Talk:Mystery Spot

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Wisconsin Dells has a similar attraction, but I don't remember enough about to be a source for information.


This is not the only one. This page either needs expanding or moved to a more specific title. Rmhermen 15:55, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia, so if you know of the others, have at it! :-) I'd suggest moving this page to a more specific name ("Mystery Spot (Santa Cruz)" seems like the typical Wiki way) and creating a "Mystery Spot" disambiguation page.
Atlant 22:41, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

User:67.162.250.186 wrote on the article page:

I have been a visitor to this place and while it is possible that it could be a extremely well conceived trick, I can't find an explanation for the physical effects that I felt while there. A lot of people feel light-headed as if about to faint, although in a mild form.

I would suggest that you are experiencing a blood-pressure shift resulting from a sense of the "uncanny." The body is unable to fully integrate contradicting external stimuli and this results in an increase in blood-pressure and perhaps a release of adrenaline. I think this is great! It's like a mild but sustained hallucination. I get this whenever I go to the desert. Jackbox1971 02:40, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I've moved that comment here. And I'll suggest that autosuggestion and observer bias can be surprisingly powerful forces. Rest assured that there's nothing supernatural or even wierdly gravitic going on in Santa Cruz, even at the Mystery Spot.

Atlant 23:32, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)


[edit] on versus in

Today, I changed the article to read in the Upper Peninsula and Atlant changed it back so it reads on the Upper Peninsula. I am not angry, I just think he is wrong. I think this is just the way people talk about the Upper Peninsula. A comparable analogy would be the South Beach article, where it talks says "a renaissance began in South Beach." Technically, the renaissance happened on the beach, but since it's a region as well as a geographical feature, you can say you are in that region. Perhaps this is a linguistic/dialect thing, but it sounds wrong to say on the Upper Peninsula. A compromise would be to rephrase the whole sentence to eliminate the need for the in/on discussion. MPS 22:17, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't feel strongly about this. Why don't we wait to see if anyone else checks in on this, and if no one else does, then revert my change if you still feel like it. Rephrasing the sentence sounds fine also.
Atlant 22:46, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
FWIW, Google gives 67,800 results for "in the upper peninsula" and only 3,640 results for "on the upper peninsula". —Caesura(t) 19:05, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Spoiler warning

Is a spoiler warning really neccisary here? --192.203.136.254 16:05, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, that depends. Most of the fun of Mystery Spot is in playing along with the gag, so it would be a shame for people to have the mystery ruined inadvertently. Also, I think the inclusion of the warning is a bit of a joke; the description of any real mystery story should obviously include a spoiler warning!
Atlant 16:36, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I'm not so sure the article namespace is the place for jokes. At the very least, I think we should reword the spoiler for this page (i.e., replace the template with an HTML message specifically for this page). "Plot and/or ending details" doesn't make sense in this context. Any suggestions for a better way to phrase the spoiler warning? —Caesura(t) 19:03, 14 July 2005 (UTC)


I'm wondering why the article says

Spoiler warning: Demystification follows. Demystification follows[hide] The Mystery Spot is a gravity hill type of optical illusion. The phenomena that visitors to the attraction may experience result from the effects of forced perspective, optical adaptation, and certain optical illusions in combination with the steep gradient of the site. That is, the situation inside a Mystery Spot is arranged in some way so that the visitors don't feel that the site's gradient is actually steep (the site is actually tilted, that is), despite the fact that it is. Some of the effects are identical to those in an Ames Room. As visitors travel through the site, they habituate to this gradient. The effects of this adaptation are then exploited, especially within closed structures, so that visitors may feel as though gravity does not operate as it should in the Mystery Spot. Spoilers end here.

and there is nothing under the spoiler.

This should be mentioned (article also lists other spots across the US, which could be consolidated under a larger subject). http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070205/ap_on_fe_st/wonder_spot

  • The spoiler warning isn't appropriate here. This is an encyclopedia, people will expect to see an explanation of the "mystery" here. This article is part of the "Gravity hills" category, which itself is part of the "Optical illusions" category, which makes it obvious to anyone this is an optical illusion before they've even read the article. 172.207.24.36 16:25, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I agree, the gravity hill article has no spoiler warning, and it's not very encyclopedic to have one here - I'm going to remove it. A heading with "Explanation" should be obvious enough that the explanation is going to follow. Croxley 18:50, 24 April 2007 (UTC)