![]() Another told Elena, after a perfectly typical tour, that the Vortex had revealed itself as "the gateway to heaven." One woman showed up and asked, with sincerity, "Where do you keep the fairies?" - as if the attraction had them in a jar with holes punched in the lid. "It violates some pretty basic rules," she said.Īlso passionate about the Vortex are what Elena called its "Fan Club" of enthusiastic repeat visitors, as well as first-timers who are drawn to it by some inexplicable urge ("I don't know why I had to come here but I did"). Elena said that some visitors have yelled at her or stomped off because the Vortex topsy-turveyed their idea of the way things should be. "One of the more esoteric explanations," said Elena, "is that your height changes because you're walking on something that looks level, and it even measures level in three dimensions, but you're actually walking up and down a hill in a sixth dimension that you're not capable of perceiving." This kind of talk drives traditionalists nuts. Litster's nearly incomprehensible "Notes and Data" booklet (available in the Vortex gift shop) attributes the hoodoo to a number of possible causes, including warped atoms, electromagnetic antigravity, oscillating "terralines," or perhaps something buried inside the hill such as unknown minerals or a subterranean super-machine left by prehistoric aliens.Įlena Cooper demonstrates the standing broom.ĭespite Litster's efforts, the powers of the Oregon Vortex remain a mystery - which means that people keep coming up with new theories to explain it. Nowadays, everyone is welcome, and all of Litster's original research was destroyed in a barn fire around 1962. Growing up fast in the Vortex: just walk to the right. Elena said that when she first started working at the Vortex, its long-standing policy was to forbid entry to anyone who might be from the Mystery Spot, in case they were out to steal more secrets. Bad blood between the two attractions lasted for decades. It opened in 1941, changed "Mystery House" to "Mystery Spot," and thus added a classic term to the roadside lexicon. Within a few years, copycat shacks began appearing in more easily visited areas, including one at the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot. He got frustrated trying to conduct his experiments, so he told them, 'Okay, you can come in, but I'm charging each of you a nickel.' And they paid it."Īccording to Vortex lore, Litster eventually published his experimental findings, but revealed too much, including the exact dimensions of the "House of Mystery" - a real, half-collapsed mine assayer's shack that had slid down a hill into the Vortex. "I figure, people just started showing up. "I always wondered why Litster opened it to the public," she said. "This was a hard place to get to in 1930," said Elena, who added that the only people in these hills at that time were either working or watching a nearby archeological dig. That seems unlikely, because the Vortex was in a terrible spot for opportunistic enterprise: on a wooded hillside, off of a winding, narrow road, in the middle of nowhere. Latter-day skeptics have written off Litster as a con man, out to make a fast buck. ![]() All that's known for certain is that Litster was at the Vortex, conducting experiments (so he said), when he opened it as a tourist attraction in 1930. He claimed that wildlife and Native Americans knew of the spot and shunned it, but the only source of that information was Litster, and he changed his story from time to time, possibly skewed by the demands of tourism ballyhoo or Vortex-madness. The outside world became aware of the Oregon Vortex through John Litster (1886-1959). ![]() Its eerie reputation is usually attributed to some sort of mega freaky mojo, one that science can't - or dare not - explain. Some of the berserk enigmas at the Vortex could be dismissed as optical illusions - but that wouldn't account for the attraction's long-established history of making people feel and act weird. "It's existed probably since the planet existed. "The Vortex is special," said Elena, whose Cooper family has owned the attraction since 1960. But those shacks are copies of the one at the Oregon Vortex, and the Vortex shack is only part of a larger area of disorienting Oregon forest. Pale imitations of these effects can be encountered at "mystery shacks" in amusement parks and other convenient locations. A person's height grows or shrinks depending on where they stand, and some say that they can feel the transformation happen. A lot of people become seasick at the landlocked Vortex. For some visitors, back pains disappear and hangovers get worse. Photographs reveal unseen beams of light. "It's a place that really doesn't make any sense," said Elena Cooper, long-time Vortex manager.
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