ThorntonAusten.Com

Welcome…

…to a warped view of the world from the end of the power line as seen by award winning author, novelist, and treasure hunter, Thornton Austen — His books and rants, along with a study of ghost lights, spooklights, legends, religion, politics, and other fun paranormal anomalies from across the American South.

Scheduled posts appear on the 1st, 7th, 14th, and 21st of every month. Other posts are added when time permits.

April 20th, 2009 | resurgam3191 | Categories: Uncategorized | Comments: Comments Off

North Carolina Ghost Lights

Booger Lights: Some North Carolina Ghost Lights

Badin – Light on the old Whitney Train Tracks
Brown Mountain – Numerous lights on a mountainside that became the subject of an X-Files episode
Cullowhee – Lights on the banks of Wehahutta Creek
Diamond Grove – The Devil’s Racetrack
Harper’s Crossroad - The Devil’s Tramping Ground
Maco Station – The Joe Baldwin Railroad light
Pactolus – Railroad light
Vander – Railroad Light
Tarboro – Railroad light

Thornton Austen is the author of Blood Knowing
from Arkansas Traveller Publishing
© 2011, Thornton Austen

November 14th, 2011 | resurgam3191 | Tags: Badin, Booger Lights, brown mountain, Cullowee, Earth Light, ghost lights, Maco, North Carolina, Pactolus, Tarboro, The Booger Lights Project, Thornton Austen, Vander.
Categories: Ghost Lights | Comments: No Comments

The Dover Lights

Booger Lights: The Dover Lights

Pope County, Arkansas

Also Known as the Booger Hollow Lights and the Ozark Ghost Lights

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Strange multicolored, moving orbs of light haunt Big Piney Creek Valley twelve miles north of Dover, Arkansas. The lights appear frequently, sometimes nightly, and have done so since homesteaders first noticed the phenomena in the late 1800’s above the canyon that empties into nearby Booger Hollow. Skeptics scoff at the lights, but fail to explain them. This leaves locals to wonder whether the lights are a natural occurrence or the ghosts of massacred Spaniards guarding their lost wealth.

From the time of conquistador Hernando De Soto to the Louisiana Purchase the mountains of Arkansas lured Spanish prospectors. Sometimes their explorations ended profitably with the King’s Fifth shipped back to Spain via Mexico. Other times the operations ended at the wrath of Caddo or Osage war parties. Numerous abandoned Spanish prospects litter the Ozarks and the area north of Dover is no different. In the 1800’s one homesteader found and then lost a rich silver seam. Thinking it to be lead, he cast hunting bullets of pure silver and later abandoned the area because he believed it too poor to support his family.

We do know that around the turn of the century, the family that then owned the valley where the lights appear, found evidence of one ill-fated Spanish expedition, as well as the gold that lured the dead men to the valley. Knowing well what news of a gold discovery would cause them, the family kept it secret until the placer played out. Still, the news eventually leaked and the legend grew about the murdered Spanish miners and their jealousy toward the hidden hoard of wealth they left behind.

Indeed, the first sightings of the Dover Lights were most likely made in the late 1800’s by homesteaders in the area. Records are few in the Ozarks and even with its characteristic embellishments, folklore is often more reliable than written accounts. However, locals say the lights were first reported in print in the 1930’s when the Works Projects Administration scoured the hill country for stories. About this same time, the Civilian Conservation Corps built the rock wall at the overlook where the lights are most often viewed.

Once, the lure of riches brought men to the valley. Today, Big Piney Creek is a popular float stream. The surrounding country is much as wild as it always was and with the exception of a National Forest Service Campground, electricity is nonexistent. Besides hunters and canoeists, paranormal researchers are finding they enjoy the valley too.

The Dover Lights occasionally warrant mention in the media. In the 1990’s MysteriousReality.Com posted the first film footage of the Dover Lights moving around the forested bluffs above the creek. Around 2000, a camper called in emergency crews because he thought a vehicle had driven off one of the bluffs that rim the valley. Instead of a motorist in trouble, the camper learned that he had instead seen the Dover Lights. In March 2004, Ted Phillips of the Branson, Missouri-based Center for Physical Trace Evidence photographed what he described as intense and odd-colored lights. In April 2009, the paranormal group, On The Fringe filmed the lights for their European television show. At the time of this filming high water levels separated the valley from any possible human contamination. Later the same year, an Associated Press article “outed” the Dover Lights as a hoax on the word of an amateur myth-buster. However, later examination of the footage taken by the man revealed his discovery of “the hoax” was itself most likely an even larger hoax. The man’s assertion that the lights’ movement was attributed to alcohol consumption was equally insulting to a church youth group that had observed the moving lights many times over the years. As yet, AP has filed no known retraction.

The Dover Lights are best viewed from the east at the rock-walled CCC overlook on Treat Road atop the cliffs above the valley. When one looks out over the canyon at night, the only visible artificial light is at the Long Pool Recreation Area campground to the viewer’s extreme left. At times, up to six or more Dover Lights appear 1000 feet below the viewing area to the viewer’s front and right across Big Piney Creek and on the forested slopes to its west.

Observers report flickering orbs of light that sway to and fro, rise and fall, or sometimes dart across great distances with surprising speed. Sometimes the lights remain stationary. Colors described range from white to intense red and violet to blue and yellow. Occasionally, lights are bright enough to illuminate the entire valley. Many viewers report that the lights are extremely interactive to outside stimuli with headlights, spotlights, flashlights, laser pointers, and even car horns causing the lights to brighten and move about. Local tradition has it that if an observer yells, “I’ve got your gold,” down into the valley the lights will move toward the overlook.

Skeptics have proposed several explanations for the Dover Lights over the years. Most theories are proposed by people who have never even seen the lights. However, most theories fall short upon scrutiny. The terrain itself rules out the misidentification of headlights, ATVs, flashlights, and campfires. Equally unlikely is the a mirage-type refractive effect because of the height of the surrounding mountains. Reflections of the moon and stars are ruled out by the simple fact that the lights appear in all weather and cloud cover and that a bright moon sometimes hampers viewing. Some claim that the valley is the scene of a residual haunting of the tragic massacre of the Spanish miners or because of the death of a spectral woman sometimes seen walking Treat Road. The area surrounding the overlook will indeed give you the creeps at night, but a more likely explanation lies with tectonic strain on the same quartz intrusions along geological faulting that bore the gold and silver that original drew the Spanish to Valley. However, even that theory does not totally explain all the occurrences here.

Local reactions to the Dover Lights are mixed, but few in the area seriously fear the phenomena. To most residents they are a quaint and fun local curiosity that doesn’t need explanation. However, as with most Fortean occurrences, there are always those disturbed individuals who will stoop to any measure to get their fifteen minutes of pseudo-fame and potential profit. This was poignantly illustrated by 2009’s hoaxed hoax. There are always those kind of people out there to interfere with legitimate inquiry and scientific discovery

A trip to Dover is well worth the time. Even if the lights do not appear you still get a pleasant outdoor experience with breathtaking Ozark scenery. The easiest way to the viewing area is to take Scenic Arkansas Highway 7 north from the town of Dover for 12 miles. On the left watch for a side road marked Old Highway 7. Take that road to the intersection of Treat Road. Take a right on that gravel road and continue to the CCC overlook. It will be on the left.

Do not litter, be considerate of others, and above all enjoy the Dover Lights.

Thornton Austen is the author of Blood Knowing
from Arkansas Traveller Publishing
© 2011, Thornton Austen

November 1st, 2011 | resurgam3191 | Tags: arkansas, Big Piney Creek, Booger Hollow, Booger Lights, Dover, Dover Lights, Earth Lights, ghost lights, haunting, Highway 7, Long Pool, Ozarks, paranormal, Spanish gold, The Booger Lights Project, Thornton Austen.
Categories: Ghost Lights | Comments: No Comments

Happy Howl-oween!

Happy Halloween from ThorntonAusten.com

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 getto 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.

October 28th, 2011 | resurgam3191 | Tags: beast, fiction, flash fiction, Halloween, love, MicroHorror.com, Saturday Fiction Writers, Thornton Austen, werewolf, Writing.
Categories: Writing | Comments: No Comments

Glow-in-the-Dark Pterosaurs? Give Me a Break!

A Crypto Moment:

Will the Nuttiness Never End?

I’ve heard many different theories to explain away occurrences of Ghost Lights, but this one is new. California author Jonathan Whitcomb of the Live Pterosaurs blog promotes the theory that many ghost lights are luminous flying creatures. One the surface his theory would not seem to be any worse that any other out there. Skeptics have proposed glow-in-the-dark barn owls before. However, Whitcomb’s theory is on out there. No mere barn owls, these are glowing versions of the pterodactyls that chased scantilly clad sexpots through all those B Movies. Unfortunately, no photos, but there are witness accounts not involving Ringo Starr and John Matuszak at the local drive-in.

October 21st, 2011 | resurgam3191 | Tags: Booger Lights, Booger Lights Project, Cryptozoology, ghost lights, marfa, pterodactyl, pterosaur, Thornton Austen.
Categories: Cryptozoology, Nuttiness | Comments: No Comments

Oklahoma Ghost Lights

The Booger Lights Project: Some Oklahoma Ghost Lights

Ada – Kullihoma Indian Reservation – A phantom car pursues motorists only to disappear as it draws close.
Kullihoma – In the Chickasaw Nation bouncing balls of bright light float around and are reputed to be the legendary little people seen by young Indian children.
Quapaw – The Spooksville Triangle (where the Hornet Spooklight actually appears)
Sand Springs – In Post Oak Cemetery, balls of light move about around the cemetery and in the surrounding woods.

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October 14th, 2011 | resurgam3191 | Tags: Ada, Earth Light, ghost lights, Hornet, Kullihoma, Post Oak Cemetery, Quapaw, Sand Springs, Spooksville Triangle, The Booger Lights Project, Thornton Austen.
Categories: Ghost Lights | Comments: No Comments