The moment you see the place, something tells you that nature has gone mad. If you are on horseback the horse will imstinctively shy away from it. Birds suddenly swing about in flight and dart away to less disturbing scenes. Even the trees give the impression that they, too, are under the influence of a power the cannot escape, for within that strange circle of gravitational insanity, the tree limbs droop noticeably and the trees themselves lean toward the magnetic north, although the trees around them point straight up. This is the world famed "Oregon Vortex." It lies along the banks of Sardine Creek about thirty miles from Grant's Pass, Oregon. What it does is well known but why and how are questions unanswered.
The vortex is approximately 165 feet in diameter. It is roughly circular in shape, but instruments indicate that the exact size of the tormented zone varies slightly from time to time at ninety-day intervals. Within this circle is an old wooden shed, once an assay office but abandoned back about 1890 when the scales began to play tricks. At that time the building was uphill, about 40 feet outside the limits of the vortex. After the shack was abandoned, that portion of the hill slid down into its present position. The building itself is warped and twisted: whether by the unknown forces of the vortex or from the strains of sliding down the hill is a matter of conjecture. When you step inside the old building you're in another world of sorts. You feel a tremendous pull downward, as if gravity had suddenly been intensified. You instinctively lean at an angle of about ten degrees toward the center of the circle. If you lean backward, that is, toward the outside of the circle, you have a creepy feeling of being pulled toward its center, as instruments indicate that you are.
Many scientists have conducted lengthy experiments at the vortex, trying to unravel its riddle. They hung a 28-pound steel ball on a chain from a beam in the old shack. Visitors see this ball apparently hanging at an angle, defying the laws of gravity. It dangles perceptibly toward the center of the circle. You can easily push it in that direction, but it is more difficult to shove it toward the rim of the circle.
Even cigarette smoke is affected by the weird forces within the vortex. A puff of smoke blown into the still air within the shack will begin to spiral, faster and faster, until it vanishes. Some of the uncanny antics that startle the tourists include such experiments as placing an empty glass jar on a sloaping board, and watching it roll uphill. A ball, even a child's sponge rubber ball, placed on a level spot on the earth near the edge of the circle will invariably roll slowly toward the center of the vortex. A handful of tiny paper scraps tossed into the air will spiral madly about as though stirred in mid air by some unseen hand. It is a creepy sensation in an eerie setting.
This remote woodland glade where nature seems to have gone mad was known to the Indians, who solemnly assured the early settlers that the place was cursed. They had to be shown, and having been shown, they had to investigate: as they are doing to this very day. Is it merely an optical illusion accompained by vivid imagination? Instruments have been used which measured the outer limits of the disturbance and determined the size of the circle as roughly 165 feet. Other instruments were carefully set up, beyond the influence of the vortex itself. By sighting thru the planes of these devices it was easy to establish that the feeling of standing at an angle within the circle was not imaginary.
By the same method it was easy to prove that the 28-pound steel ball suspended from the chain inside the shack actually does hang at an angle towards the center of the vortex. Golf clubs, brooms and other odds and ends of that general configuration are easy to stand on end inside the confines of the freakish circle; and, in order to be balanced, they must be leaned at a measurable angle away from the center of the vortex. The phenomenon which accompanies the vortex forces is demonstrably electro-magnetic in character. An ordinary photographer's light meter, which converts light into electricity and registers it on a dial, will show wide variation between the daylight inside the circle and that beyond its limits. Compasses refuse to function. The world famedOregon Vortex is similar in some respects to another spot about fourty-five miles away in the Siskiyou Mountains, although the phenomenon at the Vortex is much more profound. At Camp Burch, Colorado, still another magnetic sink seems to operate, again less powerful than the Vortex.The force is there. It is measurable, but what it is or why it is nobody knows. The Oregon Vortex is indeed the oddest and perhaps the "craziest" spot on earth.