Swamp Music

It is late October and 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 more wonders, especially the paranormal wonders. I am talking about earth light phenomena, or as locals more commonly call them, ghost lights.
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 Halloween enjoyment I include here a list of different ghost lights compiled for the soon to be published Paronormal Tour Guide, Ghost Lights of Dixie. You can find directions to these sites using Google.
Sweet screams,
Thornton Austen

Alabama
Cloverdale – Lights float over grassy fields

Arkansas
Crossett – Light on an old removed railroad bed
Dover – Multiple lights over Long Pool on Big Piney Creek
Gurdon – Light on an active railroad

Florida
Arcadia – The Goat Hill light
Greenbriar – Ghost light road
Oviedo – Light seen from a bridge with a tragic history

Georgia
Cogdell – Light on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp
Rock Oven – Lights and more at a strange site on the Altamah River

Kentucky
Jeffersonville – The Sand Mountain Light
Estill County – Multiple locations

Louisiana
Collinston – Railroad light
Gonzales – Light on a rural road

Mississippi
Beauregard – The Illinois Central Light

Missouri
Joplin – The famous Hornet Spooklight
Senath – Light on an abandoned railway

North Carolina
Brown Mountain – Numerous lights on a mountainside that became the subject of an X-Files episode
Cullowhee – Lights on the banks of Wehahutta Creek
Maco – Railroad light
Tarboro – Railroad light