From: “Laurie Small” (lsmall@uplogon.com)
To: obiwan@ghosts.org
Subject: Lights in the Northwoods
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 10:22:48 -0600
Our home is in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, by a small town, called Norway. We live on a hardwood ridge, which is traversed by spring beds and the rivulets that come from them. The U.P. is a mostly rural area, with many acres of forests, wetlands, lakes, rivers and small farms. The residents are able to enjoy many outdoor sports, not the least of which are hunting and fishing.
Being an avid hunter, I spend the hours from pre-dawn to after dusk during the firearm deer season (Nov 15-30) afield, posting up for the hunt. We have enough property that I am able to hunt on what is virually our backyard. It is not uncommon that during the time following dusk, a Light will appear on the ridge. At first I blamed a neighbor or violator (someone who doesn’t have permission to hunt on someone else’s property) for the appearance of the Light. One time, I even called the neighbor across the field, asking if they had given anyone permission to hunt between us, and they had said they didn’t. When we went to see if we could follow the tracks to determine where this “violator” went, there were no tracks in the snow. Another time when I saw the Light from my deer blind, I checked the next day to see where this “person” was posting and there was nary a track much less a blind to sit in. If this is a person, he has never fired his weapon (I have been living and hunting here for 14 years and would have surely heard a gun blast at such close range!) and he has never been seen coming or going.
This past November, I had bagged a deer and dragged it to back to our shed located in the yard by our house. I turned toward the woods and there was that same Light–sort of yellow in color with red around the edges. It was not the color of a flourescent or halogen light and was hoovering at the base of the top-most ridge. It lolled back and forth at about what I would estimate to be waist-high level. I went around the shed and stood in the shadow, watching it for almost 15 minutes. The light would wax and wane in size, like someone was turning slowly from front to side. After about 15 minutes the light moved from my view, and wondering if the wind was moving the trees so that my view was obscured, I took a few steps out from where I had been standing. I did not call out to the Light, but thinking it may be a person, had waited to see if he would move toward me. I again made visual contact with the Light and it then seemed to turn and began to follow the bottom of the ridge, traveling away from the house. All the while, it moved in a swaying motion as it moved away, finally disappearing after 150-200 yards.
As this topic was brought up from time to time, I found out that quite a few of our neighbors have also seen this Light in the woods. As for myself, the Light does not make me feel uneasy or the least bit threatened. It has never approached any of our family and seem benign in nature. Our children, now 8 & 9, have grown up seeing this Light in the woods and I suppose the children’s theories on what the Light actually is (UFO guys), are as good as anyone else’s guess. I know of no grisly horror story of murder or mayhem, and although I do believe that spirits can be among us, I don’t feel that this is the case here.
It was fascinating to read the theory that these lights may eminate from boggy, marshy land and are able to be blown with the wind. Through the length of our property are no less that 4 separate spring bed areas, which are located on the side of the ridge, some high up and some midway. These flow into a small, cedar swamp, and eventually make up a larger creek flowing off of our property. I have not seen our Light in the swamp, but consistantly on the ridge where the spring beds are located. For what it’s worth, these Lights appear irregardless as to if there is snow on the ground or not. I have not noticed them during the summer, but then again, I wasn’t looking for them in the same intense manner as I look for things when I am hunting. Now that I have read the other accounts, you can bet that I will be on the alert for the Light in the woods on whatever evening I am out there. I particularly enjoy that there are still mysteries in this world and that it gives us all something to contemplate.