Spook Hill Lake Wales Spook Hill is one of the country’s oldest “gravity hills,” offering an optical illusion that makes it appear as though cars are rolling up the hill. It’s one of Florida’s pre-Disney World roadside attractions, filled with eerie mystery that’ll (probably very briefly) entertain the most skeptical skeptics. Credit: Photo by Ebyabe via Wikimedia Commons
Ghost riding the whip has new meaning lately, but an OG Polk County ghost riding spot has just landed on the National Register of Historic Places. Spook Hill – where cars in neutral appear to roll uphill – was added to the list earlier this month, and it joins the more than four dozen Polk County spots already on the register.

Urban legends say that Spook Hill, located on North Wales Drive near Spook Hill Elementary School, is a place where spirits make cars roll uphill. Science has ruined the fun of the tourist attraction by pointing out that the effect is just an optical illusion made possible by geography that makes a slight downhill slope look like an uphill one.

Now that it’s on the list, Spook Hill has taken a step towards eligibility for federal preservation tax credits doled out by the National Park Service, which is seeing a 15 percent decrease in its budget anyway.

Watch some video from the spooky spot below. Click here for directions.

YouTube video

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This article appears in Apr 24-30, 2019.