Oregon Vortex
I recently paid a visit to the Oregon Vortex/House of Mystery. Allegedly, it is a place with a strong magnetic field where the laws of gravity and light have special properties. It is located near Medford, Oregon, where I spent some time last week. My visit coincidentally took place on my birthday.
The Vortex itself is much smaller than what I was expecting. The only two structures are a small store and a what remains of a small house, known as the “House of Mystery.” Tours start on the hour. The cost for adults is $22. One may not wander about on their own but must be part of a tour.
Our tour began with the guide explaining how the earth has a magnetic field and tied it into the recent solar flair that allowed some in the US to see the northern lights. She said the Oregon Vortex was at the intersection of multiple magnetic lines, giving it an especially strong magnetic field. She used a lot of scientific jargon that I can’t recall, but I think she was throwing around big words to sound more authoritative. Then she explained how the native Americans were afraid of the place, horses wouldn’t walk through it and even birds, animals and bugs didn’t like the place. She asked the audience to listen for noises and I must admit it was quiet for being the woods, but I tend to think she cherry picked a quiet moment to ask us to pause and listen to the lack of animal sounds.
She then explained how people seemed to grow and shrink in size. To demonstrate this, she had two volunteers face each other about 10 feet apart on a rectangular concrete platform. To each other and to the audience, it did seem like their heights changed relative to each other. In particular, one side made people look taller and the other smaller. The guide explained nobody was really getting bigger or smaller but explained it as the laws of light had special properties within the Vortex.
To appease the skeptics like me, she had several levels available to borrow and put them on the ground as a show proving it was level. However, I maintain despite flashing some levels to the audience, the explanation is simply that the ground was not flat. It appeared to be, which I file as an optical illusion. I maintain she conveniently put the levels in the middle of the two spots where people were standing, which I don’t dispute was level. However, I think the two ends of the rectangular area where the two subjects stood were not. As to the levels themselves, they were small and nobody in the audience except me stopped to carefully examine them. In retrospect, I wish I had more carefully examined the entire platform as opposed to just a particular spot in the middle the guide motioned me to.
Then we went into the “House of Mystery.” Said house looked like it had slid down the hill. The floor, sides and roof were all at strange angles. It was disorienting inside because it wasn’t obvious which way was directly up. A weight hanging from a string tied to a beam did show proper up and down. Said string seemed to be at an angle, which I attribute the entire house being at strange angles. In other words, another optical illusion.
The guide then produced a broom and made it stand on the floor. The angle of the broom handle was not the same as the string. Wow! I just got our own broom and made it stand straight up. It was easy when I put it on an inclined surface. My broom handle was not going straight up and down either because the end of the broom was not even.
After much picture taking and scientific nonsense the guide directed us out the other side. There we went through another exercise of apparent size changing of members of the audience. I will admit the audience seemed, at the least, to enjoy it and at most believe in it. However, I maintain it was another slanted platform. With everything at strange angles, it was hard to judge what, if anything, was actually level.
In conclusion, I contend the Oregon Vortex is a hoax! The same is probably true of similar places the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, CA. However, I have no hard feelings. The staff was nice and addressed all questions. They also didn’t seem to take the whole thing too seriously.
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