Episode 204: Alluring

This is the story of the one.

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It's an obsession that you can see from space.

For almost as long as humans have been around, it seems we have been making light.

And while the technology has changed dramatically over the years, that ancient pastime has not.

Three centuries ago, if you wanted enough light to see by, perhaps to mend your shirt or scratch out a journal entry, you would move closer to the hearth in the center of your house.

Candles were another option, but they were inexpensive consumable, so most folks just used pieces of plants like rushes dipped in animal fat.

A smelly alternative from what I've heard.

Our fascination with lights has caused us to get creative over the years.

The whaling industry served a lot of consumer demands, but one of the biggest was oil for lamps.

And then, as we exited the 1700s, it was becoming more and more common to find lights powered by gas, both in the home and out on the street.

But something a lot of people forget is that for a very long time, light was rare.

Homes were pretty dark at night, and the streetlights outside barely delivered better illumination.

Walking at night could be dangerous depending on the phase of the moon, and not just because of crime.

Once you stepped out of town where you lived, the only light you could count on was the one you brought with you.

Which is why, for a very long time, travelers around the world have told stories about surprising sources of illumination, little sparks of hope, in a place where they weren't expected.

And while a few of those stories have a delightful, almost comical element to them, many, despite being about light, take us deeper into the shadows.

Because no matter how dark the night might be, the last thing you'd want to encounter are ghost lights.

I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is lore.

They are a truly global phenomenon.

Pick a culture in any part of the world, open up a book about the folklore there, and you're sure to find mention of them.

Ghost lights.

Everywhere you look, it seems you can catch a glimpse of them.

In Japan, they have multiple versions of the folklore.

One variation is known as the tengubi, sort of a red-colored ball of fire that floats and dances over water, mostly rivers.

Legends say that these lights are produced by a supernatural creature known as the tengu, a sort of bird-man thing.

They use them as an aid in fishing, but humans who encounter the lights have been known to become gravely ill, often seen as a bad omen.

The Japanese also tell stories of the chochinbi, which again can be found hovering over water, this time in rice paddies.

These lights are viewed more as spectral lanterns used by entities called yokai.

But again, encountering them is never a good thing.

In the Netherlands, we have the Irblas, which are said to be the souls of unbaptized children.

The legends say that travelers who encounter them can be lured toward water, perhaps in an attempt to baptize the living.

Others claim that these lights act as guides, leading people to buried treasure.

Although there are other magical requirements for those who hope to strike it rich, like using a dead man's hand to navigate those lands.

In southern India, we have the Pei Narupu, a shapeshifting demon that takes on the form of lights.

They are most commonly found floating over marshland and while they are known to change shape and color, their most common appearance is a pale flickering flame, roughly the size of an orange.

India also has the Elia, which are the spirits of dead fishermen.

Most commonly witnessed by other fishermen, these lights are said to be treacherous, leading people to their deaths, where, I would assume, they become spirits themselves.

Other ghostly lights called the Chirbadi are said to inhabit the wetlands near the India-Pakistan border and have a lot of the same characteristics we've discussed already.

They are seen near water, flicker in and out of vision, and can often lead travelers off the path and into danger.

But at the top of the list of spectral lights are the ones featured in stories from the British Isles.

Not necessarily because they are any more frightening, but just because more people in European and American cultures have heard of them.

But it's incredible how similar their descriptions are to the lights I've already mentioned.

Typically spotted hovering over bogs, moors, wetlands, and marshes, these lights are almost always malevolent in nature.

They have a tendency, surprise, surprise, to lure travelers off the road and into danger, and seeing one was frequently viewed as a bad omen, either predicting your own death or the death of someone you loved.

Of course, they were often seen as part of the larger tapestry of fairy folklore, because given enough time, just about any story from the British Isles will end up being related to the fairies in some way, right?

One of my favorite descriptions of these ghostly lights, though, is that oftentimes they are seen hanging from the hand of a faint, shadowy figure, like some sort of devilish lantern, and many believe they also appear over the location of buried treasure.

The fairy treasure, naturally.

Now, in Latin, they've been known as the ignis fatus, or foolish fire, which is either an indictment of those who fall for the stories, or for those who are led off the road by them.

I'll let you decide which.

They first appeared on the written record in Europe around the 13th century, but those documents clearly reference older tales, so it's hard to tell for sure how long they've been around.

But if you browse through British folktales about them, you'll encounter a long and entertaining list of nicknames.

Here are just a few.

Peg a Lantern, Joan the Wad, Jenny the Lantern, Hobbity's Lantern, Hinky Punk, and my favorite, the Spunkies.

Honestly, each of them is fantastic, and any one of them would serve as the perfect name for a blondie cover band.

But the most famous name of all comes from a legend about a man named William, who was apparently such a troublemaker that after he died, he was rejected by heaven and told to go try again.

But after a second horrible life of terrible deeds, he was still prohibited from entering the pearly gates.

But this sort of bad behavior did impress one person, the devil.

So the Lord of Darkness gifted William with a lump of burning coal to keep him warm as he wandered the earth on cold nights.

William though, ever the naughty dead man, turned that coal into a torch and ever since he has used it to lure travelers off the road and into danger.

Which is why the most famous name for ghost lights has a touch of William to it.

You would know them as Will-O'the Wisp.

So now you know the pattern.

Found near water and marshland, moving in and out of visibility, and often behaving in treacherous ways, ghost lights have a surprising uniformity across the globe.

But that doesn't mean that there aren't exceptions, and the best way to explore those is through story.

There's another Japanese ghost light known as the Hitodama, often referred to as either red, orange, or bluish-white balls of light.

But rather than being spotted over water, these lights appear in graveyards and the homes of the recently deceased.

And that's because they are believed to be the spirits of the dead, spotted in the middle of their journey from the body to the beyond.

But when the United States government forced Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II, those lights took on new meaning.

In fact, they became a common sight at the Toole Lake Segregation Center in California, the same location center, by the way, where Star Trek actor George Takai and his family were imprisoned.

It's said that there, in what must have been a cauldron of anxiety and hopelessness, the superstitions of many of the people there saw a resurgence.

Sightings of the Hitodama ghost lights began to be seen as predictors of death rather than just the spirits of the already dead.

stories that reflect the power of folklore, for sure.

In Germany, there are stories of spectral lights on on the road to Somerda, an ancient town in the center of the country.

For a very long time, it was believed that travelers on the road at night risked encountering a glowing lantern held aloft by a disembodied hand, a hand, by the way, that had superhuman strength.

In the December 1894 issue of Folklore, ethnologist M.J.

Walhaus reported one story passed on to him by an older German man.

Apparently, this man's grandfather had a frightening encounter back in the early part of the 1800s when he was traveling the high road outside of town and spotted a light ahead.

On coming near it, Walhouse wrote, he uttered a friendly greeting thinking it was a wayfarer, but saw to his amazement that the light came from a lantern held by a hand only.

He was one of the common sense people who would not believe evidence of his eyes, so he struck with his stick at the light.

and was instantly hurled with terrible force to the ground, where he lay for a time senseless.

On coming to himself, he could not find his way and only reached home after midnight.

It certainly makes a person cautious about what they would do in response to unusual lights at night.

Thankfully, most people over the centuries have been happy to stand back and watch, but sometimes even that hasn't been enough to keep them from being terrified, as a story from Wales makes clear to us.

Now it's in Wales that we encounter another of the more common names for ghost lights, corpse candles.

They're described as dim, small lights that often appear beside the bed of someone who is sick or dying.

They're also said to travel the path from that person's home to the church, highlighting the future route that the funeral procession would take.

Interestingly, it's said that a lot could be learned by the color of the light.

Red lights were an omen for the death of a man, while white meant a woman would die.

The fainter the light, the younger the person would be.

Sometimes the light appeared like a candle, and sometimes glowing inside a lantern, the shape of a skull.

It's a fun yet creepy bit of folklore, for sure.

But in 1895, one man's personal experience was published, and if it's true, it gives us a lot to think about.

One evening as he returned home from work to his wife and their handful of foster children, he watched as a small, faint light exited his house.

It struck him as odd for a couple of reasons.

First, it was a ghost light, and anyone in their right mind would view that as odd.

But second, the light didn't process down the logical path to the church.

Instead of heading down the road and then turning onto a second road that led straight to the churchyard, this procession simply crossed the field between his house and the church, sort of an as-the-crow flies shortcut, if you will.

In the following days, the man forgot about his experience, but two weeks later, it all came back to him when something tragic happened.

One of their foster children passed away.

That very same day, however, a massive snowstorm had blown through, drifting snow so high on the roads that travel had become impossible.

But not, amazingly enough, in the open fields, where the unrestricted wind pushed it out of the way.

So, when it came time to process the body of the child from the house to the church, they had to avoid the roads and use the field.

The field that the ghostlights had crossed two weeks before.

William was a man who made people uneasy.

Born in 1849, he became most famous for his work as a newspaper editor.

But it was his other interests, his hobbies, if you will, that caused people to whisper.

Not that he was bad at his job.

In fact, William pioneered the interview format for newspaper articles, which paved the way for a whole new branch of journalism, as well as the British tabloid.

Through his writings over the years, including interviews with high-profile public figures, William was able to shine a spotlight on a number of important social causes.

We have him to thank for a lot of the reforms to England's criminal codes in the late 1800s, as well as getting the legal age of consent raised from 13 to 16 years of age.

His work even got him nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize a number of times.

He famously wrote in 1871 that, ⁇ ...society, outwardly indeed, appears white and glistening, but within is full of dead men's bones and rottenness.

⁇ And speaking of the dead, that's where another of his interests come into the picture.

You see, William was a well-known spiritualist and psychic researcher, and that's the bit that made the general public nervous.

Respectable journalist striving for a better world?

Awesome.

Dabbler in the darker worlds of seances and ghosts?

Not so much.

Maybe that's why a lot of people viewed him as a crank and a fanatic.

Whatever side you fall on, William's work brought a lot of unusual stories to the surface, and one of those was published in 1891 in the Liverpool Post.

And while there's been some debate about whether or not he was the first to document the story, it's hard to deny the powerful picture the encounter paints for us.

William wrote that he was out for a walk after midnight in Liverpool at some point in the late 1800s, when he found himself within sight of Notty Ash churchyard.

But even from a ways off, he could tell that something unusual was going on because the churchyard was filled with thousands of small bluish lights.

At the same time, while frozen to the road where he stood, William described seeing the shapes of dozens of men walking up the street toward him and the church.

They were visible, but not altogether solid.

It seems he was witnessing a ghostly funeral procession, a crowd of elderly men dressed in formal, uniform, old-fashioned clothing.

They walked at the head of a coffin, which was covered in a large black cloth and carried by others among them.

William described that the fabric fluttered in the wind and how the men in the procession all wear swords at their sides and carried walking sticks with skulls for handles.

Behind the coffin walked one man who appeared different.

He was younger, dressed in all black velvet and clearly more sad and somber than the rest.

How he knew, I'm not sure.

but William was certain that this man was the spirit of the body in the coffin.

Intrigued, he continued to watch as the figures reached the churchyard and stepped inside.

When they did, the lights that were still there hovering over the graves apparently moved toward the procession as if to join the mourners in their journey.

And then the entire party stepped into the closed doors of the church and vanished.

Now, we could debate the truth of this experience forever, and many people have over the years.

And we could even point out how common ghostly funeral processions are throughout folklore.

But one element I love about this encounter is how the ghost lights in the church seem to participate in the event.

It's chilling, to say the least.

Of course, much of the believability falls on the shoulders of William, who wrote it down and published it for us to enjoy.

And surprisingly, while he had a reputation, as I said earlier, as a crank and a fanatic, about the spiritual realm, he also had a pretty good track record of getting things right.

In 1886, for example, he published a story called How the Mail Steamer Went Down in the Mid-Atlantic, and then another story in 1892 called From the Old World to the New.

And both of those tales seem to predict the Titanic disaster years before it happened.

Perhaps, knowing his ability to see the truth even in tales of fiction, there was something about William Thomas Steed that made him special.

And the proof, it seems, might just be in the way he died.

He drowned, you see, one of the many passengers who were lost when the Titanic sank.

The world is full of folklore.

I hope that's something we can all agree on, especially after over 200 episodes of this show.

There are so many stories out there, so many beliefs, so many superstitious practices, and the traditions built around them.

But one thing that never fails to amaze me is when we get to explore a type of folklore with a global presence.

Stories of little humanoid creatures, for example, like Puckwudgies, trolls, and goblins.

Tales of creatures that are Bigfoot in every way other than name.

Haunted lighthouses.

These are the big ones, the types of tales you can count on finding everywhere you look.

And right up there with the best of them are ghost lights.

From Japan to Europe and seemingly every place in between, we can find stories of spectral lights that share an eerie list of common traits.

Whether or not you believe the legends to be true, I hope the weird similarity of it all gives you chills.

At the end of the day, there's something alluring about ghost lights.

And yes, a lot of the stories can be explained by science.

I'm fully aware of that.

Decomposing organic matter has a tendency to release methane gas, and if that ignites, you get light.

And where do we find lots of decaying plant matter?

Swamps, marshes, and wetlands.

We could also point a finger at bioluminescent organisms like insects, algae, and even mushrooms.

There's something called the honey fungus, which are clusters of parasitic mushrooms that grow on trees in the northern hemisphere, and as luck would have it, they have the ability to glow at night.

But whether they're real or not, ghost lights will forever be part of the fabric of a lot of cultures.

Take, for example, the legend of another badly behaving man similar to William, this one named Jack.

Rather than be denied a place in heaven, this man apparently chose to to make a deal with the devil before death was ever in the picture, and it seems to have worked out alright for him.

Jack is reported to have tricked the devil a couple of times when it came time to pay up and hand over his soul.

The first time he fooled the devil into buying him some drinks, and then turned into a coin to pay for them.

Jack, however, chose to stuff that coin into his pockets and only let the devil out if he agreed to give him 10 more years of fun.

At the end of that decade, Jack tricked the devil into climbing a tree to grab an apple for him.

You know, one last meal and all.

But then he trapped the Lord of Darkness up in the tree and refused to let him down without a promise that he'd never be sent to hell.

But to give Jack some light to carry with him as he wandered the earth forever, the devil apparently gave him a ghost light, trapped inside a hollowed-out turnip.

The centuries since have transformed that turnip into something else, and the folks who imitate the legend have mostly forgotten why they do it.

For a long time, that tradition became more about using light to ward off evil spirits, but today it's honestly just a lot of commercialism.

And that's the sad, sorry state of that age-old legend of Jack-o' the Lantern.

Ghostlight folklore is one of those common, ever-present realms of story that never runs the risk of being extinguished.

We might want to apply science to the legends in search of the truth, but no matter what we find, it's the stories themselves that hold all the power.

Which is why I saved one more culture for last, because the stories whispered there add a whole new texture to the classic ghostlight mythology.

Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.

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People take their folklore with them.

It's one of the things I love most about Story.

It's ever so portable, travel-ready, and easy to transplant into new locations.

And ghost lights are no exception.

So, it probably shouldn't be a surprise that stories of spectral lights managed to follow immigrants from Britain and Europe into the new world of North America.

Which is why today you can look around the country and spot traces of them everywhere.

Take, Take, for example, the place called The Devil's Promenade.

Located just outside of Joplin, Missouri, this location is known for random sightings of balls of light, sometimes grouped together and sometimes solo.

Legend says that they appear near a spot where the Trail of Tears passes by the town, but there are other theories as well.

From Confederate ghosts to lost lovers.

The only thing more common than the sightings are the proposed reasons behind them.

In the area northwest of Gerdin, Arkansas, they tell stories of the Gurden Lights.

This one seems to haunt a train track, which has led some to suspect that it's the ghost of a dead railroad worker named Will McLean, who was murdered near that location by a co-worker in 1931.

It's certainly the type of story you'd expect to be paired up with ghost lights, but whether it's true is up for debate.

And we can't ignore the Brown Mountain Lights, witnessed by many people in the Brown Mountains of North Carolina.

Sometimes described as balls of light, while other times as candlelight, these spectral lights have been spotted by travelers and locals for generations.

The main story attached to them is that they are the spirits of Native American warriors who died in a great battle over eight centuries ago.

But at the top of almost every list of American ghost light collection is a location from Texas.

The tiny village of Marfa is one of those blink and you'll miss it sort of places in western Texas.

But for such a small community, it has a name that's practically legendary in the paranormal community.

And the reason, of course, is the lights.

They were first noticed way back in 1883.

According to a young man named Robert Reed, who was a 16-year-old cattle hand at the time, the lights appeared during one of the nights on a long cattle drive from Antelope Springs to Paisano Pass.

And if we remember that this happened before people were walking around with glowing pocket computers or even flashlights, it's easy to see why Robert grew concerned.

The lights he saw seemed to flicker all over a nearby mountain, and although he wanted to believe that they were the campfires of local Native Americans or even fellow ranchers, the way they moved in and out of visibility didn't seem to fit that theory.

According to his daughter, who gave an interview many years later, Robert apparently saw the lights on a regular basis, so much so that they sort of just became part of the environment for him.

But a generation or so later, in 1916, the sightings began to take on, if you'll pardon the pun, a whole new light.

That was the year that Haley Stilwell came to Marfa with some friends, riding in the back of a truck.

They had stopped to chat with some locals that night when someone pointed out the odd collection of lights on the nearby mountain.

The same mountain, by the way, that Robert Reed had camped beside.

They too felt that the lights behaved in a way that made human origin unlikely, and so, jokingly, they referred to them as ghost lights.

They were probably not the first to do so, but they definitely weren't the last.

And over the years, the Marfa ghost lights, as they are now known, have become legendary.

So much so that in 1943, a World War II pilot at a Texas Air Force base actually tried to fly over the lights to identify them.

But the task turned out to be more difficult than they'd expected.

Pilot Fritz Kahl said that he was given the location by a local, and he and a co-pilot flew so low over the location that they could see the individual leaves of the plants growing there.

but they never spotted the lights.

Those who do have the privilege of seeing them have typically done so from a small area off U.S.

Route 67, about nine miles outside of Marfa.

Dan, I know what you're thinking.

Seeing them so close to a highway probably means that the lights are just odd reflections from headlights.

But these lights do things that headlights cannot, like split apart or melt together, sometimes horizontally and sometimes vertically.

Today, the folks in the area know that they've got a good thing on their hands, no matter what the lights themselves might mean.

They've made it easier for travelers to pull over at night to look for the lights and even set up a bunch of picnic tables so people can eat while they watch.

Back in 2003, the town used federal funds to the tune of about three-quarters of a million dollars to build a viewing center there.

Along with air conditioning and better seating, you can find binoculars, informational guides, and of course, restrooms.

I'm not sure I'm willing to go on record as saying the Marfa lights are real.

but I've also never been there and seen them with my own eyes.

But what I do know is that for over a century, people in that area have been to something unusual, and I can see how easy it might be to build a mythology around it.

The best thing any of us could do is visit that spot on Route 67 for ourselves, wait for the sun to go down, and look for the lights.

Just be sure to pull over before you do.

This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Jenna Rose Nethercott and music by Chad Lawson.

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