Mystery Of Magnetic Hill | An optical illusion | Leh Ladakh

Magnetic Hill is a significant tourist attraction within the valley and ideal pit-stop for tired riders.

The Leh Magnetic Hill is located on the Leh-Kargil-Baltik national highway, about 30 km from Leh. The local administration has marked the spot by putting up a poster near the Hill.

The reason is that the magnetic hill that pulls stationary vehicles upwards. It's an ideal pit-stop for tired riders moving on the highway. The best time to go to the Ladakh Magnetic Hill is from July to September. The roads are clear at this point of the year and the weather is simply just right to explore Ladakh and its beauty.

The beauty of Leh-Ladakh

Ladakh, the very word creates a picture in our minds of a mysterious land and other people who have been there would agree that it certainly lives up to the expectations.

Leh with an area of 45,110 sq. km. is the largest district within the country in terms of area. It lies at an altitude of 11,500 ft. (3,500 m) and is one of the world's highest towns inhabited year-round. 

The region of Ladakh normally remains landlocked between November to June every year as the Srinagar-Ladakh and Ladakh-Manali highways, which connect Ladakh with the other parts of the country, remain closed during this era due to snow and rigorous winter. The area is accessible all year round by air.

Mysterious fact about Ladakh

There is one that has mystified people for long and still continues to do so. It is a tiny low stretch of the road situated about 30 kilometres from Leh towards Kargil and called Magnetic Hill of Ladakh.
Due to this extraordinary phenomenon, it has been given many names like ‘Mystery Hill’ and ‘Gravity Hill’. Situated at a height of 14,000 feet above sea level, the Sindhu River runs on the eastern side of this hill.

As if you turned off the engine and let your vehicle stand in neutral, it will slowly start moving and can go up to a speed of 20 kilometres per hour on its own.

Why it is known as Magnetic hill?

As per people living over there, believed that this pathway led people straight to heaven. People who were deserving of it'd automatically get pulled up; however, the undeserving ones could never make it up the path; regardless of how hard they tried. For them, this entire concept and area are supernatural.

Oops!!!Not supernatural stuff!!!

A vehicle utterly loaded with baggage and passengers; still slowly gained momentum. Thus, it definitely works but how and why maybe a totally different story altogether; that has nothing to try to to with magnetic flux and definitely not supernatural stuff.

What’s the scientific reason behind the magnetic hill?

The hill has a strong magnetic force which is why it pulls vehicles in the vicinity. In fact, so strong is this magnetic force that planes of the Indian Air Force avoid this route.

The strange prevalence on the Leh-Kargil highway has been practised and testified by travellers from across the world. As a matter of truth, the notorious hill has caused planes of Indian Air Force to divert their route within the past to avoid magnetic interference on them.

Is it really true??

It is also concluded that it is just an optical phenomenon that creates the downslope of the road resulting in the Magnetic Hill Ladakh, India appear as if an upslope. 

So, once you see the vehicle going uphill, it's actually going downhill. If the horizon is obstructed, our minds get confused and may often perceive things to be horizontal or vertical once they are literally not. This illusion is far almost like that of Moon Illusion; where the moon appears to be much large to the horizon. Or Ames space Illusion wherever balls will seem to roll against gravity.

Some rivers appear to be defying gravity and flowing uphill; which is again an optical phenomenon because the water is actually flowing downhill. Tulsishyam in Gujarat, Electric hillside in Scotland, and Gansu in China are simply a few examples of such places.

Therefore, once you see the vehicle going upslope, it is actually the opposite and doesn’t defy the laws of nature.