by Nights Dawning
In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, there's a small town called Paulding near Watersmeet. It was around an hour from where I lived, but I went there at least 6 times. Near Paulding, there is a dirt road. Part of it leads to a campground called Robins Pond. The other part of the road keeps going straight. It used to keep on going, but now there is a river that runs thru the road at the bottom of a ravine and you have to walk across it if you want to cross.
Here is the basic setup. You drive down the road until you reach a spot where they have put up a metal railing across the road. The spot is at the top of where the road turns into a down hill slope. There's usually at least a few people there. The place is pretty well known unfortunately, and you get alot of young people out there goofing off, not to mention people drinking and partying.
I've heard a few stories about why what happens happens out there. One of the stories is that a railroad worker was out looking for his daughter along the tracks, and wasn't paying attention. He was carrying one of those old lanters that were red on one side and green on the other for directing the trains. Anyhow, he was hit and killed by the train, and is still looking for his daughter.
Another one that I heard, and it's pretty similar, was that this same man's daughter had died, and that he jumped in front of the train on purpose.
Now, usually all you have to do is sit in your car and wait a bit, sometimes not any more than 5 minutes, although some nights it won't come out at all. Usually, you'll see a few different things. There is another hill opposite the one that you are on, the other side of the ravine, and the top is about level with the side that you stand on. Sometimes you'll see a bright white light, similar to a car headlight. It's pretty bright, and it appears to come closer for awhile. A friend of mine swears he was in a car with some friends and the light came all the way up to his windshield.
Sometimes, you'll also see either a red light, or a green light, sometimes both alternating. I've seen this light just about every time I was out there. It swings in a small arc, back and forth. Then, all of a sudden, it will go flying off into the trees alongside the road.
Now, I know some people that say it's just car headlights and tail lights. I can't say that I go for that though. The lights move in ways that a car never would. I've heard that Unsolved Mysteries once did an episode about it, and that they couldn't figure it out. Myself, I think I believe the train stories. The lights fit the stories. The big white light, it could very easily be said to look like the light on the front of a train. And the red green light, well, flying off into the trees all of a sudden like that, definitely could be someone holding one of those lanterns getting hit by a train.
If you want more info on this, I've seen
sites on the web about the Paulding Light.
Do a search and you are bound to come up with
some, I did.
