Andrew Wiggin
Master Poster
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2009
- Messages
- 2,915
I recently joined three somewhat reasonable friends for a trip to Michigan's Upper Peninsula to see the Paulding Light. This is a supposedly supernatural 'ghost light' that appears pretty repeatably from a viewing point at the end of a closed road near Paulding Michigan. We found it without too much trouble, right at dusk. There were 20 or 30 people already there, in various stages of inebriation on various substances, alcohol being only one of them. The site looks over a valley, down an old road with a decomissioned railway grade and a powerline cut parelleling it. The light is visible on the far side of the valley, where the powerline cut creates a gap in the treeline.
Within a few minutes, we started seeing various appearances of the light. It was either white or red, or some variation. It was instantly apparent that the light was appearing in only the colors that car lights are available in. We saw red, orange, yellowish white, and bluish white.
I was able to see the poles for the powerline against the sky, and judge the position of the light from that. The crowd was constantly coming up with exciting claims, which would be repeated for a few moments, things like 'see, it's bobbing up and down. Now it's making circles! It's moving towards us!', but during this time the light stayed entirely stationary relative to the power poles and the cut in the treeline.
A crazy looking old woman dropped in to tell us that she comes there every night and has for at least ten years. She told us that it's the ghost of a railway worker swinging his lantern. When I mentioned that it looked a lot like headlights, she went off a bit and said that there are headlights but that the 'real paulding light' is above them, floating out in the valley, and only she can see it, and not always, as you 'have to be tuned in to it'. (rough summary. It was pretty incoherent) She kept saying things like 'Ripleys was here, and they offered 100,000 to anyone who could tell them what it was, and no one could (I found a denial of this at Ripley's official site. They've never been there, never offered a reward, and consider this one solved)
She said basically the same thing about 'Unsolved Mysteries' and 'Mythbusters', which I haven't tracked down yet, but as a big mythbusters fan I think I'd remember if they'd done a show.
I had a bit of fun at the crowd's expense. The sky was incredibly clear, and between folks arriving with headlights on, and the attempts to take flash photos of the light, it was pretty nice viewing conditions. A couple of times satellites were visible, in the typical orbits, but I'd nudge whoever happened to be closest and say 'Hey, what's that?' and in a few moments the crowd would get all excited about UFO's. I'd make a comment about 'Hey, do you feel cold just now?' and within a few moments everyone would be talking about ectoplasm.
We split up to see if we could have some fun with this, as it was pretty clear that the light was cars coming up the hill on the other side. There was no cell phone reception, so we left two of the party, who had helpfully brought a video camera, to record the light, while I and another went out driving trying to stir up some interesting light behaviors. We had them speak the time for the sound track every time they saw something, and we recorded what we were doing with times at the other.
Unfortunately, we got a bit turned around. I was under the impression that we'd been looking west, and hadn't brought a map, so when we went out to find the opposite hill, we ended up going in the wrong direction. Although we were flashing our lights at the top of every hill, popping a camera flash, and waving around a bright flashlight, only one of the incidents on the video corresponds to our behaviors. This was while crossing a railroad grade that we thought couldn't possibly be in the right place, but decided to flash anyway in the interests of consistency. After looking at a map, it was where we should have stayed.
After we got home I found some maps and figured out where we were, and where we should have been for the best effect. We're planning to go back again with cameras and video at one end and various light sources at the other. I think road flares, strobes, and some old military illumination parachutes are in order. With a good microphone, a camera on the light, and another for some wide shots of the crowd, I think we can capture some fun woo. I'll let ya'all know how it turns out.
A.
ETA some clarification about filming and times
Within a few minutes, we started seeing various appearances of the light. It was either white or red, or some variation. It was instantly apparent that the light was appearing in only the colors that car lights are available in. We saw red, orange, yellowish white, and bluish white.
I was able to see the poles for the powerline against the sky, and judge the position of the light from that. The crowd was constantly coming up with exciting claims, which would be repeated for a few moments, things like 'see, it's bobbing up and down. Now it's making circles! It's moving towards us!', but during this time the light stayed entirely stationary relative to the power poles and the cut in the treeline.
A crazy looking old woman dropped in to tell us that she comes there every night and has for at least ten years. She told us that it's the ghost of a railway worker swinging his lantern. When I mentioned that it looked a lot like headlights, she went off a bit and said that there are headlights but that the 'real paulding light' is above them, floating out in the valley, and only she can see it, and not always, as you 'have to be tuned in to it'. (rough summary. It was pretty incoherent) She kept saying things like 'Ripleys was here, and they offered 100,000 to anyone who could tell them what it was, and no one could (I found a denial of this at Ripley's official site. They've never been there, never offered a reward, and consider this one solved)
She said basically the same thing about 'Unsolved Mysteries' and 'Mythbusters', which I haven't tracked down yet, but as a big mythbusters fan I think I'd remember if they'd done a show.
I had a bit of fun at the crowd's expense. The sky was incredibly clear, and between folks arriving with headlights on, and the attempts to take flash photos of the light, it was pretty nice viewing conditions. A couple of times satellites were visible, in the typical orbits, but I'd nudge whoever happened to be closest and say 'Hey, what's that?' and in a few moments the crowd would get all excited about UFO's. I'd make a comment about 'Hey, do you feel cold just now?' and within a few moments everyone would be talking about ectoplasm.
We split up to see if we could have some fun with this, as it was pretty clear that the light was cars coming up the hill on the other side. There was no cell phone reception, so we left two of the party, who had helpfully brought a video camera, to record the light, while I and another went out driving trying to stir up some interesting light behaviors. We had them speak the time for the sound track every time they saw something, and we recorded what we were doing with times at the other.
Unfortunately, we got a bit turned around. I was under the impression that we'd been looking west, and hadn't brought a map, so when we went out to find the opposite hill, we ended up going in the wrong direction. Although we were flashing our lights at the top of every hill, popping a camera flash, and waving around a bright flashlight, only one of the incidents on the video corresponds to our behaviors. This was while crossing a railroad grade that we thought couldn't possibly be in the right place, but decided to flash anyway in the interests of consistency. After looking at a map, it was where we should have stayed.
After we got home I found some maps and figured out where we were, and where we should have been for the best effect. We're planning to go back again with cameras and video at one end and various light sources at the other. I think road flares, strobes, and some old military illumination parachutes are in order. With a good microphone, a camera on the light, and another for some wide shots of the crowd, I think we can capture some fun woo. I'll let ya'all know how it turns out.
A.
ETA some clarification about filming and times
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