Paulding Light

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Paulding Light

The Paulding Light (also called the Lights of Paulding or the Dog Meadow Light) is a mysterious light that appears outside of Paulding near Watersmeet, Michigan. The light appears to hover and move along a power line right of way. The colors shift continuously - red and white are the most common although green and blue have been reported. It does not appear every night and the fullness and brightness of the moon has no play on whether it will appear or not. As of late paranormal researchers are becoming more and more skeptical of the mysterious light, advocating that the light is nothing more than reflected headlights off of a recently expanded highway.

While the story surrounding the phenomenon asserts that the lights have been visible since the turn of the century, the first documented sighting was by a group of teenagers in 1966.

[edit] Possible Explanations

There are many popular explanations for the cause of the phenomenon. Theories range from radioactive gas, anomalies in the earth's magnetic field, glowing plasma, or swamp gas. Skeptics assert that the light is nothing more than headlights in the distance. Similar explanations have been advanced for some of the Hessdalen lights [1].

Others believe that the paranormal has a hand in the lights origin. One popular paranormal tale describes the ghost of a brakeman killed in the nineteenth century as the cause. Alternative paranormal theories include UFO's and other ghosts.

Several amateur studies have been conducted, all of them concluding that the lights are indeed the result of the mid-1960s rerouting of US 45, giving the viewing spot a slightly angled view of sporadic traffic along the new highway. The colors then match headlights, tail lights, and the warning lights of the occasional emergency vehicle. Proponents of supernatural explanations discount these studies, claiming that the lights studied in these cases are not, in fact, the actual Lights of Paulding.

Another popular paranormal explanation is the ghost of a mailman, who was carrying out the mail about 60 years ago in the northwoods with a dogsled. Because the mail was running late public authorities were looking for the missing mailman and found him and his dogs dead on the spot where nowadays the Paulding Light is observed.