This Ghostly Orb Said To Be A Lantern Carried By A Woman Who Tragically Lost Her Husband Could Actually Be An Earthquake Light
According to legend, a strange orb of light resembling a lantern is sometimes seen hovering over the railroad tracks in the remote area near Summerville, South Carolina. It is said that the lantern is carried by a ghost who lost her husband in a tragic train accident.
Every night, the wife of a conductor would travel along a dirt road with a lantern in hand to meet her husband at midnight with his supper as he passed through.
One night, the woman waited for hours, but her husband didn’t show up. It turned out that the train had derailed, and he was reportedly decapitated during the accident.
She was devastated by the news and never got over his death. After that, she would visit their meeting place every night, hoping he would return.
Her presence is marked by the glow of her lantern in the dark. Some say if you walked toward the light, it would chase you. The dirt road has since been developed.
A seismologist at the U.S. Geological Survey named Susan Hough thinks that the phenomenon may not be paranormal. Instead, the source of the Summerville Light could be what is known as earthquake lights.
Earthquake lights have been seen around the world as sparks, spheres, pillars, and other shapes, but there is no accepted theory for their appearance and cause yet.
Some ideas include the ignition of released underground gases, such as methane or radon, or dielectric discharge from fault movements.
In recent years, earthquake scientists have been working to identify the fault responsible for the 1886 Charleston, South Carolina earthquake. Summerville is located about 25 miles northwest of Charleston. The town was part of their study region.
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During Hough’s research, the team combed through accounts of the light in books and newspapers, along with data on earthquakes in the area.
Apparently, the Summerville light sightings began in the 1950s and 1960s within a few miles of two earthquakes at magnitudes of 3.5 and 4.4. They occurred in 1959 and 1960.
If the Summerville phenomenon is indeed an earthquake light, the shallow earthquakes in the region might have released a water-soluble gas like methane or radon that was ignited by rock movement or a spark of static electricity.
At the time of the ghostly sightings, the railroad by the Summerville light was not in service. However, the steel rails and nearby piles of scrap metal could have produced an igniting spark.
Gases trapped in water droplets may explain why the ghost lights always seem to appear on dark, misty nights.
The hypothesis must be tested, potentially by using gas detectors to look for escaping gases or by carrying out experiments to search for shallow faults.
There are similar ghost stories in other parts of the nation, including near Wilmington, North Carolina. The ghost stories can help experts hunt for zones in regions with low seismic activity.
“There’s tons of faults in the eastern United States, but the trick is finding out which ones of them are active,” said Hough.
“Maybe here we have an example of the recipe for the environments that might generate earthquake lights. And maybe the friendly ghosts are illuminating fault zones in the east.”
The study was published in Seismological Research Letters.
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