Notes:

Ghost lights seen in the old Silver Cliff Cemetary. Silver Cliff population 130 from formerly 10,000 during heyday of mining. The Ghost lights of the cemetary are now the main attraction. The souls of the old miners are said to dance among the tombstones. The cemetary isa mild down a dirt road away from town. Westcliffe sits to the north. At night the city loghts project brightly into space in contrast to the total darkness engulfing the cemetary to the south. Local residents have long taken for granted that the lights have chosen to appear here, sometimes as dancing blue spheres, or white points that receede when approached, but always as something inexplicable. Those who scoff at such things as ghosts will give the usual explanation that the city lights reflect off the gravestones. Even these people seem to harbor doubts about the origin of the phenomenon, that maybe there is something beyond just the superficial explanation. To further the doubt, National Geographic mentioned the lights in its August 1969 issue, in which a reporter investigated the cemetary...indeed he saw something he could not explain. This brief note on the cemetary would be forgotten were it not for the crudely lettered sign posted at the entrance "Silver Cliff Cemetary, Founded in 1878, Famous for Ghost Lights Reported in National Geographic" It is said that once all the lights of the town were turned off to disprove the theory of ghosts, but the ghost lights only appeared with more brilliance.

We decided to spend three evenings at the cemetary. Having both grown up in nearby Pueblo, we have had occasion to fall prey to the aura of mystery surrounding the ghost lights. Indeed, given the setting and the anticipation, it is not surprising that even the adults who accompanied us began seeing inexplicable phenomena. On a blackened, cool september night the lights began to appear, faintly at first but growing stronger as the sun dipped completely behind the mountains. Most were well-defined points that could be traced directly to the face of any particular headstone by using a flashlight. When approached, however, the lights appeared to receede or even disappeared altogether. They gave the impression of having some intelligence behind them as they wobbled and danced. With a smattering of high school physics, human psychology and common sense, every effect e observed can be easily explained. In fact the phenomenon can be summed up in one word : reflections.

The headstone material is consistently either white or black marble that has been cut to a flat face and a curved top surface. The faces are polished to smoothmess. Even the black marble will serve as a crude mirror if its surface is made smooth enough. Light will be almost totally reflected if it hits the marble at an oblique-enough angle. If we examine the shape of the headstones we discover some peculiar effects. Images reflected at oblique angles become stretched; points of lights become streaks or blobs. If a headstone is smooth but not flat, the reflection dances when the observer moves his body. Reflections off of curved surfaces also behave differently that off flat surfaces, which confuses the simple explanation, making the process seem even more inexplicable to a casual observer.

When we visited the cemetary, the city lights were like flood lights. We could easily position ourselves to obtain reflections from the city lights. The ghostly phenomenon has appeared even without city lights, and as far back as the 1800's. Here is where we must turn to nature for sources of light. On the nights we viewed the ghost lights, the moon was not out and the stars were shining with such brilliance that it is unbelievable that previous investigations could have over looked their effects. Conditions are frequently such that ghost lights are produced from any location in the cemetary, even without man-made sources of light. Whatever the source of light on a particular night, two effects can be noticed. In the realy evening the ground is still cooling off from the suns heat. The temperature fluctuates in the atmosphere causing the sources to twinkle and making the reflections appear to dance. When the cemetary is at its darkest, al visual referecnes disappear, A point of light will appear to drift because of unconscious motios of the eye. Finally, we should not overlook perhaps the main driving force behind the ghost lights of Silver Cliff. The psychological one. Lets face it, we were in the middle of a dark cemetary, in a town where reports of ghost lights are prevalent. We expected something and were not disappointed. It is easy to lose all objectivity when confronted by these mischevous orbs of light, even when as adults we should know better. For so many years the mystique of the Silver Cliff cemetary has far outweighed any objective attempt to examine possible causes. The place has an undeniable aura of mystery, but the only truly mysterious thing we observed was a bouquet of fresh flowers adorning the grave of a two-day-old infant who had died in 1927. Obviously there is more than one mystery in this ancient graveyard."

From Custer County Merchants Association:

http://www.custercountyco.com/Silver%20Cliff%20Tour.htm

Contact Information Contact: Sue Hutton Phone No.: 783-2615 Address: P.O. Box 154 , 612 Main St, Silver Cliff, CO 81252

 Silver Cliff Cemetery Famous for its mysterious lights first seen around 1890. The floating lights of various colors are reportedly best seen on a dark overcast night. Investigated in 1963 by National Geographic, the phenomena was written up in National Geographic, but no explanation for the lights was offered in the article.

The following text is from the San Jose Mercury News, Sunday, October 27, 1996.

Mystery lights that dance in cemetery Jim Little has seen 'em -- the mysterious lights that flit through the Silver Cliff cemetery on the darkest of nights. They're called ghost lights, and Little, a rational man by all appearances, says they're real. "Almost anybody who's an old timer around here has seen them," says Little, editor/publisher of the Wet Mountain Tribune. "It's just one of those quirky things, a phenomenon that's never been explained. One of life's mysteries." The ghost lights are silver-dollar-size, round and whitish. They usually appear three or four at a time, floating among the headstones of the cemetery. They're ephemeral and tend to disappear just when you're trying to get a closer look. The lights were written about in the August 1969 issue of National Geographic and are now considered part tourist attraction, part folklore. A few theories on the lights' origin: They're reflections of town lights; they're phosphorous, perhaps from crumbling tombstones; they're methane gas. Geologists and ghost-debunkers have failed to prove any of those theories, though.

Here is a collection of photos from http://www.lycanthrope.net/~ysengrin/ghosts/Silvercliff/

Silver Cliff is west of Pueblo on Colorado Highway 96. The cemeteries are about a mile south of town on Mill Street. Both cemeteries are fenced with barbed wire, and have cattle guards for gates. Assumption Cemetery has a metal arch with the name. Silver Cliff Cemetery has a wooden sign that had been knocked down; the sign also identified it as the home of the ghost lights reported in National Geographic. When we visited the site, Mill Street was clearly marked where it crossed the highway. Mill Street is only paved near the highway, and you will cross a cattle guard well north of Silver Cliff Cemetery. Silver Cliff Cemetery is roughly 8020 feet above sea level.

Ysengrin and DarkFang Visit the Site January 19, 2000 Under the nearly full moon, DarkFang and I drove to the Silver Cliff Cemetery. We had heard rumors of the ghost lights there, and decided to go see for ourselves. According to what information we had it was the wrong sort of night to see the ghost lights, as they seem to prefer overcast, moonless nights. However, this was the only night we both could visit the graveyard.

We found the drive out Highway 96 to be quite scenic as it wound its way through the Wet Mountains. We had little difficulty finding the two cemeteries, both within easy sight of the lights of Sliver Cliff. The air was still and very cold, and the distant moonlit mountains formed a fitting setting for our visit. (Note: all these photos had exposures of 20 seconds or more.) We visited the Assumption Cemetery first, not knowing which cemetery was home to the ghost lights.

The photo to the left is of the entrance gate; DarkFang posed for the entire length of the exposure while I stepped into the frame after tripping the shutter. The camera is facing East, and the Wet Mountains are along the horizon. Central to this graveyard is a large standing white cross, quite striking in the moonlight, especially as there are virtually no bushes and no trees here and the grass is kept short. The Sangre De Christo (Blood of Christ) mountains are in the background. A quick survey suggested that this cemetery is fairly recent, as we found no older (pre-1900) markers. The cemetery is still in use. Afterwards we both commented on how peaceful this place was.

Next we went back up the road to the Silver Cliff Cemetery -- we found a knocked down sign identifying it. Several headstones bear dates before 1890, and the cemetery is still in use. Most of the headstones are marble, though a few are iron (like the one pictured to the left) and a very few are wood. There are several well-established shrubs over some of the grave sites, obscuring the older markers. Many families had plots surrounded by low iron fences, as did some individuals. The lights at the base of the distant mountains are far-off street and house lights.

Certain graves attracted us; one covered in closely set bricks, another heaped over with broken rock and concrete, and one with a thick eroded wooden marker. Small plastic American flags on sticks were set at several of the more modern graves, and the infrequent wind would set them to fluttering, the motion catching our attention. Still, for the hour or so we spent prowling the cemetery and taking pictures, we saw no certain sign of the ghost lights. There was a tension in the air here that was not present at the Assumption Cemetery, but no manifestations. The National Geographic article suggests that there were many more wooden markers back in 1969; by 2000 there are very few left. If the ghost lights were foxfire on the decaying wood then there will be very few left as well.

DarkFang has said he will visit the cemeteries again when the conditions are more like those when the ghost lights have been seen. All images and text on this page (c) 2000 by Wolfhom.

The following text is from an article titled "The Rockies Pot of Gold" that ran in the August 1969 issue of National Geographic.

Eerie Lights Await Explanation

I recall quite vividly the last such town I visited before leaving Colorado--a place called Silver Cliff in the Wet Mountain Valley west of Pueblo. Today it counts about 110 year-round residents, where once 5,000 lived. "Be sure to get there after dark," a fellow camper from Kansas had told me, "and drive out to the old cemetery. You'll see something mighty strange." We had bounced about a mile out of Silver Cliff across pitch-black prairie when Bill Kleine, who runs the local campground, told me to pull up and switch my headlights off. "Do you believe it?" I asked him. "About the lights in the graveyard?" "I've seen them plenty of times. This is a good night for them-overcast, no moon." We climbed out beside the old burying ground, and for long minutes I strained to see something, anything. Slowly, vague outlines of grave markers emerged, in ragged rows. "There." Bill's voice was quiet, almost a whisper. "And over there!" I saw them too. Dim, round spots of blue white light glowed ethereally among the graves. I found another, and stepped forward for a better look. They vanished. For 15 minutes we walked about the place, pursuing one will-o'-the-wisp, then another. I aimed my flashlight at one eerie glow and switched it on. It revealed only a tombstone. "Some people think it's phosphorescence," said Bill. "You know, from decaying wood in the crosses or something. Others say it's just reflections from the lights of Silver Cliff, or Westcliffe down there." I looked back at the two towns. Those small clusters of lights seemed far too faint to reflect way out here. Still, it was possible. "Only trouble is," said Bill, "my wife and I have both seen these lights when the fog was so thick you couldn't see the towns at all." No doubt someone, someday, will prove there's nothing at all supernatural in the luminous manifestations of Silver Cliff's cemetery. And I will feel a tinge of disappointment. I prefer to believe they are the restless stirrings of the ghosts of Colorado, eager to get their Centennial State on with its pressing business: seeking out and working the bonanzas of a second glorious century.