The Senath Light
From Obiwans web pages (http://www.ghosts.org/ghostlights/cohoke.html)
and (http://www.ghosts.org/ghostlights/ghostlights.html)
Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 00:18:55 -0500
To: ghost-discuss@iList.net
From: Zubrovka (agd@ecsis.net)
Subject: Spook Lights
I've been to a location, just across the Mississippi River in Missouri where a spook light appears. A friend in Missouri kept telling me about it and I finally relented to go see it. The location is in the river bottoms along an abandoned rail line and is known as the Senath Light. Getting there requires driving thru miles and miles of desolate farm country on narrow blacktop roads. Then you have to turn off on a gravel road that soon turns to a dirt track. Eventually you can see the built up rail road bed, up ahead and sweeping out of sight to the north. My friend pulled up near to the old track bed and switched his car off, telling me the light would be traveling south through the curve and then turn around and Go back from where it came. It was pitch black out there the night we went. I thought my friend was full of bs. I was being very sceptical about the whole thing.
Supposedly, some train conductor had fallen off a train and was decapitated and the light was the conductor while looking for his head, swinging his lantern along the track. Someone else told me later that it was the light of the old train, like a ghost train. So there are 2 viewpoints. I don't see any way the light could be reflected from someplace else. Anyway, I saw the light, it got a lot closer to me than I wanted it to and I finally convinced my friend to get the hell out of there. As we sped off, I looked back and the light was traveling in the opposite direction. It was real enough for me, I'll tell you.
A couple of months after that I was in the bottoms again in that general area. my friend and I were out scouting a place to go hunting and we were way back in some big field. (we had gone thru several big fields to get there) I must of run over some thorns because suddenly we were sitting on 4 flats. Looking back, we should of run the truck out of there on the flats, but we decided to walk out. We walked for a couple of hours and finally found a blacktop road and started walking towards the general direction of a town. I was more perturbed than spooked. But as we went along, we began to pass an old empty farmhouse. It was all grown up with vines and brush. It was pretty errie looking. Bravado was ruling the moment as we both were packing pistols, so we didn't think much of it. We got on down the road when we heard the most god awful woman scream I have ever heard. (I've heard wildcats scream and this wasn't the same) My friend and I looked at each other and picked up speed, away from the house. I never went back to investigate and we went back to my truck in a different way. we had to walk about another 3 hours before we reached help, both of us looking over our shoulders. I guess I'm a 'fraidy cat afterall!
Zubrovka
Reference 2: (http://missourighosts.net/arbyrd.html)
The Arbyrd or Senath Spooklight. Located down in the Missouri bootheel. Near these two towns is a ghost light. From the town of Senath where Dunklin County Road C meets US 412 (also called SR25), go south on Dunklin County Road C (also called 643) for 3.3 miles and then you will need to turn left or east on 602. It's just before you reach Lulu Baptist Church and Cemetery. It will be a dirt road, look for what the locals call deadman's tree stump about 1/4 to 1/2 mile down this road. You will need to turn around and face the way you came down this road. The legend here says that you are supposed to flash your car headlights 3 times to call the light. The other location I have found for this light says that you park along a bend on the old railroad grade, and the light travels down along the old railroad grade from the north, stops in front of you and returns the way it came. Both the railroad grade and this road are near each other. The railroad grade is located down this same road, drive 2.1 miles east on 602 from 643 then turn right or south on 651 and go down it 1.9 miles; the railroad grade will cross this road. You will be 1/4 mile north of Sr 164 from here. If anyone who has seen this light from the railroad grade can please contact me with more details about this haunted location, I can update this posting. For more info visit the Dunklin County Library at 100 Douglas Ave.