On the way to Glacier National Park, there’s a roadside tourist attraction called the Montana Vortex (also known as the House of Mystery). There are signs all over the area, with catchy slogans like “Amazing!” and “Fun!”. Despite passing it every time we head to Glacier, we’ve never stopped. Well, the Campbells said they enjoy seeing wacky tourist attractions on their trips, so we all agreed to give the Vortex a shot.
The massive sign out front is breathtaking, especially since up close it’s clear this is a wall-size print of a poorly-edited JPEG.
Our guide was Matt, who was very enthusiastic about the incredible, unexplained phenomena created by the Vortex. He mentioned “quantum physics” more times than I can count, apparently as a way to not only lend credence to the “theories” about the Vortex, but also as a way to basically hand-wave away any questions we might have.
The Vortex, we learned, is one of several in the western United States. In fact, there are three separate vortices right on this spot! The largest one is 216 feet in diameter, with the smaller ones measuring 72 and 54 feet across, respectively. (How does one measure the size of a vortex?) You’ll notice 72 and 54 divide evenly into 216, which is evidently a magic, mystical number occurring frequently in things like this. Two other vortices in California are 216 miles apart. There are 21,600 arc seconds in a circle. Amazing!
One of the unexplained phenomena caused by the Vortex is people shrinking and growing relative to one another. To demonstrate this, Matt asked some people to stand on either end of a little concrete slab. Here are Eliza and Murren facing each other. Note that Eliza (on the left) is taller than her sister.
Because the energy lines of the Vortex cut through the slab (notice the blue line painted just in front of Murren’s feet), these two women are actually in separate universes. When they switch places…
It’s incredible! Now Murren is taller! Energy lines! Quantum physics!
After this, we entered the main attraction at the Vortex: the House of Mystery. It’s in the background of the photos above, and is basically a ramshackle shed built on the side of a hill at an 18-degree angle. When you walk inside, you feel a little dizzy because everything is so slanted. What I’d chalk up to disorientation between what you see (the inside of a house) and what you feel (gravity pulling at 18 degrees from perpendicular), Matt chalked up to the effects of the Vortex. It turns out the Vortex is centered in the house, right inside this circle they’ve conveniently drawn on the floor:
It makes for some fun photographs, anyway. We all took turns standing in the circle, closing our eyes, clearing our thoughts, and feeling the Vortex swirl through us.
Later, Matt asked the group if we could tell which direction the Vortex swirls. I said it was clearly counterclockwise, and I was correct! It’s probably because I took an Electricity and Magnetism course in college, and know the Right Hand Rule about current flow and magnetic fields:
Once we were all a bit dizzy from the House of Mystery, we stepped outside where Matt directed our attention to several trees that were growing in strange shapes:
As any student of the Vortex and its mysteries could tell you, this is obviously because they’re in the energy field. Fortunately for us, at one of the “nodal points” of the energy field is a Healing Stone. The owners of the Vortex were kind enough to place several chairs in a circle around the Healing Stone, so all of us could put our feet on it and receive healing energy (it’s important to remove shoes and socks, so the energy can flow more freely). We all agreed it looked like a smooth rock that had been painted blue, but we figured what the heck. We sat down and healed ourselves for a bit.
There were several other demonstrations of quantum physics, but we couldn’t get them to work. We were told it’s probably because our bodies are in a state of “particle being” rather than “waves”. Of course this is a reference to the famous Double-Slit Experiment which proved the wave-particle duality of photons and led to the birth of quantum mechanics. We were all a little bummed that we were too particle-y, but I guess them’s the breaks. Quantum physics is a fickle thing.
In the end, we had a good time, despite all the mumbo-jumbo about quantum physics and numerology. It also provided multiple ongoing opportunities for jokes as we spent the day together. (“Do you feel that? I think it’s a vortex!”) (“I’m pretty hungry. It’s probably because my particles aren’t wavy.”) (“Look, a tree that’s not straight. It’s probably in an energy field!”)