Heck Of A Guy

Gather ’round the virtual campfire, cyber-campers & Uncle DrHGuy will tell you a tale from a time so long ago that DrHGuy was HGuyM1,¹ which doesn’t scan nearly as well and loses much in the necessity of explanation.

Before we start, cleanse your minds of those classic urban legends (e.g., the insane killer with a hook for a hand who escapes from prison, the murderer hiding in the backseat of the car, the babysitter who starts getting creepy telephone calls only to discover that, when the police trace the calls, they’re coming from inside the same house, and the vanishing hitchhiker) that high school girls tell at slumber parties to scare themselves out of their pants and that high school boys tell high school girls to get into those pants. The source of this story isn’t a guy I met at church camp who told me it happened to his uncle’s best friend nor a cable TV show with a title along the lines of Mysteriously Strange But True Stories That Are Strangely Mysterious But True (& Will Scare You Out Of Your Pants).

I witnessed this myself.

By crackey

Once Upon A Time

Attending the University of Missouri School Of Medicine in the 1970s has, I suspect, little in common with making a pilgrimage from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas à Becket at Canterbury Cathedral in the 14th century. My classmates and I did, however, practice the same storytelling ascribed to Chaucer’s pilgrims² and did so for the same purpose, to elude boredom.

Thus it came to pass that I offered up to the group of my fellow medical students a Believe It Or Not phenomenon from my neck of the woods:The Spooklight.

The details I provided were simple enough:
Eleven miles southwest of Joplin, Missouri, just past the village of Hornet, in the area where Missouri borders Oklahoma and Kansas, there is a gravel road, which I’ve only recently come to learn is officially known as E50, that is locally known as “Spooklight Road.” The road is narrow and bounded on both sides by brush and trees and travels a rising and falling course over the hills.

In the daylight, the scene is pretty enough but nothing special.

At night, however, there are almost always at least a few cars parked along the road, waiting.

These folks are, of course, hoping to see The Spooklight. And, most nights, they aren’t disappointed.

The Spooklight has appeared here since the 1860s, typically taking the form of a bright light (sometimes described as a “ball of fire”) of a yellow-orange color, ranging in size from what one might guess would be a large flashlight to something the size of a bushel basket or larger, that seems to be at the top of the next rise. The light routinely moves to the left and right. Less often, it’s said to split into smaller balls of light or take on different colors (red, blue, and green). Those walking toward the light find that it disappears until, if they continue forward, it reappears behind them.

The Expedition

As one might expect, the predominant responses of my classmates to my story of The Spooklight consisted of jeers, speculation that the spectators may have imbibed too much local moonshine, aspersions regaling the diminished intelligence and high gullibility of hillbillies, and explanations ranging from mass hysteria to swamp gas and beyond.

My protestations that I had personally seen the thing were to no avail, especially when it became known that local teenagers viewed Spooklight Road less as an opportunity to explore paranormal phenomena than as an opportunity to explore each other’s bodies.

Naturally, a field trip was organized.

Out brave little group, two of my more sympathetic classmates, the spouse of one of those classmates, and I, made the five hour journey into the heart of darkness I like to call home, established a base camp at my parents’ place, and proceeded to Spooklight Road.

The Shining Of The Spooklight

By 9 or 10 PM, the four of us were parked, along with perhaps a dozen other cars, in the prescribed viewing area.

It wasn’t long until our efforts were rewarded by the appearance of a small but distinct and unambiguous light some distance away but clearly on the same road, resembling the light shown in the photo below.³

This occurrence was, of course, a significant relief to me. Otherwise, the ridicule that would follow a no-show by The Spooklight would be devastating.

It was a warm night so we were outside, walking about or leaning against the car, watching the antics of The Spooklight, which were entertaining enough. It veered to the left, it veered to the right, it moved around, it did The Spooklight hokey-pokey.

Having been initiated as certified Spooklighters, we were jaded enough to begin discussing plans to return home when the light became brighter and seemed to move toward us. We stared at it because, well, it was interesting. Then, it unmistakably became bigger and brighter, increasing in size from that of a distant flashlight as seen in the photo to that of a basketball. But what captured our attention was its distinct increase in acceleration as it moved toward us. In another moment, the increase in size, intensity, and acceleration stepped up again.

It was at this time that our conviction that we understood how the world operated in general, along with our beliefs in specific scientific principles, dissolved in the acute, undiluted fear of impending doom. This is not an exaggeration. While I’ve treated many cases of panic disorder and heard descriptions of the conviction that catastrophe was imminent and inevitable, this is the only episode in my life when I was possessed of – and by – that sensation myself.

The “ball of fire” descriptions, which had seemed inappropriate to the spotlight we had watched throughout the evening now became all too apt. My last glance at that light, before I turned my back to join the others scrambling for the car, revealed an orange, glowing comet with a circumference larger than that of a large beach umbrella, leaving a trail of sparks behind it — and moving every more rapidly toward us.

And, suddenly, it was gone.

We pulled ourselves together and saw that the light had reappeared, diminished to its flashlight size and relocated safely down the road.

Without saying much, we left.

Update: See  The Spooklight Background

Credit Due Department: Top photo from stock.xchng

1. “M1″ translates as “First Year Medical Student”↩
2. Chaucer set up the frame of storytelling as a suggestion of the Host of the inn where the pilgrims spent the night prior to starting out for Canterbury. In Chaucer’s words,

   Ye goon to Caunterbury – God yow speede,
   The blisful martir quite yow youre meede!
   And wel I woot, as ye goon by the weye,
   Ye shapen yow to talen and to pleye,
   For trewely, confort ne myrthe is noon
   To ride by the weye doumb as stoon;

   And in translation,

   You go to Canterbury; may God speed
   And the blest martyr listens to your need.
   And well I know, as you go on your way,
   You’ll tell good tales and shape yourselves to play;
   For truly there’s no mirth nor comfort, none,
   Riding the roads as dumb as is a stone; ↩

3. This photo was taken a different night, but at the same location and is a reasonable representation of what we saw.↩