There’s a section of roadway near the exitway from Edwin Warner Park on the outskirts of Nashville where (before the road was blocked off to traffic) you used to be able to park, leave the car in neutral with the brake off and “coast” uphill.
This article has a chart of other such places and a description of the phenomenon and its typical resolution.
Are you near such a place? Have you checked it out for yourself?
Do you know of other such oddities?
For instance, do you know of a place where the flow of a waterway (river, creek, stream) appears to go uphill?
Knott’s Berry Farm used to have a small “house” full of such illusions (man-made, of course) but I don’t remember what it was called and I think they took it out. Everything surrounding the inclines would be placed so as to make them appear to slope the other way. The same concept is often referred to as a “Mystery Spot” as one of the most famous ones is “The Mystery Spot” in Santa Cruz, CA.
There is one of these hills near Ward, CO. I was pretty impressed with it, but have since learned that it is an optical illusion. Natural, of course. Still pretty cool.
There’s one near Burkittsville, MD. I did it once as a teenager, though it’s pretty easy to figure out it’s an illusion. It looks like the Burkittsville web site has some more on it.
In case you haven’t checked out the link in the OP, several of the sites alluded to in these posts are shown on the chart there. Also, there’s a link to this site that has some neat pictures of the one near New Paris, Pennsylvania.
I once took a side trip to Lake Wales, Florida to see Spook Hill. It’s a street next to an elementary school, and there’s a silly legend about Indians. I stopped, took the car out of gear, and let off the brakes. Yes, it seemed to roll uphill. It’s an optical illusion, though. It’s really downhill.
Here is one near where I live: Ghostly Children upon San Antonio’s Railroad Tracks In this ghost story, a school bus full of children was struck by a train while crossing the tracks. If you go to the tracks now and put your car in neutral, it appears as if you are pushed up and over the railroad tracks. As the story goes, if you put baby powder on the trunk of your car, you can see the tiny hand prints of the ghost children who pushed you. To make it a little creepier, many of the streets nearby are named after children.
First of all, the place is scary not because of the ghosts, but because the very dark and isolated intersection is frequented by thieves, druggies, and other people who want to mess with you and take your stuff. The road is also very messed up, especially near the top near the tracks where it is hard for your car to roll over the deep ruts. But it does seem to happen. All in all it is pretty spooky, especially if it seems as if no one else is there.
Wow. We always pass a sign for Gravity Hill on our drive to PA and I thought it was the only one! I have always wanted to check it out but we are always in a hurry to get where we’re going. Now I must do this.
There’s a road that leads to my condo complex that only floods on top of a hill, not at the bottoms on either side.
The hill in the road adjoins an even larger, steeper hill of the vacant lots next to the road. So, in a heavy rain, the water flows down this hill, and is channeled such that it only flows on top of the road’s hill. Resulting in occasional spin-outs, and from what I understand at least one stalled car, and some very confused drivers.
