Encounter Atlas
Historic encounters / Phantom lights
Lights bobbing over swamps, railroad tracks and graveyards. The papers called them ghost lights, jack-o'-lanterns or simply "the mysterious light".
6 cases18 newspaper pages1 marked as probable hoaxes
Middle Auxvasse Creek, Callaway County, Missouri approx. · Dec. 1883
David Newsom wrote to the Fulton Gazette that his son Robert, riding alone one clear night near the Middle Auxvasse Creek, saw the countryside grow brighter until his mule stopped, part of a run of mysterious lights reported in the area.
Lake Huron off Harrisville, Michigan · Oct. 1884
The Detroit Post told of a mysterious light that people along the Lake Huron shore said appeared over the wreck of the steamer Marine City, which burned off Harrisville a few years earlier.
Tombstone, Arizona · Aug. 6, 1897
At about 9:30 one night, people in Tombstone noticed a mysterious light in the sky. The Prospector said it did not want to start another flying-machine theory, but recorded the mystery anyway.
Marine Hospital grounds, Staten Island, New York · Aug. 22, 1897
A sober old waterman named Lindsey and his dog said they saw a strange light moving across the Marine Hospital lawns between Stapleton and Clifton on Staten Island, and heard sounds with it.
Northbridge, Massachusetts · July 1909
For several nights at about the same hour, a light ranging from the size of a bulb to a bushel basket appeared on a high ledge near Northbridge, climbing trees and hills and then vanishing into a pond. Treated as a joke at first, it frightened scores of children, and the whole village turned out to hunt it.
Bowdoinham, Maine · Nov. 1909
A widely reprinted Maine item said Bowdoinham had a house where the chairs gathered in groups at midnight, a cane that tapped from room to room by itself, a phantom light and a mystic woodchuck.
Probably a hoax or tall tale Local ghost lore, written for fun.
