Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Missouri Ghost Lights

Booger Lights: Some Missouri Ghost Lights
  • Arbyrd/Senath – The Bootheel Light on an abandoned railway 
  • Benton - Bethel Campground Cemetery - Disembodied voices and blue lights floating through cemetery. 
  • East Prairie - Light on old railroad bed
  • Ellisville - Zombie Road – Strange lights and reported dangerous phenomena outside St. Louis. (Posted property, NOT RECOMMENDED)
  • Farrenburg - Light on an abandoned railway
  • Jefferson City - Old Highway 94 – A phantom light pursues cars.
  • Jericho springs - Reports of strange glowing lights in the Jericho cemetery
  • Joplin - The famous Hornet Spooklight
  • Knob Knoster - The ghost of a hermit killed by lightning manifests as a light during thunderstorms
  • Mount Vernon - Spanish Fort Cemetery - Glowing red lights floating across cemetery. 
  • Poplar Bluff - Railroad light



(c) 2015 Grey Hand Media
All Rights Reserved




Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Anything Is Possible Around Hornet

Booger Lights: Anything Is Possible Around Hornet

Recently, we took a trip up to Carthage, Missouri on business.  We had to be back early the next morning so we didn’t have much time for loitering, but I couldn’t resist the chance to  head for the Oklahoma line and scout out the South’s most famous ghost light, the Hornet Spooklight.
Sure it wouldn’t seem like much fun to visit a spooklight area in the daytime, but scouting a location before dark is an important part of research.  Topography can fool you at night.  GPS waymarks, altitude readings, and compass bearings done on site are always more accurate than the computer generated version.  Plus, daytime scouting gives a real feel for the lay of the land and helps identify any possible artificial light sources before night fall.

The first thing you notice as you arrive at the Spooklight road is that unlike the old pictures there is a nice layer of blacktop.  Several correspondents have assured me that the new road surface has not effected the appearance of the Hornet light as road work has with other ghost lights.  The ditches are deep.  It would not pay to pull too far off the shoulder here.  While good for drainage, its bad for paranormal tourism.  I doubt Ottawa county cares, anyway.  The people who built the nice new houses along the Devil’s Promenade are reputed to dislike light hunters and hate the nocturnal traffic the Spooklight brings.
Which begs the question.
Why buy property on a public road and then complain about the public?  It’s especially ludicrous since the Spooklight has drawn paranormal thrill seekers for more than a hundred years.  Who would build a house in a known and popular sighting area if they didn’t like the attention the phenomenon brings?  That’s like building next to an elementary school and demanding that the children keep it quiet during recess.
But not all the residents along Spooklight Road are inhospitable. One trotted right up to us as we took readings and pictures near the site of Spooky Middleton’s old museum.

He Bit a big chunk out of the plants Mrs. Austen had just bought on sale at Home Repo in Joplin, gave us a nod, and headed toward home.

We had little time to visit and unfortunately couldn’t wait for dark.  On the way back to the main drag toward Fayetteville, we saw something that caused us to back up and snatch a few more pictures.  It just may be me, but in South Arkansas we just don’t have that many submarines, especially submarines mounted on poles.

Due to all the bullet holes, I’m sure it will submerge.  Surfacing is the question.  You can see just about anything around Hornet.  And it gets stranger after dark.
We shall return.




(c) 2015 Grey Hand Media
All Rights Reserved

Saturday, November 14, 2015

Louisiana Ghost Lights

Booger Lights: Some Louisiana Ghost Lights

  • Collinston - Railroad light
  • Fiske-Union - Light and haunting at a bridge with a tragic past
  • Historical Gonzales/Gross Tete - Defunct light on a rural road off I-10
  • Lake Charles -  Railroad light on roadleading to the rice factories. 
  • Rayville  - Holly Ridge light
  • Shreveport area - Railroad Light
  • Thibodaux - Lights and other events occur at the rail crossing in Devil`s Swamp.




(c) 2015 Grey Hand Media
All Rights Reserved




Sunday, November 1, 2015

The Illinois Central Light -- Beauregard, Mississippi

Booger Lights: The Flagstop Mystery
Warning: Trains fly through Beauregard (c)2015 Thornton Austen

Positioned astride a long sweeping curve in the Illinois-Central Gulf Railroad, the town of Beauregard in Copiah County, Mississippi is no stranger to terror and tragedy.  On March 3, 1966 a tornado ripped through the area and killed fifty-eight people.  Even earlier in the town’s history, on the afternoon of Sunday April 22, 1883, an F-3 tornado swept along a 55-mile track through the town and almost wiped Beauregard clean.  
More than a hundred people were injured in that twister.  The storm destroyed more than forty homes and businesses.  Only three houses escaped major damage.  Fortunately, one house that survived was a three-story home on the edge of town belonging to Dr. Elias A. Rowan.  Like most country doctor’s homes in those days, Dr. Rowan’s house also served as the hospital for the community.  He took in the bulk of the injured.  Despite Dr. Rowan’s tireless efforts to lessen the victims suffering, eleven still died from the Beauregard tornado of 1883.
The town’s residents never forgot Dr. Rowan’s efforts.  He remained respected as a member of the community, not only as town doctor, but for his work with the church and charity.  Dr. Rowan lived an active life and continued his practice long after most would have retired.
One night in 1912, an elderly Dr. Rowan ventured across the Illinois-Central tracks toward the Beauregard Station to meet a patient returning from a procedure done at a large city hospital.  The doctor didn’t notice the approaching train until it was too late.  The engineer saw the frantically waving lantern, but could do little to stop in time.  Beauregard lost its best-loved citizen to dismemberment below the oncoming train’s screeching wheels.  Dr. Rowan’s death became just one more tragedy to befall a seemingly cursed town.
Though respected and loved for all his days, it appears Dr. Rowan failed to find rest in the afterlife.  The old house beside the tracks soon gained a reputation for paranormal activity.  Reports of strange sounds, unexplained lights, and ghostly apparitions centered on Dr. Rowan’s house kept the townspeople away.  For many years, the house remained much as its owner left it and no one went inside to plunder Dr. Rowan’s belongings or investigate the baffling occurrences.  Thus, it was no surprise to locals when train crews first reported the mysterious light on the tracks.

(c)2015 Thornton Austen
It was in 1926 that a train first braked to a stop for someone frantically waving a lantern in Beauregard and upon investigation found no one there.  When the train reached McComb, the crew reported the incident to the yard boss, who laughed it off.  The same thing happened the next night.  The light soon became a regular occurrence and the town of Beauregard became known as “Flag Stop” among local railroaders.
The yard boss kept careful records of the stoppages at Beauregard, but feared the ridicule of his superiors.  It was some time before he reported the incidents.  When he finally took his logbooks in there was no laughter.  The railroad assumed the light was an act of sabotage perpetrated by union agitators.  They immediately called in railroad detectives to investigate.
The detectives did a thorough investigation and questioned everyone who had witnessed the light.  Before long, the investigators had an exact location pinpointed and began a stakeout.  Their target was a stretch of tracks where the light always appeared.  It happened to be adjacent to Dr. Rowan’s abandoned house.  Finding no other possible source for the light, they concluded Dr. Rowan’s ghost was responsible for the incidents.  The case was closed.
Trains continued to stop for the phantom lantern of Beauregard for many years afterward.  The railroad lived with the nuisance.  Eventually, light activity dwindled after new landowners demolished Dr. Rowan’s house in the late 1940’s.  However, there are still reports of an occasional sighting of Dr. Rowan’s lantern near the site of his old home on the south edge of town.
Today, little remains of the town of Beauregard.  Economics has accomplished what Mother Nature failed to destroy.  To get there off I-55 north of Brookhaven take Wesson exit 51.  The remains of Beauregard lie on US Highway 51.  Freight and passenger trains still use the tracks and travel at high speeds around the blind curve in town.  I strongly urge light hunters to stay off the tracks as a train can come on them unexpectedly just as it surprised Dr. Rowan.  No one wants you to add your ghost to the Illinois-Central legend.

(c)2015 Thornton Austen


(c) 2015 Grey Hand Media
All Rights Reserved

Monday, October 26, 2015

Happy Howl-oween From Booger Lights

As I have said before on this blog, this is my favorite time of the year.  It’s usually cool enough that the mosquitoes have retreated and kids all get to dress up and do their thing.  You get to see all the pretty colored leaves.  Not to mention, squirrel season is in and deer season is just around the corner.

It’s hard to post one of my short stories on the blog.  Most average around 3,000 words.  That makes for a long column.  This year I will make an exception to the rule.  A while back I toyed some with flash fiction.  As a former copy writer I’m used to packing the most wallop into the shortest possible space.  Rules dictated that the following tale is a mere 99 words, not counting the title.  It won the Saturday Fiction Writers’ Award a couple of years back and MicroHorror subsequently published it.  I hope you enjoy fiction done fast.

LOVE AND THE INNER BEAST

I never smelled a girl like her in Safeway.  She pushed a buggy down the cereal aisle and turned her cheek to hide the striped claw mark that makeup couldn’t.  I knew the lacy blouse hid more scars like the crescent on my cheek a pup gave me as a child.
As I sacked her groceries, my heart sank –-
Cat food.
Large brown eyes showed the felines were just a snack.
“Beautiful moon tonight,” I said, “Feel like a howl?”
Her pupils narrowed to slits.  She smiled as her nostrils tasted me.
“Sure.”
Finally.  My kind of girl.



(c) 2015 Grey Hand Media
All Rights Reserved




Thursday, October 15, 2015

Georgia Ghost Lights

Booger Lights: Some Georgia Ghost Lights


  • Ackworth – - Allatoona Battlefield - Gunshots, voices, and strange orbs of light.
  • Blue Ridge - Fannin - Tilly Bend Church - Strange lights hovering over tombstones late at night
  • Cogdell - Light on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp
  • Dalton - railroad tracks - The spirit of Cherokee chief Red Bird is said to manifest strange lights near the cotton mill
  • Screven - Railroad Light
  • Surrency - The Surrency Spooklight
  • New Hope Church Battlefield- Phantom lights and moans of the battlefield area known as the "Hell Hole." 
  • Pearson - Light follows and hovers over cars on the dirt roads by the railroad tracks.
  • Rock Oven - Lights and more at a strange site on the Altamah River
  • St. Simon’s Island - A ghostly candle in the Christ’s Church
  • Wayne County - Jessup -  Railroad Spook Light

<

(c) 2015 Grey Hand Media
All Rights Reserved





Thursday, October 1, 2015

The Brit Bailey Light

Booger Lights: Bailey’s Prairie, Brazoria County, Texas
It doesn’t pay to deny a man’s dying request.  In Texas, that goes double.  In fact, neglecting your funeral obligations can haunt you and your descendants for generations.
Brit Bailey from Hanbook of Texas
James Britton “Brit” Bailey liked to boast that from his 1779 birth in North Carolina, he’d always moved westward.  He also had a talent for getting what he wanted.  Bailey lived a colorful life of the kind that keeps early Texas history interesting.  A former Kentucky legislator and War of 1812 veteran, Bailey moved his family onto a Spanish land grant near the Brazos River.  Bailey built the first house in the area and he painted it bright red so it could be seen for miles across the prairie.  The Red House not only served as a landmark for travelers, but as an advertisement for Bailey’s trading post.  He enjoyed good relations with the Spanish and the Indians, even the cannibalistic Karankawa tribe.
Though Brit Bailey was there years before the establishment of the Austin colony, he is considered one of the “Original 300” colonists.  After Mexico gained its independence from Spain, the new government disregarded Bailey’s grant and awarded his lands to Stephen F. Austin as Impresario of the new colony.  It was a slight that would plague Austin for years, since the wild and eccentric Bailey clan had no intention of following Austin’s order to vacate their property to the new-comers.
Only after a legendary fistfight in the streets of Brazoria did Austin relent and grant Brit Bailey his original league (4,428 acres) on the prairie that still bears his name.

Still, relations remained tense between the two men.  Because Bailey was a skilled fighter and a fair trader, he kept the respect of the Comanche and Karankawa.  Austin harbored suspicions against Bailey since his family remained unscathed while other settlers routinely lost their scalps in the constant Indian raids that plagued the colony.  That charmed existence ended in June 1824.
A band of Karankawa warriors came to Bailey’s store at the Red House and demanded he sell them arms and ammunition.  Bailey refused.  A tense confrontation ended with the Karankawa retreating from Bailey’s fierce temper.  Since they couldn’t buy weapons, the Karankawa raided the other colonists homesteads to get guns.
The next morning, as smoke still rose from a good portion of the Austin colony, the Bailey family joined with other settlers and ambushed the Karankawa at Jones Creek.  Bailey’s son Phelps died in the fierce battle.  The death of Bailey’s son and the other settlers began a ruthless vendetta that ended only with the near extinction of the Karankawa tribe before another wave of settlers arrived the next spring.
Like most of the Texans, Bailey remained a loyal citizen of Mexico as long as the government honored the Constitution of 1824.  He took his oath to defend the constitution seriously as a captain in the 3rd Militia Battalion.  It was only after Presidente Santa Anna imprisoned Austin and broke his agreements with the settlers that Bailey and others took up arms at the Battle of Velasco in 1832.
After Velasco, Bailey finally relented to his daughters’ wishes and built a home in town at Brazoria.  Just before he finished the house, Bailey was stricken in the cholera epidemic of 1833.  Before he died, Bailey left specific instructions for the disposition of his remains.  He would have no man say, “Here lies old Brit Bailey.”  Furthermore, since he had never looked up to any man in life, he sure wasn’t going to do so in death.
They would bury Brit Bailey standing up.  He would face West, since that was the direction he had traveled since birth.  He would be armed with his favorite brace of pistols and have his rifle ready in his hands.  Lastly, and much to Mrs. Bailey’s exasperation, Brit would have a jug of whiskey place at his feet.  According to his manservant Uncle Bubba, he followed Brit’s wishes to the letter, or so everyone thought.
Bailey's Oak from Famous Trees of Texas
Within the month, Mrs. Bailey abruptly moved into the unfinished Brazoria house.  She never returned to the Bailey’s Prairie and soon sold the Red House.  The new owners soon realized they were not alone in the Red House.  Several nights they awoke to see a shadowy figure at the foot of their bed.  The silent, but unwelcome guest gestured wildly and seemed to want something.  In fact, the figure appeared most insistent about its unknown demand.  The Red House changed hands among new settlers several times in rapid succession before Uncle Bubba revealed the truth about Brit’s missing jug.
Uncle Bubba claimed that Mrs. Bailey removed the jug.  She claimed he had imbibed plenty enough whiskey in life to serve him through the hereafter.  Her last minute decision would have repercussions that have echoed for almost two hundred years.  Someone must have placated Bailey’s thirst because the shadowy visits subsided—
For a time.
Colonel Munson, a friend of Brit’s, first noticed it the 1850’s.  Brit Bailey supposedly had risen from the grave.  He appeared as a large ball of flame, spooking cattle and humans alike.  Perhaps he searches for a fresh jug of whiskey.  Perhaps he just rises to wander the beloved prairie that bears his name.  The light also seemed disposed to chase those people who ran from it.  While there is no record of it harming anyone, there are several stories of Bailey’s light causing fearful people to hurt themselves.
Over time residents recognized a pattern to the Brit Bailey’s visits.  His ghostly light came back every seventh year.  The light would appear infrequently during that year.  Then, it went away.

In the 1930’s, newspapers reported a reddish orange orb of basketball size arose from the earth near the huge live oak that marked Bailey’s gravesite.  The light zigzagged through the sparse trees.  People tried to chase the light on horse back and in vehicles, but the light easily eluded them.
Over the years, locals have grown used to Bailey’s light.  Although in recent visits the light has had a habit of crossing highways, has caused traffic accidents, and was once blamed for igniting a gas well.  Brit Bailey’s ghost light is a welcome reminder of Texas’s colorful past.  People look forward to its reappearance.  Hopefully, recent development of the prairie will not cause the disappearance of Bailey’s Light, as it has ghost lights in other areas.
Follow Farm Road 521 about 1.4 miles south of its intersection with Texas Highway 35 between Angleton and West Columbia.  Bailey’s grave is located near the southwest edge of Flag Pond on Bennett’s Ridge.  A huge live oak tree once marked the grave, but it is reported that that tree has died.
If he keeps to schedule, Brit Bailey’s Light should return in 2013, 2020, and 2027.



(c) 2015 Grey Hand Media
All Rights Reserved



Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Florida Ghost Lights

Booger Lights: Some Florida Ghost Lights


  • Arcadia - The Goat Hill light
  • Ft. Meade - Pisgah In the 1950s and 60s, ghost lights were seen on County Line Rd. and Heard Bridge Rd. near old Mt. Pigsah.
  • Frostproof - Bereha - At a four way stop sign on Bereha road a light will float up to your car.
  • Jacksonville - The Greenbriar Ghost light road
  • Oviedo - Light seen from a bridge with a tragic history
  • Pensacola - St. Michael’s Cemetery - Lights circling tombstones. Also disembodied voices. 
  • Historical - The Wakulla Volcano 




(c) 2015 Grey Hand Media
All Rights Reserved




Tuesday, September 1, 2015

The Rich Mountain Light

Booger Lights: The Rich Mountain Light - Mena, Arkansas
Rich Mountain watches over the quiet town of Mena, Arkansas and extends west into Oklahoma where springs form the headwaters of the Kiamichi River.  The mountain is rich not only in name but mountain pioneer heritage.  From the time before the War of Northern Aggression, subsistence farmers scraped a living from the slopes of Rich Mountain and its surrounding valleys.  On the summit, Arkansas’s Queen Wilhelmina State Park offers excellent lodging  at its Castle in the Clouds, as well as breath-taking views of the Ouachita Mountains.  It is a beautiful island in the Ouachita wilderness.  And of course, Rich Mountain is haunted.
Rich Mountain looms over Mena, Ark. and extends into Oklahoma
(c)2010 Thornton Austen
Tales of strange occurrences on Rich Mountain have circulated around Mena for generations.  The mountain is by nature a strange bastion that bristles with raw power and served as a landmark used by Indians, early French explorers, Spanish prospectors, and later American pioneers.  Rich Mountain’s history may twist even further into the bizarre due to discoveries across the line in Oklahoma.  The nearby settlement of Heaverner, Oklahoma is home to strange markings found chiseled into stone slabs.  These glyphs were later determined to be Viking Runes and stake a Norse claim to the surrounding valley. 
The Rich Mt. Pioneer cemetery, (c)2010 Thornton Austen
The ghost light that haunts Rich Mountain has been officially reported since the turn of the century, but may go back even further.  In the 1860’s, settlers fled to the summit’s safety to avoid the redlegs and jayhawkers that marauded this part of the state during yankee occupation.  In the exceptionally cold winter of 1863-64, one whole family of refugees fell ill with fever, leaving a small girl as the only one to care for her family as best she could.  One evening as the girl gathered firewood to heat the cabin, she was attacked by an unknown assailant, perhaps a malevolent blue clad predator, perhaps an animal such as a razorback boar or panther.  The girl fled toward the safety of the cabin, but realizing the hopelessness of flight, climbed a tree to safety.  Apparently the threat continued to bar her way home as night fell.  
Later, a member of the family, his fever having broken, searched for the girl until he found her body still perched in the tree, a victim of the cold.  The girl now rests in the pioneer cemetery just west of the state park, except on certain nights.  Then, she rises and roams the mountain in search of her loved ones, manifesting as the Rich Mountain Light.
Talimena Sceneic Byway, (c)2010 Thornton Austen
The Rich Mountain Light appears infrequently on the slopes near the pioneer cemetery and descends the slopes and traverses terrain that would bewilder a mountain goat.  Witnesses describe the light as an intense glow similar to an old coal-oil lamp and some report coming within a few yards of the light before it scurries away over the rough countryside much as the girl must have fled her pursuer on that fateful night.  There is no rime or reason to the light’s appearance and must sightings are by just plain luck.  The light can be seen on the slopes and from the valleys below Rich Mountain and has also been known to cross the Talamena Scenic Byway that follows the summit from Arkansas to Oklahoma.



(c) 2015 Grey Hand Media
All Rights Reserved

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Arkansas Ghost Lights

Booger Lights: Some Arkansas Ghost Lights

  • Batesville - Liberty Baptist Church/Cemetery - Mysterious lights in the cemetery. Camden - The Amy Light 
  • Camden - The Railroad Track Light - On Halloween night a mysterious light always appears on the tracks across the street from the Pepsi building. 
  • Clarendon - Monroe County Courthouse - Lights along the levee that lead to where four lynched murders were buried on the river.
  • Historical Crossett (old) - Light on an old removed railroad bed
  • Crossett (new) - Light on an old removed railroad bed
  • Dover - Multiple lights over Long Pool on Big Piney Creek
  • Grant County - Prague Cemetery - Off Prague Road Disembodied voices, lights and a ghost train that passes through the cemetery. 
  • Gurdon - Light on an active railroad
  • Hector - The Rock Springs Cemetery Light
  • Ico - Ico Cemetery - Off Grant 58 Reports of lights and tombstones moving, with a phantom car pursuing visitors.
  • Little Rock - A phantom motorcycle zooms up out of no where and vanishes as it passes motorists on Woodson Lateral Road. 
  • Leola - Jenkin's Ferry Battlefield- Reports of orbs and the sounds of a battle emanating from the surrounding woods 
  • Marks Mill Battlefield- Cleveland County Strange Lights and rumored hauntings.
  • Mena/Potter - Billy's Bridge – Disembodied voices and weird lights are experienced. 
  • Mena - Rich Mountain light
  • Melbourne - Strange lights are seen in the Old Philadelphia Cemetery.
  • Natural Steps -
  • Sardis - Strange light along a pipeline



(c) 2015 Grey Hand Media
All Rights Reserved




Saturday, August 1, 2015

Moundville Archaeological Park

Booger Lights: A Native Alabaman Mystery

Wikipedia Photo of Mounds J, A, & B by Herb Roe 2005

The Moundville Archaeological Site lies south of Tuscaloosa on the Black Warrior River in Hale county, Alabama.  The site was a Mound-Builder commercial, religious, and residential center and is the second largest classic Middle-Mississipian culture after the mound complex at Cahokia, Illinois.  The Mississippian people occupied the site from around 1100 to 1450 AD, but there are reasons to suggest that at least in spirit some of them remain.
The central area consisted of a 300 acre plaza surrounded on three sides by a timber stockade and protected on the other side by river bluffs.  At the civilization's height it is estimated that 1000 people lived within the walls and another 10,000 resided in the surrounding lands.  Also lying inside the walled area are the remains of several large mounds that formed the center of religious and political life.  A large mound, designated Mound A, dominates the center of the plaza.  The largest of these mounds, Mound B, is a 58 foot tall earthen pyramid with two long ramps leading to its flattened summit.  A temple existed on the summit of Mound B.
For almost 400 years the Moundville culture flourished on the banks of the Black Warrior River.  Its citizens were skilled farmers and artisans who left behind distinct artifacts of pottery, flaked stone, and embossed copper. Their agricultural success enabled them to import goods from as far away as the Great Lakes region.  However, for some unknown reason about 1300 the culture began to decline.  By 1500 the Moundville site was mostly abandoned.

Site map from the Encyclopedia of Alabama
Today, the Moundville complex is a National Historic Site.  The park and the archaeological area is tended by the University of Alabama.  The park houses a widely acclaimed museum and hosts a yearly Alabama Native American festival.
Sometimes the beating of drums is heard to come from the park after closing time.  Also a ghost light phenomenon has been observed after dark.  The light is most often reported to appear near the flat part of Mound B  where the tribal shamans conducted rituals and made sacrifices to the Mound Builders' gods, one of which was said to be a great horned serpent.  It is not confirmed that human sacrifices were made at Moundville, but they were known to be made at other temple mound locations on rare occasions.  Perhaps the Moundville Light is the fire of the ancient altar or the unhappy spirit of an unwilling sacrifice.  Whatever its source, the Moundville Light is an infrequent and unpredictable occurrence in an amazing and history packed location.
Moundville Archaeological Park is 14 miles south of Tuscaloosa on Highway 69.  To get there from I-20 take Exit 71-A and proceed 13 miles south to the park entrance.  At the time of this writing the park is open daily from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM.  There is a small admission fee, but self-guided tour pamphlets are given out for free.   For more information, call the park at (205) 371-2234.
Remember that this sighting area is not only a federally protected historic site, but a sensitive archaeological resource.  Obey the rules, cooperate with the park staff, and enjoy your visit.  With luck and under the right conditions, you just might get to see the Moundville lights.Booger Lights: Missouri Ghost Lights



(c) 2015 Grey Hand Media
All Rights Reserved




Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Alabama Ghost Lights

Booger Lights: Some Alabama Ghost Lights

  • Clanton - The Refuge Bridge Light
  • Cloverdale - Lights float over grassy fields Coy - Lights reported to appear in the Carstarphen Cemetery
  • Cullman - The Gamble Cemetery Lights
  • Fort Rucker - The Bird Cemetery Light
  • Moundsville - A drum has been heard and lights are seen on top of one of the larger pyramid mounds at Moundsville State Park.Prattville - Lights appear in and around Bear Creek Swamp.
  • Reeltown - The Lovelady Bridge Light
  • Sunflower - The Sunflower Crossing Railroad Light
  • Wagarville - The White Lady of Wagarville (cemetery light)


(c) 2015 Grey Hand Media
All Rights Reserved








Sunday, July 5, 2015

Ghost Lights

The Lure of Ghost Lights


When it's late October, its my favorite time of year. The leaves begin to change, the evenings get cool, and the skeeters finally start to thin out. It makes you want to get out after dark and enjoy some of nature’s wonders, especially the paranormal wonders. Okay, you can watch them any time of year, not just the fall.  I am not talking about college football, here. I'm talking about earth light phenomena, or as locals more commonly call them, ghost lights or Spooklights.
Various experts give explanations for ghost lights range from swamp gas to tectonic strain to strange light refractions to ghosts. While there are plenty of rational explanations (and even more irrational explanations) for ghosts lights, I prefer to think of them as natural phenomena that are fascinating and just plain fun. You can find worse things to do than spend a quiet evening in the countryside seeing the light.
Growing up within a few miles of one site, I found a natural fascination with ghost lights from the first time I saw the famous Crossett (Arkansas) Light at age eight. So, for your enjoyment I'm periodically publishing some features on different ghost lights compiled for the soon to be published Paronormal Tour Guide, Ghost Lights of Dixie.
Sweet screams,
Thornton Austen


(c) 2015 Grey Hand Media
All Rights Reserved