These types of electrical fields are most commonly associated with earthquakes.

This area, lying on a fault line running east from New Madrid, Missouri, westward to Oklahoma was the site of four earthquakes during the eighteenth century. In areas where rocks, deep below the earth’s surface, are shifting and grinding, an electrical charge can be created. One possible explanation that is not as easily discounted, but not yet proven conclusive, is that the lights are electrical atmospheric charges.

Explanations of headlights or billboards are easily discarded, as the light was seen years before automobiles or billboards were made, and before a road even existed in the area. However, all of these explanations fall short of being conclusive.Īs to the theory of escaping natural gas, which is common in marshy areas, the Hornet Light is seemingly not affected by wind or by rain, and how would it self-ignite? The idea that it might be a will-o’-the-wisp is discounted, as this biological phenomena does not display the intensity of the ball of light seen along the Devil's Promenade. Many explanations have been presented over the years, including escaping natural gas, reflecting car lights and billboards, and will-o’-the-wisps, a luminescence created by rotting organic matter. Though many paranormal and scientific investigators have studied the light, including the Army Corps of Engineers, no one has been able to provide a conclusive answer as to the origin of the light. According to locals, the best time to view the spook light is between the hours of 10:00 pm and midnight and tends to shy away from large groups and loud sounds. In any event, the orange fire-like ball has reportedly been appearing nightly for well over 100 years. Others have said it sways from side to side, like a lantern being carried by some invisible force. The ball of fire, described as varying from the size of a baseball to a basketball, dances and spins down the center of the road at high speeds, rising and hovering above the treetops, before it retreats and disappears. However, it is most often seen from the east, which is why it has been 'attached” to the tiny hamlet of Hornet, Missouri, and the larger, better-known town of Joplin.Īccording to the legend, the spook light was first seen by Indians along the infamous Trail of Tears in 1836 however, the first 'official” report occurred in 1881 in a publication called the Ozark Spook Light. The Spook Light, often referred to as the Joplin Spook Light or the Tri-State Spook Light, is actually in Oklahoma near the small town of Quapaw. Described most often as an orange ball of light, the orb travels from east to west along a four-mile gravel road, long called the Devil's Promenade by area locals. Bobbing and bouncing along a dirt road in northeast Oklahoma is the Hornet Spook Light, a paranormal enigma for more than a century.

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