America’s ‘creepiest road’ is a ‘paranormal’ hot spot where cars roll uphill

A normal-looking road in California has earned itself a reputation as the ‘creepiest’ in the US with people claiming cars roll uphill on their own. 

Thanks to the bizarre phenomenon, Slymar’s Gravity Hill has become a tourist attraction, with ghost hunters and supernatural experts keen to explore it. 

Numerous videos online appear to show the cars eerily making their way up the hill – seemingly defy gravity. 

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People claim to have seen ghostly ‘child-like’ figures

Spooky stories of ghostly highway men and phantom hitchhikers have been shared since the dawn of the automotive industry.

In more recent times, this trucker managed to capture a mysterious ghostly figure on dashcam while driving on an empty road, a Tesla driver spotted ‘ghosts’ walking around a cemetery, and this Rolls-Royce parked up in India has locals convinced it has a haunted history.

Whether any of it is true – well – that’s another story.

Meanwhile, over on Gravity Hill, as well as cars lurching backward unassisted like a sort of haunted autonomous vehicle, some folks claim to have spotted child-like apparitions near the road and heard disembodied voices in the distance. 

Cue the spooky music. 

“Your eyes tell you one thing, but then the way the environment reacts is something else – and that is a very, very astute thing to notice when it comes to paranormal phenomena,” paranormal investigator Susan Slaughter said on an episode of Paranormal Caught on Camera that featured the ‘haunted’ hill. 

That’s a great name for a paranormal investigator, right?

There’s a simple explanation for why the cars appear to roll uphill

Part of the mystery can be easily explained away by science. 

The layout of the road is essentially a huge optical illusion, that makes a slight downhill slope appear to be an uphill one instead. 

So, a car parked up and not in gear will appear to be rolling uphill against gravity.

According to data from the Los Angeles Region Imagery Acquisition Consortium Program the road slopes downhill from north to south. 

The hill has an elevation of 518 meters (1,700ft) at the top – which most view as the bottom – to 502 meters (1,650ft) at the bottom.

There are actually a bunch of ‘Gravity Hills’ across the world, including in the UK, Spain, South Africa, Mexico and Japan – as well as a healthy smattering all over the US. 

But before you get too comfortable with that simple solution – it doesn’t explain why people claim to have spotted ghosts in the area or where exactly those voices are coming from.  

Looks like it could be a job for the Ghostbusters.