ghost lights

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information and locations about this mysterious occurance will go here.

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Spooklights: Where to Find Them





Are they ghosts, UFOs or some unexplained natural phenomenon? Perhaps you'd like to go observe one and decide for yourself. More of this Feature
• Part 2: More Spooklights





Join the Discussion
"I just read a rather non-derisive article on abcnews.go.com (strange, for the snooze news) on moving lights sighted over New Jersey by at least 15 people. The photo they show bears a striking resemblance to the Phoenix lights. (The AZ public is still POed about the derisive reaction to those, and the non-explanation that followed.) People who observed these New Jersey lights described these orange orbs variously as UFOs, 'a miracle' and 'very peaceful.'"
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They appear in the distance with a regularity that seldom disappoints those who come to view them. Glowing in the night with an eerie, soft color, they sometimes pulse, sometimes dance about, usually near the ground or horizon. Their source is a mystery. When the curious try to approach them, they vanish, as if purposely keeping their true nature a secret.

They’re called "spooklights" or "ghost lights" and they have baffled observers for centuries. Many theories have been offered to explain their presence, including hallucinations, UFOs, automobile headlights (either direct or reflected), ball lightning, electrical discharges caused by tectonic forces, swamp gas – and even, as the name implies, ghosts.

Continuously appearing spooklights are found around the world. Here is a roundup of several of the most well-known spooklights. Perhaps there is one near you.

Big Thicket Ghost Light
BRAGG, TEXAS
This light can be found along Black Creek near the old ghost town of Bragg in eastern Texas. Viewed on a dirt road that leads into swamp land, this spooklight carries the well-known but almost certainly fictitious legend of the railway brakeman who was accidentally beheaded by a passing train and who now searches the area for his head with a gas lantern; the spooklight is said to be that lantern. The tale is folklore that has been attributed to several spooklights. The Big Thicket Ghost Light has been described as starting as a pinpoint of light among the swamp trees that grows to the brightness of a flashlight, then dims and fades away. Its color has been likened to that of a pumpkin.
Website: Ghost Light of the Big Thicket

Brown Mountain Lights
BROWN MOUNTAIN, NORTH CAROLINA
Sightings of these lights go back at least 800 years when the native Cherokees thought them to be the spirits of slain warriors. That these lights go back so far rules out any man-made illumination, such as auto headlights. The lights have since been well documented by subsequent residents of the area. There have been dozens of observations by explorers, some dating back to the 1700s, and by Civil War soldiers; several newspaper reports and magazine articles have been written about the lights. They have been described as being white, yellow or red; some say they are stationary while others testify that they move around. According to the L.E.M.U.R. team, which has studied and photographed the lights, they often "line up into 'troop formation' and 'march' across the ridge, disappearing over the top." The peak time for viewing is in the Fall.
Websites:
The Brown Mountain Lights website offers photographs, history, directions and a map.
The Brown Mountain Lights.

Dovedale Light
RIVER DOVE, DOVEDALE, UK
Strange lights are said to dance above the river in the scenic "Peak District" of the UK. One notable encounter took place in March, 1993 when two students watched two very bright round lights of unknown origin "dance" above the river in perfect synchronization. They watched the lights for about three minutes and estimated that they moved from between 10 to 100 feet above the surface of the river. The lights were again seen by more witnesses several months later.
Website: The Peakland Spooklights

The Gurdon Light
GURDON, ARKANSAS
This ghost light has been seen by hundreds of witnesses who live near or travel to the area around this small Arkansas town about 75 miles south of Little Rock. Seen along a stretch of railroad tracks, this light is also explained with the "headless brakeman" legend. Because of its remote location (you have to hike about 2-1/2 miles off the road to the spot where it can be seen) auto headlights have been eliminated as a possible cause. Those who have seen it say it is usually white or blue in color, and sometimes orange. One distinguishing feature is that it has a distinctive border to it.
Website: Haunted Arkansas: The Gurdon Light

The Hebron Light
HEBRON, MARYLAND
Hebron has been home to the mysterious Hebron Light for decades. One of the most remarkable incidents involving the light occurred in July, 1952 when two officers of the Maryland State Police allegedly chased a 10-inch ball of light down a dark road in their patrol car. There have been sporadic sightings of the light before and since, but many say that it has been inactive since the mid-1960s.
Website: The Hebron Light and Others

Hessdalen Valley Lights
RØROS, NORWAY
The lights seen in this valley in central Norway were first noticed in 1981. The appearances seemed to start suddenly with the unexplained lights winking on throughout the valley near people's homes and beneath the ridges of the surrounding mountains. Most of the lights were described as spheres, although some witnesses also reported cone shapes. Various colors were attributed to them, but the predominant hues were white or yellow-white. Blue flashes of light appearing in groups of three and forming a triangle were also seen. Østfold College has undertaken a study of the phenomenon.
Website: Project Hassdalen

The Hornet Spooklight (Tri-State Spooklight or Joplin Spooklight)
NORTHEAST OKLAHOMA
Located on the very northeast corner of Oklahoma, where the state borders Kansas to the north and Missouri to the east, in an area sometimes called "The Devil's Promenade," you can find the Hornet Spooklight (otherwise known as the Tri-State Spooklight or Joplin Spooklight). This is a single glowing orb or "necklace of lights" that appears at the end of a dark gravel road. Sightings go back well over 100 years when settlers traveling by wagon train took note of the strange lights. Usually golden or red in color, it has also been described at times as yellow, orange, green or blue. One witness said that the light was so bright and close that it provided light for him to work by at night.
Websites:
Spooklight - provides a history and several anecdotes.
The Tri-State Spooklight - offers a map and detailed directions.
The Hornet Spooklight
The Hornet "Spook Light

Next page > More Spooklights > Page 1, 2

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THE HORNET GHOST LIGHT
By Paul A. Roales
Last Updated January 5, 2006



STATE OF MISSOURI
DIVISION OF RESOURCES AND DEVELOPMENT
Jefferson City, Missouri
News Release by Leslie Kennon


The Ozarks, thousands of sprawling acres of scenic beauty and packed full of Indian and colorful local legend, is reviving one of its oldest phenomena -the "ghost lights".

For more than 50 years, especially since the coming of the auto age, tourists from all over the country have come to see them; national magazines have given space to the story; photographers have tried in vain to take pictures.

And today the "ghost lights" are becoming a top tourist attraction in the area. No one can explain their origin. No one can give an accurate account of whence they came nor can any two people describe the lights in the same words.

To each it is something different, a symbolism of something unknown, sometimes feared, always interesting. It is, to the tourists' way of thinking something unique which they cannot find anywhere else and which is well worth their time to visit.

The "ghost lights," as they are called by local citizens, appear actually as one bright light, often dimming and then bouncing back over the rolling mountains as a great blaze of light. It is as though some giant ball player were taking his gigantic ball of light and tossing it in the air, sometimes catching it on the mountain which serves as his mitt, or sometimes missing it when it disappears.

During World War 11 the U.S. Corps of Engineers spent weeks in the area with the latest scientific equipment. They tested caves, mineral deposits, highway routes, every possible logical explanation as to why the lights existed. They came away baffled.

Of late, nationally known scientists have visited the area and as yet, they have not come up with the answer.

Area residents come away with stories which would go well on Hallowe'en. As a Joplin police officer said, after relating a weird experience on the oft-traveled ghost light road, "It was the last time I've been there and It's the last time I'm going there".

Legend has it that an old time miner carrying his lantern across the fields disappeared and that it is his lantern which still causes the light to shine.

In a more logical sense, it is a definite tourist attraction of the area, a little extra in a tourist's trip to the Ozarks, the Shepherd of the Hills country or on to Central Missouri to the Lake of the Ozarks or other points. (End News Release)
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The Offical Story of the Hornet Ghost Light (above) is wrong on many counts. First, photos of the lights are available...for example the postcard shown above and my photo below. Second, the explanation for the lights is very simple.

I arrived at the Spook Light Museum near Joplin, MO at 4:30 PM on April 4, 1980. It was closed and padlocked. I had driven from my home in Tulsa, OK to see for myself the Hornet Ghost Light famous in Fortean literature since it first appeared around 1886. The best spot to view the light is 1/4 mile out on a dirt road due west from the Spook Light Museum. To get there coming from the West take the first Missouri exit off Interstate 44 then double back west along the south outer road to State Line Road (gravel) and take State Line Road 3.8 miles south to the Spook Light Museum. The picture below of the Spook Light Museum and its owner "Spooky" Middleton is from OK Magazine for 10/28/79.
When I first arrived at the site it was about 2 hours before sunset. The sky was clear. The temperature was about 45 degrees and there was a light breeze. Looking due west down the Spook Light Road with my 7x35 binoculars I could see a stretch of distant highway, which confirmed what my research had told me I would see. If you examine a topographic map of the Joplin, MO area you will notice a 4.5 mile stretch of US Route 66 which runs due east from Commerce, OK to Quapaw, OK before turning North (colored yellow on the map below). From my location on Spook Light Road (at the red X on the map below) I was 9.7 miles due east of the eastern end of that stretch of straight highway. The binoculars clearly revealed that stretch of US 66 and occasional flashes of light reflecting from cars on that highway caused by the sun setting in the West. I knew that after the sun set I would no longer be able to see those reflections, but the car's headlights would be in my direct line of vision. When the museum opened at 6:00 PM I spent about 40 minutes talking to 70 year old Garland (Spooky) Middleton about the lights and reading the mass of newspaper clippings about the ghost light that he has pasted on the walls of his museum-pool hall.





After the sun set at about 6:40 PM I returned to my observation point and could already see the Spook Light directly west of me on the road. My binoculars proved the Spook Light was nothing more that car headlights on that stretch of Highway 66 in Oklahoma about 10 miles away. Occasionally several lights were visible with my binoculars (representing 2 or more cars), but the lights would merge into one light when seen with the naked eye. The presence of more or less cars could explain the apparent brightening and dimming of the Spook Light as seen by the naked eye. I remained at the site until about 8:00 PM studying and photographing the Spook Light. The best photos were obtained shortly after sunset on Kodachrome 64 film at 1/15 sec. with my 50mm Minolta lens opened to F 1.4.

So the Hornet Ghost Lights are only car headlights. How about other famous Ghost Lights...like the ones in Marfa, TX or the Brown Mountain Ghost Lights in North Carolina. Well, I have never seen the Marfa Lights, but I have seen the Brown Mountain Lights and I believe they are lights refracted/reflected from the town of Hickory, NC. But that is another story.



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January 2001 Update

The page above has brought lots of emails since I posted it, almost every one disagreeing with me. One person even said that the topographic map was wrong and there was a hill between my observation point and Highway 66 which would prevent me from seeing the highway (perhaps the hill grew since I was there in 1980). But I will stick to my story.
To make a couple points: 1) Yes the spook light was seen before there were cars, but very infrequently. Those sightings could easily be explained by cabin lights or campfires in the vicinity of the future towns of Commerce or Quapaw. And 2) In every photograph I have seen of the spook light it is in the same place (just left of center of the base of the "V" of trees down the road). Look at my color photo above, the postcard above, the photo (Plate 21) in the book "Earth Lights Revelation", etc. In every photo the light is in the same place...exactly where it can be explained by the cars on Highway 66 as I mention above. If my explanation is wrong, why is the spook light in the same place in all the photos?

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March, 2003 Update

And the emails keep coming. Here is a recent one:

"From: [e-mail]
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2003 21:19:20 EST
Subject: (no subject)
To: [e-mail]
X-Mailer: 6.0 for Windows XP sub 52
I wantyou to know that I think youre screwed in the head about the hornet spook light it is not headlight reflected they were seen numerous times before cars NOT rarely like you said. all you stupid geologists who think that they know everything are so full of nuts!!!! thank you

woofie "

I guess his mother never told him that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.
I am willing to hear from reasonable people, but if woofie reflects your attitude, don't bother to email me.
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January 2006 Update

When I first visited the Hornet Spook Light Museum in 1980 I remember seeing a newspaper clipping on the museum wall that stated the Army Corps of Engineers had proven the lights were only car headlights. But I was never able to find that reference. Many ghost light web pages carry the claim that the Army Corps of Engineers were not able to explain the lights. Finally someone who read this page tracked down the original 1946 report by the Army Corps of Engineers and passed it on to me.
From an article titled:"Solving The Mystery Of The Tri-State Spook Light" in The Kansas City Star of Sunday, May 19, 1946, on pages C1 and C2 by Charles W. Graham (a member of The Star's Staff) it states that under the command of Maj. Thomoas E Sheard of Camp Crowder, they contacted Richard Y. Jones, chief of the civil engineering dept., who with his friend Joe Duck had already determined the cause of the lights but had never officially reported their findings, and began an investigation. Using car lights and sycronyzed watches on a scheduled system on the Quapaw road, they were able to reproduce virtually all of the observered phenomena commonly reported as the ghost light.
So my explanation is not new. It is strange that the Army Corps of Engineers report is not better known. Maybe because it debunks the ghost lights?

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Mystical Ghost Lights
Early Reports
Possibilities
Conclusion


Early Reports

In 1656, John Davis of Cardinshire, Wales recorded some of the earliest historical evidence of ghost lights. In this small town in Northern Wales, ghost light sightings were quite common and believed to portend the death of someone in their town. The lights were witnessed around homes, in the open air, and occasionally inside their homes. A small light represented the death of a child, a large light the death of an adult. Davis noted a ghost light sighting by his wife’s sister who had observed five lights inside her bedroom. That night five of their servants died of suffocation in what was only described as ‘a freak accident.’ These strange lights are still reported in present day Wales.

Sightings of ghost lights have been reported since the beginning of recorded history. Ghost lights differ from phenomena such as ball lightening in that they usually appear regularly over a period of time. They may quite well be some sort of natural phenomena although they are frequently associated with apparitions of the dead.



Possibilities

The exact cause of ghost lights is not known. Some scientists believe it may be some sort of luminous energy, a product of subterranean process. Although there is a scant supply of theories, there certainly is no shortage of sightings. Some places such as Marfa, Texas (the Marfa Lights) and Magantor, North Carolina (home of the Brown Mountain Lights) receive so many reportings that officials do not even bother recording the incidents. In Texas, the Texas Highway Department set up a roadside park and official observation area for persons seeking to witness the Marfa Lights phenomena.

The Brown Mountain Lights, first reported by a group of fishermen in 1913, are regularly seen just above the horizon almost every night. They have been described as looking ‘much like a toy fire balloon, a distinct ball, with no atmosphere about it, and very red.’

Geological researchers have speculated that ghost lights may be caused by brush fires, anchored lights, car headlights, and even fireflies. But they cannot explain some of the reported anomalies characteristics such as color (often glowing red or green), random movements, or odd auroras. Others still associate ghost lights with more uncanny causes.



Conclusion

Over 300 years ago, Nathaniel Crouch wrote in The English Empire in America (1685) that the Indians have ‘a remarkable observation of flame that appears before the death of an Indian or English upon their wigwams in the dead of night; I was called out once about twelve a clock and plainly perceived it mounting into the air over a church. You may certainly expect a dead corpse in two or three days’…


Need more information?

Ghost Lights are pretty well documented both is literature and on the net. Check back soon for a review of sites and other sources of information on the strange ghost lights phenomena.