Wandering Windows & Disappearing Doorways, Part 1

Dipping our toes into portals

Part 2 , Part 3, Part 4

In 1920 the town of Parkersburg, West Virginia had a “monster monkey” on the loose. According to The Washington Herald (7.18.1920), residents saw an ape-like beast— “larger than a man”—hiding in the local forest. It was never captured. Such unusual activity was commonplace for folks living along the banks of the Ohio River.

The Washington Herald (7.18.1920)

Seventy miles north and twenty-five years prior, The Wheeling Register (7.26.1895) made note of “a strange animal” scoping out the village of Moundsville. Described as either a panther or a tiger, the perplexing feline gobbled up at least one large dog and kept families locked up in their homes at night.

The Wheeling Register (7.26.1895)

A stone’s throw up the river, legends amassed around “a spot of peculiar interest” on the outskirts of West Liberty, WV. The Huntington Argus (4.12.1883) revealed that locals tolerated a trifecta of unconventional phenomena: “lights seen at night flitting about the place, accompanied by a weird, spectral form that vanishes in the air and strange voices.”

Excerpt from The Huntington Argus (4.12.1883)

Sixty miles to the east, Morgantown, WV hosted a similar spooky site near the Monongahela River (New Dominion, 2.6.1886). Witnesses claimed that a ghostly goose roamed the area, escorting unsuspecting trespassers across its domain by flapping its wings against the intruder’s body “until the haunted ground was passed.” The “spectre like” bird seemed concerned with a singular parcel of land and would disappear “in a most misterious [sic] manner” when it reached its invisible boundary.

Map of West Virginia: The red Xs are a sampling of areas where high strangeness has been reported over time.

What causes these processions of the paranormal to converge on a geographic region? Is there a common denominator underlying these odd occurrences? Inexplicable creatures, balls of light, and wraith-like waterfowl appearing in the same vicinity year after year—often in tandem—hint at a localized phenomenon. Bizarre ‘portal-places’ provide the ideal setting for a vast array of anomalous experiences—chief among them are encounters with otherworldly beings. But are they physical entities manifesting in our reality? Or is there a subtler process at work in these hotspots? Perhaps it’s a question only answered through an alliance between Science and the Supernatural.

Vortex Theory of Matter

While portal-places have origins in ancient myths and local legends, modern interpretations of the phenomenon also owe a debt to early scientific theories about the nature of matter.

Lord Kelvin

An influential precedent known as the “Vortex Theory of Matter” was developed in 1876 by British mathematician Lord Kelvin. In the late 19th century, scientists were divided over how matter looked or behaved on a molecular level. Kelvin suggested that everything in the universe was made up of “vortex atoms”—dense, spinning particles of an invisible, “ether” that could accumulate and “knot” itself into various forms of matter.

Kelvin experimented with particle speed and motion, noting the mechanisms that allowed a substance to transition from a solid to a liquid or gas. In his model, vortex atoms could change states by altering their shape, rotation, or vibrational frequency.

Vortices produced many “curious phenomena,” according to physicist A.E. Dolbear - shown here in an image from ‘Matter, Ether, and Motion’ (1899).

These ideas about ether, resonance, and the flexible density of matter play an important role in subsequent theories that set out to explain how supernatural beings might materialize in portal-places. Strange creatures emerge out of thin air because they change their molecular ‘vibrations’ or ‘frequencies’ to a speed that humans can see.

By the early 1900s, the true shape of the atom was solidifying, and physicists dropped concepts involving condensed ether and vortex atoms. However, the themes remained popular with ‘alternative’ researchers poking their heads into portals out in the scientific borderlands.

One of the first commercial uses of a portal can be found in the case of “The Oregon Vortex.” Located in Gold Hill, Oregon—a boomtown tucked in the state’s southwest corner—the Vortex was described as a “curious circular area” less than an acre in size. The unassuming site was rumored to possess unsettling characteristics, and residents claimed it radiated a strange energy that distorted nearby magnetic and gravitational fields. According to James Yuskavitch’s history of the state, Stories and Legends of Oregon (2010), it was regarded as an anomalous zone where “people’s height changed from spot to spot … and objects rolled uphill, among other strange goings-on.”

A Scottish man named John Litster purchased the land in the 1920s, intent on uncovering its secrets. After performing countless experiments, he determined that he was the proud owner of an “electromagnetic antigravitational vortex.” Using a magnet, he identified a series of “Terralines,” (pathways of invisible Earth energy) intersecting his portal on Gold Hill. He documented how these lines oscillated throughout the day, only rarely assuming the right configuration to bring forth the vortex’s strongest effects.

Vortex whisperer John Litster, Mechanix Illustrated (1947)

Litster’s best guess was that his “magic circle” affected the atomic structure of anything within its boundaries. His “Theory of Mass Change” explained how objects could morph in size—expanding or contracting in response to electromagnetic deviations pulsating near unseen “Terralines.” In 1948 he told a reporter from Holiday magazine that “the Oregon Vortex is an intermediate vortex-form between the atom-vortex and the galaxy-vortex,”—wording inspired by Lord Kelvin’s earlier descriptions of the basic structure of the universe.

According to Litster, the vortex was a place where magnetic and gravitational aberrations influenced objects in ways unexplainable by science: “A puff of smoke blown into the still air within the shack will begin to spiral, faster and faster, until it vanishes” (The Sunday Mail Magazine, 3.16.1969).

Artist rendition of the hijinks inside Litster’s vortex, Holiday (1948)

After years of due diligence, Litster felt the situation was safe enough to open his portal’s doors to the public in 1930. Soon crowds of vortex-viewers made “The Fabulous Oregon Vortex and the House of Mystery” a famous roadside attraction.

This benign reputation would quickly fade. Later researchers eyed these regional oddities with caution and warned of deadly side-effects that might result from their presence.

Coming Unglued

Students of UFO history know Wilbert Smith as one of Canada’s original flying saucer researchers, but the wiry radio engineer also introduced ideas about atmospheric abnormalities that resonated with portalists.

Smith believed that ET craft were harnessing Earth’s gravity as a source of power. In 1950 he led ‘Project Magnet,’ an effort that paired “sightings with scientific measurements” to uncover correlations between UFO reports and disturbances in the electromagnetic or gravitational fields. He became convinced that the saucers’ aerial joyrides had negative consequences, accusing their ships of leaving behind localized areas of destructive energy in the sky—“a vortex of reduced binding”—that could weaken the atomic bonds of anything it touched.

Another early influence on the scholarship of stargates was ufologist Morris K. Jessup—a University of Michigan astronomer who believed that UFOs pulled-off incredible speeds and mystifying maneuvers because they could manipulate gravity and the Earth’s magnetic field. Similar to Wilbert Smith’s perilous vortices of reduced binding, Jessup reported that the UFOnauts’ vehicles created a dangerous byproduct known as a “temporary magnetic vortex.” This abnormality in the planet’s energy field caused solid matter to weaken and break apart. At their most intense, magnetic vortices might even have the power to make objects vanish altogether—molecularly dissolving in our universe before reassembling in another place and time.

In the infamous ‘Varo Edition’ of Jessup’s 1955 book, The Case for the UFO, readers were warned against seeking out these weak areas in our dimensional wall. The text referred to them as “traps” and “dead spots.” Unlike John Litster’s “fabulous” family-friendly Oregon Vortex, these ‘zones of fear’ should be avoided at all costs.

The concepts outlined by Jessup and Smith were picked up by subsequent researchers and authors looking to establish a science at work in portal-places. The same processes behind ‘reduced binding’ and ‘magnetic vortices’ were cited as potential drivers for a diverse range of paranormal encounters and unexplained disappearances.

Part 2 , Part 3

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