as an optical illusion -- it's actually rolling downhill, but the house's slanted walls play tricks on the eye. The tour guide cheerfully volunteered to us that all of the effects inside the building are optical illusions, so it certainly didn't seem that the owners of the attraction were dissembling with us.

One effect that cannot be explained as an optical illusion is one that the tour guide asserts can be experienced anywhere within the circular area on the vortex ground.  The two photos below illustrate it.  The two photos are identical except for the position of each of the individuals.  As the individuals change position, their relative sizes change to a greater degree than can be explained by perspective. The tour guide proved with levels and measurements that the effect is not merely optical.  Kathy (second from left) participated, but still couldn't figure out the mystery:

The height change anomaly also proved difficult to explain. The "Fact or Fake" team determined that the spot where people stand on a level surface and appear to shrink or grow when they change positions actually has a two-degree incline. But that's not enough to explain the 16-degree difference they captured on camera.  Thus, this anomaly is not explained.  Our tour guide told us that the original owner, John Litster, theorized that the forces at play in the Oregon Vortex have an impact on the mass density of people and objects that are within its bounds.  So the theory goes, people who are closer to the center of the vortex experience "compression" of their mass density, which results in their actually becoming shorter.  In the photo above, the center of the vortex would be to the left, thus explaining how people appear to get smaller as they move to the left in the photo.

Other investigations by the "Fact or Fake" team were also inconclusive. Animals, it's said, are repelled by the magnetic or gravitational forces at play in the Vortex, so the investigators tried riding horses through the site. Before getting to the Vortex, the horses completely stopped and reversed direction. The TV show's investigative team also got strange compass readings during their experiments, suggesting that massive magnets might be buried under ground, though they weren't allowed to do any excavation to determine if that was the case.

We came away from this tour wondering, indeed, if unusual gravitational forces are at play in the Oregon Vortex.  We'll leave it to future visitors such as you to try to find the answer.