For today, I am going to introduce you to a local, mind-bending illusion called the Zona Magica, or Magic Zone in English. This road is on the highway between Nogueras and Comala, and I have heard of this phenomena in other countries, such as Ireland where it is called the Magic Road.
Basically, it is a road where the angle of the road is in the opposite direction from where it appears to be going. It is so enthralling that the government here constructed two side roads parallel to the main road because people were stopping their cars in the road to observe the supposed contradiction to the laws of nature. On my personal videos, you can see a grassy median between the road we are on and the main road.
Before trying my experiment, I watched some videos on YouTube, which explained that the effects of the magic roads are an optical illusion, but even knowing this, my eyes and my sister’s eyes could not discern the true nature of the angle of the road.
My experiment consisted of taking a cup of coffee and a carpenter’s level to the road. We got to a spot where it appeared that we were in a depression, with the road rising both in front of and behind us. When I put the level down on the road in front of the car, the bubble rose in the direction of my car. Since bubbles rise, that meant that the end of the level closest to the car was higher than the opposite end, meaning that the road was actually progressing in a downward direction. (Note: I was nervous and trying hard to make sense of what I was seeing, so I initially misspoke on the video and said the bubble indicated that the road was going up, which it was not. The road only appeared to be so.).
To further enhance our understanding, I poured some coffee onto the road, and the coffee proceeded to travel forward, also indicating that the road was heading down instead of up. But again, even though the coffee and level indicated that the road was going down, our eyes were telling us that the road was going in an upward direction.
Next, I got into the car, put it in neutral, and the car proceeded to roll forward at a rapid rate, but to our eyes, we were rolling UP hill.
In the second video, the situation was the reverse of the first, where the road appeared to be going downhill, but the level indicated that the road was actually rising, a fact that was confirmed when the car rolled backwards and seemed to be rolling uphill to my senses.
So, in conclusion – I guess there are things in this world , whether ghosts or alien space ships, or whatever odd mysterious things you can think of, that are seemingly magical and otherworldly, which can be explained by scientific inquiry, but still boggle the mind.
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