Wadi al-Jinn

Wadi al-Baida, known as Wadi al-Jinn, is a valley in al-Baida Park about 30 km northwest of Medina, Saudi Arabia, where cars left out of gear seem to roll uphill. Many people credit jinn, Arab News reported; Wikipedia calls it an optical illusion.

Wikipedia describes Wadi al-Baida, the "Valley of the Jinns", as an anti-gravity hill inside al-Baida Park, around 30 kilometres northwest of Medina. An optical illusion there makes cars in neutral appear to roll up the slope. Wikipedia says this has made the valley popular with locals and pilgrims, and has given it a name for being haunted by jinn.

Arab News reported in 2013 that traditionalists see the power of jinn at work in the valley. The stories it collected describe cars climbing the mountain roads with no foot on the accelerator, and still moving after the driver turned the engine off. The paper said many people put this down to jinn, and it also reported a claim that the mountains around the valley have some special magnetic force. Wikipedia gives the cause as an optical illusion instead.

In 2018 Arab News wrote that al-Baida Park is famous for its link to Wadi al-Jinn and its odd effect on cars, which it said had been explained as a geographical phenomenon. The paper said this has made the park a stop for pilgrims of many nationalities, Pakistanis, Indians and Arabs above all.