Maps of Sightings and Geology

Direction 1:

1.....If you examine a topographic map of the Joplin, MO area you will notice a 4.5 mile stretch of US Route 66 which runs due east from Commerce, OK to Quapaw, OK before turning North (colored yellow on the map below).

From my location on Spook Light Road (at the red X on the map above) I was 9.7 miles due east of the eastern end of that stretch of straight highway.

The binoculars clearly revealed that stretch of US 66 and occasional flashes of light reflecting from cars on that highway caused by the sun setting in the West. When the museum opened at 6:00 PM I spent about 40 minutes talking to 70 year old Garland (Spooky) Middleton about the lights and reading the mass of newspaper clippings about the ghost light that he has pasted on the walls of his museum-pool hall. After the sun set at about 6:40 PM I returned to my observation point and could already see the Spook Light directly west of me on the road. (http://www.ionet.net/~paroales/Ghost.htm)

Direction 2:

To wrestle with the Spooklight mystery, you need to know the lay of this land on the northern edge of the Ozarks.

1)From Hornet, West Hymer Road runs west and ends at State Line Road. There, the Spooklight area of horse and buggy days is just to the south on the Missouri side, toward Warren Branch.

2) If you jog north on State Line about .2 mile, you can turn west again where Oklahoma's E 40 Road begins.

3)Or, if you jog south about .8 mile, you can go west on E 50 Road. Both of these east-west roads have been prime viewing spots. The hills in the region step down gradually from Hornet westward to Spring River in Oklahoma. (http://www.conservation.state.mo.us/conmag/1997/01/2.html)

Direction 3:

JoAnne Scarpellini: About the Joplin Spooklight. This light is known as (primarily) the Joplin Spooklight, it also called the Hornet light and the Seneca light. All three names refer to the same light. Joplin is the largest town near it, Hornet is an almost non-existent hamlet, and Seneca is a very small town to the South. This is one of the more famous lights in the US Joplin is in extreme SW Missouri, USA, on one of the major East-West highways in the country. The spooklight is located about 15 miles south and a little west. The road over which it is seen is a gravel road that runs straight west from the Missouri-Oklahoma state line. So the light is actually seen in Oklahoma. The road runs west about 3 miles, then makes a 90 deg. turn to the south. The State line, the starting point for the "Spooklight Road", is the highest point on the road, elevation about 850 ft. over the 3 miles to the west the road goes up and down several small hills, each lower than the next, going west.

If one tries to drive toward the light it usually stays visible to those on the East end of the road, while disappearing to those driving West. It is quite bright, sometimes bright enought to cast a shadow of your hand on a paper, or your clothing. Sometimes its appearance is heralded by a glow seen over the top of one of the hills, much like approaching headlights. The glow appears, then the light "pops up". It can be seen with trees/leaves visible behind it, and it can be seen through the trees. One can stop at one location and see the light in front some trees overhanging the road, the drive to the West past those trees and see the light through a different bunch of trees overhanging the road. (Explain that one!) I have also seen it from the West end, looking straight out toward the Turnpike, and the light is apparently between you and the Turnpike.

Through field glasses (sometimes naked eye) the light is not one single light but several in a globular arrangement. There may be one to as many as six or eight separate lights that move around slightly, then coalesce one by one into a single light. When this happens the light goes out for a few seconds, then reappears as before.

Through a telescope the largest of the lights is yellow/amber, the smaller ones (which are the ones that do the coalescing) may be whitish yellow, orange, red, green and occasionaly blue. It does not hold a steady illumination but flares up then dims slightly. This is not regular, but occurs erratically and frequently. Sometimes one can see two, three or four light apparently all the same strung out one behind the other like a "trail of lights", or a reflection in a multiple mirror.

Size/shape. As I said it is waist to shoulder high and basketball size. When seen up close it is very bright, yellowish white, and appears to be a single spherical light. I don't know if it is multiple at this point, it is too bright to distinguish features. You cannot approach the light under any circumstances, it simply extinguishes. It never fades, it just goes out, like turning a switch. It sometimes (rarely) will appear quite close to cars parked along the road. This happened to me and to my son some years later. In my case it appeared between my car and one parked about 30 feet ahead. It stayed there for about 10 seconds at which time the car ahead was started and lights turned on. The light just extinguished. In my son's case (about 4 years ago) he got out of the car, leaving his girlfriend in the car, he walked ahead about 50 feet, watching the light visible over the road, suddenly he thought someone had turned on car lights or some very bright light behind him, he turned around (girlfriend screaming her head off) and saw the light between himself and the car. He started walking toward it and got an estimated 15 feet from it when it extinguished. It was apparently 10 to 15 feet in front of the car, waist high, spherical appearing.

The light does NOT chase or follow you, regardless of reports to the contrary. What many people see as following them is in fact the light getting brighter and appearing larger. Though there are a number of cases where the light apparently passed through a cars open windows. In one side and out the other. Never through glass, always open. No one has ever been burned or injured in any way and there does not seem to anything "psychic" at all about it. It can be photographed, causes no radio interference, is completely silent, and does not disturb farm animals.

Most of the roadside is heavily wooded, in places the trees completely overhang the road. The road crosses a creek (Warren Branch Creek?) which now has a culvert bridge, it used to be a ford where it was necessary to drive through shallow water. There are some open areas used for pasture, and several farmhouses along the road. From several points on the road (hilltops) one can see to the west the Oklahoma Turnpike, a major traffic route. The Turnpike has been built and put into use within the time of my memory. I remember when it wasn't there. Needless to say a lot of people insist the light is nothing but cars and trucks on the Turnpike. (Its not) Copyright JoAnne Scarpellini 1999 Claros10@aol.com (http://www.hailey.clara.net/1_articl/joplinsc.htm)

Direction 4:
If you go to the far northeast corner of Oklahoma and travel down a gravel road on a dark evening, and if that gravel road also happens to be known by some as 'Devil's Promenade' you may witness the antics of a glowing orb known as the Oklahoma or Tri-State Spooklight. The area where the spooklight is seen is barely (and I mean barely!) inside Oklahoma, right on the Oklahoma / Missouri state line. I myself have gone on expeditions attempting to see the elusive spectre about five times. I have seen jokers impersonating the spooklight, but have yet to get a good showing of the real thing. My interest has been renewed lately and I plan on launching a more aggressive effort. More information will be posted here as I obtain it. For those interested in going on their own expedition, the maps below will show you how to get to the Oklahoma Spooklight. The map above shows the very NE corner of Oklahoma where it meets Missouri and Kansas. The red dot surrounded by a white box shows the approximate location of the Spooklight. The map below shows a more detailed close up of the roads in the Spooklight area.

Since I'm coming from Oklahoma, I drive up I-44 into Missouri and turn south on highway 43. Go 5 miles south on hwy 43 and you'll see the sign for hwy BB. Turn west onto the road opposite hwy BB. On the map below it's labelled County Road L but the sign there calls the street Iris. Go west on Iris 2.7 miles until you hit a 'T' intersection. Here you turn north onto State Line Road(aptly named since this road is the state line). On the map below State Line Road is labelled County Road 1 or N 4703rd. Go north 2 miles until you see E 50 Rd (I've marked it with a red cross on the map below). Turn left (west) onto E 50 Rd and you're there. The stretch of E 50 Rd going from State Line Road and reaching for about a mile west (a little ways past N 4690rd) is the area where the Spooklight appears. If you click on the map like the link at the bottom tells you to do, it jumps you over to Vicinity maps and away from the Spooklight page.

My Map Study: E50 area.

'Paroales' map was detailed enough that it was easy to identify where his 'X' mark was located. I used a topographical map from MapQuest.com and measured the elevation profile along the line of sight from the 'X' marked on 'Paroales' map at the top of the page above to the western end of Route 66. The plot is below. Note, a large river crosses (Warren Branch Creek?) through the transect at 10400 meters ( '52' on the x axis), and the Will Rogers Turnpike (Highway 44? Oklahoma Turnpike?) crosses the line-of-sight at 6400 meters ('32'). The rough gravel road ends at 6000 meters ('30') at an elevation of about 895 feet. There is a gap of 400 meters to the west before you get to the turnpike from the western end of the gravel road. Route 66's eastern end is located at '83' and this is 16,600 meters (10.6 miles) from the eastern end of the road.

The turnpike crosses the Warren Branch about 1.8 km south of marker '60' below the southward-turning bend in the creek. There is a bridge crossing the Warren Branch and it is marked 'Devil's Promenade'.

There is a small rise just before Route 66 which peaks near 16000 meters ('80') but this hill is not sufficient to obscure Route 66 because of the steep viewing angle from the far west point of E50. You are clearly looking down at the roadway from a location over 200 feet above it. BUT, if the observer were located near 6000 meters ('30') at the western end of the road there would be considerable obstruction. I am not sure where JoAnne Scarpellini was standing, but she says 1)The starting point for Spooklight Road is the highest point, elevation 850 feet, and continues 3 miles (to the west, and goes up and down several hills each lower than the next. This is not correct. The highest point to the east is at 1067 feet (Benchmarked). The road runs a total of 6 kilometers uphill ( 3.6 miles) to the west. The western starting point of the road is at ('30') with an elevation of 894 feet (benchmarked). It is not clear what she is referring to.

I have drawn four lines-of-sight A, B, C and D to represent the expected views of Route 66 from the head of E50 and the point about 1 mile east where 'Direction 4' says the viewing ends for the Spooklight. The thin line marked 'Road Tangent' is the line tangent to the road surface at the eastern end of E50 near Stateline Road. This would represent the approximate view of the road surface as it disappears to the west. The angle between this line and A, B and C would correspond to the elevation angle of the Route 66 line-of-sights above the roadway. Based on the arctangents of these LOS,

A = atan( 117x0.20x.64x5280/ (1070-825) = atan(79073/245) = 89.8 degrees

B = atan( 95x0.2x.64x5280/(1070-850)) = atan(64205/220) = 89.8 degrees

C = atan(81x0.2x0.64x5280/220) = 89.76

The horizon is at atan( 59x0.2x0.64x5280/(1070-750) = atan(39874/320) = 89.54.

This means that the elevation angle of the lights from the roadway is (89.8 - 89.54) = 0.25 degrees above the roadway from the top of E50. As you move to the 1-mile point, the lights should move higher off the road to a position 'D' that is nearly

D = atan( (90-9)x0.2x0.64x5280/(1000-840) = atan(54743/160) = 89.83 degrees

Horizon at atan((22-9)x.2x.64x5280/(1000-750) = 88.37 degrees

so Route 66 is 89.83-88.37 = 1.5 degrees above the roadway.

In Direction 4, the report says that the Spooklight is seen in the first 1 mile of road on E50 from Stateline Road. This makes sense. In the above figure, we see that at 1 mile west, the line-of-sight, D, is the lowest LOS that passes just above a hill at 2.6 kilometers. There is a very small viewing window above this LOS for observing Route 66 between 'D' and 'B'. Any further west and the hill at 2.6 km completely obscurres Route 66 until you get to its top. Between 3.0 and 4.4 kilometers, there is another shadow zone until you get to the top of the second rise. From there on until you get to the western end of E50, you have a view of Route 66 over its last 600 meters ( about .4 miles). You also get your first view of the Turnpike traffic.

In either case, viewing from 'D' or 'A' has the Spooklight less than 2 degrees above the roadway, and if the roadway is heated, you should see significant atmospheric refraction and turbulence making the image move and change size and shape. Even brightness.

According to Scarpellini: 1)If one tries to drive toward the light it usually stays visible to those on the East end of the road, while disappearing to those driving West... 2)I have also seen it from the West end, looking straight out toward the Turnpike, and the light is apparently between you and the Turnpike... 3) Sometimes one can see two, three or four light apparently all the same strung out one behind the other like a "trail of lights", or a reflection in a multiple mirror... 4) You cannot approach the light under any circumstances, it simply extinguishes. It never fades, it just goes out, like turning a switch.

1) The first comment is meaningless. It is visible to observers on both the west and east ends of the road. If you drive west, your LOS will be obscurred periodically by intervening hills, but this is a matter of how far you choose to drive if Route 66 is involved.

2) The second comment for observers at the far-west end of the road is also OK because you should still be able to see nearly the full 1/2 of the eastern end of Route 66 as it comes down-grade from its peak at Marker '96' in the above figure. The impression of seeing it between the Turnpike and the end of the road ( about 400 meters) seems very strange.

3) This is exactly what you would see if the oncoming 'eastbound' cars on Route 66 were in a row. Because the span of the LOS from A-C is about 89.8 - 89.76 = 2.4 arcminutes, a row of cars would just be discerned as a linear formation to the naked eye ( resolution 1 arcminute in daytime) but a pair of binoculars or a telescope would certainly see this kind of pattern resolved into a string of lights. Also, at the distance of Marker '93' above, which is some 18.6 km, a pair of headlights separated by 2 meters will subtend 206265 x 2/18600 = 22 arc seconds. This is much too small to resolve except with a telescope. A telescope will show a complicated mix of pairs of lights, perhaps lined up vertically along Route 66. Atmospheric refraction will distort this geometry in many shifting ways.

4)The geometry of atmospheric refraction is usually very precise. All you have to do is look at roadway mirages and you will see how a slight change of perspective causes big changes. Of course you cannot approach a roadway mirage either.