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Cairo - Catskill, New York: Mystery Spot (Gone)

Was a classic wooden mystery shack and gravity-gone-haywire attraction.

Directions:
Route 32, between Catskill and Saugerties, near Catskill Game Farm and the old Carson City site.
Hours:
Gone by the early 1990s.
Status:
Gone

Visitor Tips and News About Mystery Spot

Reports and tips from RoadsideAmerica.com visitors and Roadside America mobile tipsters. Some tips may not be verified. Submit your own tip.

Mystery Spot

I visited this place in the .70s as a teen. We were shown around by a fast talkin. 20ish girl explaining how gravity was "off" in this spot. The house and exhibits were built at a clear angle so most of what I saw (water flowing uphill) was explained by optical illusion.

There was one "exhibit" I could not explain. One person standing at one position level with an opposite person at the second position seemed to be taller, as though you were standing at angle at the one spot. It was explained, I think, by a local underground mass concentration pulling you off center from regular earth down. Theoretically possible I guess, but an effect that would show at a tiny fraction of a degree. So I guess it was also an optical illusion.

[Paul Schuyler, 10/25/2016]
Mystery Spot

I loved this place, we stopped several times. Then it was gone. There is one in Santa Cruz, CA, a lot bigger but basically same deal.

[Lorraine, 05/31/2013]

The one bad thing about mystery spots -- aside from their unsettling mockery of the laws of physics -- is that they can disappear as quickly as they appear.

Mystery Spot - Vague Recollections

The Mystery Spot was the creation of a great man, my grandfather. It was mystical place to work, a family-run operation, later owned and operated by my mother. It's nice to read all the comments that have been posted. I'm glad that it brought a smile to some of you, as it did to me. Thank You.

[seth sullivan, 08/09/2012]
Mystery Spot - Vague Recollections

I visited The Mystery Spot in the late 1980s.

1) In the shack was a golf ball on a string hanging from the ceiling at about a 12 degree angle from perpendicular. This was caused by a very palpable force similar to a magnetic force parallel to the ground. This was also akin to a very steady wind, yet without any air movement.

2) Before the entrance to the shack there were two concrete building blocks embedded in the ground parallel to one another, with a few inches separating them. The guide laid a leveler on top of these two blocks to clearly show that one was not higher than the other. She then stood facing me on one block while I did the same facing her on the other. When we 'exchanged' the blocks we were standing on, my perception of her height, which she acknowledged, was clearly different.

3) After that she took me to a nearby wooden trough which had at the lower end a water pump connected to an underground water source . With a few pumps, water came out which then proceeded to clearly go "uphill" on this upward slanting trough before falling off at its end.

4) I don't at all agree with [tipster] Nadine's belief that what I experienced was based upon visual illusions, as this place was so stripped down to its essentials to purely show itself off, that there simply was no basis for illusions. And if there were, this still would not account for the very real force within the shack.

Not believing the legitimacy of the Mystery Spot reminds me of the response of one spouse to the other spouse when caught in the act of infidelity. "Which are you going to believe, what I'm telling you or your lying eyes?"

[John G., 06/10/2010]
Mystery Spot -Vague Recollections

I visited this place in 1974 as a young boy with my parents on an annual upstate NY vacation. We usually did the standards: game farm, gaslight village, ghosttown, etc. I actually found this site today thinking of some fun/weird things to do this summer.

I remember all the strange things at the Mystery Spot: A ramp that had reverse gravity (hard down, easy up), old chairs balancing on a thin strip to the wall, a few other "events." A cool place, no real clear evidence of hokeyness. My dad was a trooper, he always looked good. The thing is, now I'm really curious, disappearing so quickly, and not much info on the history.

[Don O, 06/04/2008]

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