The Paulding Light

A mysterious light phenomenon that has appeared in a valley outside of Paulding, Michigan, near Watersmeet in the Upper Peninsula since at least 1966. The light has been investigated by Ripley's Believe It or Not and featured on multiple paranormal TV shows.

The Paulding Light is a mysterious luminous phenomenon visible from a stretch of old US Highway 45 near the village of Paulding in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, close to the Ottawa National Forest and the town of Watersmeet. The first recorded sighting occurred in 1966, when a group of teenagers reported seeing a strange light hovering in the valley and contacted the local sheriff. In the decades since, thousands of visitors have traveled to the designated observation point on Robbins Pond Road to watch the light appear, change colors, split apart, and vanish into the northern Michigan darkness.

The most popular legend holds that the light is the lantern of a railroad brakeman who was killed on the tracks that once ran through the valley. According to the story, the ghostly brakeman swings his lantern each night to warn approaching trains, reliving the final moments of his life in an endless loop. Other legends attribute the light to the ghost of a Native American dancer performing on the power lines, or to the spirit of a mail carrier who froze to death in the Upper Peninsula wilderness.

The Paulding Light attracted enough attention to earn a roadside sign from the United States Forest Service, which acknowledges the mystery without offering an explanation. The sign reads: "This is the location from which the famous Paulding Light can be observed. Legend explains its presence as a ghost light of a railroad brakeman, but no one has been able to actually prove the exposed existence of the light or its exact source."

In 2010, students from the Michigan Technological University chapter of the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers conducted a scientific investigation that appears to have solved the mystery. Using a telescope, the students were able to identify the light source as the headlights and taillights of vehicles traveling on the north-south stretch of US Highway 45, approximately five miles north of the observation area. They could see individual vehicles, read a specific Adopt-a-Highway sign along the road, and reproduce the multicolored patterns reported by witnesses, which turned out to be police flashers. An earlier investigation in 1990 had reached the same conclusion using telescopic, spectroscopic, and travel-time analysis.

Despite the scientific explanation, the Paulding Light retains its following. Some believers have dismissed the Michigan Tech findings entirely, arguing that the students were observing something different from the true Paulding Light. Visitors continue to gather at the observation point, particularly on clear autumn nights, hoping to see something that defies the logical explanation. The Paulding Light endures as one of Michigan's most famous and most debated paranormal phenomena, a ghost story that science has explained but cannot seem to extinguish.