Still Crazy After All These Years: Mystery Spot, St. Ignace

The Mystery Spot in St. Ignace in the Upper Peninsula is not unlike Mystery Hill in the Irish Hills near Michigan International Speedway.

Mystery Spot, Mystery Hill, Gravity Hill, Magnetic Hill…it’s all the same and no one can seem to pinpoint where the first one originated.

Some feel the first one was in Santa Cruz California, discovered in 1938 and opened to the public in 1940.

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So who says it's a "mystery spot" in the first place?

The St. Ignace discovery took place back in the early 1950’s, when three California surveyors by the names of Clarence, Fred and McCray arrived in Michigan to explore the Upper Peninsula. During their explorations, they stumbled across an area of land where their surveying equipment didn’t seem to work properly. Weird stuff kept happening; one thing that kept baffling them was: no matter how many times they tried to level their tripod, through the use of a plum-bob or level, the plum-bob would always be drawn far to the east, even as the level was reading level. Continuing their survey of this particular part of land, they experienced a constant feeling of light-headedness. After a while, they realized their queasiness and equipment problems only took place in an area about 300 feet in diameter. Not having any explanation for what was happening to them, they truly believed they had discovered a “Mystery Spot”!

It’s no huge mystery…it’s no spacecraft buried underground or supernatural forces at work…it’s simply shifted, angled earth that makes the surroundings appear to defy gravity…like water running upstream, etc.

Once it was figured out what was going on, dollar signs appeared in their eyes and the wheels went into motion to turn the area into a tourist trap and make a few bucks.

Located at N916 Martin Lake Road west of St Ignace…