Southern California is home to an amazing collection of mysterious phenomena known as “magnetic hills” or “gravity hills.” These places appear to defy gravity, allowing things to roll uphill.

Gravity hills are found all around the world, but they didn’t seem to gain fame until the advent of the automobile. This could be because horse-drawn vehicles were never truly in neutral and they weren’t susceptible to rolling on their own.

The earliest accounts of a magnetic hill in Southern California were in the early 1920s when newspapers started carrying articles about a mysterious gravity defying hill in Hollywood, just above Sunset Boulevard.

Hollywood’s magnetic hill was on a small street named Villa Drive, now renamed St. Ives Drive, and it became a well-known tourist attraction luring drivers to test the anti-gravity feature.

Magnetic hills were soon discovered just about anywhere there was a sloping drive with an obfuscated horizon.

Many of the hills developed interesting legends and background stories. A common theme in the stories — they often center around people who died at the location and whose ghost is now haunting the site.

A magnetic hill located in the Leh district of Ladakh, India, has a unique local legend to explain the phenomenon. The local villagers near the magnetic hill of Ladakh say there once existed a road that led people to heaven. Those who rightly deserved heaven were pulled to the path directly, while those who didn’t could never make it there.

Magnetic hill tourism began sprouting up in many locations, and in January 1929, the Anaheim Bulletin carried an advertisement for free tourist trips to the local magnetic hill.

In October 1932, the Automobile Club of Southern California posted a report in the Anaheim Bulletin stating that a magnetic hill had been discovered in the Cajon Pass on a newly reconstructed section of Route 66, about a half mile north of Cajon Junction. The report claimed that a car placed in neutral on this new section of road would roll uphill.

Perhaps no other town has capitalized on their magnetic hill better than Moncton, in New Brunswick, Canada. The commercialization of their hill began in the 1930s and it became a mainstay of the economy in the ’40s. Today, the magnet theme in Moncton is used on everything from business names and advertising to souvenirs featuring a classic horseshoe-shaped magnet.

Throughout the history of magnetic hills, there have been three possible explanations. First, an unusual magnetic force exists at the site; second, ghosts or spirits are pushing things at the site; or third, the site has a combination of scenery that creates an optical illusion. Of the three possibilities for the phenomena, the first two are kind of fun, but the optical illusion is the reality.

Even in the early years, magnetic and gravity hills were not taken completely seriously, and as early as the 1920s, “scientists” and “experts” made grandstanding exhibits to disprove the mysteries.

The Aug. 24, 1924, edition of the Los Angeles Times carried a half-page article that took a humorous approach to solving Hollywood’s magnetic hill mystery. The writer created a “Sherlock Holmes/Dr. Watson” story where Sherlock was portrayed by local resident W. Fred Van Loenen, manager of the Girvin-Warren Grade Meter Company.

To solve the puzzle, Van Loenen and a group of men took an automobile to the grade, and they used the grade meter to prove the mysterious magnetism was nothing more than an optical illusion.

An article in the June 1, 2006, issue of Science Daily explains the phenomenon in non-spooky, unromantic terms:

“The effects are illusions caused by the landscape. The position of trees and slopes of nearby scenery, or a curvy horizon line, can blend to trick the eye so that what looks uphill is actually downhill.”

Other tourist venues use similar illusions to trick the eye and make things like water and balls appear to defy gravity by moving uphill. Some great California examples of this are the Mystery Shack at Calico Ghost Town near Barstow, and the Mystery Spot near Santa Cruz.

Forgetting science, magnetic hills are what you make of them. Take a drive out to your nearest mystery magnetic spot, and enjoy the uphill roll, but beware of the ghosts causing the coast.

Some of Southern California’s better known spots:

• Sylmar: Kagel Canyon Road, south of Lopez Canyon Road

• Altadena: Loma Alta Drive near Sunny Oaks Circle

• Cajon Pass: Santa Fe Road, a quarter-mile north of Highway 138 (formerly a section of Route 66, now a re-graded dirt road)

• Moreno Valley: Nason Street overpass on the 60 Freeway

• Whittier: Rose Hills, the slope between Garden of Memories and Garden of Devotion. The gravity feature runs from Garden of Love to Terrace of Hope.

Mark Landis is a freelance writer. He can be reached at Historyinca@yahoo.com.