Joe Nickell, PhD, a former private detective, did graduate work (both coursework and independent studies) in folklore. Among his many investigative books is The Science of Ghosts.
So-called “ghost lights” are reported at various sites worldwide, the term being applied to luminous phenomena that, many claim, defy explanation. However, Rosemary Ellen Guiley in her The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits (2000, 156), cautions: “Many reports of ghost lights can be explained naturally, such as car headlights or phosphorescences known as ignis fatuus” (literally “foolish fire,” e.g., combustion of marsh gas).1
Among the most famous ghost lights are the Marfa Lights, after a town in Texas, reported first by a settler in 1883 (Lindee 1992; Guiley 2000, 156); the Hornet or Ozark Spooklight, south of Joplin, Missouri; and the Brown Mountain Lights, near Morganton, North Carolina, reported since 1913 (Guiley 2000, 156–157; Corliss 1995, 71–72).