International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling

Volume 7 • Issue 3 • July-September 2018

Digital Elevation Modeling Analysis for

Investigation of Gravity Hill Phenomena
Rehan Jamil, Department of Building Engineering, College of Architecture and Planning, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal
University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8639-9571

ABSTRACT

This article presents an investigation of the gravity hill phenomena by analysing its geospatial data.
Wadi Al Baida located in Al Madinah, Saudi Arabia has been taken as a case study. Wadi Al Baida is
listed as one of the sites in the world where the said phenomena exists, but the site has been famous
for any sort of magnetic force because the vehicles move uphill and on flat road without any engine
power on. The topography of the valley is studied by using the geospatial data of the area and by
creating Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) based on Point Kriging method of gridding. The results
show that the area has natural slope and there is a significant difference in the elevations of the start
and the end point of the valley. A longitudinal profile is also generated to validate the results obtained
by DEMs and it is found that the road has an average slope of 2.6% which makes the vehicles and
rolling objects move on their own due to the force of gravity. Also, the concept of gravity hill has
been explained with the help of a diagram which is easy to understand by the readers.

Keywords
Gravity Hill, Geospatial Data Analysis, Digital Elevation Model, Al Madinah, Optical Illusion, Surface Modeling,
Kriging

INTRODUCTION

A gravity hill is defined as such a location where the layout of surroundings produces an optical
illusion which makes a downhill road appear uphill. The major factor which contributes to this illusion
is the obstructed horizon. Without a horizon, which is a reliable reference, it becomes difficult to
judge the slope of a surface as it is not visible. There are many such places existing on Earth which
have already been discovered. Bressan et al. (2003) has listed various locations of such spots which
are famous and exist around the world with around 15 of them only in United States and Canada.
All such places are famous either for supernatural activities, magnetic powers or even secret military
projects (Benecke, 2002; Polidoro, 2007).
Very less literature has been found on the topic of gravity hills. Most of the literature which is
available discuss about the illusions and out of those, very few have discussed illusion due to slopes.
Proffitt et al. (2001) did a lot of experiments on the perception of slants of hills. Their experiments
concluded that the slant perceptions are always grossly overestimated. Bressan et al. (2003) have
directly worked on the gravity hill phenomena by recreating the models of various gravity hill spots.
They concluded that the gradient of the roads is misperceived due to the absence of a reference line or
horizon and also that this phenomenon is easy to be recreated artificially without putting any external
force of magnetism or antigravity. Stefanucci et al. (2005) has discussed about the appearance of

DOI: 10.4018/IJ3DIM.2018070102

Copyright © 2018, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.


25
International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling
Volume 7 • Issue 3 • July-September 2018

distance on sloping areas and more precisely on the hills. He concluded that the distances appear
more on hills, but his research is based on pedestrians walking uphill or downhill. Tsuinashi (2008)
did an experimental work related with optical illusions by using pitched rooms and pitched floors.
His experiments concluded that the vertical gradient of the roads or any surface in view could be
misperceived and can work as an illusion. Kitaoka (2015) has discussed illusion on a gravity hill by
using diagrams and included a case study of such spot in Radan, Serbia. Jaf (2009) has studied one
such spot in Koya region, Kurdistan-Iraq. He performed visual inspections and took photographs to
prove the phenomena of gravity hill existing within a small 200m section of road. Hengl et al. (2008)
used around 2,000 data points to create the DEM of an area to study its hydrological and land cover
properties by using maps.
Regarding the reliability of geospatial data obtained from Google Earth (GE) Pro 2018 for the
study in this research, Mohammed et al. (2013) performed a comparison of the data obtained from GE
with the data obtained by using a Global Positioning System (GPS) device. After performing statistical
analysis testing they concluded that the data obtained from GE can be used for investigation and
preliminary studies with suitable accuracy. In a similar kind of a study, Rusli et al. (2014) compared
the DEM generated by using three different geospatial data sources including GE, Advanced Space-
borne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission
(SRTM). They created separate DEMs for flat, hilly and mountainous regions and for each section they
took around 5,000 data points. After performing the correlation analysis, they concluded that the DEMs
formed by using the data of GE were closely related to the DEMs generated by the other two sources
and the data of GE is completely reliable to be used for any geospatial or geomorphological studies.
To the best of the author’s knowledge, no scientific study involving geospatial data by using
Digital Elevation Modelling was found for any of the gravity hills in the world. The existing studies
consists of visual analysis through photography, existing maps and preparation of physical models, as
cited earlier. Many news articles were studied on various websites where people have been discussing
gravity hills, but the information provided there is neither authentic nor supported by any evidences.
Hence after studying all of the available data it was found necessary and need of the time to have an
investigation of a gravity hill based on geospatial data in order to get scientific evidences for people
to understand the phenomena and the reason of movement of rolling objects uphill or on flat surfaces
on their own.

AREA UNDER STUDY

One of such spots exist in Saudi Arabia known as Wadi Al Baida (The White Valley). This area is
located almost 25km north of the main Madinah city. As the words ‘White Valley’ suggest, the name
emerged due to its geographical features which consists of light-colored sand in the valley area,
which is in contrast to the dark colored mountains surrounding it and spread over its entire length
as shown in Figure 1.
The area was visited by the author to study the following two types of observations.

• Movement of cars (when switched off), rolling objects and water flowing on a flat road.
• Uphill Movement of cars (when switched off), rolling objects and water flowing within a small
section of road.

Wadi Al Baida is accessible through first ring road around Prophet’s Mosque. About 25km
along the Uthman bin Affan road, a divergence to North-West marks the start of the study area as
shown in Fig. 2a.
About 2km on the North-Western diverging road, Al Khulail dam can be spotted which is built
to collect small amount of water during rainy season which helps in irrigating the adjoining date tree

26
 International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling
Volume 7 • Issue 3 • July-September 2018

Figure 1. Geological features of Wadi Al Baida (Google Earth Pro, 2018)

Figure 2. (a) Start point, (b) End point of Wadi Al Baida (Google Earth Pro, 2018)

fields. The valley is surrounded by dark mountains with few sand patches all along its length and
general topography of the area is varying as shown by the contour plan (Figure 3).
The total length of the road of Wadi Al Baida is 15km. The road ends at a roundabout in the
midst of the valley. There is no way to move forward as it is blocked by high mountains as shown
in Figure 2b. The roundabout is constructed for the vehicles to take turn and move out of the valley
towards Al Madinah city. The road leading back to the city seems to be flat all along the section
which is visible from that point as shown in Figure 4. Mostly tourists put their cars at neutral gear at
this location and any vehicle immediately starts to move towards the city gaining speed at the midst
due to momentum till it reaches near the Al Khulail Dam. At this point the vehicles start decelerating
and engines have to be started to move ahead.

27
International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling
Volume 7 • Issue 3 • July-September 2018

Figure 3. Contour plan of Wadi Al Baida

Both observations mentioned above were found to be correct however any type of myths related
to this were rejected and found illogical including the one that the valley has some magnetic powers
which cause the vehicles to move on their own as nonmetallic materials also start rolling when put
on the road freely.

METHODOLOGY

Two methods have been adopted to explain the phenomena of gravity hills. The first method is the
scientific method involving the analysis of geospatial data of the area and the topography of the area
is studied by creating 3D surface profiles. The second method adopted is the logical reasoning in
which the author has presented a novel explanation of gravity hills which is applicable to all such
locations in the world.
A Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is a digital representation of the land surface, its terrain
and general topography (Reuter et al., 2009). As mentioned by Nelson et al. (2009), there are three
methods of obtaining data to create a DEM; ground survey, maps and remote sensing. The source of
data for remote sensing technique could be either airborne or situated in space which are satellites.

28
 International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling
Volume 7 • Issue 3 • July-September 2018

Figure 4. Sloping road looking like a flat road, Wadi Al Baida

Data Acquisition
For the purpose of investigating the natural topography, a DEM is prepared for the whole area of
Wadi Al Baida. The geospatial data acquisition for this study is done on GE Pro 2018. Approximately
10,500 data points are marked by using the ’Add Path’ tool of GE Pro 2018 over the area of 20km by
10km, which makes almost 50 data points per square kilometer as shown in Figure 5. More the data
points, more realistic is the elevation model and contour plan (De Smith et al., 2007) also denser is
the elevation data, better the model will depict the real surface (Stefan, 1996).
Each data point consists of three dimensional XYZ type of data where Latitude is designated by
X, Longitude by Y and the Elevation is designated by Z. GE follows World Geodetic System 1984
(WGS84) to maintain coordinates of Earth along latitudes and longitudes whereas for elevation data
it follows Earth Gravitational Model 1996 (EGM96) (Mohammed et al., 2013; Ren et al., 2013).
After adding the data points in GE Pro 2018, the data is exported as Keyhole Markup Language
(*.kml) file. Using TCX Converter v2.0.32, a conversion tool for various GIS and GPS based data
files, the *.kml file is converted to Comma Separated Value (*.csv) file, which is readable in MS
Excel format and the values of XYZ for all the data points can be read in separate cells.

Gridding and 3D Surface Modeling

After doing all this process a 3D surface modeling software Surfer v13, developed by Golden Software
LLC, Colorado, USA, is used for the preparation of contour map and development of 3D surfaces for
the area under study by importing the *.csv file generated by TCX Converter. The Surfer 13 converts
all the XYZ data in visual form by first creating a grid file and then by converting it into various types
of 3D surface models for study and research purpose which gives a good overview of the topography
and geospatial characteristics of the area.

29
International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling
Volume 7 • Issue 3 • July-September 2018

Figure 5. Location of all data points

For creating grids, Kriging method is used in Surfer 13. Kriging is an advanced geostatistical
procedure which is very useful and flexible method to produce maps when the available data is
irregularly spaced, which is an exact case for the current case study. Kriging is of two types namely
Point Kriging and Block Kriging. In Block Kriging gridding method the average value of the blocks
is estimated. This method is not considered to be a perfect interpolator and develops smoother
contours. On the other hand Point Kriging gridding method, estimates the values of the points at
the grid nodes and hence produces accurate contours (Isaaks & Srivastava, 1989). The Kriging tool
fits a mathematical function to a specified number of points, or all points within a specified radius,
to determine the output value for each location (Surfer 13, 2015). Kriging is a multistep process; it
includes exploratory statistical analysis of the data, variogram modeling, creating the surface, and

30
 International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling
Volume 7 • Issue 3 • July-September 2018

(optionally) exploring a variance surface. The general formula for both interpolators is formed as a
weighted sum of the data and can be shown as follows (Cressie, 1990).

N
ZÆ S0   i Z  Si  (1)
i 1

Where Z(Si) is the measured value at the ith location, λi is the unknown weight of the measured
value at the ith location, S0 shows the prediction location and N is the number of measured values.
With the Kriging method, the weights are based on the distance between the measured points,
the prediction location and on the overall spatial arrangement of the measured points. To use the
spatial arrangement in the weights, the spatial autocorrelation must be quantified.
Thus, in ordinary Kriging, the weight, λi, depends on a fitted model to the measured points, the
distance to the prediction location, and the spatial relationships among the measured values around
the prediction location. Surfer 13 allows anyone of the both options to be selected before creating a
grid, Point Kriging being more reliable was selected for gridding of the data in this study.

Longitudinal Section Profile

In addition, a longitudinal profile for the road leading to Wadi Al Baida is also prepared by taking the
elevation data from GE Pro 2018. As discussed earlier the road leading to the area is 15km in length.
Hence elevation data of road is obtained at every 250m of distance. The distance interval was reduced
to 100m at the location of horizontal curves to get precise and accurate data to the maximum extent.
Hence the elevation of road is observed at 77 points along the total length of 15km.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Digital Elevation Modeling

Point Kriging method is used to create the grid file from the acquired data. The grid having a formation
of 100 rows × 89 columns was developed consisting of a total of 8,900 node points with none of them
being a blanked node. This means that all nodes were provided with a value and none of the node
was ignored. Figure 6(a) shows the DEM of the area when looking towards North (looking from start
point towards endpoint of the road) and Figure 6(b) shows DEM of the area when looking towards
South (looking from endpoint towards the start point of the road). The area where end point of the
road is located is clearly elevated than the area of the entry of the valley. The height of mountains
near the end of the road overtops 1500m of elevation as suggested by the color scale whereas most
of the area surrounding the start point of the road is at around 550m of elevation.
A Shaded Relief Map (SRM) was also generated for the area under study (Figure 7), which is
another illustrative way of showing the topography of any surface. This type of map shows all the
features on the surface of the earth including mountains, valleys and plateau. Those areas which are
flat are visible as smooth areas and an area consisting of steep slopes or mountains are visible as
rough areas on the map. The SRM for Wadi Al Baida shows a lot of rough areas around the valley.
The map clearly shows that the whole valley is surrounded by the mountains and anyone present
inside the valley shall not be able to see the line of global horizon, which is the main contributor to
gravity hill phenomena.

Author’s Concept of Gravity Hill Phenomena

An illusion is defined as a wrong perception (Oxford, 2018) or a misleading image (Merriam-Webster,
2018). As explained by Jaf (2009), it is a mistake in the perception of a sensory experience and it
occurs when our brain perceives something different than the actual qualities of the object.

31
International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling
Volume 7 • Issue 3 • July-September 2018

Figure 6. Digital elevation models (a) looking towards north (b) looking towards south

In this manuscript the phenomena of gravity hill is explained by the author in terms of perspectives
and on the basis that, on a gravity hill, a person is perceiving something which is actually the same
thing on ground. For example, if he is watching a flat road, so the road is actually flat, but the fact is
that it is flat only in his local perspective and if the same road is seen in global perspective it might

32
 International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling
Volume 7 • Issue 3 • July-September 2018

Figure 7. Shaded relief map of Wadi Al Baida

seem to be sloping. On a similar location, if a person is watching a road sloping up so he is right,

and the road is actually sloping up in his local perspective, but the road might be sloping down when
seen in global perspective.
A graphical explanation of the gravity hill phenomena is presented in Figure 8, which shows a
longitudinal section of a road with an assumption that the horizon, which is parallel to the line of
global perspective, is not visible from any point on the road. The road has three subsections namely
AB, BC and CD. When a person is driving or walking from Point A to Point B, he would see the road
as a flat road without any slope and this is what actually is within his local perspective. But in global
perspective the road is in fact sloping down as suggested by dimensions a’ and b’. That is why the car
when switched off on a flat surface on a gravity hill starts moving and with time gains acceleration
due to momentum. Now when this person would reach at point B he would see the subsection BC of

33
International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling
Volume 7 • Issue 3 • July-September 2018

road sloping up which is correct according to his local perspective. Point C is elevated with respect
to point B in his local perspective as shown by dimension c”, but it is in fact lower in level than point
B when seen in global perspective.
So, when a rolling object is placed between point B and C it would start moving towards point
C. In local perspective it would look that the object is moving uphill without any external force
being applied but in fact the object is moving due to the force of gravity because point C is lower in
elevation in global perspective as the dimensions c’ < b’.
Now consider section CD which is parallel to the line of global horizon. Any rolling object
which is coming from point B when crosses point C would immediately start decelerating and would
come to rest after traveling some distance based on its momentum. Also, if a rolling object is placed
anywhere between point C and D, it would not move as the level of both the points is same in global
perspective (because c’ = d’) even though the point D would appear to be at higher level than point
C in local perspective as shown by dimension d” and c”. Hence it is seen that it is all about the
natural slopes and the perspective in which the viewer is. Wadi Al Baida is also found to be one of
such places on Earth where the natural slope of the ground plays with the local perspective when the
reference line of global horizon is not visible due to the presence of mountains around its all sides.

Longitudinal Profile of Road

The longitudinal elevation profile of the road inside Wadi Al Baida is shown in Figure 9. It is clear
that the end point of the road at roundabout is significantly higher than the start point of the road.
The elevation of road at the start was found to be 560m whereas the elevation at the end was 949m
creating a significant difference of 389m. The slope of road at various sections of road was found
to be varying but it was found to be 2.6% on average within the length of 15km. The first section of
3km length was found to have few negative and positive slopes. A small portion of road between the
2km and 3km of distance which was found to be almost parallel to the global reference line which
resembles the road section CD explained in Figure 9.
The lowest point in the whole length of road was found at a distance of 3km from the start point,
with an elevation of 555m. From this point on the road has an almost constant upward slope of 2.9%
till 11km of distance where the road level reaches to 791m. Then from 11km till 13km, where the road
level was found to be 892m, the road has a slope of 5.1% which is comparatively steeper than other

Figure 8. Author’s concept of gravity hill phenomena

34
 International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling
Volume 7 • Issue 3 • July-September 2018

Figure 9. Longitudinal profile of road inside Wadi Al Baida

road sections. This is the point where the vehicles gain abrupt speed and momentum while moving
towards the start point of the road when the car is allowed to move without engine power. The last
2km long section of the road slopes at about 2.8% and the road level at roundabout was measured
as 949m. Referring again to Figure 9, this last 2km long road section resembles the road section
AB, which seems flat due to absence of line of global horizon but in fact it is sloping. Somewhere
around 11km of distance where the slope of the road increases from 2.9% to 5.1%, there exists a
small portion of road which resembles section BC of Figure 8, where people are used to stop and
observe the gravity hill phenomena.
Figure 10 shows a cross-section of the DEM generated on Surfer v13, at a longitudinal value of
39.48o E (a middle value of the area considered for data points), which shows the natural topography
of the area which exactly resembles the longitudinal profile of road, validating the results obtained
by both DEM and longitudinal profile techniques.
The results also match the author’s onsite experiment, that a car moving towards the Al Madinah
city starts to decelerate as it approaches the location of Al Khulail Dam. This is because of the reason
that at that point the road starts becoming parallel to the global horizon and later has an upward slope
which makes the vehicles come to near stop.

35
International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling
Volume 7 • Issue 3 • July-September 2018

Figure 10. Cross section of DEM at 39.48° E

CONCLUSION

Gravity hills have been associated with magnetism and other myths since long as the vehicles and
rolling objects move uphill or on flat surface without applying any external force. These facts were
found unauthentic and one of such area was put under scientific study. 3D surface modeling was
performed for Wadi Al Baida to assess its topographical parameters. Various DEMs and longitudinal
profiles were developed which showed clear results. It was found that the end point of the road is
significantly higher in elevation than its starting point. It was also determined by observing the
DEM and SRM that the mountains are surrounding the entire length of the valley which obstructs
the natural reference line of global horizon and people misperceive a sloping road as a flat road and
a downhill road as an uphill road. Hence it can be concluded easily on the basis of this scientific
study that on a gravity hill, the reason of movement of rolling objects in the direction of the city is
the natural force of gravity.

36
 International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling
Volume 7 • Issue 3 • July-September 2018

REFERENCES

Benecke, M. (2002). Magnetic Mountains: Short Communications. Skeptical Inquirer, 26(3).

Bressan, P., Garlaschelli, L., & Barracano, M. (2003). Antigravity hills are visual illusions. Psychological Science,
14(5), 441–449. doi:10.1111/1467-9280.02451 PMID:12930474
Cressie, N. (1990). The Origins of Kriging. Mathematical Geology, 22(3), 239–252. doi:10.1007/BF00889887
De Smith, M. J., Goodchild, M. F., & Longley, P. (2007). Geospatial Analysis: A Comprehensive Guide to
Principles, Techniques and Software Tools. Troubador Publishing Ltd.
Hengl, T., Bajat, B., Blagojevic´, D., & Reuter, H. I. (2008). Geostatistical Modelling of Topography using
Auxiliary Maps. Computers & Geosciences, 34(12), 1886–1899. doi:10.1016/j.cageo.2008.01.005
Isaaks, E. H., & Srivastava, R. M. (1989). An Introduction to Applied Geostatistics. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Jaf, P. M. (2009). Optical Illusion and the Magnetic Hills in Koya Region (Kurdistan-Iraq), Journal of Kirkuk
University. Science Studies (Tampere), 4(1), 40–47.
Kitaoka, A. (2015). Slope Illusion (Magnetic Hill) in Radan, Art and Its Role in the History: Between Durability
and Transient-ISMS.
Merriam-Webster. (2018). Illusion. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/illusion
Mohammed, N. Z., Ghazi, A., & Mustafa, H. E. (2013). Positional Accuracy Testing of Google Earth. International
Journal of Multidisciplinary Sciences and Engineering, 4(6), 6–9.
Nelson, A., Reuter, H. I., & Gessler, P. (2009). DEM Production Methods and Sources, Chapter-3. Developments
in Soil Science, 33, 65–85. doi:10.1016/S0166-2481(08)00003-2
Oxford Dictionaries. (2018). Illusion. Retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/illusion
Polidoro, M. (2007). Spook Hills in the Lab: Notes on a Strange World. Skeptical Inquirer, 31(6).
Proffitt, D. R., Creem, S. H., & Zosh, W. D. (2001). Seeing Mountains in Mole Hills: Geographical-Slant
Perception, American Psychological Society. Psychological Science, 12(5), 418–423. doi:10.1111/1467-
9280.00377 PMID:11554677
Ren, S., Li, X., & Liu, X. 2013, The 3D Visual Research of Improved DEM Data Based on Google Earth and
ACIS, Pervasive Computing and The Networked World. In Joint International Conference, ICPCA/SWS 2013,
Viña del Mar, Chile, December 5-7 (pp. 497-507).
Reuter, H. I., Hengl, T., Gessler, P., & Soille, P. (2009). Preparation of DEMs for Geomorphometric Analysis,
Chapter-4. Developments in Soil Science, 33, 87–120. doi:10.1016/S0166-2481(08)00004-4
Rusli, M., Majid, M. R., & Din, A. H. M. (2014). Google Earth’s Derived Digital Elevation Model: A Comparative
Assessment with ASTER and SRTM Data. Earth and Environmental Science, 18.
Stefan, W. K. (1996). Using DTMs and GIS to Define Input Variables for Hydrological and Geomorphological
Analysis. In Proceeding of the Vienna Conference HydroGIS 96: Applications of GIS in Hydrology and Water
Resources Management (pp. 183-190). IAHS Publication.
Stefanucci, J. K., Proffitt, D. R., Banton, T., & Epstein, W. (2005). Distances Appear Different on Hills. Perception
& Psychophysics, 67(6), 1052–1060. doi:10.3758/BF03193631 PMID:16396013
Surfer 13. (2015). Full User’s Guide. Golden Software LLC.
Tsuinashi, S. (2008). Visual Illusion of a Vertical Gradient: A Pitched Visual Environment and a Pitched Floor.
Japanese Journal of Phycology, 79(2), 125–133. PMID:18678062

37
International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling
Volume 7 • Issue 3 • July-September 2018

Rehan Jamil received his master’s degree in Civil Engineering from University of Engineering and Technology,
Taxila, Pakistan in 2010 with distinction. After completing his bachelor’s in civil engineering from the National
University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan in 2005, he served in the top-ranked engineering consultancy
firm of the country, NESPAK, for seven years in its Islamabad office. He holds experience in engineering design
in his field. Currently, he is working as a lecturer at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, KSA. His
areas of research are surface modeling, hydrology, water resources, irrigation and drainage systems. He has few
research publications in various scientific journals.

38