 | | | | | | | | | | |  |  | | | | Paranormal: And now for something spooky">2. Paranormal News | | | | | | | 
2. Paranormal News | News submitted by: MIB
By NIKKI PATRICK - Pittsburg author Max McCoy is a skeptic about things such as ghosts, UFOs and the Spook Light. But that doesn't stop him from talking about them.
"I believe that extraordinary things require extraordinary proof," he said. "But these things are fun to talk about."
McCoy presented a program on spooky phenomena of the area Tuesday at the Pittsburg Public Library.
Kansas, he said, is somewhat lacking as far as ghosts are concerned. "Missouri and Arkansas have much better ghost stories than Kansas," he said. "Few of the tragedies that have occurred in the state, such as Quantrill's raids or the murders committed by the Bender family, have spawned ghost stories."
He noted, though, that Room 506 of the Eldridge Hotel in Lawrence and Capt. Swords' quarters at Fort Scott are reported to be haunted.
The church at St. Paul also has a few stories associated with it. "When I was working at The Morning Sun, my wife Krista Postai went to the church with a reporter named Harold Campbell. While they were waiting in the church, they heard a door close and footsteps - but there was nobody there."
"We do tend more toward UFOs in Kansas," McCoy said. "The so-called 'flying shields' that buzzed the parade ground at Fort Riley following the Civil War have never been explained."
A more recent case, in the 1950s near Pittsburg, involved Bill Squryes, driver of a delivery truck for the A.J. Cripe Bakery, who swore that he saw a flying saucer in a field early one morning.
An acquaintance of McCoy's also reported seeing a UFO on the Spring River dam near Baxter Springs while he was out fishing with a friend. "He said that some kind of craft - not a plane and not a helicopter - hovered over the water for about 20 minutes," McCoy said. "It was a classic UFO sighting, but neither of them had brought a camera."
The graveyard at Stull, located near Lawrence, is also supposedly one of two - or seven, depending on the story - gateways to hell, with Satan making personal appearances there every Halloween at midnight.
"The graveyard is now privately owned, and the church on it was recently bulldozed," McCoy said.
The Spook Light is one of his favorite subjects.
"My folks used to take me to see the Spook Light every winter," he said. "It's an extremely powerful experience when you're 7 years old. But I never saw the light as a kid, except as a distant light at the end of the road."
However, in 1970, McCoy's brother got a much closer look. "He swears that the light danced on the hood of his car," McCoy said.
Sightings of the light date back to at least the mid-19th century, with various legends surrounding it. "There's the story that it's the spirit of a Civil War soldier who was tied to a cannon and blown to bits," McCoy said. "There's also a lover's leap near there, so it's also said that the lights are separated lovers still trying to find each other."
Various scientists have also tried to come up with more rational explanations for the lights, including refractions of car lights from the highway - which certainly couldn't account for the earliest sightings - to swamp gas and tectonic strain. There's also the possibility that solar storms, responsible for the aurora borealis in the north, might be a factor.
"Sightings originally were around the town of Hornet, Mo., and there are reports that in those days, the light entered houses or cabins," McCoy said. "The light has moved now, about a mile south, and is now in Ottawa County, Okla."
He has had later experiences with the light. While working on a story about the light, he and Postai took a wrong turn. "Our car was stuck, and we saw a light bobbing around in a field, moving closer to us," he said. "At the same time we heard an unearthly howling. It turned out to be a kid from a neighboring farm with a lantern."
In 2000 he and photographer T. Rob Brown were working on another story about the Spook Light. This time they found it - or something - and McCoy showed photos to his audience.
"I'm convinced that this light was reflected car lights," McCoy said. "I think there are two things going on here."
While more recent sightings may involve car lights, he said, the earlier sightings most likely have some other cause. "I don't think it's supernatural," McCoy said. "I believe the Spook Light does have a natural explanation - we just haven't found it yet."
http://morningsun.net/stories/102903/loc_20031029043.shtml
|
| | | | | | | |
| |
blocks-left.jpg
blocks-left.jpg
 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
| |
Article Rating |
|
|
| |
|
| |
Average Score: 0
Votes: 0
|
|
|
| |
|
blocks-left.jpg
|
Online Stats: 
