Gravity Hill

There is also said to exist a mystery spot in Richford where gravity behaves oddly and cars are said to roll uphill. It seems to off 105A and not easy to find. It may well be on East Richford Slide Road  but the exact location is not really known. According to the County Courier in October 1985 someone had a 1979 Dodge roll uphill after throwing his car into neutral for approximately 60 seconds. Apparently it accelerated gradually from 10mph to 15mph. Physicists have investigated mystery spots like this around the globe. Gravity Hills are places where the geography of the surrounding land makes a downhill slope appear to go uphill. Obstructions on the horizon help create this illusion by robbing us of reliable reference points commonly used to determine which way is up. Basically, it is an optical illusion. However, Linda Collins of the Richford Historical Society relates that back in the 1970's Richford residents reported seeing strange lights over the town and she heard about Gravity Hill when she was researching the UFO sightings in town. She contacted the feds in a facility in Boulder CO. and they told her that a single magnetic pull or gravitation force in the Richford area had the potential to "attract things" without specifying what "things" they attracted. Unfortunately many of the people in town now do not really know a great deal about Richford history anymore so this spot remains a mystery spot.

The Awful

The Awful is a griffin-like animal first seen by two sawmill workers in the early 1900s in Richford. They were crossing the Main Street Bridge when they saw The Awful glaring at them from the rooftop of the Boright Building. It had gray skin, a long serpent-like tail, a twenty foot wingspan and huge claws that could easily grim a milk can's girth. Farmers reported it flying over their fields. It landed on rooftops and watched the local residents. The Awful gained quite the reputation and by 1925 H.P. Lovecraft came from Rhode Island just to visit Richford and the neighboring town Berkshire. He said The Awful became sustenance for his imagination. Sightings of The Awful almost completely stopped in the 1920s but then resumed in 2006. According to the County Courier, eyewitnesses claimed to have seen an "unbelievable looking winged monster....."