Lack of Cause for Mystery: Toowong Cemetery's Spook Hill

I recently read this piece: "Urban myth at Toowong Cemetery remains a mystery" [1]. The article focuses on local business man, Cameron "Jack" Sim (my opinions of this individual are expressed elsewhere) and Haunts of Brisbane's Liam Baker discussing the story of Toowong Cemetery’s ‘spook hill’. The first issue was that no one provided the details (not even what hill of the Cemetery is reputedly 'spook hill'). I was left wondering if the mystery is indeed a mystery at all. After all, have any of those involved actually tested the claim? Is there a real case that shows ‘spook hill’ to be anything but a story?


By way of disclaimer, this is far from the only 'spook hill' (even in Brisbane) and the tale is a basic format often seen in localised folklore of modern Western societies. The narrative runs as follows: a car is placed in neutral at the bottom or middle of a hill (or sometimes on one side of train tracks) then proceeds to move up (or across) by means unknown, a supernatural story including ghosts is then overlaid to account for the car's movement. Such sites have also been referred to as 'magnetic hills' in efforts to account for the phenomenon in more naturalistic terms. To illustrate the supernatural version, let's look at Baker's quoted account:


"The traditional tale is that the graves of two young sisters killed in a car accident lie at the top of `spook hill' and if you sit in the car and put it into neutral the car will defy gravity and roll forwards up the hill ... Legend has it the spirits of the two girls drag the car up the hill and everyone in the car will meet a grisly end.'' [1]


Although that story is open to the same kinds of factual assessment that Baker uses for his Haunts of Brisbane writing (i.e. are there verified reports of a car accident that killed two young sisters and are said girls buried at the top of 'spook hill'?) I haven't seen a piece from him on that particular story. As such, Baker’s views on ‘spook hill’ are as yet unknown. After this quote the article shifts to Sim's perspective. Without really establishing that there exists a verifiable account of a car moving on 'spook hill', Sim states:

"Over the years people have put forward numerous explanations, some say it's an optical illusion or a magnetic pull but the urban legend is that its super natural force ... I searched all the graves along the edge of the cemetery where spook hill is reported to be and have not found any link to the stories which circulate ... It remains a mystery.''[1]


Thus far there are explanations for a non-existent mystery. A simple explanation is that the model for 'spook hill' was adapted to Toowong Cemetery. Perhaps the originators took that basic phenomenon of the moving car from Mt Cotton's 'spook hill' or an international example. Without even a single case of a car moving uphill (let alone the occupants meeting a "grisly end") all of this could be attributed to the universal propensity to invent stories, especially those that lend themselves to the type of "legend tripping" wherein one ends up in secluded place in the comfort of a car with the right company.


Toowong Cemetery is a big place so where exactly is 'spook hill'? I am aware of the particular location that Sim claims to be the site - at the Richer Street Gate looking towards the shelter on Boundary Street. A cursory viewing of that position brings into doubt the applicability of the word 'hill' given that an incline is barely present. Other accounts, indeed most of the ones I’ve come across, have centred on 12th Avenue (a much larger incline). I don't know whether Baker concurs with Sim's positioning of 'spook hill' or not. One such account is worth quoting (for the purposes of dissecting pseudohistory and folklore):


"Apparently a tombstone near the top of the hill [12th Avenue] marks the grave of a child who died in a car accident. His spirit draws all cars towards it, with such a powerful attraction that it overcomes even gravity. The 'scientific' explanation isn't much better: there's a natural magnetic lodestone at the top of the hill, strong enough to drag even large metal objects (like cars)."[2]


Immediately we see the mix of similarities and divergences that characterise such tales. As in Baker's account, the child killed in a car accident is still present but has changed gender and become one instead of a pair. What this indicates, especially when put alongside the different location to Sim's, is that there's no firm description of 'spook hill'. The significance of that rather rudimentary point is that it serves to further demonstrate that we are not witnessing attempts to explain an actual well documented occurrence. The scientific response to 'spook hill' would involve first verifying the existence of the phenomenon (i.e. testing to see if a car did move as suggested) then proceeding to find an explanation.


I recall Sim's site having been investigated by a local paranormal group with the conclusion that the hill is actually an incline downwards. For those unaware of the geometry of Toowong Cemetery, the whole location is on the side of a hill with various plateaus, valleys and slopes all across it. By this account, Sim's site only seems to be uphill from where one is on the slope itself, but in actual fact one is looking down. We should also recall that the fact that Sim's 'spook hill' is fairly level greatly diminishes the contrast of gradients. 12th Avenue would at least make for an impressive story as that really is a slope uphill.


Given the absence of any first-hand accounts (let alone reliable ones) all we can say is that there are stories about certain locations in the Cemetery that are not dissimilar to other stories about hills where cars move due to the alleged influence of spirits. Simply put, there isn't a mystery until someone documents a car moving unaided (by the usual causes of vehicular movement) on 'spook hill' (either one) towards the direction that is uphill and thus contrary to what one would expect. Until then, there isn't a mystery to be solved, just a story to be enjoyed or dismissed as one pleases.

[1]http://www.couriermail.com.au/questnews/west/urban-myth-at-toowong-cemetery-remains-a-mystery/story-fn8m0u4y-1226636562059
[2] http://www.weekendnotes.com.au/4-spookiest-urban-legends-in-brisbane/

Ignorance of History is Never Acceptable, Part I: Comments on the Fringe of Sanity

I encounter pronouncements made in shameless ignorance of history quite a lot when reading work by or about postmodernists. For the moment I draw your attention to some comments made by a man and his collaborator, both of whom are custodians of some of the most significant cultural properties of the twentieth century. As part of a piece I am writing on the depiction of paranormal investigators in television fiction I had to read a few things on Fringe (2008-2013). These quotes come from an interview of series co-creators JJ Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman around the time Fringe first went to air. Here are the offending quotes:


Orci: "Lately you can either have a procedural or you can have something extremely serialized and very culty. ... And to us the idea of seeing if you can do both simultaneously is a new kind of storytelling ... The idea of literally crashing Law & Order with Lost basically is very exciting for us." [1]


Abrams: "Every week there will be a case that will challenge [the team] and put them at risk that they'll have to deal with. In many ways it's a puzzle, and there is a classic cop procedural element to it. On the other hand, what they're dealing with, and who is responsible for what they're dealing with, is connected to a larger story. And when the episodes arise with the larger mythology, you will be brought up to speed if you haven't seen it before." [1]

What is the problem? The problem is that The X-Files (1993-2002) did exactly the things which Orci and Abrams are claiming are original a decade and a half before their show. The X-Files is hardly a manor show and has been noted by significant media scholars to have combined episodic and serial narrative in a way that founded a new model of storytelling. Furthermore, it has been likened to Law & Order in a very similar way for the adoption and alteration of the procedural format which it relied upon. Elsewhere Abrams has mentioned drawing on The X-Files in the conception of Fringe [2]. Did I mention Fringe centres on a branch of the FBI? Admittedly The X-Files drew on earlier works itself but it used these creatively. Fringe is symptomatic of the absence of creativity in the vast bulk of recent television. The quotes above are symptomatic of the treatment of earlier works as non-existent or second to the supposed grandeur of newer material. More on that soon.


[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20090319031033/http://www.scifi.com/sfw/interviews/sfw19440.html

[2] http://www.tvguide.com/News/Fringe-Series-Finale-Oral-History-Abrams-Jackson-Torv-Noble-1059131.aspx