In the News Media

1990: As mentioned on page 330 in the Missouri Department of Natural Resources' 1990 book, Geologic Wonders and Curiosities of Missouri, . ( Bob Stroebel 'Bike Bob" article: http://users1.ee.net/pmason/spook_light.html)

1983: William Corliss 'Unusual Natural Phenomena" page 72 discusses the Ozark Spook Light.

1981: Long forgotten TV news magazine called "Real People" (circa 1981) did a report on the spooklight, which is sometimes also called the Hornet light. Bob Davis: . (http://www.beyondboundaries.org/bdavis/bdSPOOKLGHT.htm)

1968: 1968 Dell paperback book, Mysterious Fires and Lights, (MFAL), by Vincent H. Gaddis: . ( Bob Stroebel 'Bike Bob" article: http://users1.ee.net/pmason/spook_light.html) Available at Library of Congress QD516.G2

September, 1965: Popular Mechanics. Runs an article on the Hornet Light written by Robert Gannon who goes there and observes it. Gannon concludes that the light is 'unquestuionably the result of the refraction of automobile lights by layers of air at different temperatures" (From Corliss)

October 2, 1955 "Kansas City Star" long article. found at Library of Congress (microfilm copy)

ca 1950's: In "Tri-State Spooklight," a booklet published in the mid-1950s, Juanita Kay reported, "Many settlers camped here on our property overnight when they used to travel by wagon. After investigating the place where they had seen campfires the night before, my mother and father became aware of the light because they found no ashes where the fiery lights had appeared. This was back in the 1800s." (http://www.conservation.state.mo.us/conmag/1997/01/2.html)

[NOTE: "The Light at the End of the Road...The Joplin Spook Light" is a brand new 90-minute video release. It is a John Carpenter production of long-time UFO researcher Ted Phillips' 30 years of study of this long-standing ("documented sightings from the 1800's") anomalous light. The video includes Phillip's telescopic, CCD camera, videotape and 35mm camera photo-documentation of the "Spook Light," and much more. It is available for $29.95 plus $3.00 shipping from: Carpenter Research, 4033 S. Belvedere, Springfield, MO 65807.] (http://www.ufomind.com/ufo/updates/1997/may/m02-006.shtml)

Here are excerpts from the Kansas City Star article in 1955.

October 2, 1955 page E1

"Still baffled by a Spook Light' by Howard Turtle.

"Over in Neosho, thirty miles to the southeast, an investigation of the light has been conducted by Richard Y. Jones, civil engineer. Several years ago Jones along with the late Charles W. Graham of the Stat's staff took a surveyors transit to the road. When the light appeared as a single glowing ball, the men looked through the transit and discovered two lights side by side as if from the headlights of a car. Later the men set up a controlled experiment by which a car was taken to a road running east and west through Quapaw. This road would be a westward extension of the "spook light" road if a bridge were built over the Spring River. It was found that by flashing the car lights at certain spots in the Quapaw vicinity, the flashes were seen as the "spook light" on the lonely country road at points as far as ten miles distant. The elevation of the road near Quapaw is some 250 feet lower, so that an observer on the "spook light" road would be looking downward to the road near Quapaw. "Well Mr. Jones" I said to the engineer, "this ounds like a good test, but I can't find anyone who believes it". "That is true" he said, "but for myself I know it's car lights". "Could it be that some persons don't really want to know what it is?". "I think so, definitely' said Jones.

Around Neosho, Ted Bethes, a lawyer, and Paul Kelly, accountant, said there were old-timers in the spook light area who remembered seeing the light back in the early 1900s when motor cars were virtually nonexistent. I called Lloyd 'Dutch' Bilke who lives a mile east of Spring river and nearly a quarter of a mile north of the spook light road. "Well now" he said, "I'm 55 years old, and I grew up in this country, and the engineers can say all they want about car lights, and I won't argue with em, but that light I've seen is no car light" ...."You see, my wife and I grew up here. When we were about 15 years old, we rode all around tis timber on horseback. We saw the light then, and that was 40 years ago, before the road was even cut all the way down to the river. .. And to tell me we were seeing car lights, or any other kind of lights through those trees about ten miles away, I just dont believe it."

A man frequently mentioned in discussions of the light is F. W. 'Bill' Mizer (age 69) a former member of the board of education at Picher, OK... "That first light we saw is what I call jack-o-lantern. It was down where there was a lot of moisture and cat tails were growing and I think this luminous glow was caused by gasses rising from the decaying vegitation. It was not in the location of the present spook light, and didnt look like it". Mizer long was mystified by the spook light which now has attained fame, but he has become one of the few tri-state residents who accept the car light explanation. But what of the light that went into the car and burned the upholstery on the top?

I checked that story through. The man who was quoted said the light actually came up to his car radiator, then seemed to leap to the rear and was seen dancing on the road to the east behind his car. But on the burned upholstery? " That was an exaggeration" he said. .. Whatever it is, the spook light of the Ozarks is luring more and more people to the lonely road - a first class ghost that attracts visitors from all over the nation. And so far the show itself is all free, with no apparent attempt at commercialism - believe it or not"

Earlier in the article

"The color changes from white to red, the speed increases to what looks like sixty miles an hour. The light is overhead and to the right now - and - whoof - its gone. "Whew! That was a good one" "Ive been seeing it for many years " says the churchman. "What is it? Where does it come from? I dont know. There have been scientists out here who have been trying to tell us its car lights from the road across the river over beyond Quapaw, OK. But that car light you say - did it look like any car light? "Well, noyt unless.." "No, Its no car light. Those engineers may have seen a car light some time or other, but they didnt see the light I've seen". And with that he continues, crunch, crunch, on the way to church. For another half hour we watch the road ahead, but all is dark. By now there are half a dozen cars parked.

Here is another article (http://www.holysmoke.org/wb/wb0292.htm)..but it is not dated:

By CATHY KARLIN ZAHNER The Kansas City Star KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Keith L. Partain, a Tulsa researcher, would like to put an end to speculation over the Tri-State Spook Light, but it won't be easy. In the century since it was first sighted, the spook light has offered enough mystery to spin a perfect Halloween tale. Several, in fact. According to local lore, the light that floats along a lonely backwoods road southwest of Joplin is the tragic spirit of two Quapaw Indian lovers who committed suicide nearby. Another story describes the light as the glow of a lantern used by a miner still searching for his children, kidnapped by Indians in the 1870s. One Carthage resident wrote a book this year speculating that the light is a guiding system for interplanetary travel. More down-to-earth observers believe the spook light is merely reflected headlights from cars on a nearby highway, or perhaps stems from luminous swamp gases or blinking government survey signals. Partain, 34, a laboratory technician, has developed a new theory. Comparisons of sightings and photographs led him to project that two types of lights actually appear on Spook Light Road, about three miles southwest of the Missouri-Oklahoma-Kansas border. Most of the time, spook light watchers are seeing nothing more than car headlights refracted up from Interstate 44 by water vapors from the nearby Spring River, Partain said. The highway is seven to 10 miles from the road. But about every 10 years, the real spook light appears in the form of ball lightning, he said. Ball lightning is a self-contained sphere of electrical energy in which lightning appears in the shape of a sphere rather than vertical bolts. It is a rare, natural phenomenon that is unpredictable and, therefore, difficult to study, scientists say. "The real spook light exists, but it is extremely rare," said Partain, whon has degrees in entomology and zoology. "When all you see is a little wriggle at the end of the road, it's one car following another on a distant road." He said he became intrigued with the spook light seven years ago after reading about it in a magazine. His conclusion that ball lightning accounted for some of the sightings stems from a March 1977 photograph by Joplin Globe reporter Marta Churchwell along with published reports of several sightings. The photograph showed a ball of light with a connected filament shooting off from the parent body, he said. Because the ball was in front of the treeline, its appearance was not distorted by tree branches, so such a filament would indicate the presence of ball lightning, he said. One of the sightings that also underlies his theory occurred in 1955. During the sighting, the spook light was seen by an observer whose back was to the general direction of the highway which is now Interstate 44, ruling out headlight refraction as a cause, Partain said. Comparisons of the sightings and photographs revealed that they occurred when there were no or few sunspots, Partain said. Thus, he speculates that the appearance of ball lightning is linked to low sunspot activity, nighttime and periods surrounding the fall and spring equinoxes. The three factors combine, he believes, to weaken the earth's ionosphere to allow radiation from outside the solar system to fall on the Joplin area and create ball lightning. "There is a bump, or anomaly, in the earth's magnetic field in that area which could attract cosmic radiation," Partain said. Ideal conditions for ball lightning occur throughout an 18-month period every 10 or 11 years, he believes. Harry Shipman, a professor of physics at the University of Delaware and former education officer for the American Astronomical Society, said Partain's belief that the light was caused by either headlights or ball lightning appears to be logical. "Ball lightning may be behind a lot of UFO reports and things like that," Shipman said. "He's also got a point that when you look into UFO reports, a lot of them can be headlights coming from unexpected areas." Shipman said, however, that he would be surprised if the sunspot cycle could be correlated with ball lightning in any one place. Despite the scientific explanations, some spook light watchers believe it is a mystery. Some, such as Jack Winter of Afton, Okla., say the land has too many hills and trees to enable headlights to shine through. "It's still an open question with most people here," said Harlan Stark, a farm editor and reporter for the Neosho Daily News. "Many residents take out-of-town guests to see the spook light and enjoy its aura of mystery. I imagine most of them wouldn't like to see it explained too well," he said. Suzanne Gilpin, assistant manager of the Joplin Chamber of Commerce, said people from as far away as Texas and California have inquired about the spook light since it was featured on the television show "Real People" several years ago. "On a nice evening, especially at this time of year, it can be bumper-to-bumper down there," Mrs. Gilpin said.