Mystery of the Paulding Light

I chose this source because it brought more curiosity towards my research on paranormal superstitions.  This source shows that some things can be solved, even if it’s over 50 years later. Professor Faris had sent me an email with an attachment that led me to the Michigan Tech University’s news site. Here I came across an absorbing report written by Marcia Goodrich on how these college students chose to solve this paranormal legend for a school project.  This is a credible and valid source because it provides scientific evidence to support the truth behind the mysterious light.

paulding light

The picture above shows the distance from the designated spot on US 45 to the observation point where the paulding light had been appearing.

October 28th, 2012, Michigan Tech students solved the mystery of the Paulding light; a paranormal legend that has been around since the 1960’s. This strange light can be seen every so often flashing once, twice, and sometimes repeatedly flashing off and on where railroad tracks were once believed to have been years ago. There are many different stories explaining the unknown light but the most popular one is the belief that a railroad brakeman died while trying to stop a train from colliding with railway cars parked on the tracks. There have been many reports since the 1960’s claiming that they have seen the light of the dead brakeman’s lantern shining. PhD student, electrical engineering and organizer of the investigation, Jeremy Bos notes, “the lights are not fake but neither are they ghostly lanterns of a railroad brakeman killed trying to stop an oncoming train (1).” After a successful and well-organized investigation, the Michigan Tech students came to a conclusion. Using telescopes, they looked into the direction of the Paulding light 4.5 miles away in distance in the designated spot on highway US 45. The students discovered that every time the Paulding light appeared, a car drove by on the specific spot. So, the mysterious light is not a ghostly spirit messing with our superstitions, nor is it a paranormal legend. Scientific evidence proves that it is an optical allusion.  To better explain and prove the reasoning’s behind the different flashes the light projects to the human eye, Bos notes that, “heat rises from the pavement on the highway and contributes to the lights distortion (1).” He also explains that the lights often come in two because cars are driving past closely together at the specific spot on US 45. Also, the reasoning’s for the flashing lights every so often are predicted to appear when a cop turns on their red and blue lights when pulling someone over.

After reading the investigation of the Paulding light, I was confused and shocked with one statement from the article. Turns out, that even after a solid case was made through scientific evidence, people still chose to believe in the paranormal legend (1). Which formed two new questions. Why do people choose to believe in paranormal activities even after the investigation was concluded an optical illusion? And if paranormal activities can be solved such as the Paulding light, are their solutions to other unsolved mysteries? Perhaps, some things are supposed to be left unknown.

I am starting to make connections between my last source and this source.  Now, I want to look into the psychology, for educated explanations to reason with the ways of thinking people have about their paranormal superstitions. By researching a psychologist’s perspective I may find support for my new questions. Using the knowledge I have gained from my research so far, I use the word “support” because I don’t believe that all paranormal happenings have explanations, most just seem to have unexplained theories people make based off what they see with their eyes and hear with their ears. Hopefully a psychologist can help come to some sort of conclusion.

Goodrich, Marcia. “Michigan Tech Students Solve Mystery of the Paulding Light.” Web log post. Michigan Tech News. N.p., 28 Oct. 2010. Web. 03 Nov. 2013.

4 thoughts on “Mystery of the Paulding Light

  1. wow! that was such a valid source and so interesting. That raises so many questions for a student. Like the two that you mentioned, I strongly encourage you to continue looking into the psychology aspect of paranormal activity. I love psychology and know that you will be able to find a lot of information. Keep searching so you can narrow down that research question. All is valid information for your exploratory essay! Good luck and keep up the good work! 🙂

  2. Your whole research topic is so interesting! With every blog post, it just continues to get more and more interesting! I think this is a good source, I think you might just need to provide rhetorical context. I also find it a little confusing when you state that you might want to change your research question. Do you want to change your whole research topic or just explore that topic and incorporate that into the bigger topic?

  3. Wow, it looks like you are very interested in this topic, as well as intrigued in sharing that interest with others. This source seems to answer some of your questions, as well as leave you asking yourself more questions, which is a good thing when regarding research. One thing you may want to include while you write are the idea of rhetorical terms, and how those might affect the source that you are getting your information from. Overall I think that this topic you chose seems very interesting and it looks like you have some very useful information of which you are drawing some conclusions about the history of paranormal events in Wisconsin’s history. Great job!

  4. Very interesting!! I like how you discribed the students experiement in depth, it helped me understand this source better. Maybe the people that still believe that they is paranormal activity have encountered some sort of activity that they are not telling anyone. Yeah, I would look into the psychology part, I think that would be very interesting. Look forward tp reading more of your blogs! Nice work!

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