Inside the supernatural vortex of ‘the other Area 51’ – home to the CIA’s longest-serving director

Believers in the supernatural have long claimed that a New York park contains a strange vortex that magically transports visitors to other parts of the park.

According to myth, Thompson Park in Watertown, NY – designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, the chief architect behind Manhattan’s Central Park – has the power to leave people disoriented, confused and unaware of the passage of time.

Besides becoming a local legend, the stories surrounding the so-called whirlpool are a favorite topic of local news stations on Friday the 13th.

“When people walk around, they get confused and forget they’re in there,” said Jim Scordo, program manager at Watertown Parks and Recreation. WWNY. “You have no idea what time it is.”

Some more conspiratorialists have theorized that the vortex has something to do with former CIA Director Allen Dulles and his older brother, John Foster Dulles, who served as Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

A creepy staircase in Thompson Park

Both men grew up in Watertown, with the Dulles State Office Building named after the older brother.

Allen Dulles, the longest-serving CIA director, was in charge of foreign intelligence when Area 51 was taken over by the CIA and the U.S. Air Force in 1955.

The top-secret Nevada base, often labeled a UFO crash site by those who believe it, has been nicknamed the Watertown Strip, a nod to Allen’s roots.

And just as fittingly, the vortex in Thompson Park is called “Watertown’s Area 51.”

The sign indicating the whirlpool in the park was installed in 2013shortly after the first documents acknowledging the existence of the real Area 51 were released by the federal government.

Former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, left, is sworn in as special foreign policy advisor on April 23, 1959. President Dwight Eisenhower attended the ceremony

Allen Dulles was the longest-serving CIA director; his term was from 1953 to 1961. In the two years before 1953, he served as deputy director of the agency.

About 300 people came out for the sign dedication, CNY Central reported at the time.

But locals have been swapping stories about their experiences in the park for at least five decades.

A woman has been studying the vortex since the 1970s, believing it to be a portal between two different realities, CNY Central reports. She has said she has seen people disappear for short periods of time.

“Time and space within the two realities and in some ways between the two realities are very different,” she told the outlet.

A group that calls itself ‘Shadow Chasers’ also visited the park in 2007 to investigate the vortex.

The team of three, who normally hunted ghosts, walked through the park with pretend measuring equipment as a local reporter followed them.

Thompson Park circa 1911 (left), decades before it would be called Watertown’s ‘Area 51’, and the park today (right)

Pictured: the ‘Shadow Chasers’ during their visit to Thompson Park in 2007

“What we’re seeing here are some strange fluctuations,” said one of the “Chasers,” Phil Creighton, as he watched the device’s needle as it bounced back and forth.

The group said they were able to detect a strange electromagnetic network criss-crossing a certain part of the park.

That’s why people have reported symptoms of disorientation, the group said.

Creighton said the “energy fields” at night in the park would be “ridiculous,” suggesting the effect on people may increase after the sun sets.

Thompson Park is still just a park, with a zoo, many scenic trails and even an 18-hole golf course.