By Rhetta Akamatsu
Hornet Spook Light near Joplin, Missouri,
Across the country, there are several “Ghost lights,” “Spook lights,” or “Mystery lights” that occur. Many of these lights occur near railroad tracks. Many have legends attached to them concerning engineers or train passengers who were involved in a terrible wreck in which they were decapitated. The lights are generally flashlights or lanterns with which the ghosts are seeking to find their heads.
Whatever the explanation, it’s incredible how many there are.
In Arkansas, one light occurs near an old railroad track near Crossett. Many people have seen it since the early 1900s. It appears as an eerie red, white, amber, or blue light about head high.
The Gurden Lights are more famous Arkansas lights, occurring in the small town of Gurden, about 75 miles from Little Rock. The Crossett and Gurden lights have the railroad decapitation legend attached.
In Silver Cliff, Colorado, the theme varies. The mystery lights here are seen in the old Silver Cliff cemetery. They are usually blue-white, about the size of a silver dollar, and appear in groups of two or three.
Georgia is home to the Surrency Light. Surrency is a very tiny town near Macon. This bright yellow ball of light has been seen near the railroad tracks since the early 1900s. Science may have found an explanation for it in a strange pool of liquid found far underground under Surrency. But the liquid itself is a puzzle, as it is not supposed to be able to form nine miles underground, where seismic equipment seems to indicate it lies!
The Paulding light occurs near Watersmeet, Michigan, outside of Paulding. It has been observed for at least the last 40 years, and this is one of the many lights connected to the story of a railroad brakeman who lost his life and now wanders the road with his lantern. Since the lights sometimes appear to follow the power lines (though they were seen before the lines were present), some people also claim they are the ghost of an Indian dancing along the lines.
The lights appear as circles of red, blue, white, and green and are evident almost every clear evening. Even though Ripley’s Believe It or Not once offered $100,000 to anyone who could offer a solution to the lights, no logical scientific explanation has yet been found, and the lights remain a mystery.
Brown Mountain Lights in North Carolina.
North Carolina is home to the famous Brown Mountain Lights. I have seen the Brown Mountain Lights several times. They occur in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and they appear to be numerous lights at least twice the size of stars. I had seen them when they were red and when they were blue another time.
These lights have been reported since before white men settled the area. The Cherokee and Catawba tribes have reports of them as far back as the year 1200. In their history, the lights are believed to be the spirits of Cherokee and Catawba warriors killed in a great battle that year. Civil War soldiers wrote home about the lights.
Teams from the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Geological Society have researched the lights many times. Theories have included swamp gas, reflections from moonshine stills, and some unusual atmospheric conditions that reflect electricity in recent years. The Smithsonian survey dismissed the moonshine still theory, saying there were insufficient stills to cause this activity. There are no swampy areas around Brown Mountain. And the lights were around long before electricity.
In 1913, the U.S. Geological Survey concluded that the lights were reflections from locomotives behind Brown Mountain. But shortly after that survey was done, floods washed out all the railroad tracks around Brown Mountain. There was no train service in the area for months, but the lights arrived on time.
The Brown Mountain Lights are not the only spook lights in North Carolina. Wilmington has the Maco Station Lights, which could be the paranormal result of the death of a railroad man named Joe Baldwin in 1867. His death is well-documented in newspapers and other public records, and he died in a dramatic and violent train accident.
Twelve miles outside of Joplin, Missouri, there is a track of road about four miles long, which crosses the Oklahoma border. The former town of Hornet is located there, and it is here that the Hornet Spook Light appears. It resembles a ball of fire or a lantern and varies from basketball size to considerably larger. It travels down the center of the road, weaving from side to side. Some people feel that it behaves intelligently, sometimes appearing inside cars, letting people approach to a certain distance but never getting too close, and retreating when pursued.
The legends associated with this light center on Native Americans. One theory is that the lights are the spirits of two Quapaw Indians, and another is that it is the spirit of an Osage Chief who, predictably, was beheaded and is looking for his head. Another legend says that the light is the lantern carried by a miner still looking for his children, who were kidnapped by the Indians.
Explanations put forward for this light include marsh gas and reflections from minerals. Neither of these explanations holds up. There is reason to believe some sightings may be caused by car lights from the highway five miles away, but this does not explain all the documented sightings from before the highway was built, and even before cars were commonplace. Troy Taylor, in Unexplained America, says that the Army Corp of Engineers concluded that the Hornet Light was a “mysterious light of unknown origin,” and so it remains.
Bragg, Texas, has another mysterious light sighting and another decapitated brakeman legend. This light starts small, grows to about the size of a flashlight beam, and is orange. Paulding, Texas, also has the very well-known Marfa Lights. The lights were observed by settlers and cowboys driving cattle through Marfa in the 1880s. The first recorded account of these lights was by a rancher named Robert Ellison in 1883. The Apache have legends that the lights are stars that fell from the sky. Today, they can be seen from U.S. 90. They vary in color and intensity, though they usually appear as reddish-orange balls, 1 to 10 feet in diameter, and seem to move about. As always, some skeptics claim they are reflections of car lights, but they were being seen in precisely the same way long before there were cars. Many scientists have tried to explain the lights, but so far, they remain unexplained.
Whatever the spook lights are, they are not just an American phenomenon. There are spook lights in Canada, the UK, Norway, and many other places worldwide.
Someday, we may be able to explain them, but in the meantime, it’s good to be aware that we do not have an explanation for everything. The world can always use a little mystery.
About the Author: Rhetta Akamatsu is an author who writes about history, the paranormal, and blues music. She is the author of Haunted Marietta, about the ghosts and legends of Marietta, Georgia, published by The History Press for its Haunted America series. She is also the author of two other books about the paranormal, a book about blues women, and a new non-fiction book entitled The Irish Slaves. Learn more about Rhetta and her books and other writing at https://rhetta.wordpress.com/ Source: Ezine Articles (dead link.) Edited by Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated January 2024.
Also See:
Devil’s Promenade & the Hornet Spooklight