My mother was raised in northeast Oklahoma during the depression and most summers she and I and my older brother would venture up there from Texas in the early sixties. Even when I was little I remember all of us driving out of Fairland, Oklahoma to this deserted country road where we would sit for hours waiting for the 'Spook Light' to appear down the road. There were the usual explanations--swamp gas, car lights refracted somewhere, etc. My mother told us her father used to see it when he was a kid before cars were invented, his generation believing The Spook Light had something to do with lost and wandering Cherokee spirits. While others claimed it was the ghost of a civil war soldier out looking for his decapitated head with a lantern late at night.
My favorite local story as a kid involved a couple of police who witnessed the light until it came close enough to pounce on the hood of their patrol car, then the trunk, before disappearing. Naturally, no one saw this alleged car, but so go local legends.
Most of the time I remember falling asleep in the car with the radio on, waiting and waiting, then waking up on the way home, my mother telling me if they had seen the light or not. Finally, when I was about six I got to see it for myself one night; it was exactly as everyone had described it to me over the years. It started out way down the road and took a while to get your eyes focused on it. What was cool was hearing other car doors opening and realizing about five or six other families had come out there late on a summer evening for the same thing, not expecting anything and then--there they were getting out of their cars for a look, too.
I was a bit frightened at first but that faded as the phantom light came closer and more focused in intensity. I always heard a lot of descriptions but having seen it I could see why some described it (best, I feel) as the front light of a approaching train. Except as a train's light grows in intensity in illumination it also increases its circumference which helps you to keep it in perspective as to its proximity. The Spook Light, however, only grew in illuminated intensity; it never grew in size as does a nearing train light. It consistently appeared the size of a bowling ball, to me, but as I said, its illumination intensifying. On another occasion I saw it and it was not nearly as bright as similar sightings.
The first time was cool because as a kid I really thought this thing would dance or bounce around like I had always heard; the idea of it coming down and pounding on OUR '62 Ford Rachero Station Wagon was just way too much for which to hope! I wasn't disappointed because the closer it got, the more you could see that it wasn't entirely taking a straight course; it veered and dipped ever so lightly. I honestly can't remember how long I watched it that first time but I never saw it any brighter or closer in subsequent visits.
As my family and I watched it approach, I remember hearing the excitement of the other families around us, particularly the random "boo" and the high squeak shrill from some poor little kid, followed by laughter. But I was NOT taking my eyes off The Spook Light. What happened next was the part that made our trip that night even more memorable.
It just veered off immediately to its left in a wide arc, cutting across this field, but fast, like a big round rocket hitting a booster stage and boom. Everyone sort of "ewwww" and "awww"-ed together when that happened. It was the only time I observed the light seeming to change in perspective to its size and intensity, as it faded off. It was never so cool as it was my first time, but... isn't that always the case for everything.
My mother used to send me articles she would find on The Spook Light now and then and I kept them all. Anytime I meet someone from Oklahoma or Missouri I always ask if they've ever heard of The Spook Light. –Nick Beef
Dear Weird US;
There is a story of a mysterious light along the tracks at Maco, N. C. The Maco light has been seen by almost all the people I know that grew up in that section of South Eastern North Carolina. Maco is about 20 miles west of Wilmington. I do not know if this one version of the story is the same as the Hookerman, but some railroad yard man was supposed to have been killed in a bizarre accident years ago, the twenties some say, others say in the 1880s. He was decapitated by a fast moving freight train and ever since he makes regular walks along that stretch of track where the accident happened looking for his lost head. This is the version I know of the story.
I have never seen the Waco light, but I do know that driving around that part of the world with a huge "Green Swamp" just south of the place can be a very spooky experience late at night. David Lynch sort of people live there--Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart were filmed nearby.
–Letter via e-mail
|
|
