For more than 40 years experts were baffled by an “anti-gravity zone” surrounding the Hudson Bay are in Canada, with some conspiracy theorists even claiming the spot might be a portal into another dimension. Scientists conducting a global gravity field survey first noticed the strange anomaly in the 1960s but have been unable to explain why gravity is so much weaker in the Canadian region – until now. It has been revealed that the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which covered much of present-day Canada and the northern United States, was so large that it dented the earth 10,000 years ago, literally bending gravity.

GETTY Hudson Bay, Canada, has been found to have less gravity than anywhere else in the world

The earth is taking a long time to bounce back, currently it flattens by around half and inch a year, which is minuscule when compared to the amount of pressure it came under from the monumental ice sheet, which was 2.3 miles thick. Scientists believe it will be 5,000 years before it has recovered to a normal level of gravity. Until the deep indentation in the earth is flattened out, gravity in the region will always be less than anywhere else in the world.

GETTY Scientists believe a massive 10,000-year-old glacier is responsible

But there is also another reason why the Hudson Bay defies the laws of physics – it is a convection current hot spot. The earth’s mantle, located around 100 miles below the surface, is a constantly swirling vortex of seething magma and this creates the convection currents, which drag the continental tectonic plates down. This decreases the mass in the area and reduces gravity. But the region is also acting as a natural geographical diet for scores of people who flock to the Hudson Bay in a desperate bid to lose weight.

A lack of gravity means less density and humans weigh less in that part of the world than they will anywhere else. The bay is the second largest in the world and has an average depth of 100 metres. Hudson has long fascinated believers in the supernatural, with many scientists assuming its distinctive shape was formed from tectonic activity, but a growing school of experts believes it could have come to be because of extraterrestrial activity.

18 weird places to visit around the world Sun, November 29, 2015 The Philippines, Canada, Russia we've got them all - the strangest but most wonderful places to visit around the world. Play slideshow Getty Images•Cultura RM 1 of 18 Giants Causeway, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, Sixty million years ago a huge volcanic eruption spewed out a mass of molten basalt, which then solidified and contracted as it cooled, creating the cracks that can be seen today