Lighting the way
Mysterious Earth | Ricky | September 4, 2010 at 12:05 am
I don’t know how to describe the Gurdon lights other than the fact that it seems other worldly and eerie, but the light is floating on a lot of nothingness in the middle of the air. It’s about 5 times larger than my fist, or so I guesstimate and I am both mystified and drawn in by it. I assumed I was crazy when I saw lights in the middle of nowhere but a quick chat with the locals tells me that I’m not the first to have seen this. The locals have always wondered exactly how these lights come about or what they are, and their stories abound in Arkansas. The single most dismissive explanation comes from Dr. Charles Leming at Henderson State University who believes that these lights are nothing more than reflected car headlights. Talk about taking away the mystique.
But the good professor might have a point; all sources of light operate within a band of their own spectrum and they all have their own characteristics, who is to say that the Gurdon Lights are not just a reflection of reality. Spectrographs are certainly revealing as they show that the glow and pattern of headlights are certainly similar to the Gurdon Lights, so that explanation does make sense. But that’s before you figure in the fact that the nearest highway is four miles away with a hill between the swamps where it exists and the highway itself. Even if Dr. Leming were right, how could the light refract over the hill and back into a perfect state of visibility? The odds for this happening are very slim.
The most damning evidence against Dr. Leming’s arguments comes from the Arkadelphia daily Siftings Herald that states that the Gurdon Light appeared even in the 1930’s, at which time no interstate existed for miles, let alone the one four miles away. Mirages, when viewed through a filter, will always polarize and the lights don’t even display this property, mystifying experts even more. There were no electromagnetic traces of it to be found when measured with a galvanometer and the light is always there like a faithful dog, no matter what the weather is. Scientifically, the last explanation possible is that this is the result of a peizoelectrical effect, which is to say a discharge that is caused by crystals releasing an electrical discharge when put under pressure from fault lines, of which there are many here.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I like the local story better. It’s certainly much more fun; they claim that the lights are nothing but the glow of a lantern held by a railways foreman that died here in the 1930’s. Macabre, mysterious and absolutely senseless; I love this story. That the light slips across a creek infested with bugs and creatures making all kinds of noises only adds to the scariness of it all. All that’s left now is to make a Hollywood horror potboiler out of this and to solve the mystery of this phenomenon.
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I heard from my friend that, according to Lauren folklore, the light originates from a lantern of a railroad worker who was killed when he fell into the path of a train. The legend states that the man’s head was separated from his body and was never found, and that the light that people see comes from his lantern as he searches for it.
Thanks for the post!
A couple of notes: bring strong flashlights, as it is really dark out there and the trestles could definitely be dangerous. Wear bug spray. And plan to camp out for a while if you really want to see the light.
My cousin grew up in Clark county Arkansas, which Gurdon sets in. As a teen, I started going to see the light. There were few nights that we failed to see it. Most commonly, it comes out from the woodline, crosses up and over the tracks, and then disappears into the other woodline. It usually appears light yellow, but sometimes is almost orange in color. A group of us were spread out along the tracks one night, walking back to the cars, when it crossed about 50 feet in front of myself and the two girls I was walking with. That night, it was very orange in color, and appeared to be about 3 feet in diameter.
We went to Gurdon two weeks ago and had a great time. You know the light is not head lights because they are easily seen and readily identifiable as head lights, especially on the I-30 overpass. Its a long hike. Be careful of rotting trestles.
Don’t worry about explanations and skeptics. Just have fun.
People typically have witnessed the ghost light from a distance. Approaching the ghost light is near impossible due to the rough terrain that surrounds the tracks. When people have made their way to the tracks the light has usually disappeared.