Do you ever go out by yourself

[Steffen]

Just carry a boom box with a JB (or similar) disc loaded, and deploy when scared. Ten seconds of that should shoo away any critters in a 500m radius.


Cheers
Steffen.

[AstralTraveller (David)]

Originally Posted by Steffen

Just carry a boom box with a JB (or similar) disc loaded, and deploy when scared. Ten seconds of that should shoo away any critters in a 500m radius.


Cheers
Steffen.

Including me! My taste runs to something more classical. - Ride of the Valkeri perhaps?

[Pinwheel (Doug)]

Originally Posted by AstralTraveller

Ride of the Valkeri perhaps?

No...AC/DC Highway to hell..

[AstralTraveller (David)]

Originally Posted by Pinwheel

No...AC/DC Highway to hell..

It's certainly a long way to the shop if you want a sausage roll.

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Originally Posted by AstralTraveller

It's certainly a long way to the shop if you want a sausage roll.

I thought it was a Chiko Roll? Thats what I used to sing anyway.....?

Chris

[Pinwheel (Doug)]

Years ago when I was 18, I had a CB radio with a PA function. One night up in Mt Dandenong, I parked the car facing the valley at about 1 am. I had a recording of a wild animal sounds (Carnivores). I let loose full volume and got the hell out of there. For a couple of days on the TV, Radio & the papers were reports of Yeowies, Bigfoot & Panthers in the hills. So it doesn't take much to get people imagination going. It was so funny!

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Not an Astronomy story, but worth telling...

When I was 19 my mates and I had heard about this place at Mt. Cotton, south of Brisbane. Today Tonight did a story about Mt. View Rd, which apparently was a gravity anomaly because it was a hill that you could roll ... Up!

So we checked it out, a gravel road in the middle of nowhere but I'll be darned as the gentle slope was there alright, but when we let off the handbrake the car rolled UP the hill. Soon followed by tennis balls, drink cans and any other round object we could lay hands on to test it.

At the end if the road was a big iron cattle gate, and a paved road leading up to the top of what was locally known as Spook Hill. Urban legend had reports of witches covens, midnight masses and such, so we four decided to return at night, and as next weekend was Friday 13th we decided to go at midnight to check it out.

... Aaaah the impetuousness of youth!

So we arrive, it's bloody dark except for what looked like a small fire or glow in the distance at the top if the hill. We do a few more uphill roll-ups with the handbrake off again and then summon up the courage to get out of the car and walk up the hill.

It's a warm evening but as we got within a metre if the big gate the temperature dropped about 30 degrees like we had stepped into a freezer.
Unnerved, we continued, climbed the gate and bravely set forth up the road together. (One of us stayed behind to watch the car).

We only went about 200 metres when I looked up the hill and saw the red glow slowly rise up and start drifting towards us. As I watched, now transfixed and frozen in place, it appeared to concentrate and become smaller and more dense. Then it separated into two halves and rapidly descended towards us, getting smaller and smaller and materializing into focus, until there were two burning red eyes about 5 metres away from us and that's when panic set in!

I/we bolted down the road, vaulted the gate in a single bound and ran for the car, yelling to our mate to just DRIVE, DRIVE, DRIVE!!!!

... I'm sure the unofficial land speed record was broken then, bet we eventually reached home safely and swapped stories about exactly what the HECK had we just seen/experienced. Our stories matched up, and whatever it was we saw was very clearly telling us to GO AWAY and it was only years later that I was brave enough to return, in daylight.

Now it's a surburban street, homes everywhere and perfectly ordinary. The road was graded level and sealed, and another mystery remains unsolved.

... And I can assure you- it happened!

Cheers
Andy

[BPO]

Originally Posted by Andy01

When I was 19 my mates and I had heard about this place at Mt. Cotton, south of Brisbane. Today Tonight did a story about Mt. View Rd, which apparently was a gravity anomaly because it was a hill that you could roll ... Up!

Somewhere I have an ancient Popular Mechanics article in which the magazine investigates a couple of then-famous "gravity anomalies" in the USA, and also what were popularly known as "spook lights."

Both phenomena were revealed as being optical illusions.

I cannot recall the exact mechanism pertaining to the "gravity anomaly": It was something to do with the the fall of the road compared with that of the local topography.

There's a great example of this at the base of the Benmore Range, near Omarama. An irrigation canal has been cut into the side of a hill. It runs roughly parallel with the nearby highway. To people driving past, the canal -- and the water in it -- appears to be rising, when in fact it's doing the opposite. The reason is the highway and surrounding terrain is sloping downwards even more than the canal, but people perceive the road as being level.

The spook lights were the result of a thermally-induced "mirage" of automobile headlights on a distant highway, and the magazine described an observed effect exactly as you have, with a wavering mass of reddish light rising and separating into two "eyes."

Just thought I'd mention it.

[Andy01 (Andy)]

I did a bit of googling and it seems spook hill has it's own Facebook page!
It's full of other peoples experiences & stories. Some are quite scary.


Check FB for Spook Hill, Mt. Cotton, Brisbane.

Google search also produces many references to other hills in the world where the experience is similar, and yes- they too are probably optical illusions!

Cheers
Andy

[glend (Glen)]

Anyone able to get away at the end of February will find a group of us up at Lake Chaffey NSW for a week long Astro camp. So you won't have to get out there by yourself. Its a great dark site. Check ouf Arthur's thread in the Star Parties sub-forum, it's titled Very Early Notification.