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The Hornet Spook Light haunts the Devil's Promenade.

For more than 100 years, hundreds of people near Joplin, Missouri have claimed to observe the Hornet Spook Light as it travels along the road that locals have dubbed the Devil's Promenade. In 1946 the Army Corp of Engineers conducted studies of the phenomena, and concluded that it was a "mysterious light of unknown origin." Although photos have been taken, no one has been able to explain this amazing and sometimes frightening spectacle. The photos raise more questions than they answer.

There have been many legends to explain the light. One may have been the inspiration of the song "Running Bear" written by J.P. Richardson, who was killed in the plane crash that took the life of Buddy Holly. This legend tells of a young Indian brave and maiden in a Romeo and Juliet scenario. Another legend tells of a mother, sometimes it's a farmer, with a lantern hunting for their family supposedly stolen by Indians. And yet another legend is very similar to the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, wherein a miner was beheaded by Indians and is searching for his head with a lantern. On the flip side of the coin, another legend says it is a beheaded Osage Indian chief looking for his head with a lantern.

People have claimed experiences with this strange light that range from a feeling of heat radiating from the object when it is next to a person, all the way to having a piece of bread taken from one's hand. There is also a claim of people seeing a Sasquatch like creature in the area of the Devil's Promenade. Whatever legend you choose to believe, it is a fact that something exists on the lonely roads where the three corners of Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas come together. Something that has been seen by hundreds of people and studied by scientists and government agencies.

My own experience with the Hornet Spook Light was rather mundane compared to some of the others that have been claimed. In 1972, my husband, I and another couple made our way to the road where the Spook Light had been reportedly seen. We were told that the light would appear if no one turned on their headlights, honked their horn or made any other noise. That seemed to be an impossible task since when we turned onto the road at nearly 11:00 pm, there were probably more than twenty cars parked on the sides of the road. We sat in the car and put the windows down to enjoy the warm spring night, as most other cars must have done, and waited. After waiting nearly 30 minutes there was a break in the traffic coming and going and it became quiet. Just a few minutes later, the light appeared at the top of a small hill about a mile down the road. It was an orange, iridescent, spherical object that would sometimes fade to blue or greenish in color. It was transparent as though you were looking inside a lighted glass globe. As it made its way towards us down the road it would bob up and down like a beach ball and would weave from ditch to ditch and sometimes it would weave out into the fields on either side of the road. As it got closer, we could see that it would change size from baseball size to basketball size and it seemed to pulse. Sometimes it was dim and then the next second it was very bright, but definitely not a headlight unless the driver was extremely drunk and yet able to negotiate ditches, barbed wire fences, trees and fields with no catastrophic damage to the vehicle. It approached us faster than a person on foot could travel, covering the approximate one mile in a little under a minute.

Since we had not been able to park at the end of the line of cars and had found a parking space only four cars from the front of the line, we were lucky enough to have the light get very close to us before someone behind us turned on their headlights. Due to the protests coming from the other cars, the headlights were extinguished about 10 seconds later and the light appeared almost instantly back at the top of the hill. It started bobbing and weaving its way toward us again. This time it was able to reach the first car in line, which it circled and then stopped mid air about two feet off of the ground next to the driver's door. It was deathly quiet for a moment then a bloodcurdling scream came from someone inside the car at the front of the line and the glowing orb instantly disappeared. We waited 40 minutes before giving up our parking spot to someone else and during that time it never reappeared.

Could it be a Will-O'-the-Wisp? Could it be marsh gas also known as swamp gas? Like hundreds of others before me I don't know and I still cannot explain what it was that I saw that night. Perhaps one night you may decide that you will try to unravel this mystery. If you do come up an answer, you will be the first one to explain the light that was allegedly reported along the Trail of Tears in 1836.

Learn more about this author, Colleen Mart.
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